agent to Bombay to propose terms of accommodation. They were terms to
which a conciliatory answer, at least, would have been returned in Conajee
Angria's time. The Council's reply betrays a consciousness of increased
strength. "Can you imagine that the English will ever submit to take
passes of any Indian nation? This they cannot do. We grant passes, but
would take none from anybody." Toolajee was told that if he was in earnest
in desiring peace, he should return the vessels he had taken, and send men
of figure and consequence to treat, instead of the obscure individual
through whom his overtures had come. In spite of this peremptory reply,
Toolajee continued to make half-hearted proposals for peace. The fact was
that he was now at open war with the Peishwa, who had made himself master
of the Concan, with the exception of the coastline. According to Orme,
Toolajee had cut off the noses of the agents sent by the Peishwa to demand
the tribute formerly paid to Satara. The Poonah Durbar were so incensed
against him that they were determined on his destruction, though without
the assistance of the English they had little expectation of success
against his coast fortresses. The Bombay Council was ready enough to join
in the undertaking, but was unwilling to take immediate action. This
unwillingness was apparently due to their desire to see order first
restored in Surat, where affairs had fallen into great disorder in the
general break-up of Mogul rule.

The Mahratta Court at Poona had been close observers of the long war waged
in the Carnatic between the English and French. They had seen Madras taken,
only to be regained by diplomacy, and after the English had been foiled at
Pondicherry. They had witnessed the rise of French power under Dupleix;
rulers deposed and others set up, in the Deccan and the Carnatic, by
French arms; and then, when Mahomed Ali, the rightful ruler of the
Carnatic, was at his last gasp, they had seen his cause espoused by the
English, and one humiliation after another inflicted on French armies,