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,
till at last the French were forced to recognize Mahomed Ali's title,
while a powerful English squadron and a King's regiment had been sent out
to make good the claim. The good relations established between the
Peishwa's government and Bombay by the treaty of 1739, had been
strengthened since the arrival of Mr.
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