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1662] about it" unless he set them free. Then Shivaji laid a ransom on the captives, and sent them to Waisati fort. Many other persons — Hindu merchants (banians), Indian Muslims, Persians and Arabs — were kept there in his prison in a miserable plight and beaten to extort ransom.

The Englishmen steadily refused to pay any ransom and tried to secure their liberty by feigned negotiations for helping the Marathas with English ships in capturing Danda-Rajpuri, but taking care to impose such terms as always left the English "a hole to creep out of their obligation" after recovering liberty. Then they tried the effect of threat by saying that if they were not released their countrymen at Surat would grant Aurangzib's desire by transporting a Mughal army into the Deccan [i. e., the Konkan district] by sea. (Orme MSS., Vol. 155, pp. 1-21, letter from the English prisoners at Songarh, 28 June 1661.) Raoji Pandit had been sent by Shivaji to take charge of all the prisoners in Songarh and "do with them as he thought fit." The four Englishmen were well-treated. But their captivity was prolonged past endurance. To the demand for ransom they replied that they could pay nothing, having lost their all in the sack of Rajapur. Shivaji's absence on an expedition near Kalian (June, 1661) also delayed the progress of negotiations about an alliance with the English against the Siddis. The "disconsolate prisoners in Raigarh," after more than a year's