Page:Warren Hastings (Trotter).djvu/151

Rh ing of those whom he had been sent to aid. The Bombay force which had set out, full of confidence, from Panwel on the 25th November, 1778, without waiting for a junction with the Bengal column, took nearly a month in crowning the Gháts, beyond which lay the Peshwá's capital. On the 9th of January, 1779, Egerton was encamped within eighteen miles of Poona.

But no chief of mark had joined Raghuba's standard, while the hostile Maráthás were burning the villages and cutting off the food supplies. Egerton's slowness, so fatal to an enterprise which called for dash and daring, had thoroughly disgusted the two civil commissioners who accompanied the force. On the 11th Jan. orders were issued for a swift retreat. That night the heavy guns were thrown into a pond, the stores were burned, and the retreat from Taligáon began. By next evening the troops had fought their way back to the village of Wargáon. Nothing but the steady courage of Captain Hartley and his faithful Sepoys had saved from destruction a force which, properly handled, might have carried Raghuba in triumph to Poona. But, except to a few of the bolder spirits, further retreat seemed wellnigh impossible. On the 15th January, 1779, the English leaders set their hands to the disgraceful Convention of Wargáon, which surrendered to the Peshwá all that our arms had won in Western India since 1765.

Neither at Bombay nor Calcutta was any respect shown to a compact which at least secured a peaceful