§8. Effect of Shivaji's reign.
So much for Shivaji's regulations in theory. But in practice they were often violated except where he was personally present. Thus, the assertion of Sabhasad and Chitnis that his soldiers had to deliver every item of the booty taken by them to the State, is contradicted by the sack of Dharamgaon (1679), where the English factors were robbed of many things without these being entered in the official papers of the Maratha army or credited to Shivaji's Treasury (Ch. XIV.) Shivaji could not be everywhere and at all times; hence it was impossible for him to prevent private looting by his troops and camp-followers. In the wake of the Maratha army, gangs of private robbers took to the road. The Pindharis were the logical corollary of the Maratha soldier, to whom rapine was a normal duty.
Shivaji justified his spoliation of his neighbours by saying, as he did to the Mughal governor of Surat (1672), "Your Emperor has forced me to keep an army for the defence of my people and country. That army must be paid by his subjects." (P. 240.) Such a plea might have been true at the beginning of his career and in relation to Mughal territory only, but cannot explain his raids into Bijapur and Golkonda, Kanara and Tanjore. It fails altogether as a defence of the foreign policy of the Peshwas.
But whatever might be the moral quality of the means he employed, his success was a dazzling
