The British East India Company’s Supreme Council of Bengal, located in Calcutta, signed the Treaty of Purandhar on this day with the Marathas.
The company’s Bombay government had supported the claim of Raghunath Rao to succeed as Peshwa with the Treaty of Surat, signed on March 7, 1775, and had been given Salsette Island and Bassein (Vasai) and also a part of revenues from Baruch and Surat.
But the Supreme Council, the highest body of executive government in British India, would not allow the treaty, and sent an officer, Colonel Upton, to renegotiate the terms with the Marathas, represented by Nana Phadnavis, a minister of the Maratha administration. Following the treaty, Raghunath Rao was given a pension and his claim as Peshwa was not promised support, though the British retained Baruch and Salsette.
These were the initial episodes of the First Anglo Maratha War, a complicated sequence of events and battles that would also involve the French and would end with the Treaty of Salbai in 1782