Crossword-Solution: PESHWA 6 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 14

They all acknowledged, by words and ceremonies, the supremacy of the heir of Sevajee, a roi faineant who chewed bang and toyed with dancing girls in a state prison at Sattara, and of his Peshwa or mayor of the palace, a great hereditary magistrate, who kept a court with kingly state at Poonah, and whose authority was obeyed in the spacious provinces of Aurungabad and Bejapoor.

Among the Mahrattas, again, the heir of Sevajee still kept the title of Rajah; but he was a prisoner, and his prime minister, the Peshwa, had become the hereditary chief of the state.

The Peshwa, in his turn, was fast sinking into the same degraded situation into which he had reduced the Rajah.

That he neglected the advice of the Presidency of Bombay, and retarded the peace, as well as made its conditions worse, from an obstinate attachment to his project of an alliance offensive and defensive with the Rajah of Berar, the object of which was rather a new war than a termination of the war then existing against the Peshwa.

This was disappointing, for Desmond suspected that he was still within the area of Angria's piratical operations--if not from Gheria, at any rate from some of the more northerly strongholds not yet captured by the East India Company or the Peshwa.