The Poonah Durbar were so incensed against him that they were determined on his destruction, though without the assistance of the English they had little expectation of success against his coast fortresses.

The Bombay Council was ready enough to join in the undertaking, but was unwilling to take immediate action.

This unwillingness was apparently due to their desire to see order first restored in Surat, where affairs had fallen into great disorder in the general break-up of Mogul rule.
The Mahratta Court at Poona had been close observers of the long war waged in the Carnatic between the English and French.

They had seen Madras taken, only to be regained by diplomacy, and after the English had been foiled at Pondicherry.

They had witnessed the rise of French power under Dupleix; rulers deposed and others set up, in the Deccan and the Carnatic, by French arms; and then, when Mahomed Ali, the rightful ruler of the Carnatic, was at his last gasp, they had seen his cause espoused by the English, and one humiliation after another inflicted on French armies, till at last the French were forced to recognize Mahomed Ali's title, while a powerful English squadron and a King's regiment had been sent out to make good the claim.