A Plan of the Town & Fortress of Garlah belonging to Angria the Admiral to the Sahou Rajah on the Coast of Mallabar

1756

Copper engraving on paper

Print size: 10.75 x 17.75 in (27.5 x 45 cm)
Sheet size: 11.75 x 18.5 in (30 x 47 cm)
Folded: 7.75 x 5 in (20 x 12.5 cm)

Rectangular engraved plan with explanatory text panel at left, gridded coastal framework, soundings and approach lines, and a detailed schematic of the town, fortifications, bastions, internal structures, and anchorage. Radial lines extend from the harbour, emphasising navigational and military orientation. Central fold as issued; light age-toning and minor edge wear consistent with periodical extraction.

Issued as a plate in The Gentleman’s Magazine (London), Supplement for 1756 (Vol. XXVI), map plate following p. 618; printed for D. Henry & R. Cave.

The Capture of Gheriah (Vijaydurg)—The Fall of the Angre Maritime Fortress, the End of Maratha Sea Power, and the Making of British Bombay The Gentleman’s Magazine, Supplement for 1756

This rare mid-eighteenth-century engraved plan depicts the formidable coastal fortress of Gheriah—modern Vijaydurg—situated on the western coast of India off Maharashtra, approximately two hundred miles north of Goa. Long regarded as one of the strongest maritime fortifications on the Konkan seaboard, Vijaydurg served as the principal stronghold of the Angre (Angria) family, whose naval power dominated the Arabian Sea and posed one of the most sustained indigenous challenges to European maritime ambitions in the Indian Ocean.

The fortress was established as the capital of Angre’s coastal territory in 1698 by Kanhoji Angre, admiral of the Maratha navy. The present plan offers an unusually detailed schematic of the town and its defensive works, carefully delineating bastions, walls, internal structures, magazines, and anchorage. A key feature is the extensive explanatory panel at left, identifying the principal buildings within the complex, including the Admiral’s palace—the largest structure shown—underscoring the site’s dual function as both naval headquarters and fortified seat of power.

By the mid-eighteenth century, Angre authority reached its zenith under Tulaji Angre, whose ships reportedly ranged from Kutch to Cochin with remarkable impunity. Contemporary accounts record his capture of numerous English vessels—including the Charlotte of Madras, William of Bombay, Svern of Bengal, Darby, Restoration, Pilot, Augusta, and Dadabhoi of Surat—as well as his seizure of regional forts such as Anjanvel and Gowalkot from the Siddis of Janjira in 1745. Tulaji’s refusal to acknowledge the Peshwa Balaji Baji Rao as superior, combined with his raids on Peshwa territory, intensified internal Maratha tensions, culminating after the death of Shahu I in 1749 in the campaign that would destroy Angre independence.

The plan’s publication reflects intense British public interest in the 1756 Battle of Vijaydurg, known in England as the Capture of Gheria—a major British–Peshwa victory that marked the effective end of the Maratha navy as the supreme indigenous maritime power in the Indian Ocean. The fortress was often described in British sources as commanded by the “pirate” Tulaji Angre, though such characterisations are now understood to be shaped heavily by imperial retellings of resistance to Company shipping.

Issued in The Gentleman’s Magazine, founded in 1731 by Edward Cave, this sheet also belongs to the history of British periodical cartography. The magazine—one of the first to employ the term “magazine” as a “storehouse of knowledge”—helped normalise the use of maps in journalism, illustrating battles, voyages, and regions of commercial interest. Contributors included figures such as Samuel Johnson and Jonathan Swift, while geographers like Thomas Jefferys supplied maps for its pages.

Surviving examples of this plan are scarce. It remains a powerful visual document of Maratha maritime strength at its height and of the moment when British imperial aggression decisively reshaped the balance of naval power along India’s western coast.

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