As soon as the news of the capitulation of a great English army reached Calcutta, the English were so wild with rage as to make them utterly unscrupulous and refusing to sanction the treaty their Commander had at Vadgaon, signed, after the captured army had been allowed to pass back to Bombay by the Marathas, according to the treaty, they renewed hostilities with added zeal. In the meanwhile Raghoba, too, who would have in other states, been shot for high treason or betrayal, was so leniently treated as a prince would have been, abused that liberty and once more effected his escape and went over to the English camp. Then the war again grew furious. Goddard descended from Gujarat and marched on Bassein. He was opposed by Ramchandra Ganesh who contested the English advance with admirable pertinacity, fighting action after action against the foe whenever and wherever he could. He led his last assault with such magnificent courage and valour as to win admiration even from his foes. But unfortunately this gallant and skilled Maratha General, struck by a bullet, fell in the very thick of the fight and Goddard took Bassein in 1780. Encouraged by this success, the English thought of wiping out the stain that the surrender of their army at Vadgaon had left on their arms, by accomplishing the task of carrying the very capital of the Marathas which they had formerly so disgracefully failed to do. So the English advanced against Poona, aiming to browbeat Nana and his associates into surrender. But the matchless genius of that Maratha statesman had already woven a subtly dangerous net into which he threatened to entangle the English power all over India. He made Haidar promise to attack Madras, Bhonsle to invade Bengal and undertook himself to crush the English power at Bombay. Accordingly Haidar, with the aid of the French Government, achieved a signal success at Madras. Parashrambhau with 12 thousand men kept hanging around and harassing the flanks and the rear of the advance of the English forces towards Poona. While Nana, Tukoji Holkar, and Haripant Phadke faced the English with 30 thousand Maratha forces. General Goddard found himself as he advanced, in the same predicament as Col. Egerton did. He could not advance further unless he invited the fate of his predecessor and yet he had advanced far enough to render a march back as dangerous as it would be disgraceful. So standing where he was strengthened himself. But that too could not continue long. The vigorous and niosi harassing attacks the Marathas delivered against Captain Machay and Col. Brown while striving to carry supplies to Goddard made any further attempt to maintain communication with Bombay extremely risky and ruinous. At last even General Goddard, to his utter chagrin had to decide to drop the advance against the capital of the Marathas, and retire. As soon as the crest-fallen English army took a right- about-turn and began a march back, the Marathas led by Bhau and Tukoji Holkar closed upon the prey from all sides and in spite of the stubborn discipline and bravery of the English beat them so badly as to make their boastful Commander whose arrogance aspired to crown him with the honours of triumphant entry into the Maratha capital, thank his stars for having somehow been able to reach back Bombay alive, even though at the cost of leaving hundreds of his soldiers slain and strewn, marking the track of his return march with their corpses and almost all ammunition, guns, tents, and camp furniture, thousands of cannon shots and stores, thousands of bullocks abandoned and fallen in the hands of the triumphant Marathas. Thus twice did the English come audaciously forward to fight their way on to Poona; and twice had they to face the utter humiliation of retiring beaten and crest-fallen back to Bombay. Never did a boastful going out end in a more sadly disgraceful return home.
Nor did the English forces fare much better in the north. In spite of some initial success which they, with the help of the Rana of Gohad who had taken their side against the Marathas and the capture of the fort of Gwalior, the English under Colonel Carac failed to achieve anything so substantial as to enable them to hold long against the most harassing attacks of Mahadji Shindia. Colonel Muir, too, who hastened to succour his comrade out of the fix, failed to improve their position. Thus foiled in the south by Haidar, on the Bombay side by Tukoji Holkar and Patwardhan and in the north by Mahadji Shindia, the English tried to break up the chain of alliance that the genius of Nana Fadanavis had woven round them by making overtures to Mahadaji Shindia requesting him to influence his Government to sign a separate peace with the English. But Nana would have nothing to do with the separate peace and refused to enter into any negotiations without consulting Haidar. The Maratha navy too gave a good account of itself. Anandrao Dhulap, their Admiral, in a daring attack won a signal victory and captured an English man-of-war named Ranger and carried it away, a prize. But just then Haidar died, even while the negotiations were going on. So Nana signed the peace in 1783 by which the English had to deliver up Raghoda who was the chief bone of contention, into the hands of the Marathas, surrender all territories they had taken in the war of received by the treaty of Purander except Salsette, and undertake not to help or encourage any Asiatic nation or state at war or inimically disposed towards the Marathas, who too promised not to have political dealings with any European rivals against the interests of the English. Above all the English had to pledge not to dabble with the Imperial politics of India at Delhi and acknowledge the right of the Marathas to direct the control them as freely as they chose.
Thus ended the First Anglo-Maratha war. Thus did Maharashtra vindicate their claim and position on the battlefield as the premier and paramount political power of India by discomfiting and defeating, amongst the rest, the only European power that had not till then ventured, and challenged the Marathas to challenge to an open combat. They taught England a bitter lesson that inspite of the accession to their strength and possession in Bengal and Madras, the English would only get their head smashed if they dared to defy the Sahyadrian ramparts of the Hindu Empire of Maharashtra with the same insolence that served them so well against and in overawing the effeminate Muhammadan Nabobs of Bengal and Arcot.
Soon after the treaty of Salbai was signed, Raghoba too, had to end his ignominious career of intriguing against his own nation and betraying the interests of his country and selling them to the worst enemy of his race. He had by his foul ambition been the cause of diverting the energies of the Maratha Confederacy into the barren channels and poisonous and fatal bogs of civil war, from the ennobling pursuit of fulfil great mission that generations of Maharashtra had worked for and died for. His life was at least as great a national disaster as the battle of Panipat had been. Fortunately, that life continue long after the treaty of Salbai. Yet it did neither ^ without calling into existence another life that was to be ever greater curse to the Maratha people. Even while Raghoba was being utterly foiled in his foul intrigue with England, a son was born to him who, as irony would have it, was named Baji Rao the Second, after his illustrious grand father Baji Rao I, fjffi who was destined to fulfill the satanic mission which his father was forced to abandon and succeed in doing what his parents failed to do and selling the independence of Maharashtra from mess of pottage and encompass the ruin of the last great Hindu Empire. But that was not yet to be, not at any rate till Nana and Mahadji lived.