We cannot afford space sufficient to enable us to pursue this narrative any further. Campbell's sufferings having reached their climax, now began somewhat to abate; the rigour of his captivity, by degrees, relaxed, and he at last effected his escape. The record is one, indeed, of almost incredible suffering the details, of a most revolting character; and the inhumanity recorded difficult to understand. These prisoners were not even prisoners of war; they were not taken with arms in their hands; they were a set of helpless, harmless men, cast by the elements on an inhospitable shore-their sufferings, endured almost in secrecy, and unknown by their friends, could not have acted as warnings to others. They were tortured, from a mere love of cruelty-seemingly aiming at nothing beyond the gratification of a ferocious lust. It is altogether a singular chapter in the Philosophy of Man.

We now turn to another-or rather to a new section of the same chapter-for we have still the same torturers on the stage; Hyder Ali, his son, and his creatures. The narrative, which we have now placed before us, is one entitled the " Captivity, sufferings and escape of James Scurry, who was detained a prisoner during ten years in the dominions of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib." Scurry was a Devonshire boy. He was shipped on board the Hannibal in 1780, and had the misfortune to be taken, when to the east of the Cape, a prisoner by the French fleet. With the other prisoners he was landed at Cuddalore, and the French admiral, to his eternal disgrace, delivered over the whole party to the tender mercies of Hyder Ali. In the first instance they were taken to the Fort of Chillenbroom, but were soon moved off to Bangalore. "No butcher ever drove oxen with more cruelty than they were driven." After a march of twenty-one days, they reached their destination, and then the party was divided, and Scurry, with other prisoners, carried off to Burrampúr. Here they were for some days fed upon rice, when their gaolers "changed it to ragee, the flour of which is nearly as black as coal. This no doubt," he says, "occasioned the death of numbers of our poor fellows, who died in excruciating agonies, which I think would not have been the case, if they had medical assistance-but they might as well have asked for mountains of gold, as anything of this nature." Out of this diminished number, however, a small corps of boys was formed-fifteen in number-who were soon associated with other boys from the different parties of prisoners. The whole number-amounting to fifty-twowere then carried off to Seringapatam, where, having been well drugged with magun, they were formally Mahommedanised;

. V. P.

dressed out in oriental habiliments and formed into a separate Company. On the death of Hyder Ali, however, they were incorporated with Tippoo's slave-battalions; and the consideration, which had before been shown to them as Hyder's children," for so they were called, soon resolved itself into brutal and ignominious treatment, of which the following extract contains a sample :

"Once we were kept without food for two days; and conscious we had done nothing to deserve it, we sallied forth to the durbar (a seat of justice so-called,) in order to exhibit a complaint of our grievances to the killadar; but Abdel Gunney, to whom I have adverted, learning our intentions, was before us and intimated to the killadar to take care of his person, for that we were coming in a body, and he knew not for what purpose. This alarmed the Governor; and we no sooner arrived, than we were surrounded by a battalion of Sepoys, and our interpreter, Clark, a Lieutenant in the Company's service, who had begun to speak, was knocked down, and beaten in a most shocking manner. While he lay on the ground, they put him in heavy irons, and took him away, nor do I recollect ever seeing him afterwards. All this time we were secured by the Sepoys, who had orders to prime and load, and to fix their bayonets ; and all this against fifty-two defenceless boys. Judge of our situation, my good reader, at this crisis ! We were seized, and each of us was bound with two new ropes, confining our hands behind us ; and, to make us secure, a strong man enclosed our arms, and with his knee almost dislocated our shoulders ; many of us had the marks in our arms for some years after. This done, we were wheeled to the right, then to the left, by the myre, or adjutant, in broken English, who would frequently, in the most contemptuous manner, cry out, "General Matthews,"" Colonel Bailey."-" Captain Ramney," and repeat the names of many officers they then had in their custody, of whom I shall very soon give the reader an accurate account. We were hauled in this degrading manner, until I and several more fainted; when I came to myself, we were all seated on the ground. I was bound between two lads, both midshipmen of the Hannibal, who told me, when I fell they fell, with most of the rest; those who did not, informed us that so many falling, they were ordered to sit down. The skin of our breasts was like a drum head, and I am conscious to this day, if it had not been for the humanity of the durga, an officer equal to a sergeant, in slackening the ropes about twelve o'clock at night, very few would have survived till morning. This was done on his part at a great risk: may God reward him for it!

The next day we were ordered to be united, one by one, and our heads to be again shaved, which was performed; our ears also were bored, and a slave's mark was put in each of them. This being done, we were prohibited from speaking to each other in English, under pain of severe punishment. We were then marched, or led crawling, rather, to our square, where they gave those who could immediately make use of it, some food. we met every day, more or less, with severe treatment, until the year 1784, when a peace was concluded between the East India Company and Tippoo."

Here

Not contented with shaving and circumcising the youths, the Mussalmans scalded them in huge coppers, to boil the impurities of their bodies. "The reason assigned for this," says Scurry," was that we had eaten a great quantity of pork in our time, and were therefore unclean,"

Here is another specimen of the manner in which these poor creatures were treated :

"Shortly after the arrival of General Matthews, Tippoo, thinking his mode of punishment towards those poor creatures who happened to fall under his displeasure not severe or terrific enough, ordered nine large tiger cages to be made and placed opposite his kerconah, or treasury. They were arranged there according to his order, and soon tenanted, each with a large tiger. After the death of Colonel Bailey, we were paraded before these ferocious animals, and had an opportunity of seeing them fed once or twice a day; one of the nine was as black as a coal, the only one I ever saw of that colour. They were all taken in the Curakee jungles, which abound with elephants, tigers, wild boars, panthers, tiger cats, leopards, &c., and lie about twenty miles from Patam, and about ten from Mysore. Those tigers, above stated, were designed for the punishment of high crimes and misdemeanours; three of his principal officers, namely, his head inchewalla, or general postmaster, his buxey, or paymaster-general, and another were severally thrown to the tigers and devoured in an instant, all but their heads; for which purpose the tigers were always kept hungry! these all suffered within the short space of four months."

In 1784, a peace with Tippoo was concluded-many of the prisoners in the Sultan's hands, were given up, but Scurry and his companions, of whom, in all probability, little was known in the British camp, were abandoned to their fate :—

"One morning, we were all sent for in a great hurry, and seated on the ground in front of the palace. An hour elapsed, during which period hope and fear alternately succeeded. A few were quite sanguine that we were going to be released. Vain imagination! We were escorted under a strong guard to Mysore, nine miles from the capital, where we were separated, and sent to different prisons. The spot I was in, was the fatal place where Captain Ramney and Lieutenants Fraser and Sampson had their throats cut; and about this period, Lieutenants Rutledge and Spediman were Mahommedanized. The latter cut his own throat between the Mysore gates; and the former, an amiable character, after surviving him about three years, being suspected of correspondence with the English, was sent to Nairandroog, or rock of death, perhaps as unwholesome a spot as any in Asia. If this did not answer the end intended, that of putting a period to his existence, it is highly probable that prison, or the but-ends of muskets did. This Nairandroog was the place to which the afflicted Hindus were sent by hundreds."

During four miserable years, Scurry and his companions continued to bear the burthen of this oppressive captivity, hurried from place to place, often threatened with death, and often on the verge of starvation. Many of the party died; some were murdered; and the sufferings of those who lived were such as to make them envy the departed. Tippoo had taken it into his head to provide this battalion with wives, and the young men had all been regularly married according to the ceremonials of Mahommedanism. This does not seem to have mitigated

Scurry's account of this transaction is somewhat amusing; we may therefore give it, in a note :

"We were one day strangely informed, that each of us, who was of a proper age, was to C

. V, p. 445

June 1846

their griefs; and when at last they contrived to effect their escape, the joy of deliverance was clouded over by the wretchedness of being compelled to abandon their wives and children. On the renewal of the war, the prisoner-battalion affected great loyalty in the cause of the Sultan, and were employed by him in operations against the Mahrattas. Some of them were killed, when fighting with much gallantry, and many of the remainder took advantage of the opportunity afforded by the confused state of the country to make their escape; and after undergoing considerable hardships and privations on the way, arrived in safety in the English camp. These prisoners were principally young naval men-many of them midshipmen, who had been taken prisoners by the French. The entire number of English prisoners, which during the war fell into the hands of Hyder and his son, it would be difficult to compute. Among these were a number of children. Besides the battalion composed of Scurry and his companions-all British youths-there was, we are informed, a company of European boys at Seringapatam, too young to carry fire-arms-the eldest being not more than fifteen. These juvenile captives appear to have excited the sympathies of the ladies of the seraglio, by whom and their attendants the youngsters were kindly treated; but when the British army, under Cornwallis, advanced upon the capital, Tippoo ordered them to be put to death.

It would be easy to multiply instances illustrative of the horrors of eastern captivity, under Hyder Ali and his son. We have many volumes of interesting personal memoirs available for such a purpose, but we have found it necessary to make scanty selections; and though it has been our object to quote

have a wife; for this piece of news we were extremely sorry, but there was no possibility of our preventing their designs. There were, at this time, a number of young girls, who had been driven with their relations out of the Carnatic, when Hyder infested that country, which he almost over-ran, as already stated. Some of these poor creatures were allotted for us; and one morning, we were ordered to fall into rank and file, when those girls were placed one behind each of us, while we stood gazing at one another, wondering what they were about to do. At last, the Durga gave the word, "To the right about face;" with the addition (in the Moorish language) of "take what is before you." This, when understood, some did, and some did not; but the refractory were soon obliged to comply. Thus they fed their vanity, by making our first interview as ludicrous as possible, each being by this means supplied with a piece of furniture, for which, however valuable in general, we had neither want nor inclination. When this ceremony was completed we were ordered back to our square, and on our return with our young black doxies, we had the bazar, or public market to pass, where the crowd was so difficult to penetrate, as to separate us. This laid the foundation for some serious disputes afterwards, many insisting that the women they had, when they arrived at the square, were not the same they had at first. This scene was truly comic, for the girls, when we understood them, which was many months afterwards, had the same views that we had, and were frequently engaged with their tongues. on this score, long before we could understand the cause of their disputes. Our enemies seemed to enjoy this in a manner that would have done honor to a British Theatre. Two months passed on, when the priest came to consummate our nuptials; and the conclusion of the ceremony was as curious as the beginning. The bride and her consort were led to an eminence, with flowers round their necks, and seated; after which, their thumbs tied together, when the priest muttered something which we could not comprehend, and we were married."

were

from those narratives, which are probably the least familiar to the majority of our readers, we are not sure that we have selected wisely. They are all very much of the same character, differing only in accidental circumstances—and all go a long way to establish the fact, that there are harder gaolers in Asia than the Affghans.

Working up chronologically to these latter days, we come upon the operations of the British in Ceylon, from the chronicles of which, could we afford space for such ample illustration of our subject, we might derive more than one interesting narrative of captivity in the East. Reverting to an earlier date, there are few prison-histories, better calculated to awaken attention and sympathy than that of Mr. Robert Knox, a sea captain, who passed many years in captivity among the Singalese. In more recent days, the captivity of Major Davie stands forth as a prominent illustrative example-but we are compelled to pass it by unnoticed.

The painful interest attending the recent captivity of the prisoners taken by Mahommed Akbar Khan was so greatly enhanced by the distressing consideration, that some of these prisoners were English ladies, that our illustrations of the present subject will, we feel assured, be rendered more valuable by the introduction of one or two narratives of captivity, in which the principal sufferers have belonged to that interesting class. The first instance of female imprisonment, which presents itself to us, is contained in the history of Mrs. Fay, who at the close of the last century, published a series of letters from which we made some amusing extracts in the earlier numbers of our journals. Mrs. Fay was the wife of a barrister, who, on her way out to Calcutta with her husband. (they, also, attempted the overland route by the Persian Gulf) was cast away on the southern coast, and had the ill-fortune to fall into the hands of some of Hyder's creatures. The narrative of her sufferings is rather amusing than touching. There is nothing in it to raise our opinion of womanly fortitude, little to awaken sympathy or admiration. The party of prisoners were, on the whole, a sufficiently contemptible set-the lady, at least according to her own account, the best of the captive band. We had purposed to have given some extracts from these letters; but it is necessary that we should discard some of our materials, and we have more pleasure in dwelling upon the womanly heroism of a Judson, than the bustling, fussy impudence of a Fay.

In May 1824, the British force, under Sir Archibald Campbell was landed at Rangoon. The effect produced was similar