THE CAPTIVITY, SUFFERINGS, AND ESCAPE, OF JAMES SCURRY
JAMES SCURRY.
PREFACE.
Hyder Ali Cawn, and his son Tippoo Saib,have long been distinguished, and not less detested,throughout every part of the civilized world, forthe cruelties which they practised on their prisonersof war, during their dominion in India. Oftheir unexampled barbarities, many accounts havebeen published in England; and the enormitieswhich these narratives record would have staggeredcredulity itself, had not the few mutilated wretcheswho have escaped their tyranny, furnished evidenceby their appearance, that a faithful detail of factscould leave but little room for exaggeration.
In addition to those tales of horror which havebeen submitted to the public eye, there are others,equally affecting, on which no written register hasever conferred its honours. These, while theunhappy victims whose sufferings they record werealive, obtained for a season a local circulation; butno sooner had they found a refuge in the grave,than these tales began to fade in the recollection oftradition, and gradually to retire into oblivion, wherethey also have found repose. To some few a moreprotracted existence has been allotted. One ofthese has just fallen into the publisher’s hands;and he conceives he shall promote the cause ofhumanity by giving publicity to the unvarnishednarrative. It was written by James Scurry, latelydeceased, who actually endured the cruelties whichhe describes.
In some prefatory papers connected with thehistory of his sufferings, Mr. Scurry observes, thatthe following account was partly written during hispassage from India to this country, and partlyafter his return to the arms of an affectionatemother, who had long thought him dead. He alsostates, that his narrative might be considerablyenlarged, were he to delineate the various scenes hehas been called to witness; but having some doubtsas to the exact period of their occurrence, and thecircumstances connected with them, he has omittedthe relation altogether, that nothing might furnishan occasion to impeach his veracity. Respectingthe geography and natural