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{{EngvarB|date=August 2014}}
[[File:James Scurry.jpg|thumb|James Scurry]]
'''James Scurry''' (1766–1822) was a [[Kingdom of Great Britain|British]] soldier and memoirist. He was held captive by Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan for 10 years (1780–1790) at [[Seringapatam]].<ref name="b">{{harvnb|Bowring|1893
He is known for his memoir ''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'' (1824), which relates the sufferings and treatment of the captured English soldiers, [[Mangalorean Catholics]], and other prisoners of war by [[Hyder Ali]] and [[Tipu Sultan]], the rulers of the [[Kingdom of Mysore]] in India.
==Early life and family==
James Scurry was born in [[Devon]]shire, England. His father served in the [[British Army]] and was present at the 1775 [[Battle of Bunker Hill]] early in the [[American Revolutionary War]], where he was promoted to the post of paymaster-sergeant for his bravery. Later, he became the inmate of a [[Greenwich]] [[Psychiatric hospital|mental asylum]] where he died, leaving his widow with James and his sister.<ref name="d">{{harvnb|Scurry|Whiteway|1824|p=
==Capture by Hyder==
In 1780, when Scurry was 14 years old, he set on a voyage from Plymouth Sound on the [[HMS Hannibal (1779)|Hannibal]].<ref>{{harvnb|Scurry|Whiteway|1824|
==Captivity==
As soon as Scurry was captured, he was put in heavy leg-irons and marched into a strong prison.<ref>{{harvnb|Scurry|Whiteway|1824|p=
==Escape from captivity==
Scurry on his own account explains how he escaped from the fort of Chitterdroog ([[Chitradurga]]). Once he tried to escape with some more of his colleagues, but after some distance, returns on fears of being spotted. Again, he escapes in the next try, but this time, they venture into the forest to avoid being detected. They camp in multiple places, and try entering a couple of forts. They finally seek the help of Marathas in a fort, from where they leave for the English encampments in a fort north of Karnataka. He was greeted by an old Scottish colleague, Mr. Little, who was startled to find Scurry and his companions in the ragged uniform of Tipu's army.<ref name="mc2"/> James further narrates how they are redeployed, and marched backwards to the Carnatic to help plan the final assault on Mysore by Lord Cornwallis. Due to some circumstances, his friends are divided into two groups, and one group is sent to Bombay, and he is sent to Madras. In Madras, he boards Dutton, a ship to send him back to England, and he reaches Down in England. He also tells that even though his release was negotiated between Tipu and the British, it was not implemented for reasons unknown. Instead he was abruptly shifted along with many other prisoners to Chitterdroog. During this shift, James fears for his life, as he was taken to a place where some of his colleagues Captain Rumney, and Lieutenants Fraser and Sampson, had their throats cut.
Scurry left behind his wife and child, a girl. He had grown to love her, and in his memoir describes the immense pain he felt in having to part from them in the night as his battalion was being mustered and his decision of escaping being made.<ref name="mc2"/> After the 10-year captivity ended, James Scurry recounted that he had forgotten how to sit in a chair and use a knife and fork. His English was broken and stilted, having lost all his vernacular idiom. His skin had darkened to the 'swarthy complexion of [[negro]]es', and moreover, he had developed an aversion to wearing European clothes.<ref>{{harvnb|Scurry|Whiteway|1824|p=
==Life after return to England==
After reaching England, Scurry took up many jobs first as a superintendent of a wholesale grocer, and then set up his own grocery business. In 1800, he married once more and had 8 children, of which only one son and one daughter survived. He moved on from his grocery business to join a colliery, and then as a steward for a merchant ship, and then moved back to London in 1816 to work for a coal wharf. His final job was to superintendent a mine, but due to cold weather, he developed severe cold and infection, and died in 1822, at the age of 57. He was buried in Exeter on
==Descriptions of conditions in Srirangapatna==
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The systematic rape of girls collected and captured from various parts of his kingdom was described by James. In this paragraph, James and his colleagues are forced to have sex with local girls captured from Tipu's kingdom or otherwise. The reason why Tipu chose to let prisoners have the captured women is not known, but it seems that it could have served various purposes. One was to humiliate the women themselves. Second, could have been to provide restraint to the prisoners, so it would serve as a deterrent for them to escape, as many of them had children with these women, and married them as well. Later in the story, James narrates how a British officer, could not escape the prison camp, as their guilt of leaving the women behind, kept them from escaping. So, the intent of letting the British prisoners consummate those women, was indeed useful in that regard.
{{cquote | We were one day strangely informed, that each of us,
==Account of the Captivity==
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The following is James's first-hand account of the treatment of [[Mangalorean Catholics|Mangalorean Catholic]] captives. Also this is the first time, James mentions that Tipu had converted some of the Hindu temples into prisons or dungeons. The practice of capturing women and passing them on as slaves to officers, and moving some of them to his harem is also mentioned.
{{cquote|Now followed the fate of the poor<ref>{{harvnb|Scurry|Whiteway|1824|p=
No doubt many of them survived the downfall of Tippu and I should have been proud to hear that the Company had done something for those brave unfortunate men, and particularly so as all their miseries originated from an English general. The prison from whence the Malabar Christians were brought to have their noses and ears cut off for refusing their daughters when Tippu demanded them for his seraglio was a horrid dismal hole which we named the Bull, as there was an image, considerably larger than life, of that animal on that building, which was originally designed for a Hindoo place of worship, but by Tippu converted into a dungeon. This prison we frequently passed and expected sooner or later to occupy some part of it. Very few who were so unfortunate to be confined here, escaped with less punishment than the loss of their nose and ears. The Chambars by whom the operation was performed are held in abhorrence by the Mahomedans, and, on that account they were consigned<ref name="scu105"/> to this office; and such was their brutality that they frequently cut, (or sawed rather), the upper lip off with the nose leaving the poor unfortunate wretch a pitiable object, to spin out a most miserable existence, being always sent to Tippu's arsenals to hard labour on a scanty allowance.<ref>{{harvnb|Scurry|Whiteway|1824|p=
==Musings of
{{cquote| Since our arrival in England, we have ofttimes heard him extolled for a brave prince ; but those who have thus stated, we presume, know little of hira. That he was a coward, we could easily demonstrate, and that he was a tyrant, equal, if not superior, to a Domitian, a Caligula, a Nero, or even Nabis the tyrant of Sparta, is a fact of which we had ocular demonstration. For vigorously defending his country against any power on earth, I give him credit, and for using every exertion in expelling all its invaders ; but this should have been done without those unheard-of cruelities, which were interwoven in his very nature;—but he is gone, and I proceed.}}
Scurry also contrasted the practises of Tipu with those of the European powers and his reputation among Europeans in India who knew him:
{{ cquote | It is not among the customs of European nations to war with the dead, otherwise the remains of such a tyrant, whose peculiar aversion towards, and inveterate cruelty exercised on, the English, whenever they were so unfortunate as to become subject to his tyranny, might have been treated with indignity. The rooted and barbarous antipathy which he manifested against his prisoners in a former war, seems to have accompanied him to the last. About twenty unhappy stragglers from our army had fallen into his hands in the course of our march, among whom was a little drummer-boy of the Scotch brigade; all these he ordered to be put to death. Even his small motley band of French auxiliaries, execrate his memory as a most cruel tyrant, and represent, with bitter imprecations, the ignominy and hardships to which he subjected them. }}
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*{{cite book
|year=1824
|
|title=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
|publisher=H. Fisher
|url=https://archive.org/details/captivitysuffer00whitgoog
|accessdate=18 January 2009
}}
{{refend}}
|