THE PRISONERS SENTENCED TO DEATH 125 tion, he set at defiance the safeguards of procedure which even the Dutch law prescribed. His demand was really the demand of Sieyes at the trial of Louis XVI —La Mort sans phrase. On February 25, 1623, or February 23d (for there are discrepancies as to the date), the prisoners, with certain exceptions, were condemned to death. The English from outlying factories, who had not even been at Amboyna at the time of the alleged plot, were re- leased; three others were allowed to draw lots for their life; and in the end the elderly Beaumont and the ter- rified Collins were sent to give evidence at Batavia as " men condemned and left to the mercy of the governor-general. ,, Captain Towerson manfully pro- claimed the iniquity of the proceedings. When ordered to indite a confession, he wrote out a protestation of his innocence. The governor gave it to the interpreter to read out in Dutch, " which I could not do," said that officer, " without shedding of tears.' ' He had also to translate a dying declaration secretly written by Towerson in a Bible which he asked Van Speult to send to his friends in England— " which Bible after that time I never saw or heard mentioned.' ' Yet some last words reached the outer world. Will- iam Griggs wrote in his Table-book, which was secretly saved by a servant: " We through torment were con- strained to speak that which we never meant nor once imagined. . . . They tortured us with that extreme tor- ment of fire and water that flesh and blood could not endure. . . . Written in the dark." Captain Towerson
