"
XXXV. That the prisoners aforesaid did shortly after, that is to say, on
the 13th March, a third time renew their application to Nathaniel
Middleton, Esquire, the Resident, and did request that the jewels
remaining in his, the said Resident's, hands, towards the payment of the
balance remaining, "might be valued by four or five eminent merchants,
Mussulmen and Hindoos, upon oath," and that, if any balance should
afterwards appear, they would upon their release get their friends to
advance the same; and they did again represent the hardship of their
imprisonment, and pray for relief; and did again assert that the
imputations thrown upon them by the said Richard Johnson were false and
groundless,--"that they had no kind of intercourse, either directly or
indirectly, with the authors of the commotions alluded to, and that they
did stake their lives upon the smallest proof thereof being brought."
XXXVI. That, instead of their receiving any answer to any of the
aforesaid reasonable propositions, concerning either the account stated,
or the crimes imputed to them, or any relief from the hardships they
suffered, he, the Resident, Middleton, did, on the 18th of the said
month, give to the officer who had supplicated in favor of the said
prisoners an order in which he declared himself "under the disagreeable
necessity of recurring to severities to enforce the said payment, and
that this is therefore to desire that you immediately cause them _to be
put in irons_, and keep them so until I shall arrive at Fyzabad to take
further measures as may be necessary": which order being received at
Fyzabad the day after it was given, the said eunuchs were a second time
thrown into irons.
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