They asked, and so was quickly dismissed, yet came out
weeping and lamenting, and protesting his innocence. John Clark was then
taken in, and tortured with fire and water for two hours, in the same
manner as had been done with Johnson and Thomson.[317]
[Footnote 317: The minute description of these tortures, in Purchas, and
copied in Harris, are disgusting; insomuch, that Purchas exclaims at one
place, I have no heart to proceed. They are here therefore
omitted, - E.]
Finding that all their cruelties could not force him to any consistent
confession of himself, they helped him along to particular circumstances
of their own contrivance, by leading questions. Thus wearied out and
overpowered, by terror of the tortures being renewed, he answered,
yes, to whatever they asked, by which means they trumped up a body of
evidence to this effect: - "That Captain Towerson, on new-year's-day
last, had sworn all the English at Amboina to be secret and aiding in a
plot he had devised for surprising the castle, by the aid of the
Japanese, putting the governor and all the Dutch to death."
On the 17th, William Griggs and John Fardo, with some Japanese, were
brought to examination. The Japanese were first cruelly tortured to
accuse Griggs, which at last they did; and Griggs, to avoid torture,
confessed whatever the fiscal was pleased to demand.
