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 DUTCH METHODS OF TORTURE 123 slow agony of bursting, joined to the acute but long- drawn-out agony of suffocation. In the fire torture, they held lighted candles beneath the most sensitive parts of the body— under the armpits, the palms of the hand, and the soles of the feet. Emmanuel Thomson, like John Clarke, it was said, had no surgeon to dress his burnt flesh, so that no one " was able to endure the smell of his body." To the torture by fire and water, admitted by the Dutch, the English accounts add " the splitting of the toes, and lancing of the breast, and putting in gun- powder, and then firing the same, whereby the body is not left entire, neither for innocency nor execution. Clarke and Thomson were both fain to be carried to their execution, though they were tortured many days before." But the Dutch admissions suffice. Towerson, who steadily asserted his innocence, on being confronted with some who had confessed, " charged them as they would answer it at the dreadful day of judgment, they should speak nothing but the truth." The sufferers implored his forgiveness and declared all they had said was false. But, threatened again with torture, they reaffirmed their confessions. The spirit of the miserable little band was completely broken. Even Van Speult felt that he might be going too far, and for some days hesitated as to whether he should not remit the case to the Dutch governor-general at Batavia. But the English president and council at Batavia had, on January 10 - 20, 1623, resolved to with-