Captivity Myths: The arrests took place on Ash Wednesday, February 24 (sic)

Ash Wednesday ushers in Lent which commemorates the period during which Christ lived in the desert fasting and meditating before his public ministry. For Catholics it is a period of trial and test, prayer and fasting. Lent covers 46 days including six Sundays and terminates with the passion and resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday.

Tradition among Kanara Christians maintains the arrests took place on February 24, Ash Wednesday. Tradition is wrong. In 1784, a leap year, Ash Wednesday fell on February 25. All available evidence suggests the arrests were made in mid-March.

In February, the English delegation was in Mangalore negotiating the peace treaty. The negotiations were conducted in the durbar tent. The English camp was sited some distance away. Three ships anchored offshore ready to rescue the commissioners at the slightest hint of danger. The pace of the negotiations picked up only after February 20. The treaty was signed on March 11. The commissioners left soon after.

Sadlier returned to Madras by the land route; Staunton and Huddleston sailed along the Malabar coast. They sent a copy of the treaty to Bombay on March 18 from Tellicherry.[1] It suggests they had sailed from Mangalore on March 14 or 15. Sadlier was close to Bangalore, midway between Madras and Mangalore, on April 8,[2] which confirms he had left at the same time as the other two commissioners. The English delegation was, therefore, definitely present in Mangalore in mid-March. From the fact that not a single reference is made to the arrest of the Christians in their voluminous correspondence, official and personal, a clear and safe inference can be drawn that the arrests took place after their departure from Mangalore. This is confirmed by Ravenshaw who writes that the arrests took place immediately after the English delegation left Mangalore.

The viceroy’s letter of May 9 confirms that the arrests took place after Tipu had made peace with the English.[3] Pe Francis Xavier writes that the arrests took place in North Kanara in March.[4] In Honavar, town folk who had taken refuge within the fort were forced by famine to leave on the night of February 19. Among them was the aged Pe Menezes, for many years vicar of Honavar. Grievously ill, he was sent in Torriano’s palanquin with a request that he be extended all due courtesies. Tipu’s commander did so until Menezes’s death soon thereafter,[5] something he could not have done if he had received Tipu’s edict.

The most specific date, however, comes from the author of the Barkur Manuscript, a survivor: Mai 30. Mai is a Tulu month overlapping February-March with Mai 30 falling in mid-March.[6]

It was a well-planned operation that could be put into effect at short notice. Considered together with the fact that the arrests took place when the Christians had gathered for their morning prayer, the most likely date would be March 21, the first Sunday after the commissioners left Mangalore.

[1] The Town and Country Magazine. January 1784. London: 444

[2] Oakes, Henry. An Authentic Narrative of the Treatment of the English... 1785. London: G Kearsley: 62

[3] Silva, Severene. 1961. Christianity in Canara, Vol II. Karwar: 25

[4] Silva, Severene. 1958. Christianity in Canara, Vol I. Karwar: 126

[5] The East India Military Calendar. 1826: 201

[6] Buchanan, F. 1807. A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar, Vol 3. London: T Cadell and W Davies: 31