Dyer for whom you show no sympathy,--and therefore cannot know for certain whether the crowd was or was not unarmed.' That it was an 'illegal,' because a 'prohibited,' assembly is evident; for it is absurd to suppose that General Dyer's 4-1/2 hours march, through the city that very morning, during the whole of which he was warning the inhabitants against the danger of any sort of gathering, was not thoroughly well-known. You say they were 'mostly holiday makers,' but you give nor proof; and the idea of holiday gathering in Amritsar just then in incredible. I cannot understand your making such a suggestion. General Dyer was not the only officer present on the occasion and it is impossible to suppose that he would have been allowed to go on shooting into an innocent body of holiday-makers. Even the troops would have refused to carry out what might then have been not unfairly called a "massacre."
I notice that you never even allude to the frightful brutality of the mob which was immediately responsible for the punitive measure reluctantly adopted by General Dyer. Your sympathies seem to be only with the murderers, and I am not sanguine enough to suppose that my view of the case will have much influence with you. Still I am bound to do what I can to get at the truth, and enclose a copy of some notes I have had occasion to make. If you can publish an _exact_ account of what
