I hope Mr. Pennington will not accuse me again of making unverified assertions because I have not quoted from the books.  The evidence is there for him to use.  I can only assure him that the assertions are based on positive proofs mostly obtained from official sources.

Mr. Pennington wants me to publish an exact account of what happened on the 10th April.  He can find it in the reports, and if he will patiently go through them he will discover that Sir Michael O’Dwyer and his officials goaded the people into frenzied fury—­a fury which nobody, as I have already said, has condemned more than I have.  The account of the following days is summed up in one word, viz. ‘peace’ on the part of the crowd disturbed by indiscriminate arrests, the massacre and the series of official crimes that followed.

I am prepared to give Mr. Pennington credit for seeking after the truth.  But he has gone about it in the wrong manner.  I suggest his reading the evidence before the Hunter Committee and the Congress Committee.  He need not read the reports.  But the evidence will convince him that I have understated the case against General Dyer.

When however I read his description of himself as “for 12 years Chief Magistrate of Districts in the South of India before reform, by assassination and otherwise, became so fashionable.”  I despair of his being able to find the truth.  An angry or a biased man renders himself incapable of finding it.  And Mr. Pennington is evidently both angry and biased.  What does he mean by saying, “before reform by assassination and otherwise became so fashionable?” It ill becomes him to talk of assassination when the school of assassination seems happily to have become extinct.  Englishmen will never see the truth so long as they permit their vision to be blinded by arrogant assumption of superiority or ignorant assumptions of infallibility.

MR. PENNINGTON’S LETTER TO MR. GANDHI

   Dear Sir,

I do not like your scheme for “boycotting” the Government of India under what seems to be the somewhat less offensive (though more cumbrous) name of non-co-operation; but have always given you credit for a genuine desire to carry out revolution by peaceful means and am astonished at the violence of the language you use in describing General Dyer on page 4 of your issue of the 14th July last.  You begin by saying that he is “by no means the worst offender,” and, so far, I am inclined to agree, though as there has been no proper trial of anyone it is impossible to apportion their guilt; but then you say “his brutality is unmistakable,” “his abject and unsoldierlike cowardice is apparent, he has called an unarmed crowd of men and children—­mostly holiday makers—­a rebel army.”  “He believes himself to be the saviour of the Punjab in that he was able to shoot down like rabbits men who were penned in an enclosure; such a man is unworthy to be considered