भारतीय इतिहास के ६ स्वर्णिम पृष्ठ (वीर सावरकर - विदेशी आक्रान्ताओं पर विजय गाथा)

Cellular Jail 6-7-1920 Port Blair My Dearest Bal, Your letter to dear Baba, dated 2-6-20, reached us and made us glad by removing the sense of anxiety caused by your constant postponing your coming over here. My health is just as it was when you left me. It is not worse either. But after your going, the health of our brother has been going from bad to worse. It is his turn now. The complaint is the same. Digestion troubles and consequent liver disorder. His weight is 106 Ibs. Because I write this much, do not imagine that our health must be worse still. Not so. I write exactly as it stands. If something worse happens, I shall inform you of it. After all, the general amnesty has come! Hundreds are being released. Thanks chiefly to the great exertions of the Bombay National Union and of our leaders and of our patriotic country-men, who organised, supported and signed the mass petition for the release of Indian political prisoners. That huge petition signed by no less than 75,000 people at such a short notice as that must have certainly put an immense though unacknowledged pressure on the Government. At any rate, it elevated the moral status of the PoP.s and, therefore, of the cause for which they fought and fell. Now, indeed, our release if at all it comes is worth having, as the people have expressed their desire to have us back. We cannot sufficiently thank our countrymen for sympathy and solicitude for us all. They had really shown greater regard for us than we honestly believe to have deserved. Nor have their efforts been entirely fruitless. For, although we two have been declared to fall outside the scope of the Amnesty and are still rotting in the cells, yet the sight of hundreds of our political comrades and co-sufferers' release makes us feel relieved and repaid for all the agitation that we have been carrying on for the last eight years or so, through strikes, letters, petitions, the press and the platfrom, here and elsewhere. On 2-4-20, I put in a fresh petition to the Government of India on the subject of Royal clemency recently granted. Therein, after thanking the Government for the release of hundreds of political prisoners and for thus partially granting my petition of 1918, I have pleaded for the further extention of the Royal clemency to those who are yet in jail as well as to the political exiles abroad. I had once more defined my personal position as