James Scurry was born in Devonshire, England. His father served in the British Army and was present at the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill early in the American Revolutionary War, where he was promoted to the post of paymaster-sergeant for his bravery. Later, he became the inmate of a Greenwich mental asylum where he died, leaving his widow with James and his sister. James Scurry went to sea at a very early age. He went on his first voyage when he was nearly seven years old. He spent a considerable time on the American coast and the West Indies and was employed to carry gunpowder. He was also very good in playing the fife.

In 1780, when Scurry was 14 years old, he set on a voyage from Plymouth Sound on the Hannibal. However, he, along with his crew, were captured by the French at Saint Helena. They were handed over to Hyder Ali by the French admiral Suffren. Hyder deported Scurry and the 15 young men to Seringapatam. The 15 men were all circumcised, converted to Islam and forcibly conscripted to Tipu's army. James Scurry was given the Islamic name, Shamsher Khan.

As soon as Scurry was captured, he was put in heavy leg-irons and marched into a strong prison. Later, Hyder ordered him and his crew to march to Bangalore. Scurry was then sent to Burrampour, a three-day march from Bangalore. The food offered was rice for the first eight to ten days, which was then changed to Ragi flour. Scurry had the misfortune of being overlooked, along with 100 other English prisoners in the prisoner release incorporated in the treaty of 1784.

After reaching England, Scurry took up many jobs first as a superintendent of a wholesale grocer, and then set up his own grocery Business. In 1800, he married once more and had 8 children, of which only one son and one daughter survived. He moved on from his grocery Business to join a colliery, and then as a steward for a merchant ship, and then moved back to London in 1816 to work for a coal wharf. His final job was to superintendent a mine, but due to cold weather, he developed severe cold and infection, and died in 1822, at the age of 57. He was buried in Exeter on December 14, 1822.

He is known for his memoir The captivity, sufferings, and escape of James Scurry, who was detained a prisoner during ten years, in the dominions of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib (1824), which relates the sufferings and treatment of the captured English Soldiers, Mangalorean Catholics, and other prisoners of war by Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan, the rulers of the Kingdom of Mysore in India.