n; they were of course, sea sick; and were
continually groping and tumbling about in the dark prison of a ship's
hold. They suffered a double portion of misery compared with the
sailors, to whom the rolling of the ship in a gale of wind, and the
stench of bilge-water, were matters of no grievance; but were serious
evils to these landsmen, who were constantly treading upon, or running
against, and tumbling over each other. Many of them were weary of
their lives; and some layed down dejected in despair, hoping never to
rise again. Disheartened, and of course sick, these young men became
negligent of their persons, not caring whether they ever added another
day to their wretched existence; so that when they came on board the
prison ship, they were loathsome objects of disgust. A mother could
not have known her own son; nor a sister her brother, disguised and
half consumed as they were, with a variety of wretchedness. They were
half naked, and it was now the middle of winter, and within _thirty_
miles of London, in the _nineteenth_ century; an era famous for _bible
societies_, for _missionary_ and _humane_ societies, and for all proud
boastings of Christian and evangelical virtue; under the reign of a
king and prince, renowned for their liberality and magnanimity towards
_French_ catholics; (but not _Irish_ ones,) and towards _Ferdinand_
the bigot, his holiness the _Pope_, and the venerable institution of
the _holy Inquisition_. Alas! poor old _John Bull_! though art in thy
dotage, with thy thousand ships in the great salt ocean; and thy half
a dozen _victorious ones_ in the Serpentine River, alias the splendid
gutter, dug out in Hyde Park, for the amusement of British children
six feet high! Can the world wonder that AMERICA, in her present age
of chivalry, should knock over these doating old fellows, and make
them the derision of the universe?

I can no otherwise account for this base treatment of the Americans,
than by supposing that the British government had concluded in the
summer and autumn of 1813, that America could not stand the tug of war
with England; that MADISON was unpopular; and that the federalists, or
_British faction_ in America, were prevailing, especially in
New-England; and that, being sure of conquest, they should commence
the subjugation of the UNITED STATES by degrading its soldiery and
seamen; as they have the brave Irish.--They may have been led into
this error by our _federal_ newspapers, which a