y, our agent, so called,
every prisoner contributed three pence towards a fund for purchasing
beer. They formed themselves into classes, like our collegians, and
these appointed persons to sell it to those who wished for it; and
each member of the class shared his proportion of the profits. This
answered a very good purpose; it checked the monopolizers and
muckworms that infested our ship, and fattened on our wastefulness. It
also benefitted those who did not choose to drink beer, or _porter_,
as they call it in England.

Some disagreeable and very mortifying occurrences took place among us
in the course of this spring. Four of our men agreed together to go on
to the quarter-deck and offer themselves to the commander, to enter
into the service of the British. Their intention was discovered before
they had an opportunity of putting it in execution. Two of them were
caught, and two escaped. These two were arraigned and sentenced to be
marked with the letter T, with Indian ink, pricked into their
foreheads, being the initial of the word _Traitor_; after which, one
went aft and entered; the other judged better, and remained with his
countrymen. Had these been Englishmen we should have applauded them;
and had they been Irishmen, we had no right to blame them; but we had
the mortification to know that they were, by birth, Americans. Some
thought the punishment was too severe, and which we had no right to
inflict; others thought that the letter in their foreheads should have
been F, for FEDERALIST; for this was the name they ever afterwards
were known by.

The Frenchmen were now (in the month of May) leaving the reach. Many
of them had been in prison ever since 1803. These men are going home
to live under a government forced upon them by foreigners! How unlike
Americans, who had rather perish under tortures, than submit to the
yoke of a foreigner. Our Frenchmen always spoke in raptures of the
emperor NAPOLEON, and with contempt of _Louis_. When we spoke in
praise of Bonaparte, they would throw their arms around us, and cry
out, one bon American! But these men are all passion and no principle;
they are fit for any thing but liberty. I cannot judge of the whole
nation; but those I have seen here, are an abandoned set of men. I
dare not write down their incredible vices. There has been a great cry
of _French influence_ by the British party in New England. I never
thought it ever existed, and I am very certain that it never will