do us on board the Crown Prince. In a clear day the
masts of the ships can be seen passing up and down the Thames. This
brings to our minds our own gallant ships, whose decks we long, once
more, to tread.

The Britons pursue a malignant policy, in confining us in a loathsome
prison. The Britons know, probably, that a long and lingering
imprisonment weakens the body, and diminishes the energy of the mind;
that it disposes to vice, to a looseness of thought, and a destruction
of those moral principles inculcated by a careful and early
education.--Such a sink of vice I never saw, nor ever dreamt of, as I
have seen here. Never was a juster saying than this;--"_Evil
communications corrupt good manners._" One vicious fellow may corrupt
an hundred, even if he speak another language. I have been thoroughly
convinced of the wisdom of _solitary_ imprisonment. By what I have
seen and heard in this ship, where there are generally from seven to
nine hundred men, I am convinced that such collections are so many
hot-beds of vice and villany. It is a college of Satan, where degrees
of wickedness are conferred _e merito_. Here we have freshmen,
sophomores, juniors, and seniors, in roguery, together with Bachelors,
Masters of Arts, and Doctors.

Is it not a shame and a disgrace to a Christian nation, that, because
a man has had the virtue to step forward in the cause of his country,
in the cause of "free trade and sailors' rights," or from that glow of
chivalry that fills a youthful bosom, or the sound of the warlike drum
and trumpet, and the sight of the waving flag of his insulted country;
is it not a shame that such a young man of pure morals and careful
education, should be plunged into such an horrid prison as this? amid
vice, and roguery, and every thing else, debasing to the character of
so moral a people as the Americans really are?

The prisoners and the commander had lived in pretty good harmony,
until very lately. Some of our men had absolutely cut a hole through
the ship, near her stern, and cut the copper all round the hole,
excepting at the under side, which enabled them to bend down the
copper at their pleasure, and open a passage into the water, and to
re-close it in such a manner as to escape detection. It was effected
with a great deal of art and good management, with tools which we had
procured, and cunningly concealed.

The first dark night after this newly contrived stern-port was
finished, sixteen of the priso