st misery I ever
endured; and at such times, have I cursed the nation that allowed of
it, as being more barbarous than Algerines or wild Indians. The
comparative size of the pieces of beef and bread is watched with a
keen and jealous eye; so are even the bits of turnip in our soup, lest
one should have more than the other. I have noticed more acts of
meanness and dishonesty in men of respectable character, in the
division and acquisition of the articles of our daily food, than in
any other transaction whatever. Such as they would despise, were
hunger out of the question. The best apology I can make for the
practice of gaming is, the hope of alleviating this most abominable
system of starvation. Had we been duly and properly fed, we never
should have run so deeply into the hell of gambling. We did not want
money to buy clothing, or wine, or rum, but to buy beef, and bread,
and milk. I repeat it, all the irregularities, and, finally, the
horrors and death, that occurred in a remarkable manner, in this den
of despair, arose from the British system of scanty food for young
men, whose vigorous systems, and habits of being full fed, demanded a
third more solid flesh meat, than would satisfy a potatoe-eating
Irishman, an oat-feeding Scotchman, or an half starved English
manufacturer. After we have finished our own dinners in New England,
we give to our cats and dogs, and other domestic animals, more solid
nourishment, the remnant of our meals, than what we had often allowed
us in the ships and prisons of "_the world's last hope_,"
Pickering's[T] "_fast anchor'd isle_."

Among the abuses of Dartmoor prison, was that of allowing Jews to come
among us to buy clothes, and allowing some other people, worse than
Jews, to cheat us in the articles we purchased. How far our keepers
went "snacks" with these harpies, we never could know. We only
suspected that they did not enjoy all their swindling privileges
gratuitously. Before the immoral practice of gambling was introduced
and countenanced, it was no unusual thing to see men in almost every
birth, reading, or writing, or studying navigation. I have noticed the
progress of vice in some, with pain and surprise. I have seen men,
once respectable, give examples of vice that I cannot describe, or
even name; and I am fearful that some of our young boys, may carry
home to their hitherto pure and chaste country, vices they never had
any idea of when they left it. I believe Frenchmen, Italia