each my veracity.

Beside individual animosity, there may possibly be a lurking national
one, thinly covered over with the fashionable mantle of courtesy. The
conflicting interests of the two nations may endanger peace.--The
source of national aggrandizement in both nations, is commerce; and
the high road to them the ocean. We and the British are travelling the
same way, in keen pursuit of the same object; and it is scarcely
probable, that we shall be preserved in a state of peace, by abstract
love of justice.

I have been disposed to allow that the conduct of our countrymen,
while on board the prison ships, and at Dartmoor, was, at times,
provoking to the British officers set over them; but never malignant,
much less, bloody. It could be always traced to a spirit of _fun_ and
frolic, which our people indulge in beyond all others in the world;
and this ought to be considered as one of the luxuriant shoots of our
_tree of liberty_; for it is too harsh to call it an excrescence. It
shows the strength, depth and extent of its roots, and the richness of
the soil.

This Journal has not been published to increase the animosity now
subsisting between the American and British people. So far from it,
the writer pleases himself with the idea that this publication may
remedy the evils complained of, or mitigate them; and cut off the
source of deep complaint against the English, for their treatment of
prisoners, should war rage again between the two nations. If the
present race of Britons have not become indifferent to a sense of
national character, their government will take measures to wipe off
this stain from her garments. Let the nations of Europe inquire how
the Americans treat their prisoners of war. If we treat them with
barbarity, publish our disgrace to the wide world, and speak of us
accordingly. But let them, at the same time, inquire how the English
treated those of us who have had the great misfortune of falling into
their hands; and let them be spoken of accordingly. My serious opinion
is, that this little book will aid the great cause of humanity.

Although I, with some thousands of my countrymen, were inclosed in a
large prison during the greater part of the war, it fared with us as
with those people who seldom go out of their houses, who hear more
news than those who are abroad in the world. It was, however, pretty
much all of one sort; for we seldom saw any other American newspapers,
than those of the fault f