stationed by them continually.

Time passed wearily on. Days seemed months and months appeared to be
lengthened into years; and even existence itself had become as it were
paralyzed by the monotonous life we led. It was an interposition of Divine
Providence, that in our destitute and helpless condition we were not
afflicted with any pestilential disease; as in the crowded state we were
in, it must have made rapid and fearful havoc in our midst. At length it
was rumored that the prisoners were to be removed; but where to, none of
them knew. Several weeks passed on, and they were relapsing into their
ordinary indifference to the state of things around them, when one morning
word was passed among us that a draft of one hundred was to be sent to
Dartmoor prison, and those who thought proper might volunteer; but that
_that_ number must go at any rate. So seeing it was 'Grumble you may, but
go you must,' was the order of the day, the number required soon availed
themselves of the _privilege_, and were sent in barges on board the vessel
which was to convey them to their future abode. Other drafts were sent
from time to time, until the whole were removed. For myself, I remained
until the last: I felt a reluctance to leave what I knew to be bad, for
what I feared might be worse. It was to a 'bourne whence no traveller
returned' to disclose the secrets of the prison-house.

At last the time had arrived when the remnant were to leave. We were all
mustered upon deck, numbering about one hundred and fifty. Our baggage,
poor and scant as it was, we had need to take the utmost care of, as
winter was advancing, and we knew of no means of procuring more. We were
then conveyed in barges and put on board the 'Leyden,' an old sixty-four
gun ship, taken from the Dutch in by-gone days, and now used for a
transport for troops, prisoners, etc. In due course of time we were landed
in Plymouth. It was early on a bleak, cloudy morning, late in the autumn,
that we disembarked, and were placed in immediate line of march, under a
guard of a sufficient number of soldiers with loaded muskets, who had
orders to shoot down the first who evinced a disposition to leave the
line. The whole was under the command of a captain, lieutenant, etc., who
were on horseback. We had been on the road scarcely an hour, when the
rain, which had been threatening all the morning, now came down with
sweeping fury; and although not sufficiently cold to freeze, yet it
posses