e large and some small-badly ventilated, and entirely
destitute of any kind of furniture: and if they are badly ventilated
for summer, they are equally badly provided with means to warm them in
winter. In one of these rooms were nine or ten persons, when we visited
it; and such was the morbid stench escaping from it, that we were
compelled to put our handkerchiefs to our faces. This floor is
appropriated for such crimes as assault and battery; assault and
battery, with intent to kill; refractory seamen; deserters; violating
the statutes; suspicion of arson and murder; witnesses; all sorts of
crimes, varying from the debtor to the positive murderer, burglar,
and felon. We should have enumerated, among the rest, all stewards,
(colored,) whether foreign or domestic, who are committed on that
singular charge, "contrary to law." And it should have been added, even
though cast away upon our "hospitable shores." Among all these different
shades of criminals, there must be some very bad men. And we could
recount three who were pointed out to us, as very dangerous men, yet
were allowed the favor of this floor and its associations. One was
an Irish sailor, who was sentenced to three years and nine months'
imprisonment by the United States court, for revolt and a desperate
attempt to murder the captain of a ship; the next was a German, a
soldier in the United States army, sentenced to one year and eight
months' imprisonment for killing his comrade; and the third was an
English sailor, who killed a woman-but as she happened to be of doubtful
character, the presiding judge of the sessions sentenced him to a light
imprisonment, which the Governor very condescendingly pardoned after a
few weeks.

The two former acted as attendants, or deputy jailers; with the
exception of turning the key, which privilege the jailer reserved for
himself exclusively. The principle may seem a strange one, that places
men confined upon such grave charges in a superior position over
prisoners; and may be questionable with regard to the discipline itself.

From this floor, another iron door opened, and a winding passage led
into the third and upper story, where a third iron door opened into a
vestibule, on the right and left of which were grated doors secured with
heavy bolts and bars. These opened into narrow portals with dark, gloomy
cells on each side. In the floor of each of these cells was a large iron
ring-bolt, doubtless intended to chain refractory