he has been unjust. Louis persuaded himself that he believed what he really did not.-he received as true the accusation that Lauzun, under the appearance of submission, conceived the design of being secretly united to the Princess de Montpensier,-and punished the supposed crime with incredible severity, that the presence of the man he had injured might not be to him a continual reproach.

Silently, abstractedly, Lauzun entered the carriage which was to convey him he knew not where. At every point upon his long journey his hard fate excited innumerable expressions of sympathy; but he received them with the same indifference as if they had been uttered in a foreign and unknown language.

The accompanying officer made every possible effort to lighten the mournful journey. With true French politeness, he sought to draw him into conversation, that he might relieve his overcharged heart by complaints; but Lauzun continued silent. Only once, when they were passing a dangerous place in Savoy, and he was requested to leave

the carriage, a bitter smile played upon his lips.

"Count Lauzun has nothing now to fear," he answered, remaining in the carriage, and gazing unmoved into the deep chasm by the side of the narrow road.

At last they reached the high fortress of Pignerol, situated on the Piedmontese mountains, and surrounded by mournful pines, where he perhaps was destined, for his whole life, to atone for a few careless words spoken to a courtier; for it is probable that it was this imprudence which had excited the anger of Madame Montespan, and thus had finally proved his destruction.

Following his jailer as silently as he had traversed the route, he now entered the gloomy subterranean dungeon assigned for his prison. Carefully examining the mournful abode, “IN SECULA SECULORUM," he said, as the clanking and rattling of the bars and keys announced his farewell to light and airto joy and life-and was now, like thousands before him, forgotten by all but one loving heart.

WE had a gang of men at Dartmoor, called "rough allies," and they were as rascally a set of devils as ever escaped drowning, to have the chance at some future day of standing on air and pulling hemp. I know not the etymology of the word; but it was highly expressive of the qualities of those who bore it. They were rough as untamed bears, and allied together in the bonds of wickedness; for they were the very antipodes to anything savoring of morality and decency. I verily believe that three quarters of all the misery and privations we endured here, were owing to these human brutes; and I know that however blameable Captain Shortland may have been on the day of the massacre, he would have wanted the pretence for his conduct had it not been supplied by these graceless scoundrels. They were the most miserable, debased wretches one can possibly conceive of; the promoters of all riots and plundering expeditions; and were continually prowling about the prisons, day and night, seeking what they might steal and devour. Some one has aptly enough denominated them the Janizaries of Dartmoor; and the analogy holds that they were the terror and detestation of the orderly portion of the community.

If one of these rough allies coveted the goods of a neighboring shop-keeper, he would go round to some of his comrades, and say that the shop-keeper had sold light penny-worths of tobacco, but ter or bread. Immediately the watch word of "Heave O!" would resound throughout the prison; the rough allies would assemble in force, and make a foray upon the shop-keeper, capsize his table and steal his goods; and he would deem himself lucky if he came off no worse.

I find in my diary the following entry: "1815, Feb. 13th. The market stopped in consequence of a man having escaped from the cachot, (or black hole,) where he had been confined some months. He scaled the palisades when the turnkey was off his guard, and got in among the rest of the prisoners, who refused to deliver him up when demanded by Capt. Shortland." "Mr.

a shop-keeper in No. 7, was reported to have said that the man ought to be delivered up, when some rough allies assembled in great force, and demolished his stand and plundered his goods."

Such an occurrence as this was but too common. The principal leader of these wretches was an unprincipled scoundrel, who, I am happy to say, was not an American. He had been tried in the United States for piracy and murder, and defended himself, I have understood, with much ability. He was acquitted for want of evidence, though in prison he often boasted of his crime. He was an artful, plausible fellow, of a very good education, report said learned, and master of several languages and sciences, and possessing an uncommon dexterity in the use of the pen. He could counterfeit any man's handwriting, and so exactly imitate steelplate engraving, that it was extremely difficult to distinguish between the imitation and the genuine. He was very fluent in the use of language, possessing, what sailors call the gift of gab, in perfection.

When he first came to the depot, he took up his residence in No. 7, where he soon set himself to work to stir up strife among the inmates. He asserted that they were cheated by the committee and the cooks, who, he said, were in the daily habit of embezzling a part

of their provisions. No other charge could be so likely to excite the indignation of the captives; for the allowance was but small at most, and to abstract any portion of it from hungry maws, was the most heinous offence that could be committed. This the demagogue understood well enough, and he laid his scheme accordingly. He gathered around him all the rough allies, and deluded many right-minded, but unthinking men, of a better character, to his party; when feeling himself to be strong enough, he one day took possession of the cook-house, turned out the cooks and appointed others, and usurped the whole authority of the committee. Like the despot of former times, he was himself the state, but only for a short time; for the holy alliance of the commandant and turnkeys made an invasion of his usurped dominions, overthrew the usurper, vanquished his forces, and led the conqueror off captive to the black hole; and the committee and cooks were reinstated in office. But quietness was not restored to our community; the elements of rebellion were at work; the volcano burst forth, and the chairman of the committee, a highly respectable gentleman, of correct deportment and unassuming manners, nearly sixty years of age, was seized by the rough allies, placed under a guard of their number, and, notwithstanding his age and respectable character, they were preparing to commit further violence on his person by whipping him. But his son, who was also in the same prison, being a high-spirited young man, gathered together a number of his friends, and rescued him from the hands of these desperadoes.

Their leader was in a short time released from the cachot, but he did not come into our prison again. He went into No. 5, where he followed the business of gambling and counterfeiting. He could counterfeit the notes of the Tavistock and Plymouth banks so well, that a great many were passed to the market-people, who came to the pris

in innocent amusements, or in acquiring useful knowledge. As the first step in the career of depravity, he would hover round the gaming-table, where he would soon be fleeced of all the little money he had. His clothing, piece by piece, would be " shoved up the spout" for a quarter of its value, till he was left with barely enough to cover his person, but not enough to defend him from the damps of the prison and the cold of the winter. From gaming, the transition to theft was a rapid one; detection and punishment soon followed, and then farewell, a long farewell to all sense of self-esteem and moral rectitude. The once high-minded and honorable youth became a confirmed rough ally, prowling about the prisons seeking what he might be able to steal, or perhaps tending a gambling table in No. 4, a miserable slave to an ignorant negro. I had to mourn over the degradation of several youths of my own acquaintance

and, so far as I know their future history, they never recovered from it.

The term federalists was one of great opprobrium in Dartmoor, and it was the one most frequently made use of by the rough allies to give a pretext for, or to extenuate their acts of violence and plunder; and it answered quite as well, or perhaps a little better, than the charge of selling light ha'penny-worths.

These fellows would hang about the market on market-days, watching their chance to steal; and their depredations on the market-people was so frequent, that, at last, the commandant would not allow any of the captives to go out into the market-yard when the market was held, but caused them to stand in the passage-way of communication with the prisons, with the iron gate in front of them shut, so that when an article was bargained for, it was handed in between the bars of the gate, and the purchase-money passed through in the same manner. But the poor market-people were not much the better for this arrangement; the purchasers too often forgot to pay when they had received the article, but would move off with it as fast as their legs could carry them; or, as they used to term it, "Give leg-bail for security." When the market people became more cautious, and refused to deliver the goods with one hand until they had received

the money in the other, the rough allies resorted to another expedient. They would carry in their hands, concealed under their outer garments, a rope coiled up, to one end of which was attached a number of fish-hooks. Watching their chance, they would throw it, as expertly as a South American does his lasso, into the baskets containing the goods for sale; then singing out, "Heave oh!" they would run down the yard, while their comrades would cluster around the palings, to conceal them from sight, and to facilitate the passage of the plundered article through the palings; and this kind of hooking was generally successful.

I am sorry to say that these depredations on the English were viewed in a very different light from depredations committed on the property of each other. They were looked upon as being no concern of ours, and they were never punished. I do not think that the generality of the prisoners would have been sorry to see these men punished by the English authorities; but it was considered to be strictly their business to do it, and they could never detect the offenders. These men would insult the general and the officers all day long, quarrel and fight with each other, when they had no one else to quarrel with, and were generally as near being drunk as the state of their finances would permit them to be. In short, they were a nuisance and annoyance to every decent man in the prisons. We were very often embargoed, (as we termed it,) that is, confined to our own yards, and sometimes shut up in our prisons, in consequence of the depredations of these fellows; and in this, as in many other affairs of this life, the innocent and guilty suffer alike.

At first, the British government furnished the prisoners with clothing; and nothing could exceed the grotesqueness of appearance of an individual rigged out in this garb of captivity. It consisted of a coarse woollen jacket, dyed a bright yellow color, marked on the back with what is called the king's broad arrow, which resembles the two sides of a triangle, the point turned upward, and another straight line running from the point, equi-distant through the middle; and the letters T. O., being the initials of transport office, in staring

black letters, one letter on each side of the arrow. Also, a pair of pantaloons of the same color and material, with the same marks upon them; a comical cap made of coarse woollen stuff, and a pair of woven list shoes, with wooden soles about an inch thick. I regret that I did not procure a suit of this clothing, to bring home and deposite in some museum; and I think that a Dartmoor rough ally, rigged out in his prison toggery, would form a valuable addition to a travelling menagerie, to be exhibi ted as a curiosity.

Very few of the prisoners would accept of this dress, preferring rather to suffer the cold and dampness of the prisons than to wear it; and at last, Mr. Beasly, the nominal agent for prisoners of war, sent down from London some clothing for the destitute.

The trade in old clothes furnished employment for a part of the prisoners, who were almost as great nuisances as the rough allies. They would go about the prisons at all times of the day, crying out, “ any old clothes to sell? who wants to buy any old clothes?" They made great profits, for in a week or two after the allowance had been paid us by Mr. Beasly's clerk, many of the improvident and gambling prisoners would be destitute of money; they would then sell their clothes for a small sum; and when the time came round again to receive their money, they would buy in again the same garments, or others, at an exorbitant profit, again to sell and again to buy, according to the state of their finances. These men had the character, and I suspect justly, of being great rascals-frequently stealing the clothes they had to sell.

The situation of the prisons was a very unhealthy one, and great mortality generally prevailed among the prisoners. Situated as we were, on a mountain said to be seventeen hundred feet above the level of the sea, in a climate proverbial as is the west of England for moisture of atmosphere; poorly paid and scarcely clad; immured in gloomy stone prisons, which a ray of sun scarcely ever penetrated; without glass in the windows to guard us against the cold and dampness, and no fires allowed in the prisons, we could not be otherwise than unhealthy. The weather, except when by a mere chance it was fair, was continually

drizzling. I do not believe, that in the seven months I was there, we had more than six weeks when it did not rain, and this at long intervals. I find entries in my diary where I have noted the appearance of the sun after intervals of six, ten, and in one instance, fourteen days; and these entries are not unfrequent. I think I can say, without the least particle of exaggeration, that I did not enjoy a single day of good health while at Dartmoor; and as friends, acquaintances, and townsmen were dropping away all around me, I contemplated the strong probability that I, too, should leave my bones in the prison burying-ground.

Those who were considered well, were afflicted a large portion of the time with swelled jaws and tooth-ache; so much so, that there were men in the prisons who had no other employment than to cure the tooth-ache. This they did by making a paste of bee's-wax, sulphur, and a little British oil. A small piece of this paste was put into a saucer or plate and set on fire; a small paper cone was then placed over it, and the smoke conveyed through a small hole in the point of the cone into the hollow of the acheing tooth. There was a deal of quackery about it, as they pretended to extract a worm from the tooth, and they exhibited it on the plate. This was done by putting a mustard-seed into each parcel of the paste, which getting shrivelled and parched by the heat, passed off well enough as a small worm. I can testify to the efficacy of the process; and it was probably caused by the conversion, in the act of combustion, of a portion of the sulphur into sulphuric acid.

Small pox and measles made great ravages, but the most prevailing disease was that disorder of the lungs, called by physicians, Perepneumonia notha.'

·

It hewed down the prisoners in vast numbers; and, as I have already mentioned, almost the whole crew of a South American privateer were exterminated by it.

The whole number of prisoners who died at the depot was two hundred and fifty-two. The prisons were used to confine Americans in about a year, and the average number of prisoners there was under four thousand. The mortality, then, was about one in thirteen, or six or seven times the average of mortality in our New-England towns; and when it is recollected that the prisoners were generally robust men, in youth or middle life, and that, at home, comparatively few deaths take place among men of this description, it must be conceded that the mortality at Dartmoor was frightful.

It was at one time so great that the British government sent a surgeon down from London; but whatever medical skill or kind and attentive treatment could do, was done by the head surgeon of the depot, Dr. George McGrath, a tall, one-eyed, but whole-souled Irish gentleman. He possessed more influence with the prisoners than any one else, and he owed it to his courteous manners, and kind and skilful treatment of those who fell under his care. When we were about to leave the prisons, the inmates, through a committee, addressed a grateful and affectionate letter to this gentleman, thanking him, in warm terms, for his kindness; to which he returned a very modest and kind reply. I brought away with me a copy of this correspondence, but I regret that I cannot now find it.

The assistant surgeon was not popu lar with the prisoners; he had the character of being harsh, severe and unkind. I do not certainly know if he was so, as I never had any intercourse with him.

THE Sources of amusement at Dartmoor were various. Running, wrestling, boxing, ball, cricket and other athletic games and exercises, were continually going on in the day time, in the several yards. Many of the pri

soners became expert boxers and fencers under the tuition they received there.

But the all-absorbing amusement with too many of them was gambling. The judicious portion of the captives fore