a gibbet; a singular object, be sure, to greet the eye
of a stranger on entering the grand watery avenue of the capital of
the British empire. But there is no room for disputing concerning our
tastes. The reach where our prison was moored was about three miles
below Chatham; and is named from the village of Gillingham. Now
whether _reach_ or _stretch_ be the most proper term for an effort to
sail against the wind, is left to be settled by those reverend
monopolizers of all the arts and sciences, the _London Reviewers_;
who, by the way, and we mention it _pro bono publico_, would very much
increase their stock of knowledge and usefulness, if they would depute
a few missionaries, for their own reverend body, to pass and repass
the Atlantic in a British transport, containing in its _black hole_ an
hundred or two of Yankee prisoners of war: We do wish that the _London
Quarterly Reviewers_ particularly would take a trip in the _Malabar_;
it would, if they should be so fortunate as to survive the voyage,
make them better judges of the character of the English nation, and of
the American nation, and of that nearly lost tribe, the Caledonian
nation.

There were thirteen prison ships beside our own, all ships of the
line, and one hospital ship, moored near each other. They were filled,
principally, with Frenchmen, Danes and Italians. We found on our
arrival _twelve hundred_ Americans, chiefly men who had been
_impressed_ on board British men of war, and who had given themselves
up, with a declaration that they would not fight against their own
countrymen, and _they were sent here_ and _confined_, without any
distinction made between them and those who had been taken in arms.
The injustice of the thing is glaring. During the night the prisoners
were confined on the lower deck and on the main deck; but in the day
time they were allowed the privilege of the "pound," so called, and
the forecastle;--which was a comfortable arrangement compared with the
_black holes_ of the Regulus and Malabar. There were three officers on
board our ship, a lieutenant, a sailing master, and a surgeon,
together with sixty marines and a few invalids, or superannuated
seamen to go in the boats. The whole were under the command of a
commodore, while captain _Hutchinson_, agent for the prisoners of war,
exercised a sort of control over the whole; but the butts and bounds
of their jurisdiction I never knew. The commodore visited each of the
prison ships ev