of
Italy, France or England; and when avarice, and the thirst for a
domineering command leads the Scotchman out of his native rocks and
barren hills, and treeless country, he talks of it as a second
paradise, and as the ancient Egyptians longed after their onions and
garlics, so these half-dressed, raw-boned-mountaineers, talk in
raptures of their country, of their bag-pipes, their singed sheep's
head, and their "_haggiss_." The only way that I can think of, (by way
of preventing the hearts blood of Old England from being drained off
into America,) is to people Nova Scotia and Newfoundland with
Scotchmen; where they can raise a few sheep, for _singing_, and for
_haggiss_; and where they can wear their Gothic habit, and be indulged
in the luxury of the bag-pipe, enjoy over again their native fogs, and
howling storms, and think themselves at home. Nature seems to have
fixed the great articles of food in Nova Scotia to fish and potatoes;
this last article is of excellent quality in that country. Then let
these strangers, these transplanted Scotchmen, these _hostes_, these
antipodes to the Americans, man the British fleet; and fill up the
ranks of their armies, and mutual antipathy will prevent the dreaded
coalition.

But I hasten to return from these people to my prison ship. Among
other conveniences, we had a sort of a shed erected over the
hatch-way, on which to air our hammocks. This was grateful to us all,
especially to those whose learning had taught them the salutiferous
effects of a free circulation of the vital air. It is surprising, that
after what the English philosophers have written concerning the
properties of the atmospheric air; after what Boyle, Mayhew, Hales and
_Priestly_ have written on this subject: and after what they have
learnt from the history of the _Calcutta black hole_; and after what
_Howard_ has taught them concerning prisons and hospitals, it is
surprising that in 1813, the commanders of national ships in the
English service, should be allowed to thrust a crowd of men into those
hideous _black holes_, situated in the bottom of their ships, far
below the surface of the water. I have sometimes pleased myself with
the hope that what is here written may contribute to the abolition of
a practice so disgraceful to a nation; a nation which has the honor of
first teaching mankind the true properties of the air; and of the
philosophy of the healthy construction of prisons and hospitals; and
one would