and as profane in their language, as any boys I ever
saw. Frenchmen are bad companions for American boys. They can teach
them more than they ever thought of in their own country.

In January last, three hundred and sixty American prisoners were sent
on board this ship. Great mortality prevailed among the Danish
prisoners, prior to the arrival of our countrymen, on board the
Bahama. The Danes occupied her main deck, while we occupied the lower
one.--When our poor fellows were tumbled from out of one ship into
this, they had not sufficient clothes to cover their shivering limbs,
in this coldest month of the year. They were, indeed, objects of
compassion, emaciated, pale, shuddering, low spirited, and their
constitutions sadly broken down.--Their morbid systems were not strong
enough to resist any impression, especially the contagion of the jail
fever, under which the Danes were dying by dozens. Out of three
hundred and sixty one Americans, who came last on board, eighty-four
were, in the course of three months, buried in the surrounding
marshes, the burying place of the prison ships. I may possibly
forgive, but I never can forget the unfeeling conduct of the British,
on this occasion. Why send men on board a crowded prison ship, which
they knew was infected with a mortal contagion? Their government
_must_ have known the inevitable consequences of putting three hundred
debilitated men on board an infected ship, where there were not enough
well to attend on the sick.--If we, Americans, ever treated British
prisoners in our hands, in this cruel manner, the facts have never
reached my ears. Here was an opportunity for redeeming the blasted
reputation of the British, for the horrors of their old Jersey prison
ship, in the revolutionary war. But they supposed that our affairs
were so low; and their own so glorious, that there was no room for
retaliation. The surrounding marshes were already unhealthy, without
adding the poison of human bodies, which were every hour put into
them.--Several persons, now prisoners here, and I rank myself among
that number, had a high idea of British humanity, prior to our
captivity; but we have been compelled to change our opinions of the
character of the people from whom we descended. The commander of the
Bahama, Mr. W. is a passionate and very hot tempered man, but is, upon
the whole, an humane one. We have more to praise than to blame in his
conduct towards us. He is not ill disposed to the Am