e most respectable of the prisoners; those most likely to take the
lead in an insurrection. We could easily trace all these different
stories to the cunning Mr. Miller, through his subordinate agents.

On the first day of September, 1813, an hundred of us prisoners were
selected from different crews, and ordered to get our baggage ready
and be at the gate at a certain hour. On enquiring of our keeper, Mr.
Grant, what was the design of this order, he replied with his habitual
duplicity, that we were "_to be sent home_." When Mr. Miller was
asked the same question, he replied, that he had a particular reason
for not answering the question; but none of us doubted, from the
selection from different crews, but that we were about to be sent to
our beloved country and natal homes. We left the prison with light
hearts, not without pitying our companions, who were doomed to wait a
while longer before they could be made so happy as we then felt. We
stepped on board the boats with smiling countenances. The barge men
told us that the ships we were going to were cartels.

Having arrived among the shipping, the officer of the boat was asked
which of these several ships was the cartel--"_There_," said he,
pointing to an old 44, "_is the ship which is to take you to old
England_." Heavens above! What a stroke of thunder was this! We looked
at each other with horror, with dismay, and stupefaction, before our
depressed souls recoiled with indignation! such a change of
countenance I never beheld! Had we been on the deck of a ship, and
been informed that a match was just about being touched to her
magazine of powder, we should not have exhibited such a picture of
paleness and dismay. The deception was cruel; the duplicity was
infamous. The whole trick from beginning to end, was an instance of
cowardice, meanness and villany. It proves that cowards are cruel;
that barbarity and sincerity never meet in the same bosom.

We now saw that the rumor of our rising upon our keepers, and marching
to Halifax was a miserable falsehood, spread abroad for no other
purpose than to double our guards, and prevent the imagined
consequences of desperation, should it be discovered that we were to
be sent across the Atlantic. It is possible we might have succeeded in
disarming the soldiers on the island, and taken their cannon; but for
want of more arms we could have done but little. Had we all been
armed, we could have entered Halifax, and put to the test t