eople consider ground oats as only fit for cattle, and it
is never eaten by the human species in the United States. It is said
that this oatmeal porridge was introduced to the British prisons by
the Scotch influence, and we think that none but hogs and Scotchmen
ought to eat it. A mess more repellant to a Yankee's stomach could not
well be contrived. It is said, however, that the highlanders are very
fond of it, and that the Scotch physicians extol it as a very
wholesome and nutritious food, and very nicely calculated for the
sedentary life of a prisoner: but by what we have heard, we are led to
believe, that oatmeal is the staple commodity of Scotland, and that
the highly favoured Scotch have the exclusive privilege of supplying
the miserable creatures whom the fortune of war has thrown into the
hands of the English, with this national dish, so delicious to
Scotchmen, and so abhorrent to an American.

Excepting this pint of oatmeal porridge, we had nothing more to eat or
drink until dinner time; when we were served with a pint of
_pea-water_. Our allowance for the week, for it is difficult to
calculate it by the day, was four and a half pounds of bread, two and
a quarter pounds of beef or pork, one and a quarter pounds of flour,
and the _pea-water_, which they called "_soup_," five days in every
week. Now let any man of knowledge and observation judge, whether the
portion of food here allotted to each man was sufficient to preserve
him from the exquisite tortures of hunger; and perhaps there is no
torture more intolerable to young men not yet arrived to their full
growth. We had been guilty of no crime. We had been engaged in the
service of our dear country, and deserved applause, and not torture.
And be it forever remembered, that the Americans always feed their
prisoners well, and treat them with humanity.

The _Regulus_, for that is the name of the ship we were in, is, if I
mistake not, an old line of battle ship, armed _en flute_, that is,
her lower deck was fitted up with bunks, or births, so large as to
contain six men in a birth. The only passages for light or air were
through the main and fore hatches, which were covered with a grating,
at which stood, day and night, a sentinel. The communication between
our dungeon and the upper deck was only through the main hatch way, by
means of a rope ladder, that could be easily cut away at a moment's
warning, should the half starved American prisoners ever conclude to