uarter-deck, he turns pale and
trembles, like a thief before a country justice; but not so the
American; he, if he be innocent, speaks his mind with a firm tone and
steady countenance; and if he feels himself insulted, he is not afraid
to deal in sarcasm. In the instances just mentioned, _Jonathan_ knew
full well that the very name of _Bunker Hill_, the _Guerriere_, and
the _Java_, was a deep mortification to _John Bull_. Actuated by this
sort of feeling, the steady Romans shook the world.

From this digression, let us return, and resume our Journal. We
arrived off Portsmouth the fifth of October, 1813; and were visited by
the health officer, and ordered to the Mother-bank, opposite that
place, where vessels ride out their quarantine. The next day the ship
was fumigated, and every exertion made by the officers to put her in a
condition for inspection by the health-officer. Letters were fumigated
by vinegar, or nitrous acid, before they were allowed to go out of the
ship. Their attention was next turned to us, miserable prisoners. We
were ordered to wash, and put on clean shirts. Being informed that
many of us had not a second shirt to put on, the captain took down the
names of such destitute men, but never supplied them with a single
rag.

The prisoners were now as anxious to go on shore, and to know the
extent of their misery, as the captain of the Regulous was to get rid
of us. The most of us, therefore, joined heartily in the task of
cleansing the ship, and in white-washing the lower deck, or the place
we occupied. Some, either through laziness or resentment, refused to
do any thing about it; but the rest of us said, that it was always
customary in America, when we left a house, or a room we hired, to
leave it clean, and it was ever deemed disreputable to leave an
apartment dirty. The officers of the ship tried to make them, and
began to threaten them, but they persisted in their refusal, and every
attempt to force them was fruitless. I do not myself wonder that the
British officers, so used to prompt and even servile obedience of
their own men, were ready to knock some of our obstinate, saucy
fellows, on the head. This brings to my mind the concise but just
observation of an English traveller through the United States of
America. After saying that the inhabitants south of the Hudson were a
mixed race of English, Irish, Scotch, Dutch, Germans and Swedes, among
whom you could observe no precise national character; h