the name of "New Scotland?" The picture would here be complete if it were set off with here and there a meagre and dried up highlander, without shoes, stockings or breeches, with a ragged plaid, a little blue flat bonnet, sitting on a bleak rock playing a bag-pipe, and singing the glories of a country that never was conquered! To finish the picture, you have only to imagine a dozen more ragged, raw-boned Scotchmen, sitting on the bare rocks around the piper, knitting stockings to send to England and America, where they can afford to wear them. Such is Scotia, old and new, whose sons are remarkable for their inveterate hatred of the Americans, as we shall see in the course of this narrative.

As to the inside of the prison at Melville Island, if the American reader expects to hear it represented as a place resembling the large prisons for criminals in the United States, such as those at Boston, Charlestown, New York, or Philadelphia, he will be sadly disappointed. Some of these prisons are as clean and nearly as comfortable, as some of the monasteries and convents in Europe. Our new prisons in the United States reflect great honor on the nation. They speak loudly that we are a considerate and humane people; whereas the prison at Halifax, erected solely for the safe keeping of prisoners of war, resembles an horse stable, with stalls or stanchions, for separating the cattle from each other. It is to a contrivance of this sort that they attach the cords that support those canvass bags, or cradles, called hammocks. Four tier of these hanging-nests were made to swing one above another, between these stalls or stanchions. To those unused to these lofty sleeping-births, they were rather unpleasant situations for repose. But use makes every thing easy.

The first time I was shut up for the night, in this prison, it distressed me too much to close my eyes. Its closeness and smell were, in a degree, disagreeable, but this was trifling to what I experienced afterwards, in another place. The general hum and confused noise from almost every hammock, was at first, very distressing. Some would be lamenting their hard fate at being shut up like negro slaves in a Guinea ship, or like fowls in a hen coop, for no crime, but for fighting the battles of their country. Some were cursing and execrating their oppressors; others, late at night, were relating their adventures to a new prisoner; others lamenting their aberrations from rectitude, and disobedience of parents, and head strong wilfulness, that drove them to sea, contrary to their parents' wish, while others of the younger class, were sobbing out their lamentations at the thoughts of what their mothers and sisters suffered, after knowing of their imprisonment. Not unfrequently the whole night was spent in this way, and when, about day break, the weary prisoner fell into a dose, he was waked from his slumber by the grinding noise of the locks, and the unbarring of the doors, with the cry of "turn out—all out," when each man took down his hammock and lashed it up, and slung it on his back, and was ready to answer to the roll call of the turnkey. If any, through natural heaviness, or indisposition, was dilatory, he was sure to feel the bayonet of the brutal soldier, who appeared to us to have a natural antipathy to a sailor, and from what I observed, I believe that in general little or no love is lost between them.

This prison is swept out twice a week, by the prisoners.—The task is performed by the respective messes in turns.—When the prison is washed, the prisoners are kept out until it is perfectly dry. This, in the wet seasons, and in the severity of winter, is sometimes very distressing and dangerous to health; for there is no retiring place for shelter; it is like a stable, where the cattle are either under cover, or exposed to the weather, be it ever so inclement.

When we arrived here in May, 1813, there were about nine hundred prisoners; but many died by the severity of the winter; for the quantity of fuel allowed by the British government was insufficient to convey warmth through the prison. The men were cruelly harrassed by the barbarous custom of mustering and parading them in the severest cold, and even in snow storms. The agent, Miller, might have alleviated the sufferings of our people, had he been so disposed, without relaxation of duty. But he, as well as the turnkey, named Grant, seemed to take delight in tormenting the Americans. This man would often keep the prisoners out for many hours, in the severest weather, when the mercury was ten and fifteen degrees below zero, under a pretext that the prison had been washed, and was not sufficiently dry for their reception: when in fact every drop of water used was in a moment ice. People in the southern states, and the inhabitants of England and Ireland, can form no adequate idea of the frightful climate of Nova Scotia. The description of the sufferings of our poor fellows the past winter, was enough to make one's heart ach, and to rouse our indignation against the agents in this business.

Our people are sensible to kind treatment, and are ready to acknowledge humane and considerate conduct towards themselves, or towards their companions; but they are resentful in proportion as they are grateful. They speak very generally of the conduct of Miller, the agent, and Grant, the turnkey, with disgust and resentment. A complaint was made to him of the badness of the beef served out to the prisoners, upon which he collected the prisoners, and mounting the stair-case, began a most passionate harrangue, declaring that the beef was good enough, and a d—d deal better than they had in their own country: and if they did not eat it they should have none. He then went on as follows "Hundreds of you, d—d scoundrels, have been to me begging and pleading that I would interpose my influence that you might be the first to be exchanged, to return home to your families, who were starving in your absence; and now you have the impudence to tell me to my face, that the king's beef is not good enough for your dainty stomachs. Why some of that there beef is good enough for me to eat. You are a set of mean rascals, you beg of an enemy the favours which your own government won't grant you. You complain of ill treatment, when you never fared better in your lives. Had you been in a French prison, and fed on horse beef, you would have some grounds of complaint; but here in his Britannic Majesty's royal prison, you have every thing that is right and proper for persons taken fighting against his crown and dignity. There is a surgeon here for you if you are sick, and physic for you to take if you are sick, and a hospital to go to into the bargain; and if you die, there are boards enough (pointing to a pile of lumber in the yard) for to make you coffins, and an hundred and fifty acres of land to bury you in; and if you are not satisfied with all this, you may die and be d—d." Having finished this eloquent harrangue, orator Miller descended from his rostrum, and strutted out of the prison yard, accompanied with hisses from some of the prisoners.

On a re-examination, however, of the "king's beef," some pieces were found too much tainted for a dog to eat, and the prisoners threw it over the pickets. After this the supply of wholesome meat was such as it ought to be; full good enough for Mr. Miller himself to eat; and some of the very best pieces good enough for Mr. Grant, the turnkey.

In all this business of provision for prisoners of war, one thing ought to be taken into consideration, which may be offered as an extenuation of crime alledged against the British agents for prisoners; and that is, that the American soldier and sailor live infinitely better in America, than the same class of people do in Great Britain and Ireland. Generally speaking, an American eats three times the quantity of animal