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.