Our prison ship was moored in what they called Gillingham _reach_. We would here remark, that the river, and Thames, and Medway make, like all other rivers near to their outlets, many turnings or bendings; some forming a more obtuse, and some a more acute angle with their banks. This course of the river compels a vessel to _stretch_ along in one direction, and then to _stretch_ along in a very different direction. What the English call _reaching_, we in America call _stretching_. Each of these different courses of the river they call "_reaches_." They have their _long reach_ and their _short reach_, and a number of reaches, under local, or less obvious names. Some are named after some of their own pirates, which is here and there designated by a gibbet; a singular object, be sure, to greet the eye of a stranger on entering the grand watery avenue of the capital of the British empire. But there is no room for disputing concerning our tastes. The reach where our prison was moored was about three miles below Chatham; and is named from the village of Gillingham. Now whether _reach_ or _stretch_ be the most proper term for an effort to sail against the wind, is left to be settled by those reverend monopolizers of all the arts and sciences, the _London Reviewers_; who, by the way, and we mention it _pro bono publico_, would very much increase their stock of knowledge and usefulness, if they would depute a few missionaries, for their own reverend body, to pass and repass the Atlantic in a British transport, containing in its _black hole_ an hundred or two of Yankee prisoners of war: We do wish that the _London Quarterly Reviewers_ particularly would take a trip in the _Malabar_; it would, if they should be so fortunate as to survive the voyage, make them better judges of the character of the English nation, and of the American nation, and of that nearly lost tribe, the Caledonian nation.