There were thirteen prison ships beside our own, all ships of the line, and one hospital ship, moored near each other. They were filled, principally, with Frenchmen, Danes and Italians. We found on our arrival _twelve hundred_ Americans, chiefly men who had been _impressed_ on board British men of war, and who had given themselves up, with a declaration that they would not fight against their own countrymen, and _they were sent here_ and _confined_, without any distinction made between them and those who had been taken in arms. The injustice of the thing is glaring. During the night the prisoners were confined on the lower deck and on the main deck; but in the day time they were allowed the privilege of the "pound," so called, and the forecastle;--which was a comfortable arrangement compared with the _black holes_ of the Regulus and Malabar. There were three officers on board our ship, a lieutenant, a sailing master, and a surgeon, together with sixty marines and a few invalids, or superannuated seamen to go in the boats. The whole were under the command of a commodore, while captain _Hutchinson_, agent for the prisoners of war, exercised a sort of control over the whole; but the butts and bounds of their jurisdiction I never knew. The commodore visited each of the prison ships every month, to hear and redress complaints, and to correct abuses, and to enforce wholesome regulations. All written communications, and all intercourse by letter passed through the hands of captain Hutchinson. If the letters contained nothing of evil tendency, they were suffered to pass; but if they contained any thing which the agent deemed improper, they were detained.