Here Mr. Clements discovered that the door was not shut, and he closed it tight, preventing my hearing any more. I now turned to Marble, whose countenance betrayed the self-reproach he endured, at ascertaining the injury he had done, by his ill-judged artifice. I made no reproaches, however, but squeezed his hand in token of my forgiveness. The poor fellow, I plainly saw, had great difficulty in forgiving himself; though he said nothing at the moment. The conference between Lord Harry Dermond and Mr. Clements, lasted half an hour. At the end of that time, both appeared in the forward cabin, and I saw by the countenance of the last, that he had failed in his object. As for us, we were transferred, with the few articles we possessed, to the Speedy, on board which ship our arrival made as much of a sensation as the discipline of a man-of-war would permit. I was put in irons, the moment we reached the quarter-deck, and placed under the charge of a sentinel near the cabin-door. Some little attention was paid to my comfort, it is true, and a canvass screen was fitted for me, behind which I ate and slept, with some sort of retirement. My irons were of so large a sort, that I found means to take them off, and to put them on, at pleasure. I was disposed to think that the officers were aware of the fact, and that the things were used as much for the sake of appearance as for anything else. Apart from the confinement, and the injury done my affairs, I had no especial causes of complaint, though this imprisonment lasted until the month of April 1804, or quite five months. During this time, the Speedy arrived as far south as the line; then she hovered about the Canaries and the Azores, on her way homeward, looking in vain for another Frenchman. I was permitted to take exercise, twice a day, once in the gangway, and once on the gun-deck, and my table was actually supplied from the cabin. On no head, had I any other cause to complain, than the fact that my ship had been wrongfully seized in the first place, and that I was now suffering imprisonment for a crime--if crime indeed it would have been--that I certainly had not been obliged to commit. During the five months I thus remained a prisoner on the gun-deck of the Speedy, I never exchanged a syllable with either Marble or Neb. I saw them both occasionally, employed on duty, like the crew, and we often exchanged significant looks, but never any words. Occasionally I had a visit from an officer; these gentlemen sitting down and conversing with me, on general topics, evidently to relieve the tedium of my confinement, without making any allusion to its cause. I cannot say that my health suffered, a circumstance that was probably owing to the cleanliness of the ship, and the admirable manner in which she was ventilated.