But at this juncture a new trouble threatened all the peace and comfort of the place. The prisoners seem to have grown all at once alive to the power they possessed of combination. It had been suspected for some time that a conspiracy was in progress among the denizens of D Ward, Pentagon two, and a minute search of the several cells brought to light a number of clandestine communications. These, written mostly on the blank pages of prayer-books, and spare copy-book leaves, were all to the same effect: exhortations to riot and mutiny. A certain George Vigers was the prime mover; all the letters, which were very widely disseminated, having issued from his pen. It had long been openly discussed among the prisoners that the hulks were pleasanter places than the Penitentiary. Here, then, was an opportunity of removal. All who joined heartily in the projected commotion would draw upon themselves the ire of the committee, and would certainly be drafted to the hulks. To explain what might otherwise appear unintelligible, it must be mentioned here, that the punishment implied by a sentence to the hulks was by no means of a terrifying character, as is evidenced by the choice of the prisoners. A year or two later (1832), the report of the Parliamentary Committee on Secondary Punishments laid bare the system, and expressed their unqualified disapprobation of the whole treatment of convicts on board the hulks. It being accepted that the separation of criminals, and their severe punishment, are necessary to make crime a terror to the evil doer, the committee pointed out that in both these respects the system of management of the hulks was not only necessarily deficient, but actually inimical. All that has been said of the miserable effects of the association of criminals in the prisons on shore, the profaneness, the vice, the demoralization that are its inevitable consequences, applied in the fullest sense to the hulks. The numbers in each ship varied from eighty to eight hundred. The ships were divided into wards of from twelve to thirty persons; in these they were confined when not at labour in the dockyard, and the evil consequences of such associations may easily be conceived, even were the strictest discipline enforced. But the facts are stated as follows: “The convicts after being shut up for the night are allowed to have lights between decks, in some ships as late as ten o’clock; although against the rules of the establishment, they are permitted the use of musical instruments; flash songs, dancing, fighting, and gaming take place; the old offenders are in the habit of robbing the newcomers; newspapers and improper books are clandestinely introduced; a communication is frequently kept up with their old associates on shore; and occasionally spirits are introduced on board. It is true that the greater part of these practices are against the rules of the establishment; but their existence in defiance of such rules shows an inherent defect in the