The keepers did not ascertain the means by which we had left the barracks, though they had seen the cut pickets of course. We did not attempt, therefore, to cut through again, but resolved to climb. The English had strengthened the pickets with cross-pieces, which were a great assistance to _us_, and I now desire to express my thanks for the same. We waited for a warm, but dark and rainy night in May, before we commenced our new movement. We had still plenty of money, I having brought back with me to prison forty crowns, and having driven a thriving trade in the interval. We got out through the bars, precisely as we had done before, and at the very same window. This was a small job. After climbing the pickets, either Littlefield or Barnet dropped on the outside, a little too carelessly, and was overheard. The sentinel immediately called for the corporal of the guard, but we were in the water, swimming quite near the bridge, and some little distance from the guard-house on the main. There was a stir on the island, while we were in the water, but we all got ashore, safe and unseen. We took to the same woods as before, but turned south instead of west. Our route brought us along by the waterside, and we travelled hard all that night. Littlefield pretended to be our guide, but we got lost, and remained two days and nights in the woods, without food, and completely at fault as to which way to steer. At length we ventured out into a high-way, by open day-light, and good luck threw an old Irish seaman, who then lived by fishing in [missing]. After a little conversation, we told this old man we were deserters from a vessel of war, and he seemed to like us all the better for it. He had served himself, and had a son impressed, and seemed to like the English navy little better than we did ourselves. He took us to a hut on the beach, and fed us with fish, potatoes, and bread, giving us a very comfortable and hearty meal. We remained in this hut until sunset, receiving a great deal of useful advice from the old man, and then we left him. We used some precaution in travelling, sleeping in the woods; but we kept moving by day as well as by night, and halting only when tired, and a good place offered. We were not very well off for food, though we brought a little from the fisherman's hut, and found quantities of winter-berries by the way-side.