In May 1806 Garneray, who had been captured in the West Indies, was taken on board the hulk _Prothée_ at Portsmouth, stripped, plunged into a cold bath, and clothed in an ill-fitting orange-yellow suit, on the back of which the large letters T. O. proclaimed him as under the care of the Transport Office. He describes the _Prothée_,—as he is hustled into the mob of ‘dead people come out for a moment from their graves, hollow-eyed, earthy complexioned, round backed, unshaven, their frames barely covered with yellow rags, their bodies frightfully thin,’—as a black, shapeless sarcophagus, of which the only parts open to air was the space between the fo’c’sle and the poop and the fo’c’sle itself, which was unbearable from the smoke of the many chimneys on it. Each end of the ship was occupied by the garrison, the officers aft and the soldiers forward. A stout barrier divided the guard from the prisoners, which was so garnished with heavy-headed nails as to seem like iron, and was fitted with loop-holes for inspection, and, if needs be, for firing through. On the lower deck and in the lower battery were packed seven hundred human beings. Only one ladder communicated between the lower deck and the lower battery. In the latter the only daylight came through port-holes, in the former through narrow scuttles, all of which had iron gratings. All round the ship, just above the water-line, ran a gallery with open-work floor, and along this paced three sentries by day and seven by night. The ship was commanded by a lieutenant and a master, and was garrisoned by forty or fifty soldiers under a marine officer and about twenty sailors. The day guard consisted of three sentries on the gallery, one on the ladder communicating with the battery, one on the fo’c’sle, one on each gangway, and on the poop a dozen armed men ready for instant action. At night there were seven sentries on the gallery, one on the battery ladder; an officer, a sergeant, a corporal, and a dozen sailors were continually moving round, and every quarter of an hour the ‘All’s well’ rang out. The ship’s boats were slung ten feet above the water, and one was chained to the gallery aft. At 6 a.m. in summer and 8 in winter, the port-holes were opened, and the air thus liberated was so foul that the men opening the port-holes invariably jumped back immediately. At 6 p.m. in summer and 2 p.m. in winter, every wall and grating was sounded with iron bars, and one hour later all the prisoners were driven on deck and counted. [Illustration: GARNERAY DRAWING AN ENGLISH SOLDIER. (_After Louis Garneray._) ]