A clever quibble saved the life of a prisoner on the _San Rafael_ hulk at Plymouth. He was tried at Exeter for imitating a £2 note with indian ink, but pleaded that as he was under the protection of no laws he had not broken any, and was acquitted. This was before cases of murder and forgery were brought under the civil jurisdiction. Well-deserved releases of prisoners in recognition of good actions done by them in the past were not rare. In 1808 a prisoner on the _Sampson_ at Chatham, named Sabatier, was released without exchange on the representation of the London Missionary Society, who acted for Captain Carbonel of the famous privateer _Grand Bonaparte_, who had shown great kindness to the crew and passengers of the ship _Duff_ which he had captured. In the same year a prisoner at Plymouth, named Verdie, was released unconditionally on the petition of Lieut. Ross, R.N., for having kindly treated the Lieutenant’s father when the latter was a prisoner in France. In 1810 a Portsmouth prisoner was unconditionally liberated upon his proving satisfactorily that he had helped Midshipman Holgate of the _Shannon_ to escape from imprisonment in France. Almost to the very last the care of sick prisoners on the hulks seems to have been criminally neglected. For instance, the In-letters to the Transport Office during the year 1810 are full of vehement or pathetic complaints about the miserable state of the sick on the _Marengo_ and _Princess Sophia_ hospital ships at Portsmouth. Partly this may be due to an economical craze which affected the authorities at this time, but it must be chiefly attributed to medical inefficiency and neglect. Most of the chief medical officers of the prison ships had their own private practices ashore, with what results to the poor foreigners, nominally their sole care, can be imagined, and all of them resented the very necessary condition that they should sleep on the ships. In this year 1810, Dr. Kirkwood, of the _Europe_ hospital ship at Plymouth, was convicted of culpable neglect in regularly sleeping ashore, and was superseded. As a result of an inquiry into the causes of abnormal sickness on the _Vigilant_ and at Forton Prison, Portsmouth, the surgeons were all superseded, and the order was issued that all prison-ship surgeons should daily examine the healthy prisoners so as to check incipient sickness. I append the States of the _Renown_ hospital ship at Plymouth for February 1814: ‘Staff: 2 surgeons, 1 assistant surgeon, 1 matron, 1 interpreter, 1 cook, 1 barber, 1 mattress maker, 1 tailor, 1 washerwoman, and 10 nurses. Received 141. Discharged 69. Died 19. Remaining 53.