Barney, it appears, was selected for special consideration by Admiral Byron, having a boat placed at his service, and being entrusted with the duty of visiting the prison-ships in which his compatriots were confined and reporting upon their condition to the admiral. The only restriction placed upon his liberty was the obligation to sleep on board the _Ardent_: he was certainly a most highly favoured prisoner of war. Upon one occasion, landing in New York in his American naval uniform, to breakfast with one of the admiral's staff, he was seized upon by an infuriated mob, who were proceeding to throw him into a fire which was raging, alleging that he had originated the conflagration. A British officer fortunately intervened and explained the situation. Upon the advent of Admiral Rodney, however, this pleasant time came to an end; and in November--_not_ December, as in Mr. Maclay's account--1780, Barney, in company with about seventy other American officers, was placed on board the _Yarmouth_, a 64-gun ship, under the command of Captain Lutwidge, for conveyance to England; and here is Mr. Maclay's description of the treatment they received. "From the time these Americans stepped aboard the _Yarmouth_ their captors gave it to be understood, by hints and innuendoes, that they were being taken to England to 'be hanged as rebels'; and, indeed, the treatment they received aboard the _Yarmouth_ on the passage over led them to believe that the British officers intended to cheat the gallows of their prey by causing the prisoners to die before reaching port. On coming aboard the ship of the line these officers were stowed away in the lower hold, next to the keel, under five decks, and many feet below the water-line. Here, in a twelve-by-twenty-foot room, with up-curving floor, and only three feet high, the seventy-one men were stowed for fifty-three days like so much merchandise, without light or good air, unable to stand upright, with no means and with no attempt made to remove the accumulating filth! Their food was of the poorest quality, and was supplied in such insufficient quantities that, whenever one of the prisoners died, the survivors concealed the fact until the body began to putrefy, in order that the dead man's allowance might be added to theirs. The water served them to drink was so thick with repulsive matter that the prisoners were compelled to strain it between compressed teeth.