"Yes; you would be astonished," continued the lieutenant, whose dialect I render in English, "if you knew how these incorrigible wretches persevere in a vice that ends in the death of many and the misery of all. Their clothes, their beds, their rations, the hair of their heads, and their very teeth, they convert into objects on which to hazard the turn of a card or a cast of the dice. For months in advance many of them have lost all their food to more fortunate or more knavish gamblers; and so hard of heart have some of these become, that they will see their victims perish of hunger before their eyes without bestowing a morsel to alleviate their sufferings. Many have died on the lower deck, naked, of cold in the winter, and others of sheer starvation. In the stomachs of two, who were thus found dead in the cable-tier yesterday, our surgeon found only a little water. I have had small-arm men posted over the mess-tables with loaded pistols, to force each man to eat his own rations, whether gambled away or not; and all night long we have to watch every portion of the ship, as they are for ever cutting holes in her sheathing with knives they have secreted--holes for the purpose of escaping or of scuttling her with all on board. So, sir," he added, with an oath, "you are likely to find yourself in pleasant company." It would seem that on finding the ship stranded in Rye Harbour, and so near the shore, a privateersman, notorious as a ringleader in every disorder, cut, with the help of a knife--the edge of which he had serrated as a saw--one of those holes to which my friend referred, on the starboard side and just amidships. This had been discovered in time, and in accordance with standing orders every prisoner in that part of the ship had been put upon half-rations to defray the expense of the repair, which the carpenter stated at twenty-five pounds sterling. A dreadful uproar ensued when this information was communicated to the Frenchmen. Wet swabs, holystones, belaying-pins, pieces of wood torn from the hatch way-combings and deck-gratings, mops, brooms, and everything available as a weapon, were in immediate requisition; and the prisoners broke into open revolt on the third day after we were on board. The drum beat to arms, the crew drove below all who were in the pound, battened down the hatches, and promptly ran the two twenty-four pounders through the bulkhead aft to sweep the deck forward if necessary; but so much was the vessel careened over in the sand that the guns failed to work well. Thus my twenty dismounted Greys, with their carbines loaded, were formed in line across the deck, ready for whatever might ensue; Lieutenant I---- having of course command of the whole. As the disorder was at its height, and several missiles had been flung at us, I gave the orders-- "Ready--present!" but on finding that the din was instantly hushed, I added, "_Advance_ arms!"