That a number of the prisoners were over the railing erected to prevent them from communicating with the sentinels on the walls, which was of course forbidden by the regulations of the prison, and that in the space between the railing and those walls, they were tearing up pieces of turf, and wantonly pelting each other in a noisy and disorderly manner. That a much more considerable number of the prisoners was collected together at that time in one of their yards near the place where the breach was effected, and that although such collection of prisoners was not unusual at other times (the gambling tables being commonly kept in that part of the yard) yet, when connected with the circumstances of the breach, and the time of the day, which was after the hour the signal for the prisoners to their respective prisons had ceased to sound, it became a natural and just ground of alarm to those who had charge of the depot. It was also in evidence that in the building formerly the petty officers’ prison, but now the guard barrack, which stands in the yard to which the hole in the wall would serve as a communication, a part of the arms of the guard who were off duty, were usually kept in the racks, and though there was no evidence that this was in any respect the motive which induced the prisoners to make the opening in the wall, or even that they were ever acquainted with the fact, it naturally became at least a further cause of suspicion and alarm, and an additional reason for precaution. Upon these grounds, Captain Shortland appears to us to have been justified in giving the order, which about this time he seems to have given, to sound the alarm-bell, the usual signal for collecting the officers of the depot, and putting the military on the alert. However reasonable and justifiable this was as a measure of precaution, the effects produced thereby in the prisons, but which could not have been intended, were most unfortunate, and deeply to be regretted. A considerable number of the prisoners in the yards, where no disturbances existed before, and who were either already within their respective prisons, or quietly retiring as usual towards them, immediately upon the sound of the bell rushed back from curiosity (as it appears) towards the gates, where, by that time, the crowd had assembled, and many who were at the time absent from their yards, were also, from the plan of the prison, compelled, in order to reach their own homes, to pass by the same spot, and thus, that which was merely a measure of precaution, in its operation increased the evil it was intended to prevent.