A spark of momentary joy may burst through the darkest clouds of grief, and hope for a moment make us forget our miseries. On the twenty-ninth of this month, Captain Cotgrave received orders to remove one hundred and twenty Americans from this prison to Chatham, which was to be the complement of a cartel ship then lying at that place; this embraced the greater part of the prisoners captured before January, 1813. There remained of those captured before and after that time, 1200 at Chatham, 400 at Stapleton, and a few less than 500 at Dartmoor, some on board the prison ships, and a number of officers on parole at Ashburton. The greater part of these had been delivered up from ships of war. At the close of this month, forty-five were found to have entered the service of the enemy, and fifteen had died at this place, seven or eight at Chatham, and not one at Stapleton. At the commencement of August, we found ourselves limited and very much straitened in our regulations. We were not permitted to go out of the yard. A more alarming scene of distress than any we had before experienced, now presented itself before us, and death seemed to be the inevitable lot of every man. The King of Terrors daily reached forth his inexorable hand, and removed the sufferer from the pale of this clay tenement; for the small-pox had got among the prisoners, and its ravages were so alarming, that every prisoner expected each day would be his last; for numbers died daily. The prisoners who remained able, collected themselves together, and formed a committee of correspondence, who, by bribing the guards, conveyed letters daily to Mr. Beasley; particularly describing their situation, that they were almost naked, and defrauded by the Contractor of half their rations, which before were but one-third enough. That the small-pox had got among them, and numbers died daily--that they were covered with _animalcula_, and unless he could do something for their relief, they must all perish together. To these complaints he paid no kind of attention, neither came to see whether they were true or false, nor sent any answer either written or verbal. The reader can easily figure to himself what must have been our feelings, when five hundred men, closely confined in one apartment, with that mortal epidemic among them without any assistance, or possibility of escape. The evil must lie somewhere; we were in doubt whether to believe it was the will of the general government, of the people at large of this country, or whether it was not entirely the fault of our agent, in not seeing that all the officers in whose immediate care we were, acted the honest part in the performance of those duties, which both this government and that of the United States had intrusted to them. It was not a general thing, and the evil was near at hand. The prisoners at Halifax fared well; they did not, nor could not, complain; prisoners in other places in England were tolerably well provided for.