He entered, and cast his eyes around the cold wet walls of the prison, and seemed to say, with a shrug of his shoulders, “I am glad that it is not I that is to live here.” When he returned, we were determined to have some conversation with him. We therefore collected round him, demanded what arrangements were made for our relief, whether we must expect to remain in our present condition? Telling him, that if we must, that we could not long survive; and presenting him with a list of names of those who had already entered the king’s service; and telling him all the particulars of our distress. He then opened his mouth, and said, he had no power to do any thing, nor any funds to do with; but he would do his endeavor. We asked him the cause of so great a difference in the treatment of the prisoners here and at Halifax? There they had all the necessaries and conveniences of life; here we had none of them. We asked him to whom we should apply for relief in future? We told him we had been to great expense, heretofore, and much trouble, in conveying letters to him, while he had not thought fit to answer. He said the exchange of prisoners was stopped for the present year, and that we could not expect to have our condition altered. With these unwelcome observations, he went immediately out of the gates, and left us to all the wretchedness of despair. We returned into the prison, lamenting our fate. Some cursed the day they were born; some, the day of their captivity; some attributed all their sufferings to the inattention of the Agent, and others, to the government of the United States. We retired to our hammocks, and gave vent to our feelings in sighs and tears. The thought that we must forego all the endearments of life, and perish together, in a foreign country, among our enemies, was too much for our feelings to bear. The groans of the disconsolate and sick filled the whole prison. Our Agent not empowered to act, and without funds! We had now only to look to heaven, whose will it was to bring us to this state, and through whose mercy alone we could hope to find relief. The winter was fast approaching, and the cold upon this mountain was very severe. The small-pox still continued, and the measles had got among us, and great numbers were sick with both diseases. The next day, conceiving they had no other alternative, a great number entered the British service; rather hazarding the chance of escape, and censure of their country, than to trust life to the perils of this prison.