On the arrival of these prisoners, Capt. Shortland opened the south yard of the enclosure, and gave all the officers liberty to go into No. 6. A few days after, a _habeas corpus ad testificandum_ was awarded to bring forward six prisoners, to appear and give evidence in the cause of Thomas Hill, then depending at the next Exeter assizes, who was charged with manslaughter for killing James Henry on the third of July. The termination of the trial, I shall give in a subsequent page. The prisoners having no expectation or hope of exchange, or a peace, now set about contriving a method of escape, something of which we hinted at in a preceding page. The plan was to dig out of prison No. 6. The plan was made known to the prisoners in No. 4, who were expecting to be removed into No. 6 in a few days, when they would have access to Nos. 5, 6, and 7, which were contained in one yard. To have the plan circulated with the greatest secrecy that would obtain the opinion of all the prisoners, without the suspicion of the guards or officers, it was thought best to have it done in poetry, and accordingly it was done in that manner. This attracted the attention of the prisoners, and we soon found the intention of each man to favor the plan. On the fifteenth of August, the six men whom we mentioned in the preceding page, were taken to Exeter, returned, and with them Thomas Hill, who was acquitted by the jury, and he remanded to Dartmoor as a prisoner of war. The same day arrived a large draft of prisoners, who had been sent from Halifax prison on board the transport ship Bensen. These persons, on their passage, attempted to rise and take the ship, in which attempt a sharp contest ensued, and the struggle was for some time doubtful, but the American prisoners were overpowered, and afterwards treated with the greatest severity and cruelty. In the engagement several on both sides were severely wounded, but none killed or mortally wounded. Some of the prisoners were taken out and put on board the ship Commodore, and the remainder confined in the coal-hole, and kept on bread and water for several days. These prisoners were put into No. 6, which now made about eight hundred in that prison, and about twelve hundred in No. 4, who were not yet removed. We finding our number increasing daily, and no prospect of peace or exchange, now determined to put in execution our projected plan of escape; every prisoner being willing, and not a dissenting voice among the whole, we mustered a number of bibles in each prison, and began to solemnly swear every man to keep secret every transaction he should see or know of concerning the operation then about to be begun; when a man was sworn, he was strictly cautioned and charged not to make known, by word or sign, in any way whatever, anything which might lead to a discovery of their design, on pain of immediate death in a private and secret manner, which would most assuredly take place without the knowledge of the keepers.