By the position in which he was found in the morning, he must have been all intent on death; he had fastened himself to one of the stantions so that his toes could just touch the floor. We knew of no other cause than that despair had given him less courage to live than to die. Thinking it might tend to deter others from following the example of this unhappy victim of despair, I procured a large slate, and engraved on it the following inscription, which I put at the head of his grave, where it remains on the moor: Here lies JOHN TAYLOR, A native citizen of the city of New York, Who committed suicide, by hanging himself in prison No. 5, on the evening of the first of December, 1814. I then put over each prison, as a _caveat_, the following _memento_, as it was feared others would do the same act: Whene’er you view this doleful tomb, Remember what you are, And put your trust in God alone: Suppress that fiend, Despair. Lo! there’s entomb’d a generous youth Despair did doom to die; By the hard act of suicide, John Taylor there doth lie. He hung himself within yon walls,-- A warning may it prove: Tho’ man is wicked here below, There’s a just God above. Be patient, meek, and wait His call, Endure these ills of strife: For great’s the sin of mortal man, That takes away his life. One knows not how to account for the origin of that act which takes away one’s own life: self-love and self-preservation are so deeply rooted in the very nature of all living creatures, that it is the ultimate motive of all actions to endeavor to sustain and preserve life; fear of destroying it is so instinctive in all animals that they seem to flee from danger without any reasoning in the act, and almost without knowing when the volition begins. But the suicide reverses everything; he does an act which is not natural, not rational, not desirable, and dangerous; he rushes into the presence of his God with all his former crimes, and this most heinous of all brings him there. From the first to the twenty-sixth nothing material occurred, but a constant fall of snow every day; but the season was less severe than that of the year before. In the interim, prisoners arrived from different quarters of the globe; some taken in Canada on the lakes, and others on the land; and amongst these arrivals was the crew of the privateer Leo, captured off the coast of Portugal.