On the second of April, one thousand eight hundred and thirteen, the Transport Board, apprehending the escape of the prisoners, in consequence of their repeated threats to that purpose, issued an order to Captain Pelew, then agent for the prisoners at Plymouth, to make preparation for removing all the prisoners then confined on board the Hector prison-ship, at Plymouth, to the depot at Dartmoor, in the county of Devon, situated seventeen miles from Plymouth, in the back country. These orders were accordingly made known to the prisoners; and on the morning of the third of April, they were ordered on deck, with their hammocks, baggage, &c., in readiness to march to a prison, the very name of which made the mind of every prisoner “shrink back with dread, and startle at the thought;” for fame had made them well acquainted with the horrors of that infernal abode, which was by far the most dreadful prison in all England, and in which it was next to impossible for human beings long to survive. Two hundred and fifty dejected and unhappy sufferers, already too wretched, were called, each of whom received a pair of shoes, and his allowance of bread and salt fish. Orders were then immediately given, for every man to deliver up his bed and hammock, and to repair forthwith into the different launches belonging to the ships of war, which were alongside the ship, ready to receive them. The prisoners entered, surrounded by the guards and seamen belonging to the Hector and La Brave. We were landed at New Passage, near Plymouth, and were placed under the guard of a company of soldiers, equal in number to the prisoners! Orders were then given to march at half-past ten in the morning, with a positive injunction that no prisoner should step out of, or leave the ranks, on pain of instant death. Thus we marched, surrounded by a strong guard, through a heavy rain, and over a bad road, with only our usual and scanty allowance of bread and fish. We were allowed to stop only once during the march of seventeen miles. We arrived at Dartmoor late in the after part of the day, and found the ground covered with snow. Nothing could form a more dreary prospect than that which now presented itself to our hopeless view. Death itself, with the hopes of an hereafter, seemed less terrible than this gloomy prison.