6th.—At the usual hour, this day, I read a sermon in the prison; and as the subject was chosen with reference to the recent misconduct of Mary Linch, and was calculated to enforce peaceable and quiet disposition generally, it was heard with remarkable attention. I alluded to the circumstances of the late affray, but avoided making it appear extravagantly wicked; my design being rather to make them love good order and meekness of mind, and to excite a dislike of discord and quarrelling. The observations were therefore of a mild and conciliatory nature;—That, as they were all driven by an irresistible necessity to continue together for a certain time, and as they must less or more feel themselves the children of misfortune and misery, it would better become them as Christians to love one another, than by indecent and useless discontents add to each others distress;—that nothing was so likely to create unhappiness as dissentions and disputes among themselves; and that the continuance of such silly squabbling would infallibly sour their minds, and deprive them of that tranquillity and decent steadiness which would secure them credit and comfort, and particularly dispose them for those different situations which awaited them among strangers, who would receive them with friendly and paternal care if they showed themselves well conducted and good, but who would naturally look upon them with abhorrence or distrust if their character appeared otherwise. These remarks had a tendency which did not disappoint expectation, and the desired effect could be easily perceived. On turning to go away, in a direction not usual, I was surprised and pleased to find an individual, who was looked upon as one of the least careful, sitting as retired as possible behind her companions and bathed in tears of repentance for her errors; I have since received from her a letter expressive of such being the state of her mind, and soliciting forgiveness for her faults. It is in this manner the effects of the system, incessantly pursued from the beginning, may be perceivable in consequences such as these. 7th.—With indignation and painful concern I must acknowledge a conviction possesses my mind, that the barriers of propriety which now so long protected the prisoners from the evil designs of the sailors are broken down, as, in spite of every precaution, and ever wakeful exertion, some of those men have succeeded in seducing four of the prisoners from their duty. The mischief having taken place, I owe it to truth and justice to state the facts as they have this day been detailed to me.