ESCAPE OF THE REPUBLICAN EXILES. 113 



lately seen, gave them some hope that they were not 

 to be so speedily sent to consummate the republican 

 theory. Their journey had lasted from the 8th of 

 September until the 22d, a continual progress of 

 pain, famine, contumely, and terror. 



But the severities of even their journey received 

 but little relaxation on board. A French corvette is 

 small; and the French, let their ships be large or 

 small, have no habits of accommodation. The pri- 

 soners were divided, probably by the necessity of the 

 case, twelve of them between decks, with the hatch- 

 ways shut, and without room for motion the other 

 four in a hole, the boatswain's storeroom ; a place of 

 utter darkness, where they could neither move nor 

 stand, and rendered pestilential by all the morbid 

 effluvia of neglect, the refuse of the store, and the 

 neighbourhood of the hold. The corvette set sail at 

 four in the morning; and their breakfast was a 

 biscuit a-piece, so impenetrable by the teeth of the 

 old men, and so repulsive to the senses of the 

 younger, that it produced a general remonstrance. 



" The air," said Barbe de Marbois, " is infectious ; 

 if you do not suffer us to breathe the fresh air, we 

 shall all be dead in a few days. And we shall not 

 be the only sufferers ; you will thus have the plague 

 on board of your ship, and will lose your crew." 



The last argument found its way, and the captain 

 promised to let them breathe, when they were out of 

 sight of France. 



VOL. IL H 



