the experiment of scaling the castle wall, and breaking their way into a depot of military equipage adjoining the back wall of their dungeon. This enterprise was undertaken in the dead of the night, while all but those engaged in the plot were asleep; and at dawn of day they were enabled, by forcing a door of the store room, to reach the extremity of the prison court-yard, which led by a circuitous road to the town of Brest.
Pushing on with rapid strides, and singing the favorite national air of the Carmagnoli, Lieutenant Carter and the other two officers, dressed in the garb of sailors, and wearing the tri-coloured cockade as a deception, succeeded in reaching the hotel de la Republique, a house used by tfce masters of American vessels, one of whom had previously made arrangements for secreting them there until an embargo then existing should be removed, when it was hoped they would be able to smuggle themselves on board his ship. In this expectation, however, they were unfortunately disappointed; for on approaching the place of embarkation, Lieutenant Carter was recognized by a young aspirant belonging to the Marat, with whom he had formerly conversed in French, and who now caused him to be seized, and conducted with Captain Cracraft, under an escort, to the Amiral, a place of security erected near the quay, where they were locked up in a small room, admitting little or no light, and detained, with nothing to support nature but bread and water, and without a chair or any resting place till the next day, when they were conducted back to the castle, which, with all its horrors, was a palace when compared to their temporary prison. Lieutenant Godench, by mixing with the crowd on the quay, fortunately effected his escape.
After this unsuccessful attempt, Lieutenant Carter was agreeably surprised to find the republicans relax a little in their rigorous treatment of himself and his fellow prisoners, it being ordered that two persons from every mess, without discrimination, should be permitted to go out of the castle and receive their rations at the Commissary’s office, which was situated about a furlong from the gate, instead of having their wretched portion brought to them by the gaolers; an
