the brave and dauntless boy, "I'll try until I succeed."

He knew the conse

quences of his resolution. He was put in a close cell, and doomed to that most trying of all tortures of the spirit, and which must, indeed, be maddening to one so young-solitary imprisonment.

CHAPTER VIII.

JOURNAL NOTES.--My Affair with Lord Lyons Ended.--The Niagara Falls Bubble.--Comforting Words.--How Dying Prisoners are Treated.

July 20.-I have ended my affair with Lord Lyons. I received to-day his reply to a letter I wrote him some days ago, and have rejoined; which, I suppose, concludes this vexatious correspondence. Copies of all three letters are annexed; and I shall spare myself any commentary upon them in my journal:

IN PRISON, AT FORT WARREN, BOSTON HARBOUR,

July 11, 1864.

Lord Lyons, Envoy Extraordinary, &c., for Her Britannic Majesty, near Washington, D. C.

My Lord: Will you please inform me what results have been reached, or proceedings taken, by Her Majesty's Government with reference to my application for release from this prison by virtue of the protection of the British flag, under which I was taken on the high seas.

I was brought here from a sick bed, at an hour's notice, and have been afflicted in my confinement with partial paralysis; and I am sure that this much said of the extremity of my situation will be sufficient to acquit me of importunity in again seeking at the hands of your Lordship a termination of my sufferings. I have the honour, &c., your obedient servant,

Sir: Your letter of the 11th instant reached me yesterday. In reply to the question which you ask, I have to inform you that I received yesterday afternoon the answer of Her Majesty's Government to the dispatches which I ad

dressed to them on the subject of the capture of the Greyhound, and in which I enclosed copies of your letters to me.

The general instructions of Her Majesty's Government preclude my interfering, without special orders from them, in behalf of American citizens captured on board British vessels, seized for breach of blockade; and as Her Majesty's Government have not, on the present occasion, ordered me to interfere in your behalf, it is, of courrse, my duty to abstain from doing so.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

Edward A. Pollard, Esq., Fort Warren, Boston.

LYONS.

FORT WARREN, BOSTON HARBOUR,,

July 20, 1864.

Lord Lyons, Envoy Extraordinary for Her Britannic Majesty, near Washing

:

ton, D. C.

My Lord I thank you for your courtesy in replying to my different letters. I have, of course, no further claim to make upon it in that regard. But it is not improper that I should express a respectful dissent from the conclusion you have reached, and inform you that whenever released from prison I shall prefer to the Home Government of Her Majesty a formal claim for indemnity for a damaging and cruel imprisonment, to which I consider I have been subjected by the failure to obtain that protection under a neutral flag which was due to me under the law of nations and that of humanity.

I cannot concede, what is certainly a novel and inhuman doctrine in international law, that a passenger on a British vessel which has broken the blockade is so tainted in the breach of blockade that he may be taken on the high seas, under the neutral flag, as human prize by his enemy. If, as I am left to understand, my Lord, this is the position of your Government, it follows that it assents to a system of kidnapping under its flag on the high seas, and establishes against itself an astounding PRECEDENT. For if I, a passenger, was a legal prize on the Greyhound, then the British passenger in the same circumstances is equally so, being no more protected by the British flag on the high seas than I should be myself; and if, in these same circumstances, the Englishman does not share my fate, but is absolved by diplomatic intercession, this is the favour of the Yankee Government, which may at any time be withdrawn.

At one time your Lordship wrote me that you had requested my release. At

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another time, you write you cannot interfere in my behalf in any manner whatever. I am left to imagine that there is no other cause for this contradiction than that I am a citizen of a friendless and persecuted Government, towards which, yours, my Lord, professes neutrality, but, I must say, practices uniform disfavour.

Whenever restored to liberty I shall have full opportunity to testify to the damage of my imprisonment, as measure of the indemnity I shall claim from the British Government. But your Ifordship will already perceive from the enclosed copy of my letter to the Secretary of the United States Navy, which has never been answered or noticed by him, that I have in vain entreated a parole on account of my health, in circumstances which appeal not only to sentiments of pity, but to the lowest senses of humanity.

I trust that your Lordship will find nothing in what I have written inconsistent with the high and courteous consideratien due personally to yourself, or improper to be communicated, as I desire, to your Government in the interests of justice and humanity.

I have the honour, &c.,

Your obedient servant,

Enw'D A. POLLARD.

July 21.-It appears from Yankee newspapers which have got into the casemates, that there has been undertaken at Niagara Falls a peace negotiation after the style of Brandreth's Pills advertisements; in which Horace Greeley is intermediary of the Confederates, George N. Saunders, their fugleman-a flippant telegram of the latter to James Gordon Bennett, commencing the proceedings. It is to be hoped there is nothing in all this: that the Confederate Government has not for the fourth time in this war, when there is already a standing tender of peace and an abundant definition of its terms in the official acts and expressions of Congress and the Executive, sought the back-door of Washington, and put itself in a position to be snubbed and cuffed out of countenance by the master of the "White House." But we shall see how much of authority there is in these proceedings, and how much of the self-exhibition of notoriety-hunters and adventurers. In the mean time our little circle here entertains itself with the credulity of the Yankee newspapers, and their remarkable fecundity in making the wish father to the thought. An intelligent friend in

Boston writes me this evening, in dead earnest, "terms of peace are passing over the wires," and concludes with a flourish of piety and a fervent thanksgiving for the happy news.

July 22.-We were permitted for the first time this morning to walk a short distance on the island. I was touched to see the grave of a Confederate prisoner beneath the ramparts.

On our return to the casemates I found in the morning mail a comforting and sweet letter from my lady friend in Boston. I cannot forbear making an extract from it, as an evidence of the kind and Christian spirit of this excellent person:

"I can well understand all you must suffer of anxiety, and I sympathize most deeply with you. It is hard to bring one's reason and philosophy to the rescue, under circumstances of such peculiar trial. But, my dear friend, when these fail, faith comes in, and your heart will be lifted out of the depths, and comforted in the assurance that joy will surely come after a night of darkness and desolation. In quietness and confidence shall be your strength; and, if I ask you to trust, I am sure you will bear, with me, and not think I am preaching to you. If I cared less, I would not say this to you. But it saddens me to know that you are suffering from a miserable feeling of illness and depression; and in my longing to do or say something to comfort you I may run-as women are apt to do-into what you would not be blamed for considering pious platitudes."

"I hope you will like and find readable Prescott's Life.' I have not read it yet, but promise myself that pleasure. If you will give the volume we send a place in your library, it will hereafter recall to you a passage in your life, which you may then not be entirely unwilling to remember. For this reason, I trust you will not consider it a burden, that I ask you not to return it. Remember if you think of any thing you would like, you are to write at once to No for it. May God bless you, dear friend."

July 24.-Even the vilest criminal, at the point of death, is permitted to see his relatives, to communicate his last wishes, and to comfort his dying hour with the last embraces and tokens of affection.

A few days ago, Captain Bonneau, of South Carolina, a fellow prisoner, sick for many long months, was thought past hope of recovery, and the commandant of the prison was asked for permission for some person in Boston to see him. At any rate, Major Cabot found it proper to refer to his "orders from Wash