But in the waist a curious sight presented itself.
It was as though one had built a cattle-pen there.

At the foot of the foremast, and at the quarter-deck, a strong barricade, loop-holed and furnished with doors for ingress and egress, ran across the deck from bulwark to bulwark.

Outside this cattle-pen an armed sentry stood on guard; inside, standing, sitting, or walking monotonously, within range of the shining barrels in the arm chest on the poop, were some sixty men and boys, dressed in uniform grey.

The men and boys were prisoners of the Crown, and the cattle-pen was their exercise ground.

Their prison was down the main hatchway, on the 'tween decks, and the barricade, continued down, made its side walls.
It was the fag end of the two hours' exercise graciously permitted each afternoon by His Majesty King George the Fourth to prisoners of the Crown, and the prisoners of the Crown were enjoying themselves.