The cuirassiers followed us at a distance of twenty yards, conversing with each other, and O'Brien observed that it was amazingly genteel of the French governor to provide us with two servants in such handsome liveries.

The evening of the second day we arrived at Toulon, and as soon as we entered the gates, we were delivered into the custody of an officer with a very sinister cast of countenance, who, after some conversation with the cuirassiers, told us in a surly tone that our parole was at an end, and gave us in charge of a corporal's guard, with directions to conduct us to the prison near the Arsenal.

We presented the cuirassiers with four dollars each, for their civility, and were then hurried away to our place of captivity.

I observed to O'Brien, that I was afraid that we must now bid farewell to anything like pleasure.
"You're right there, Peter," replied he: "but there's a certain jewel called Hope, that somebody found at the bottom of his chest, when it was clean empty, and so we must not lose sight of it, but try and escape as soon as we can; but the less we talk about it the better." In a few minutes we arrived at our destination: the door was opened, ourselves and our bundles (for we had only selected a few things for our march, the colonel promising to forward the remainder as soon as we wrote to inform him to which depot we were consigned), were rudely shoved in; and as the doors again closed, and the heavy bolts were shot, I felt a creeping, chilly sensation pass through my whole body.
As soon as we could see--for although the prison was not very dark, yet so suddenly thrown in, after the glare of a bright sunshiny day, at first we could distinguish nothing--we found ourselves in company with about thirty English sailors.

Most of them were sitting down on the pavement, or on boxes, or bundles containing their clothes that they had secured, conversing with each other, or playing at cards or draughts.
Our entrance appeared to excite little attention; after having raised their eyes to indulge their curiosity, they continued their pursuits.