flag, as a passenger on the high seas. In the mean time, I have been imprisoned in Fort Warren, by orders from Washington, without notice, without trial, and without being advised of any charge whatever against me.

It is true, that Her Majesty's consul at Boston mentioned to me that he understood that you had written the first letter, assuring me of my claim of liberty, under the impression that I was a British subject: an impression which your Lordship will do me the justice to observe was not derived from any statement of mine, or any implication of my correspondence. But I cannot see the force of the distinction. If I had been an Englishman, it seemed I would have been entitled to my release: why?-by grace of the Washington authorities, or by force of right? The former supposition I think I may safely say would be resented by yourself, as well as by your Government, my Lord; and if the release, then, is to be put on any grounds of right, then the case of the Englishman would be no better than my own. The flag would protect me as well as him. It, either, must be a piece of bunting, and protects nothing, or, if it protects anything, it would protect all passengers alike. As far as the question is that of citizens or persons, it belongs to my own Government, and I am willing to rest it there; but as a question involving the British flag on the high seas, which, either sinks there all other insignia and distinctions of nationality, and protects all passengers alike, or is an unmeaning display, I have brought it to the consideration of your Lordship, and respectfully asked your decision. I cannot find that the latter is stated or intimated in the letters of your Lordship, to which I have had the honor to refer. I have, &c., your obedient servant,

EDWARD A. POLLARD.

VIII.

BRITISH LEGATION, WASHINGTON, D. C., June 9, 1864. SIR: I received, on the 6th instant, a letter from you, dated (evidently by mistake) 2d of July. In answer to it, I can only say that I have referred your case to Her Majesty's Government, and sent them copies of your letters to me, and that,

while waiting for instructions from them, I do not feel at liberty to discuss the subject. Whatever orders they may think proper to give will be immediately executed by me.

I am, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

E. A. POLLARD, Esq., Fort Warren.

LYONS.

CHAPTER III.

A WEEK IN BOSTON.-Introduction to the U. S. Marshal.-In the Streets of Boston: Two Spectacles.-A Circle of Secessionists.-The "Hub of the Universe."

As the Greyhound worked her way through the green and picturesque archipelago of Boston harbor, the pilot did me the kindness of pointing out Fort Warren as my probable abode for some future months, and confidentially spitting in my ear the advice to "holler for the Union." He had also found occasion to essay some advice to "Jane," a negro-woman, one of those tidy, respectable family servants redolent of " Old Virginia," who had been captured on her way to join her mistress, the wife of a Confederate agent in Bermuda. Jane's response was not complimentary; for the experience of the Yankee, which that respectable colored female had obtained from the amount of swearing and swilling on the Greyhound, had induced her to assert, with melancholy gravity, that "she had not seen a Christian since she left Petersburg."

The United States Marshal, who was introduced by the prize-master, with the whispered injunction that "we had better be polite," was a little Yankee with gimlet eyes, and who, with the fondness of his nation for official insignia, had adorned himself with a long tail coat, scrupulously blue, and garnished with immense metal buttons marked U. S. He was accompanied by three citizens, two of whom appeared to be civil and intelligent gentlemen, whose curiosity, if that was the motive of their visit, was subdued by their politeness. The third had an emasculated lisp, which I afterwards found to be characteristic of a certain class in Boston, and which was increased in this instance by the effect of the liquor he had drank. "He was a Virginian; he thought it right to indulge a little State pride." "Oh, to be sure," responded the prisoners, who thought the confidential injunction to be polite to the marshal included his toady. The fellow came up to me whispering

something about "his sympathies being with Virginia, but it wouldn't do to let the d-d rascals know it." I was glad enough to repel the embraces of this creature without inquiring why it "wouldn't do " to testify his sympathies for Virginia, and how it was that his sympathies detained him in Boston, and kept him in the company of "d-d rascals." I afterwards discovered that he was a prize-lawyer, and preyed for a living upon Yankee crews.

The marshal having taken himself off with the prize-master, I was, about sundown, invited ashore by a severe-looking man, placed in a carriage and driven along the green skirt of Boston Common to a building, which I was told contained the marshal's office. That official had not arrived there. I was waved

back into the carriage by the severe man. "Where are we going, now?" I asked, pleasantly. "To the jail!" replied the severe man, very sharply and sententiously. I protested I was a passenger on board the Greyhound, already in communication with Lord Lyons, to protect my rights, as such, under the neutral flag on the high seas; and if the marshal or his deputy presumed to treat me as a criminal, and put me in a common jail, it would be at the peril of grave legal consequences.

The latter part of my protest seemed to affect the deputy, for he relaxed his brows, and had me driven to the Tremont House, where the marshal was to be found. I was readily released on my parole not to attempt to escape. At a subsequent hour of the night, having found my way to a very modest, but excellent hotel, where I registered as "E. A. Parkinson," from "New York," I, at last, relieved from the presence of authority, and the annoyance of impertinent curiosity, enjoyed the first undisturbed sleep I had had for many nights.

I felt something like a translation to a new world in the gay streets and luxurious hotels of Boston. In the latter places were to be seen knots of sleek, lust-dieted men, lounging and guzzling; in the streets, a dizzy show of well-dressed crowds, going to and fro on errands of business and pleasure, or in the

idle excursions of ostentation. What a contrast to the scanty homes of Richmond, and its streets, where soldiers in duststained gray challenge the passenger, and where the eye has become accustomed to the home-spun garb, the mildewed uniform, and the other proud tokens of the unabashed and stern poverty of a country fighting for liberty! Oh, my countrymen! how my heart bounds to think of you, in the dainty and ostentatious crowd that besets me! Our tears, our duststained rags, our broken goods, our images of poverty-shall not history gather them into a monument more glorious and more enduring than any the hand of Opulence can rear!

I had been left to understand that owing to the delay of the Washington Government in attending to such small matters as the rights of liberty of individuals, I should probably have my parole for a week or ten days in Boston, and might enjoy myself accordingly. But what enjoyment! Wherever I ventured out, I was sure to get my dose of Yankee, and on all occasions of such "enjoyment," I was glad to get back to the privacy of the four walls of my little bedroom.

I might go into the parlors or the reading-rooms, of the hotels, and see there the peculiar fungi of Yankee hotel society. I might sally into the streets, and see the equipages of “Shoddy," driven by solemn-looking coachmen, dressed in black, with mutton whiskers. I might stroll into Boston Common, and be beset there by the itinerant Yankee with his "Respirometer," his "Grand Stereopticon of the War," or some other one-cent wonder. It is not strange that a plain Confederate might be disgusted with such a programme of entertainment. But I did find some amusement, at occasional hours, in walking through Washington street, and observing crowds of enthused Yankees, including strapping women, with strong minds and constitutional "yearnings," gathered around the garish lies of the newspaper bulletins, and devouring such intelligence as the "Capture of Richmond," "Rout of the Rebels," "Defeat of Hampton's Legion by Massachusetts Negroes," &c., &c.

There were two occasions in Boston which drew me from the retirement of my hotel. One was the celebration of the return of a Massachusetts regiment, from the lines in Virginia, their term of service having expired, and the "brave boys" having sought their homes in the very heat and crisis of Grant's mem