having found an old United States officer to receive them, and explain matters, they went home, in hopes of its being soon removed. We are of the opinion that except the Colonel and his Irish Lieutenant, the officers on duty would prefer that matters should go on as heretofore.

The week has brought no change in favour of our comfort; the old campaigners among us having been exercising their ingenuity in making garrison fare more palatable to those unaccustomed to roughing it. Result favourable to the Rebel cause, as there is more emphatic language to be heard against their Government by those who heretofore would occasionally suggest the possibility of a restoration of the Union.

Cell No. 2 has had an addition to the number of its inmates in the person of a Lieutenant in H.M. service, and a Confederate Captain; the former captured under orders from Secretary Seward, on board of a British vessel when on the point of leaving New York for Bermuda. Charge: associating with disloyal ladies in Baltimore, and having on his person letters from them to parties in Bermuda, to be forwarded to Richmond. The latter, one of a number of the citizens of the Confederacy who were on board of a lately captured blockade runner. Some half-a-dozen others taken in company with him have arrived in the portion of the Fort to which we are now denied access, consequently we can merely ascertain that the most of them are gentlemen from South Carolina and Virginia.

Our Maryland friend has had a Union friend, with whom he has been domiciled ever since the War commenced, to visit him. It is presumed that the fact of this gentleman being a member of one of the New York Militia regiments accounts for the protracted interview he was allowed to have with a prisoner here. Our roommate came back to his cell quite pleased, as the reference was principally to amusing occurrences, such as the betting between him

and his Union friend on the capture of Richmond by McClellan, the recognition of the Confederacy by England and France, and the time when he was threatened with Fort Lafayette for expressing the opinion that Mason and Slidell should not have been arrested, by a person who afterwards made a similar threat when he expressed the opinion that they should not have been given up without a fight. His Union friend brings him also an idea as to the reason for the absence of such replies as he had been expecting to the communications sent to his friends in New York in regard to his case. It appears that they are alarmed at receiving so explanatory letters from a Fort Lafayette prisoner, fearing that the officer of the post, whose place is to read them, is interested in getting as many persons as possible implicated. It is not so. The officers here would prefer that they should not be required to have charge of any prisoners.

Our Maryland lady friends have been down as usual, and from finding that there was no relaxation in the rules as to our treatment, have changed their views so as to relieve the conscience of one of them (the younger) in regard to being the means of putting a letter from a husband in the Fort into the hands of a Southern wife without the examination of a Federal officer.

WINTER WEATHER-GLOOMY FEELINGS BRIGHTENED BY THE Chesapeake AFFAIR, AND NEWS FROM THE Alabama-A REBEL, AN ENGLISH OFFICER, AND COLONEL BURKE AS TO SPECIAL PRIVILEGES-A CHAIR ALLOWED THE ENGLISH OFFICER.

W

INTER weather has been fairly initiated this week; the night to us now is nearly fifteen hours, counting from lock-up time to the opening of the cell in the morning. During it we lose patience with every kind of games which it is in our power to engage in, and we cannot raise a laugh

at even the expatiation of the New York papers on the subject of whole brigades of rebels asking to be received within the Union lines on the Rapidan.

The capture of the Chesapeake,' and the late news of the doings of the Alabama, interest us; so does the speech of Fernando Wood in New Jersey. We wonder what his meaning was when he said: "Not another man or dollar for the prosecution of the war." Ben Wood of New York, Bayard of Delaware, and Harris of Maryland, are those whom we estimate as pointing to the Star of Peace.

The Confederate Captain brought here last week, having been reported by the New York papers as deserving of consideration on account of special kindness to Federal prisoners in Richmond, thought that he had better ascertain what effect such a character would have with Colonel Burke, by soliciting the privilege of procuring something in addition to the garrison fare. He failed in his purpose, as did the British officer in an effort on his part to impress the Colonel with an idea that he should not be treated as a common rebel. He has had H.M. Vice-Consul down from New York to intercede in his behalf, but without success, except as to allowing him a camp chair in his cell.

Our Maryland lady friends have not been deterred from their accustomed visits by the cold and stormy weather, and have succeeded in getting the privilege from some of the officers who are in the habit of being present at their interviews with our roommate, to bring him sufficient to constitute an ordinary lunch, to be taken during the interview.

1

Before daylight on the morning of Dec. 7, 1863, while the steamship Chesapeake, Captain Willetts, was off Cape Cod, on her regular trip between New York and Portland, she was seized by John C. Braine, purporting to be a lieutenant of the Confederate navy, and fifteen men who had come aboard at New York as passengers.-Scharf's "History Confederate Navy," p. 812.

QUITE A NUMBER OF ADDITIONAL PRISONERS-RULES MORE STRICT -A BRITISH SHIPMASTER CONFINED WITH NEGROES.

T

HIS week has brought quite an addition to the prisoners

of the Fort. On our side we have a Virginia Confederate Captain from the old Capitol,' where he has been in solitary confinement for several months as a hostage for a Federal soldier reported to have been held as a hostage in Richmond. It now appears that it was all a mistake as to any Union soldier being ordered to be hung. (Had it been so ordered, it would have been done with despatch by the Confederate Government.) The addition to our neighbours in No. 2 is a young Georgia gentleman who was paroled from here some months since, and brought back under the late retaliatory orders from Washington. To the numbers in the other part of the Fort have been added a General and Staff of the Confederate Army just from New Orleans. The commander and officers of a Confederate blockade runner. The commander and officers of a British blockade runner, and an Irish merchant captured while passing through New York from Canada.

The rules are so strictly enforced as to keeping us in No. 2 and 3 separate from those in other quarters of the Fort, that we can only ascertain who they are by the knowledge our room-mates have of some of them personally, and the public reputation of those belonging to the Confederate service. The latter, from having been some time under Federal control in New Orleans, make less complaint of unexpected restrictions to which they have become subject, but the Englishmen take it quite hard, especially the Captain, on account of being denied the consideration due his station, to assign him quarters separate from a crew made up of (not the most select) different nations, among whom are negroes.

1 The old Capitol prison, at Washington.

Our lady friends down as usual, and succeeded, by permission of the officer of the day, in supplying the inmates of No. 3 with sufficient fresh meat to enable them to say that Christmas brought them a variety in the eating line. The mutton chops were much appreciated on account alone of the labour and exposure occasioned the ladies in getting over the ice to the boat. We hope that Lieutenant S―n may never be so situated as to enjoy, as some of us did, a small share of the contents of that little basket. The appearance of several one-limbed Confederate officers endeavouring to get about over the ice-covered space allotted them for exercise, makes our feelings at the setting in of cold weather additionally disagreeable.

NEW YEAR-MORE PRISONERS-ANOTHER BRITISH OFFICER, AN ENVOY EXTRAORDINARY TO WASHINGTON, AND SECRETARY, CAPTURED BY ORDER OF MR. SEWARD THE WIFE AND DAUGHTER OF THE MINISTER IN THE STATION HOUSE-SEVERAL NEW YORK MERCHANTS BROUGHT DOWN; THEY HAVE PLENTY OF MONEY AND EXPECT TO BE OUT SOON-OLD PRISONERS DON'T

THINK THEY WILL.

T

HE commencement of 1864 has so added to the number of prisoners, that instead of about twenty two months ago, there must now be one hundred more. The latest additions have been another British officer, an Envoy Extraordinary from a Central American Republic to Washington, and his secretary, a Spanish gentleman. They are, not on our side of the Fort, but we are authorised to note their cases as follows:-The Envoy came to New York to purchase arms for the use of his government, contracted with a manufacturer who was to ship them in packages of lard to Cuba (the exportation of them being prohibited). As soon as on board ship, the detective comes along, seizes the property, sends the owner, secretary and friend (the