The female prisoners were occupied in
needlework. Among them was a beautiful girl of twenty, who had
been there nearly three years. She acted as bearer of secret
despatches for the self-styled Patriots on Navy Island, during the
Canadian Insurrection: sometimes dressing as a girl, and carrying
them in her stays; sometimes attiring herself as a boy, and
secreting them in the lining of her hat. In the latter character
she always rode as a boy would, which was nothing to her, for she
could govern any horse that any man could ride, and could drive
four-in-hand with the best whip in those parts. Setting forth on
one of her patriotic missions, she appropriated to herself the
first horse she could lay her hands on; and this offence had
brought her where I saw her. She had quite a lovely face, though,
as the reader may suppose from this sketch of her history, there
was a lurking devil in her bright eye, which looked out pretty
sharply from between her prison bars.
There is a bomb-proof fort here of great strength, which occupies a
bold position, and is capable, doubtless, of doing good service;
though the town is much too close upon the frontier to be long
held, I should imagine, for its present purpose in troubled times.
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