The rumor is, that we are to be sent to _Dartmoor prison_. Some of our crew have lately received a letter from a prisoner in that depot of misery, for such he describes it. He tells us that it is situated in the most dreary and uncultivated spot in England; and that to the sterility of the soil are added the black coloring of superstition.
A _Moor_, a word not used in America, is used in England to denote a low, marshy piece of ground, or an elevated sterile spot, like our pine-barren's, divested of every thing like a pine tree. It denotes something between a beach and a meadow. It is a solemn-faced-truth in this country of our superstitious ancestors, that every extensive and dreary _moor_, in England, is haunted by troubled ghosts, witches, and walking dead men, visiting, in a sociable way, each other's graves. It is really surprising, to an intelligent American, and incredible, that stout, hearty, and otherwise bold Englishmen, dare not walk alone over the dreary spot, or _moor_, where the prison now stands, in a dark and cloudy night, without trembling with horror, at _a nothing_! The minds of Scotchmen, of all ranks, are more or less beclouded with this sort of superstition. They still believe in ghosts, witches, and a _second sight_! Free as we are from this superstition, we have rather more of it than the French. The English and American theatres still relish Macbeth and Hamlet. Beside the stories of witches flying about in the air, and dead men strolling over the _moor_, the letter contained an account of the origin of this new famous prison. It stated that this _Dartmoor_ belonged to that beautiful gambler, the Dutchess of Devonshire;[I] who lost it in a game of hazard with the Prince of Wales; who, to enhance the value of it, (he being, as all the world knows, a very contriving, speculating, economical, close fisted, miserly genius) contrived to have erected there a species of a fortress, enclosing seven very large buildings, or prisons, for the reception of captured seamen; from which establishment its royal landlord received a very handsome annual rent; and this princely anecdote is as firmly believed as the stories of the witches, and the walking dead men. The only remark we would make upon it here, is, that _Dartmoor_ has a dismal idea associated with it--and that was sufficient to make our people conceive of it as a place doleful as a coal-pit.