Before Taking Leave Of My Seafaring Days, I Must Say One Word
About Corporal Punishment.
Sir Thomas Bouchier was a good
sailor, a gallant officer, and a kind-hearted man; but he was
one of the old school.
Discipline was his watchword, and he
endeavoured to maintain it by severity. I dare say that, on
an average, there was a man flogged as often as once a month
during the first two years the 'Blonde' was in commission. A
flogging on board a man-of-war with a 'cat,' the nine tails
of which were knotted, and the lashes of which were slowly
delivered, up to the four dozen, at the full swing of the
arm, and at the extremity of lash and handle, was very severe
punishment. Each knot brought blood, and the shock of the
blow knocked the breath out of a man with an involuntary
'Ugh!' however stoically he bore the pain.
I have seen many a bad man flogged for unpardonable conduct,
and many a good man for a glass of grog too much. My firm
conviction is that the bad man was very little the better;
the good man very much the worse. The good man felt the
disgrace, and was branded for life. His self-esteem was
permanently maimed, and he rarely held up his head or did his
best again. Besides which, - and this is true of all
punishment - any sense of injustice destroys respect for the
punisher. Still I am no sentimentalist; I have a contempt
for, and even a dread of, sentimentalism.
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