June 20th.—Hitherto the duty of the ship has been carried on admirably under a kind and humane discipline. The lash, formerly in such constant requisition on board a man-of-war, in bringing a new crew under ready control, has neither been heard nor seen. A fight, however, which came off a day or two since, between two of the marines, led to a kind of drumhead court-martial, yesterday, and to the punishment of the parties this morning, with the cat-o’-nine-tails. It is the first instance with us of such a revolting spectacle, and I most devoutly hope it may be the last. I am sure it will, unless there be those on board so incorrigible and so determined to subject themselves to it, that no other mode of discipline will meet their case. Before we left port, Captain McIntosh, in an excellent address, after the first reading in public of the “articles of war,” assured the crew with deep feeling, that nothing could give him greater pleasure than to return to the United States and have it in his power to report to the Navy Department that a lash had never been given on board the Congress during the cruise. He reiterated the same sentiment this morning to the ship’s company, mustered to witness the punishment, with the fresh avowal of his utter unwillingness to resort to so degrading a mode of chastisement: adding “that the existing law, however, made the duty imperative upon him as an ultimate means of enforcing his command, and protecting his ship from insubordination and misrule; and that it should be remembered by all, whenever the necessity was forced on him of administering this punishment, that it would only be through the deliberate purpose and choice of any one subjecting himself to it.”
The cat-o’-nine-tails, as a mode of punishment, is a relic of barbarism disgraceful to the age in which we live, and antagonistic to its entire spirit. The wonder is, not that men-of-wars men are scarce, and recruits for the navy few, but that, with such a barbarous punishment legalized, an American sailor can be found willing to place himself in a position in which he can, by any contingency, be exposed to the disgrace of its infliction.
In place of attempting a description of the spectacle, as just witnessed by us, I will substitute one, which happens to be before me, of a similar scene, from the pen of an officer in the British Navy. It is more graphic than any I could furnish, and as truthful to the reality, in its leading features, as can well be pictured. It is drawn from his early experience as a midshipman. “I had not been many days on board,” he says, “before I heard a hollow sound reverberating round the frigate’s decks, and which seemed to bring a shade of gloom over the faces of all around me. Again the words were repeated, ‘All hands, Ahoy!’ I eagerly inquired the meaning of this mystery, and was answered by a lad about sixteen years of age, ‘It is all hands to punishment, my boy; you are going to see a man flogged.’
“The idea of a man being flogged at all, under any possible circumstances, had never before entered my brain. I had as yet no notions that such a degree of barbarity could exist; I had indeed known that boys were flogged, but how they could horse a man was to me a mystery. My reflections were broken in upon by observing all my messmates busily engaged in putting on their cocked-hats and side-arms. And as this was the first time I had sported my new dirk, I felt very strange and mingled sensations, as I stepped forth on the quarter-deck. The marines were drawn up on the larboard side of the deck, with their bayonets fixed, and their officers with their swords drawn, and resting against their shoulders. On the main deck the seamen had all assembled in a dense crowd around the hatchway, and the said hatchway was ornamented with several gratings fixed up on one end, evidently for some purpose which I had never yet seen accomplished. The officers in their full uniforms, with swords, and cocked hats, were pacing the decks: but all was still and solemn silence. At length the captain came forth from his cabin, the marines carrying arms at his first appearance on the quarter-deck. The first lieutenant, taking off his hat, approached him, and reported that ‘all was ready.’
“As the captain came up to the gangway, he removed his hat; which was followed by all the men and officers becoming uncovered. Then, taking a printed copy of the articles of war, he read aloud a few lines, which denounced the judgment of a court-martial on any person who should be guilty of some particular offence, the nature of which I did not understand. This done, he ordered Edward Williams to strip; adding, ‘You have been guilty of neglect of duty, sir, in not laying in off the foretopsail yard when the first lieutenant ordered you; and I will give you a d——d good flogging.’ By this time the poor fellow had taken off his jacket and shirt, which was thrown over his shoulders by the master-at-arms, while two quartermasters lashed the poor fellow’s elbows to the gratings, so that he could not stir beyond an inch or two either way. It was in vain that he begged and besought the captain and first lieutenant to forgive him; protesting that he did not hear himself called, in consequence of having a bad cold, which rendered him almost deaf. His entreaties were unheeded; and at the words, ‘Boatswain’s mate, give him a dozen,’ a tall, strong fellow came forward with a cat-o’-nine-tails, and, having taken off his own jacket, and carefully measured his distance, so as to be able to strike with the full swing of his arm, he flung the tails of the cat around his head, and with all the energy of his body brought them down upon the fair, white, plump back of poor Williams. A sudden jerk of the poor fellow almost tore away the gratings from their position; he gave a scream of agony, and again begged the captain, for the sake of Jesus Christ, to let him off. I was horror-struck on seeing nine large welts, as big as my fingers, raised on his back, spreading from his shoulder-blades nearly to his loins; but my feelings were doomed to be still more harrowed. For as soon as the tall boatswain’s mate had completed the task of running his fingers through the cords to clear them and prevent the chance of a single lash being spared the wretched sufferer, he again flung them around his head to repeat the blow. Another slashing sound upon the naked flesh, another shriek and struggle to get free succeeded,—and then another and another, till the complement of twelve agonizing lashes was completed. The back was, by this time, nearly covered with deep red gashes; the skin roughed up and curled in many parts, as it does when a violent blow causes an extensive abrasion. The poor man looked up with an imploring eye toward the first lieutenant, and groaned out, ‘Indeed, sir, as I hope to be saved, I did not hear you call me.’ The only reply was on the part of the captain, who gave the word, ‘another boatswain’s mate!’ ‘Oh, God, sir, have mercy on me!’ was again the cry of the poor man: ‘Boatswain’s mate, go on; and mind that you do your duty!’ the only answer.
“The effect of one hundred and eight cuts upon his bare back had rendered it a fearful sight, but when these had been repeated with all the vigor of a fresh and untired arm, the poor fellow exhibited a sad spectacle indeed. The dark red of the wounds had assumed a livid purple, the flesh stood up in mangled ridges, and the blood trickled here and there like the breaking out of an old wound. The pipes of the boatswain and his mates now sounded, and they called ‘all hands up anchor!’ The gratings were quickly removed, and of all the human beings who had witnessed the cruel torture on the body of poor Edward Williams, not one seemed in the slightest degree affected. All was bustle and activity and apparent merriment as they went to work in obedience to the call.”
In this account there is no exaggeration: no exaggeration of the usual manner of inflicting such punishment; no exaggeration of the triviality of the alleged offence; no exaggeration of the earnest asseveration of innocence; no exaggeration of the hardening effect of the scene upon the spectators. I have known men to be thus flogged for acts or omissions equally if not more trivial—not only singly, but, in one instance at least, a dozen at a time, and that, too, where it was known that one only of the number was really in fault. Because some one of a quarter watch in the top did a careless and lubberly thing, in the estimation of an officer, though doubtless, from the circumstances of the case, accidentally, and none of his topmates would give up his name, the whole watch were ordered on deck, and, in succession, received a dozen lashes each.
The entire experience of the writer of the above account, as to this punishment, corroborates fully the opinion I have formed from my own observation as to its effects—that in all its bearings it has a tendency to demoralize and harden rather than to reform. He proceeds to state that the captain under whose command the case of flogging described occurred, changed ships not long afterwards with one who abominated the system of corporal punishment; and adds, “For four years I served under his orders, and witnessed no more of the inhuman practice. The men were allowed to go on shore frequently sixty and seventy at a time, and in all respects were treated so kindly that but one case of desertion occurred during all that period. The captain made it a point to visit the whole crew when at dinner, to see, himself, that they had every thing they required to make them comfortable. This he did every day; and the sick were always fed from his own table. The result of this was that our ship was the smartest frigate on the station, and fought one of the most glorious actions which ever graced the annals of the British Navy.”
His experience in the matter did not end here. He thus proceeds: “I joined another ship, the captain of which was wont to say, ‘I never forgive a first offence—for if there was no first offence there could be no second.’ Profane swearing and drunkenness, he never by any accident forgave. The result was a flogging match every Monday morning, and very frequently once or twice in the week besides. The crew grew worse and worse from this treatment, till, at length, there was scarcely a sober seaman or marine on board the ship, though her complement was about six hundred men and boys. The more drunken they became the more he flogged them; but the crime and punishment seemed to react on each other, and the ship became at last so very notorious for the cat that he was jested upon it by his fellow captains, and the men deserted at every opportunity.”
I believe the experience, thus presented, of these two ships, to be a fair exposition of the general and direct tendency of the two systems. Revolting as punishment with the ‘colt’ and ‘cat’ ever has been to me, and often as my blood has been made to boil in witnessing it, a want of practical knowledge in the case led me, for a time, reluctantly to acquiesce in the opinion universally held, so far as I could discover, by those most experienced in naval rule, that it was indispensable as a means of discipline on board a man-of-war. But the teachings of my nature, that this is an error, have been corroborated by long observation; and had no previous conviction of this been fastened on my mind, the success of the executive officer of the Congress in devising and substituting more humanizing modes of punishment for transgressions of law and delinquencies in duty, would have gone far in persuading me to it. I doubt not that should the law of the lash be abrogated by our national legislature to-morrow,[[1]] and the change be met by the enactment of a wise and philanthropic code of naval rule, the discipline and efficiency of the service would be more perfect than ever before.