FOOTNOTES:
[22] “In a man-of-war,” says Edward Thompson, “you have the collected filths of jails: condemned criminals have the alternative of hanging or entering on board.... There’s not a vice committed on shore that is not practised here; the scenes of horror and infamy on board a man-of-war are so many and so great that I think they must rather disgust a good mind than allure it.”
[23] The pay of an able seaman, such as a topman or forecastle hand, was 33s. a month. An ordinary seaman received 25s. 6d. The landsman 2s. 6d. or 3s. a month less. Until 1797 the pay given was about a third of that quoted above.
[24] Or on the orlop.
CHAPTER VI
Sea punishments—The cat—Flogging at the gangway—Flogging through the fleet—Running the gauntlet—Keel-hauling—Hanging
The punishment most in use in the fleet was flogging on the bare back with the cat-o’-nine-tails. The cat was a short, wooden stick, covered with red baize. The tails were of tough knotted cord, about two feet long. The thieves’ cat, with which thieves were flogged, had longer and heavier tails, knotted throughout their length. Flogging was inflicted at the discretion of the captain. It was considered the only punishment likely to be effective with such men as manned the royal ships. It is now pretty certain that it was as useless as it was degrading. Lord Charles Beresford has said that, “in those days we had the cat and no discipline; now we have discipline and no cat.” Another skilled observer has said that “it made a bad man worse, and broke a good man’s heart.” It was perhaps the most cruel and ineffectual punishment ever inflicted. The system was radically bad, for many captains inflicted flogging for all manner of offences, without distinction. The thief was flogged, the drunkard was flogged, the laggard was flogged. The poor, wretched topman who got a rope-yarn into a buntline block was flogged. The very slightest transgression was visited with flogging. Those seamen who had any pride remaining in them went in daily fear of being flogged. Those who had been flogged were generally callous, careless whether they were flogged again, and indifferent to all that might happen to them. It was a terrible weapon in the hands of the officers. In many cases the officers abused the power, by the infliction of excessive punishment for trifling offences. The sailors liked a smart captain. They liked to be brought up to the mark, and if a captain showed himself a brave man, a good seaman, and a glutton for hard knocks, they would stand any punishment he chose to inflict, knowing that such a one would not be unjust. They hated a slack captain, for a slack captain left them at the mercy of the underlings, and that, they said, was “hell afloat.” But worse than anything they hated a tyrant, a man who flogged his whole ship’s company for little or no reason, or for the infringement of his own arbitrary rules. Such a man, who kept his crew in an agony of fear, hardly knowing whether to kill themselves or their tyrant, was dreaded by all. He was not uncommon in the service until the conclusion of the Great War. It was his kind who drove so many of our men into the American navy. It was his kind who did so much to cause the mutinies at the Nore and Spithead, the loss of the Hermione frigate, and (to some extent) the losses we sustained in the American War. Lastly, it was his kind who caused so many men to desert, in defiance of the stern laws against desertion. That kind of captain was the terror of the fleet. We do not know what percentage of captains gave the lash unmercifully. Jack Nastyface tells us that of the nine ships of the line he sailed aboard only two had humane commanders. These two received services of plate from the sailors under their command at the paying-off of their ships; the other seven, we are to presume, ranged from the severe to the brutal.
After all, the cat was not essential to discipline. This was proved time and time again while it was most in use. There were, of course, stubborn, brutal, and mutinous sailors. A fleet so manned could not lack such men. When such men were brought before Lord Nelson, he would say: “Send them to Collingwood. He will tame them, if no one else can.” Lord Collingwood was the man who swore, by the god of war, that his men should salute a reefer’s coat, even when it were merely hung to dry. Yet he didn’t tame his men by cutting their backs into strips. He would have his whole ship’s company in perfect order, working like machines, with absolute, unquestioning fidelity. But he seldom flogged more than one man a month, and punished really serious offences, such as drunkenness, inciting to mutiny, and theft, with six, nine, or at most a dozen, lashes. His system tamed the hardest cases in the fleet—good men, whom Lord St Vincent would have flogged to death, or sent to the yard-arm. In conclusion we may quote one of those who saw the last days of flogging: “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.” Such was the effect of the favourite punishment in the time of the consulship of Plancus.
A FLOGGING AT THE GANGWAY