Chapter 34 - Page 2

recent a period as the administration of President Polk,
when the historian Bancroft, Secretary of the Navy, officially
interposed, it was an almost universal thing for the officers of
the watch, at their own discretion, to inflict chastisement upon
a sailor, and this, too, in the face of the ordinance restricting
the power of flogging solely to Captains and Courts Martial. Nor
was it a thing unknown for a Lieutenant, in a sudden outburst of
passion, perhaps inflamed by brandy, or smarting under the sense
of being disliked or hated by the seamen, to order a whole watch
of two hundred and fifty men, at dead of night, to undergo the
indignity of the "colt."

It is believed that, even at the present day, there are instances
of Commanders still violating the law, by delegating the power of
the colt to subordinates. At all events, it is certain that, almost
to a man, the Lieutenants in the Navy bitterly rail against the
officiousness of Bancroft, in so materially abridging their usurped
functions by snatching the colt from their hands. At the time, they
predicted that this rash and most ill-judged interference of the
Secretary would end in the breaking up of all discipline in the Navy.
But it has not so proved. These officers _now_ predict that, if the
"cat" be abolished, the same unfulfilled prediction would be verified.

Concerning the license with which many captains violate the express
laws laid down by Congress for the government of the Navy, a glaring
instance may be quoted. For upward of forty years there has been on
the American Statute-book a law prohibiting a captain from inflicting,
on his own authority, more than twelve lashes at one time. If more are
to be given, the sentence must be passed by a Court-martial. Yet, for
nearly half a century, this law has been frequently, and with almost
perfect impunity, set at naught: though of late, through the exertions
of Bancroft and others, it has been much better observed than formerly;
indeed, at the present day, it is generally respected. Still, while
the Neversink was lying in a South American port, on the cruise now
written of, the seamen belonging to another American frigate informed
us that their captain sometimes inflicted, upon his own authority,
eighteen and twenty lashes. It is worth while to state that this
frigate was vastly admired by the shore ladies for her wonderfully
neat appearance. One of her forecastle-men told me that he had used up
three jack-knives (charged to him on the books of the purser) in
scraping the belaying-pins and the combings of the hatchways.

It is singular that while the Lieutenants of the watch in American
men-of-war so long usurped the power of inflicting corporal punishment
with the