is they
agreed to, and not a day passed but they were either mast-headed, or put
watch and watch.

They reported all to me, and asked my advice. "Complain to the
captain," said I. They did, and were told that the first lieutenant had
done his duty. The same causes produced the same effects on each
succeeding day; and when the midshipmen complained, they had no redress.
By my direction, they observed to the captain, "It is of no use
complaining, sir; you always take Mr Clewline's part." The captain,
indeed, from a general sense of propriety, gave his support to the
ward-room officers, knowing that, nine times in ten, midshipmen were in
the wrong.

Things worked as I wished; the midshipmen persisted in behaving ill--
remonstrated, and declared that the first lieutenant did not tell the
truth. For a time, many of them lost the favour of the captain; but I
encouraged them to bear that, as well as the increased rancour of "Old
Nosey." One day, two midshipmen, by previous agreement, began to fight
on the lee gangway. In those days, that was crime enough almost to have
hanged them; they were sent to the mast-head for three hours, and when
they came down applied to me for advice. "Go," said I, "and complain.
If the first lieutenant says you were fighting, tell the captain you
were only showing how the first lieutenant pummelled the men last night
when they were hoisting the topsails, and the way he cut the marine's
head, when he knocked him down the hatchway." All this was fairly
done--the midshipmen received a reprimand, but the captain began to
think there might be some cause for these continued complaints, which
daily increased both in weight and number.

At last we were enabled to give the _coup de grace_. A wretched boy in
the ship, whose dirty habits often brought him to the gun, was so
hardened that he laughed at all the stripes of the boatswain's cat
inflicted on him by the first lieutenant. "I will make him feel," said
the enraged officer; so ordering a bowl of brine to be brought to him,
he sprinkled it on the lacerated flesh of the boy between every lash.
This inhuman act, so unbecoming the character of an officer and a
gentleman, we all resented, and retiring to the gun-room in a body, gave
three deep and heavy groans in chorus. The effect was dismal; it was
heard in the ward-room, and the first lieutenant sent down to desire we
should be quiet; on which we immediately gave three more, which sent him