iscipline of an entire squadron in time of war without having an
instrument of scourging on board, what inevitable inferences must be
drawn, and how disastrous to the mental character of all advocates of
navy flogging, who may happen to be navy officers themselves.

It cannot have escaped the discernment of any observer of mankind,
that, in the presence of its conventional inferiors, conscious
imbecility in power often seeks to carry off that imbecility by
assumptions of lordly severity. The amount of flogging on board an
American man-of-war is, in many cases, in exact proportion to the
professional and intellectual incapacity of her officers to command.
Thus, in these cases, the law that authorises flogging does but put a
scourge into the hand of a fool. In most calamitous instances this has
been shown.

It is a matter of record, that some English ships of war have fallen a
prey to the enemy through the insubordination of the crew, induced by
the witless cruelty of their officers; officers so armed by the law
that they could inflict that cruelty without restraint. Nor have there
been wanting instances where the seamen have ran away with their ships,
as in the case of the Hermione and Danae, and forever rid themselves of
the outrageous inflictions of their officers by sacrificing their lives
to their fury.

Events like these aroused the attention of the British public at the
time. But it was a tender theme, the public agitation of which the
government was anxious to suppress. Nevertheless, whenever the thing
was privately discussed, these terrific mutinies, together with the
then prevailing insubordination of the men in the navy, were almost
universally attributed to the exasperating system of flogging. And the
necessity for flogging was generally believed to be directly referable
to the impressment of such crowds of dissatisfied men. And in high
quarters it was held that if, by any mode, the English fleet could be
manned without resource to coercive measures, then the necessity of
flogging would cease.

"If we abolish either impressment or flogging, the abolition of the
other will follow as a matter of course." This was the language of the
_Edinburgh Review_, at a still later period, 1824.

If, then, the necessity of flogging in the British armed marine was
solely attributed to the impressment of the seamen, what faintest
shadow of reason is there for the continuance of this barbarity in the
American service, whi