that number. But as mere
regret on such occasions contributes nothing towards remedying the
evils committed, I have long employed my thoughts in devising some
plan which might lessen the number of punishments at sea, and thus,
perhaps, save others from the remorse I have felt, while it might tend
to relieve the service from the discredit of an improper degree of
severity in its penal administration.

Before proceeding to the main point under consideration, the
diminution of the number and the degree of punishments on board ship,
I must entreat officers not to allow themselves to be misled by the
very mischievous fallacy of supposing that any of the various
substitutes which have yet been proposed for corporal punishment are
one whit less severe than those so long established. It is well known
to officers of experience that this powerful engine of discipline may
be rendered not only the most effective, but essentially the most
lenient, and when duly reported and checked, far more likely to
contribute to the peace and comfort of the men themselves, than any of
the specious but flimsy substitutes alluded to. Solitary confinement,
for example, I take to be one of the most cruel, and, generally
speaking, one of the most unjust of all punishments; for it is
incapable of being correctly measured, and it almost always renders
the offender worse. It prompts him, and gives him time to brood over
revengeful purposes; it irritates him against his officers, and if
long continued almost inevitably leads to insanity and suicide. All
the beneficial effects of example, likewise, are necessarily lost;
because the solitary culprit's sufferings, horrible though they no
doubt are, never meet the eye of the rest of the crew, nor, indeed,
can they ever be truly made known to them, while he himself, when he
quits his cell, makes light of his punishment. But not one man in a
thousand, even of our hardiest spirits, can maintain this air of
indifference at the gangway. And although it must be admitted that a
man, at such moments, can feel no great kindness to his officer, the
transient nature of the punishment, compared to the prolonged misery
of solitary confinement, leaves no time for discontent to rankle. I
never once knew, nor ever heard of an instance in which a corporal
punishment, administered calmly and with strict regard to justice and
established usage, was followed by any permanent ill-will resting on
the mind of a sailor, either tow