The Sun. — 1830-10-04 (London, England)

JUNE, 1805, AND FEBRUARY, 1806, AS EXTRACTED FROM THE LOG • BOOR OF THAT SHIP.  (From the Times.) The publication of those distressing and disgraceful severities, which have lately taken place on board certain of our East Indiamen,. and have been made the subject of proceedings at some of the police-offices, seems to have induced a cbrrespondent to favour us with the copy of a paMphlet, written a few years ago, on the discipline of the Marine of England, and on the treatment experienced in too many instances by her seamen. It is a stinging pamphlet, but one which not merely every officer in the navy, but every Member of Parliament, and every British statesman, ought to read. The title of the essay. is, " An Inquiry into the Nature and Effects 4+91. Flogging," as practised by the Royal Navy and the Merchant Service. To enumerate the reasons which operate forcibly against an arbitrary recourse to the abovementioned odious punishment, would be to compose a volume. Every motive to the avoidance of unnecessary insult, outrage, degradation, and cruelty towards our fellow-creatures, would be' embraced in such a work. Every consideration of prudence, policy, patriotism, and benevolence, might and must be urged on behalf of a temperate and kindly exercise of authority. over our sailors, if common justice were done to a question of such extreme importance. The author does not deal in visions of a moral excellence in officers or seamen unattainable by human nature, or of a separation from men in power of the means of enforcing their commands : he does not press for the abolition of flogging in the Royal Navy, of which he paints the details with terrible accuracy ; but only recommends that it shall be administered, if at all, under the sentence of a regularly-constituted Court-martial, so as to secure the seaman from acts of oppression perpetrated through caprice or malice. There is no doubt, that in numerous instances crimes of the most revolting and deadly nature have been committed by the crews of men-ofwar. The mutiny on board the Hermione, and the piratical seizure of the Dana 6 which was carried by her ship's company into an enemy's port, are samples of what sailors will sometimes execute ; but they are likewise proofs of the dreadful effect of a system of inhuman treatment practised by officers upon these poor men, whose desperate and lawless conduct, it is on record, was in both the above cases provoked (we do not say justified) by the frequent torture of the rope's-end and cat-o'-nine-tails, to which they, the respective crews, bad been subjected. The following passages from the little pamphlet alluded to, will convey the author's sentiments on the cases of the two ships in question, as also on those of the Ariadne, whose seamen cheered on the fall of their commander Captain Corbett, in action ; and of the Howe, whose log-book is said not to have contained a full and faithful return of the number of punishments inflicted. " Prevention of crime is the only legitimate end for the attainment of which punishments of any description should be resorted to as the means ; and great care should be taken that the punishment be not more than commensurate with the offence; for if trivial offences be visited with unnecessarily severe punishments, the turpitude of the offence is wholly lost sight of in the general sympathy and in. dignation excited by the enormous severity of the punishment. With such unrelenting severity has the lash been inflicted in the royal navy, that mutiny and murder have been resorted to in a spirit of retaliation 1 What was it which induced the crew of the Ilennione to mutiny, to kill the captain (Pigot), his officers, and the marines; and then to carry that ship into an enemy's port ? Excessive flogging and starting, which were inflicted to an excess surpassing human endurance, and rendering the prospective terrors of the yard-arm a comparatively trifling risk, when weighed with the tremendous evils from which the crow of the Hennione conceived they were about to extricate themselves. We do not believe it to be possible that any man can reflect on the mutiny of the Hernsionc, and the murders and hangings which resulted therefrom, without feeling convinced that the whole was an effect, of which the cruel and wanton abuse of power, on the part of Captain Pigot and his officers, was most assuredly the cause. It is this conviction which, to a certain extent, mitigates our abhorrence of the cold-blooded murders which were committed by the mutineers of the Hertnione on that lamentable  One half of oath by the 2Stlt October next, and the re' toalmicr by the 25th November following.