whose grog is stopped, always gets twice his allowance from others; for Jack is a liberal fellow, and every one contributes to pour some of the stream of a sailor's joy down the throat of his shipmate. "Make it so weak,' cries another, "that he would rather not drink it." Very good; but, nine times out of ten, where is the water to come from? In small vessels the men are on an allowance of water from the day they sail to the day they arrive; and when men are on an allowance, the extra water would be a favour rather than a punishment. But to tell a plain truth, you must have a severe check hanging in terrorem over a ship's company: only withdraw the fear of the cat, and mark the result. The captain must lecture for, and hope better conduct in future; sailors care no more about words than a dog does for his grandfather. The ship will soon become slow in her evolutions, and a disgrace to the squadron. The fear being withdrawn, the first-lieutenant will not be properly supported: he may relax his complaints: the men find the bridle loose, and away goes discipline. Next follows loss of masts, and lives, wrecks, fires, and sickness; for cleanliness and discipline go hand-in-hand; then comes the wonder how all these misfortunes could have occurred, which we seldom heard of before. And then comes the truth limping at the end of the tragedy, that for want of the power of punishment, the British navy had dwindled down to the level of a merchant-ship; and that all the glory which discipline had upheld, is for ever fleeted away. Why, now, a boy, a little pick pocket boy cannot be punished, without all hands attending the flagellation; and thus the list is swelled to a more than usual number, for formerly the first-lieutenant enacted schoolmaster, and whipped the idle and the riotous; now, forsooth, a little urchin, who at school would have been flagellated without mercy, has the honour of a full attendance to witness his disgrace, and has his name inserted in the log and in the quarterly returns: surely this is preposterously absurd. I would submit to any reasonable man who has been, and has, commanded, and who may have paid common attention to the character of English sailors, if the better part of the crew would not rather have the cat held in terrorem over the ship's company, and know that the idle, the skulking, the thief, and the drunkard, will be certainly punished if they neglect their duty. Unquestionably the good seamen would prefer the continuance of the punishment to witnessing the distressing scenes of the black list, or the long row of culprits with one leg each in the bilboes. The discipline of our navy has been the pride of England and the wonder of the world. The fleets of other nations have been swept from the ocean, and the flag of Great Britain has been upheld in the furthest quarter of the globe: surely discipline must have been a great auxiliary, or this glory could not have been attained. Why, during the war, did an English frigate unhesitatingly attack a French frigate, of far superiour force wherever they met ?-because the confidence of the captain was in the discipline of his crew: and that discipline cannot be upheld without some greater punishment than watering a man's grog, polishing a pin, or having the black list, like a pack of flamingos, to stand on one leg, or stride over a rope.. While our naval discipline has risen above other nations, while we can uphold the honour and glory of the flag, leave us the power, we do not want the necessity of punishment. Interfere by all possible means to bring wanton cruelty or heartless tyranny to its merited censure and disgrace. No man could advocate the abuse of the power of punishment possessing the feelings or the courage of a man. Interfere thus far, and no farther; for rely upon it, the service would be materially injured if the law was abrogated. If any of the strong advocates for the abolition of corporal punishments in the navy had witnessed the dreadful effects of fire on board a ship, arising from the grossest neglect of duty, or from the meddling interference of the senseless drunkard-had they been rescued by the accidental passing of another ship, as was the case with the Kent East Indiaman, when the crew and passengers stood upon the very brink of destruction, almost without hope of assistance, they would be inclined to alter their opinions about "treating seamen like boys," or the twopenny nonsense of using them like horses." Compare the loss of the Alceste with the wreck of the French frigate Medusa; the one the beauty of discipline, the other the confusion of a mob. Read with what patient resignation the crew of the former submitted to the dictates of Maxwell and his officers; see the example that was set by all the officers down to the smallest midshipman, and dwell with pleasure on their release. After perusing all their sufferings and all their obedience, then cast your eyes over the horrid picture of the loss of the Medusa ;-the drunken hope of the undisciplined crew; their heartless murders, and their dreadful sufferings; and then quietly ask yourself to what cause was to be ascribed the quiet submission of the one, or the barbarous brutality of the other. It is some small comfort in tropical climates, where squalls come suddenly and awfully strong, to know that in two minutes every sail can be reduced, and thus the chance of accident diminished; it is equally disgusting to be on board a ship where half the men skulk below, where the masts are carried away, the sails split, or the crew kept on deck for hours. I remember, in one very undisciplined ship, in which I happened to be a passenger, that a man fell overboard; the hurry and confusion which oc curred baffled all description; the consequence was, that the stern-boat was lowered when the ship had too much way, and three men (as the boat swamped) drifted away a-stern. The foremost tackle of the larboard-quarter boat was let go by the run, and two more men thrown overboard; a similar accident very nearly occurred with the starboard-quarter boat, which, however, was ultimately cleared, and, instead of only losing one man, we lost three. Discipline, discipline alone, has upheld our navy; and discipline we must have. Why, what captain can forget the time when the gaols vomited their contents on board the men-of-war? Were these pickpockets, drunkards, vagabonds of the lowest order, to be ruled with a feather or soothed with soft accents? Could it be imagined that those who had defied the strong hand of the law, would become, like good little children, tractable and obedient at once? No! those who ought to have been flogged in the gaols were flogged elsewhere; and by constant vigilance on every action of these vermin, we reformed their characters, and turned them to useful servants of the state-from bold, but cruel violators of the law. Reader, you may go to the end of the volumes without being pestered with one word more on the above disgusting subject. CHAPTER V. "A sail! a sail!" a promised prize of hope! BYRON. À STRANGE sail right a-head. It was a fine clear morning, the sea as blue as a summer sky; the Salsette off the Island of Maretimo: mine was the morning watch, and it was just daylight. We had a breeze, a light one, and barely sufficient to move our tea-kettle of a vessel at the rate of a knot and a half an hour. The stranger was becalmed about five miles from the island. From divers exertions made by her, such as towing with the only boat she had, and rowing with the only sweep she possessed, endeavouring to near the land, we were satisfied that she was an enemy. I was in raptures at the thought of capturing our first prize on the sea. Our Dutch captures were broad-sterned dodgers-river-fish floating down, not worthy of being reckoned as ocean gifts, the God-sends of sailors and avaricious agents. It was a long chase in appearance, because the vessel was close to us, but progressed by the above means nearly as fast as we did. She was destined to be ours. Fortune, what a fickle devil art thou! To those who have much, thou givest more, and withholdest from the almost starving the little they require. When within about three miles of the shore, a breeze sprung up off the land, and obliged the chase to "beat up" for her shelter: at that moment we took a sea breeze, and run right down upon her: the shot from the long bow gun passed over her, and the tricoloured flag was shown and hauled down immediately. We neared her fast, and saw her boat push from the vessel, and make towards the shore. Our grape-shot fell like hail around her; but the crew clung to their oars, and pulled hard to avoid a prison. VOL. 1. 4 In vain we despatched the gig with two marines to fire at the poor wretches; they escaped, and we took possession of a deserted prize. There are many very gratifying moments in life; the eliciting of acknowledged love from the lips of youth and beauty-the first delicious sip of rich Madeira at dinner-the long draught of sangoree during the oppression of the sun in the West Indies-a rich uncle's unfortunate death-the secret pleasure of abusing a friend-the curious feeling of satisfaction when any man fails in his object—having a once rich relation a beggar at one's feet-humbled pride in others—or the secret, undefinable gratification of piquing and soothing the girl we love-not to mention the long, long kiss of youth. But to a sailor, "prize-money" is as sweet as "revenge in woman ;" and that is saying as much for the feeling, as even Lord Byron could say, from whom I borrow the simile. At the moment of the capture I would not have changed my profession for any other in the world. the joy of legally mistaking the meum et tuum—the im. mense gratification of converting another man's property to our own use-the having a license to rob and to murder-it's quite delightful! and quite unknown to your sober, virtuous people on shore, who talk of morality and honesty, as if the whole world acknowledged their existence. Oh, My share was small, of course; but I heard with gratification the calculations of her worth, and the probable proportions of each. "Why, youngster," said one, "you will make a fortune here; but wait awhile, prizes are not always taken quite so easily." He was a true retailer of a well-known fact, and that evening very nearly saw his prophecy fulfilled. And now for a scene, arising from a ship's company not being in good discipline, and the ship being, like a midshipman's chest, every thing at top, and nothing at hand. We had parted with the prize, having sent her to Malta, the frigate making sail in chase of another vessel to windward. She very shortly got away from us, and in the evening we bore up for Malta, with a strong, and, of course, favourable breeze. It was about ten o'clock; the officer of the watch talking very jollily, and very improperly, with the marine officer; the look-out man on the |