232 Lttier on Affairs in general. [MARCH, 



been made a sort of bugbear term synonimous with every idea of a scheme 

 of wanton ferocity and oppression a sort of legalized " Reign of Terror/' 

 The Midshipman of twelve years old, is understood to walk about, strap- 

 padoing by way of morning exercise the able seaman of forty; and the 

 Captain's eye is an object of alarm such as the very cats of the ship 

 proverbially privileged to look even upon Royalty dare not venture to 

 encounter. Now, all this is very sad stuff: no necessary part of any public 

 system; but merely impertinence; and such impertinence as we certainly 

 ought not to countenance a most gross and oppressive violation of the 

 liberty of British subjects, for the sake of supporting. The short fact 'is 

 that the service of the Navy ought to be improved : sailors should be 

 both better paid than they are, and better protected against wanton in- 

 solence and injustice. It is trash to talk of the impossibility of " dis- 

 ciplining" men unless by blows and curses. We used to hear the same 

 stuff forty years ago about the Army. The power to inflict corporal 

 punishment, I believe, can never be got rid of entirely in either service ; 

 but the suggestion that blows must be inflicted upon men, even for the most 

 trifling offences that they must be so used as to form part of every man's 

 daily expectation and understanding is an insult to one's common sense. 

 Let it only once be understood that naval officers must be found who can 

 accomplish their discipline without this resource ; and, my life on it, they 

 will soon be found in ve*y sufficient numbers : we shall have no need (even 

 then) to " impress" Captains, whatever we may have to do by foremast 

 seamen. 



There are one or two points on which I think the Times writer is not 

 quite correctly informed : for instance, as to the comparative advantages 

 (immediate) of the Government, and Merchant naval services. Excepting 

 as to the provision of a pension, and the chance of Prize-money, I think the 

 merchant service has the superiority. The pay of an able seaman on 

 board a West-India ship, during the last war, was as high often as from 

 four pounds ten shillings, to five pounds a month : that of a man-of-war's- 

 man not more than forty-five, or fifty, shillings. The men live better, too, 

 upon the whole at least, the allowance is more ample on board mer- 

 chant vessels : and though the quantity of useful work for the ship which 

 each man performs is greater, yet, as he is not harassed by needless 

 exertion, his actual labour, I should be inclined to say, is less. 



These last two circumstances, however, are not those which throw any 

 difficulty in the way of the Government navy's getting seamen the real 

 causes of the difficulty are equally incontestible and obvious they are the 

 higher wages given by the Merchant service the absence even of the com- 

 mon inducement of a " Bounty" and/still more, the needlessly and osten- 

 tatiously oppressive and arbitrary character of the " discipline." We offer 

 Twelve or Fifteen guineas Bounty to a soldier, for a limited service say 

 seven years, or during the war; and only Three or Four guineas to a sailor, 

 whose service is to have no limit but the mere fact of his having served 

 once (although voluntarily), is a sure certificate, if he can be laid hold of, 

 high or low, to his being compelled to serve again. It is impossible not 

 to see that this is a course of the most manifest cruelty and injustice; and 

 that, if we ever wish to get rid of the odium which sailors attach to our 

 navy, every seaman who voluntarily enters it ought to be enlisted for a 

 given period ; at the end of which, he is without any sort of excuse or 

 equivocation to be/m?. For the argument, that in time of war without 

 the power of impressment " Government will always be outbid by the 

 jaw-chant ships" this argument, which I believe is Sir G. Cockburn's 



