Jack Tar by Roy Adkins & Lesley Adkins

Author:Roy Adkins & Lesley Adkins [Adkins, Roy & Adkins, Lesley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780748112111
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2011-10-20T04:00:00+00:00

The seamen, marines and petty officers could be accused of all manner of misdemeanours and more serious offences, but the type of punishment depended very much on the attitude and tolerance of the captain. Royal Navy law was embodied in an Act of Parliament of the mid-seventeenth century, which was revised in 1749 with subsequent amendments and comprised thirty-six Articles of War. These had to be read aloud to the seamen each month – some captains read them out instead of holding a religious service on Sundays. Most of the articles were concerned with various offences and the types of punishment available.

For less serious offences, grog could be stopped or watered down, and skilled seamen and petty officers could be disrated (demoted) so that they were reduced in rank and their pay was decreased, or they could be flogged – referred to frequently as flogging at the gangway, or simply being punished at the gangway. This was by far the most common form of punishment, though in theory only a dozen lashes were allowed without a court martial – something captains frequently ignored or circumvented. The 1806 regulations merely reminded the captain that he alone could order punishments ‘which he is never to do without sufficient cause, nor ever with the greater severity than the offence shall really deserve’.34 It was not until the war was almost over that an effective check on the power of captains was introduced, as Basil Hall noted: ‘Antecedent to June 1811, the date of the order by which officers in command of ships were required to send quarterly returns of punishments to the Admiralty, there was little or no restraint upon the despotic authority of the captain, as far, at least, as corporal punishments were concerned.’35

What happened when the men were called to witness a flogging was revealed by Samuel Leech:

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