" The
captain, indeed, from a general sense of propriety, gave his support
to the ward-room officers, knowing that, nine times in ten, midshipmen
were in the wrong.
Things worked as I wished; the midshipmen persisted in behaving
ill--remonstrated, and declared that the first lieutenant did not tell
the truth. For a time, many of them lost the favour of the captain,
but I encouraged them to bear that, as well as the increased rancour
of "Old Nosey." One day two midshipmen, by previous agreement, began
to fight on the lee gangway. In those days, that was crime enough
almost to have hanged them; they were sent to the mast-head for three
hours, and when they came down applied to me for advice. "Go," said I,
"and complain. If the first lieutenant says you were fighting, tell
the captain you were only showing how the first lieutenant pummelled
the men last night when they were hoisting the topsails, and the way
he cut the marine's head, when he knocked him down the hatchway." All
this was fairly done--the midshipmen received a reprimand, but the
captain began to think there might be some cause for these continued
complaints, which daily increased both in weight and number.
At last we were enabled to give the _coup de grace_. A wretched boy
in the ship, whose dirty habits often brought him to the gun, was so
hardened that he laughed at all the stripes of the boatswain's cat
inflicted on him by the first lieutenant. "I will make him feel," said
the enraged officer; so ordering a bowl of brine to be brought to him,
he sprinkled it on the lacerated flesh of the boy between every lash.
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