getting occasionally out of order, may all tend to make him irritable
and despotic.

I have seen a captain order his steward to be flogged, almost to death,
because his pea-soup was not hot. I have seen an officer from twenty to
twenty-five years of age made to stand between two guns with a sentry
over him for hours, because he had neglected to see and salute the
tyrant who had come on deck in the dark. And as a proof, though it seems
scarcely credible, of what such men can do when unchecked by fear of
consequences, I will cite the following:--

On one occasion the captain of whom I have been writing invited a friend
to breakfast with him, and there being, I suppose, a slight monotony in
the conversation, he asked his guest whether he would like, by way of
diversion, to see a man flogged. The amusement was accepted, and a man
_was_ flogged.

It was about the time I write of that the tyranny practised on board Her
Majesty's ships was slowly but surely dawning upon the public, and a
general outcry against injustice began.

This was shown in a very significant manner by the following fact:--

A post-captain of high rank and powerful connections dared, in
contradiction to naval law, to flog a midshipman. This young officer's
father, happening to be a somewhat influential man, made a stir about
the affair. The honourable captain was tried by court-martial and
severely reprimanded.

However, I will cut short these perhaps uninteresting details, merely