striking a shipmate in self-defence, his captain meanwhile standing by
and exhorting the boatswain's mate to "Swinge the Dog, for hee has a
Tough Hide"--and that, too, with a cat waxed to make it bite the
harder. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 5265--Courts-Martial,
1704-5.]

It was just this unearned increment of blows--this dash of bitter
added to the regulation cup--that made Jack's gorge rise. He was not
the sort of chap, it must be confessed, to be ruled with a feather.
"An impudent rascal" at the best of times, he often "deserved a great
deal and had but little." [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1.
1472--Capt. Balchen, 26 Jan. 1716-7.] But unmerited punishment, too
often devilishly devised, maliciously inflicted and inhumanly carried
out, broke the back of his sense of justice, already sadly
overstrained, and inspired him with a mortal hatred of all things
naval.

For the slightest offence he was "drubbed at the gears"; for serious
offences, from ship to ship. If, when reefing topsails on a dark night
or in the teeth of a sudden squall, he did not handle the canvas with
all the celerity desired by the officer of the watch, he and his
fellow yardsmen were flogged _en bloc_. He was made to run the
gauntlet, often with the blood gushing from nose and ears as the
result of a previous dose of the cat, until he fell to the deck
comatose and at the point of death. [Footnote: _Admiralty
Records_ 1. 1466--Complaint of ye Abuse of a Sayler in the
_Litchfield_, 1704. In this case the man actually died.] Logs of
wood were bound to his legs as shackles, and whatever the nature of
his offence, he invariably began his expiation of it, the preliminary
canter, so to speak, in irons. If he had a lame leg or a bad foot, he