whipping bout." So he openly boasted. [Footnote: _Admiralty
Records_ 1. 1479--Capt. Boscawen, 26 April 1743.] The "bout," it is
true, at times ran to six, or even seven hundred lashes--the latter
being the heaviest dose of the cat ever administered in the British
navy; [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 482--Admiral Lord
Colvill, 12 Nov. 1765.] but even this terrible ordeal had no power to
hold the sailor to his duty, and although Admiral Lord St. Vincent,
better known in his day as "hanging Jervis," did his utmost to revive
the ancient custom of stretching the sailor's neck, the trend of the
times was against him, and within twenty-five years of the reaffirming
of the penalty, in the 22nd year of George II., hanging for desertion
had become practically obsolete.

In the declining days of the practice a grim game at life and death
was played upon the deck of a king's ship lying in the River St.
Lawrence. The year was 1760. Quebec had only recently fallen before
the British onslaught. A few days before that event, at a juncture
when every man in the squadron was counted upon to play his part in
the coming struggle, and to play it well, three seamen, James Mike,
Thomas Wilkinson and William M'Millard by name, deserted from the
_Vanguard_. Retaken some months later, they were brought to
trial; but as men were not easy to replace in that latitude, the
court, whilst sentencing all three to suffer the extreme penalty of
the law, added to their verdict a rider to the effect that it would be
good policy to spare two of them. Admiral Lord Colvill, then
Commander-in-Chief, issued his orders accordingly, and at eleven
o'clock on the morning of the 12th of July the condemned men, preceded
to the scaffold by two chaplains, were led to the _Vanguard's_
forecastle, where they drew lots to determine which of them should
die. The fatal lot fell to James Mike, who, in presence of the