CHAPTER XXXVI.
FLOGGING NOT NECESSARY.
But White-Jacket is ready to come down from the lofty mast-head of aneternal principle, and fight you--Commodores and Captains of thenavy--on your own quarter-deck, with your own weapons, at your ownpaces.
Exempt yourselves from the lash, you take Bible oaths to it that it isindispensable for others; you swear that, without the lash, no armedship can be kept in suitable discipline. Be it proved to you, officers,and stamped upon your foreheads, that herein you are utterly wrong.
"Send them to Collingwood," said Lord Nelson, "and _he_ will bring themto order." This was the language of that renowned Admiral, when hisofficers reported to him certain seamen of the fleet as whollyungovernable. "Send them to Collingwood." And who was Collingwood,that, after these navy rebels had been imprisoned and scourged withoutbeing brought to order, Collingwood could convert them to docility?
Who Admiral Collinngwood was, as an historical hero, history herselfwill tell you; nor, in whatever triumphal hall they may be hanging,will the captured flags of Trafalgar fail to rustle at the mention ofthat name. But what Collingwood was as a disciplinarian on board theships he commanded perhaps needs to be said. He was an officer, then,who held in abhorrence all corporal punishment; who, though seeing moreactive service than any sea-officer of his time, yet, for yearstogether, governed his men without inflicting the lash.
But these seaman of his must have been most exemplary saints to haveproved docile under so lenient a sway. Were they saints? Answer, yejails and alms-houses throughout the length and breadth of GreatBritain, which, in Collingwood's time, were swept clean of the lastlingering villain and pauper to man his majesty's fleets.
Still more, _that_ was a period when the uttermost resources of Englandwere taxed to the quick; when the masts of her multiplied fleets almosttransplanted her forests, all standing to the sea; when Britishpress-gangs not only boarded foreign ships on the high seas, andboarded foreign pier-heads, but boarded their own merchantmen at themouth of the Thames, and boarded the very fire-sides along its banks;when Englishmen were knocked down and dragged into the navy, likecattle into the slaughter-house, with every mortal provocation to a maddesperation against the service that thus ran their unwilling headsinto the muzzles of the enemy's cannon. _This_ was the time, and_these_ the men that Collingwood governed without the lash.
I know it has been said that Lord Collingwood began by inflictingsevere punishments, and afterward ruling his sailors by the mere memoryof a by-gone terror, which he could at pleasure revive; and that hissailors knew this, and hence their good behaviour under a lenient sway.But, granting the quoted assertion to be true, how comes it that manyAmerican Captains, who, after inflicting as severe punishment as everCollingwood could have authorized--how comes it that _they_, also, havenot been able to maintain good order without subsequent floggings,after once showing to the crew with what terrible attributes they wereinvested? But it is notorious, and a thing that I myself, in severalinstances, _know_ to have been the case, that in the American navy,where corporal punishment has been most severe, it has also been mostfrequent.
But it is incredible that, with such crews as LordCollingwood's--composed, in part, of the most desperate characters, therakings of the jails--it is incredible that such a set of men couldhave been governed by the mere _memory_ of the lash. Some otherinfluence must have been brought to bear; mainly, no doubt, theinfluence wrought by a powerful brain, and a determined, intrepidspirit over a miscellaneous rabble.
It is well known that Lord Nelson himself, in point of policy, wasaverse to flogging; and that, too, when he had witnessed the mutinouseffects of government abuses in the navy--unknown in our times--andwhich, to the terror of all England, developed themselves at the greatmutiny of the Nore: an outbreak that for several weeks jeopardised thevery existence of the British navy.
But we may press this thing nearly two centuries further back, for itis a matter of historical doubt whether, in Robert Blake's time,Cromwell's great admiral, such a thing as flogging was known at thegangways of his victorious fleets. And as in this matter we cannot gofurther back than to Blake, so we cannot advance further than to ourown time, which shows Commodore Stockton, during the recent war withMexico, governing the American squadron in the Pacific withoutemploying the scourge.
But if of three famous English Admirals one has abhorred flogging,another almost governed his ships without it, and to the third it maybe supposed to have been unknown, while an American Commander has,within the present year almost, been enabled to sustain the gooddiscipline of an entire squadron in time of war without having aninstrument of scourging on board, what inevitable inferences must bedrawn, and how disastrous to the mental character of all advocates ofnavy flogging, who may happen to be navy officers themselves.
It cannot have escaped the discernment of any observer of mankind,that, in the presence of its conventional inferiors, consciousimbecility in power often seeks to carry off that imbecility byassumptions of lordly severity. The amount of flogging on board anAmerican man-of-war is, in many cases, in exact proportion to theprofessional and intellectual incapacity of her officers to command.Thus, in these cases, the law that authorises flogging does but put ascourge into the hand of a fool. In most calamitous instances this hasbeen shown.
It is a matter of record, that some English ships of war have fallen aprey to the enemy through the insubordination of the crew, induced bythe witless cruelty of their officers; officers so armed by the lawthat they could inflict that cruelty without restraint. Nor have therebeen wanting instances where the seamen have ran away with their ships,as in the case of the Hermione and Danae, and forever rid themselves ofthe outrageous inflictions of their officers by sacrificing their livesto their fury.
Events like these aroused the attention of the British public at thetime. But it was a tender theme, the public agitation of which thegovernment was anxious to suppress. Nevertheless, whenever the thingwas privately discussed, these terrific mutinies, together with thethen prevailing insubordination of the men in the navy, were almostuniversally attributed to the exasperating system of flogging. And thenecessity for flogging was generally believed to be directly referableto the impressment of such crowds of dissatisfied men. And in highquarters it was held that if, by any mode, the English fleet could bemanned without resource to coercive measures, then the necessity offlogging would cease.
"If we abolish either impressment or flogging, the abolition of theother will follow as a matter of course." This was the language of the_Edinburgh Review_, at a still later period, 1824.
If, then, the necessity of flogging in the British armed marine wassolely attributed to the impressment of the seamen, what faintestshadow of reason is there for the continuance of this barbarity in theAmerican service, which is wholly freed from the reproach ofimpressment?
It is true that, during a long period of non-impressment, and even downto the present day, flogging has been, and still is, the law of theEnglish navy. But in things of this kind England should be nothing tous, except an example to be shunned. Nor should wise legislators whollygovern themselves by precedents, and conclude that, since scourging hasso long prevailed, some virtue must reside in it. Not so. The world hasarrived at a period which renders it the part of Wisdom to pay homageto the prospective precedents of the Future in preference to those ofthe Past. The Past is dead, and has no resurrection; but the Future isendowed with such a life, that it lives to us even in anticipation. ThePast is, in many things, the foe of mankind; the Future is, in allthings, our friend. In the Past is no hope; the Future is both hope andfruition. The Past is the text-book of tyrants; the Future the Bible ofthe Free. Those who are solely governed by the Past stand like Lot'swife, crystallised in the act of looking backward, and foreverincapable of looking before.
Let us leave the Past, then, to dictate laws to immovable China; let usabandon it to the Chinese Legitimists of Europe. But for us, we willhave another captain to rule over us--that cap
tain who ever marches atthe head of his troop and beckons them forward, not lingering in therear, and impeding their march with lumbering baggage-wagons of oldprecedents. _This_ is the Past.
But in many things we Americans are driven to a rejection of the maximsof the Past, seeing that, ere long, the van of the nations must, ofright, belong to ourselves. There are occasions when it is for Americato make precedents, and not to obey them. We should, if possible, provea teacher to posterity, instead of being the pupil of by-gonegenerations. More shall come after us than have gone before; the worldis not yet middle-aged.
Escaped from the house of bondage, Israel of old did not follow afterthe ways of the Egyptians. To her was given an express dispensation; toher were given new things under the sun. And we Americans are thepeculiar, chosen people--the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of theliberties of the world. Seventy years ago we escaped from thrall; and,besides our first birthright--embracing one continent of earth--God hasgiven to us, for a future inheritance, the broad domains of thepolitical pagans, that shall yet come and lie down under the shade ofour ark, without bloody hands being lifted. God has predestinated,mankind expects, great things from our race; and great things we feelin our souls. The rest of the nations must soon be in our rear. We arethe pioneers of the world; the advance-guard, sent on through thewilderness of untried things, to break a new path in the New World thatis ours. In our youth is our strength; in our inexperience, our wisdom.At a period when other nations have but lisped, our deep voice is heardafar. Long enough, have we been skeptics with regard to ourselves, anddoubted whether, indeed, the political Messiah had come. But he hascome in us, if we would but give utterance to his promptings. And letus always remember that with ourselves, almost for the first time inthe history of earth, national selfishness is unbounded philanthropy;for we can not do a good to America but we give alms to the world.