{"id":"01KG8AMFD65321AWYRFTQDCSHS","cid":"bafkreib4pq2qst7ia7nunt5rkamvp6grxjynqbqghvoh47gngx7mgf6lta","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":14201,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.278Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":14130,"text":"CHAPTER LXXXVIII.\r\nFLOGGING THROUGH THE FLEET.\r\n\r\n\r\nThe flogging of an old man like Ushant, most landsmen will probably\r\nregard with abhorrence. But though, from peculiar circumstances, his\r\ncase occasioned a good deal of indignation among the people of the\r\nNeversink, yet, upon its own proper grounds, they did not denounce it.\r\nMan-of-war’s-men are so habituated to what landsmen would deem\r\nexcessive cruelties, that they are almost reconciled to inferior\r\nseverities.\r\n\r\nAnd here, though the subject of punishment in the Navy has been\r\ncanvassed in previous chapters, and though the thing is every way a\r\nmost unpleasant and grievous one to enlarge upon, and though I\r\npainfully nerve myself to it while I write, a feeling of duty compels\r\nme to enter upon a branch of the subject till now undiscussed. I would\r\nnot be like the man, who, seeing an outcast perishing by the roadside,\r\nturned about to his friend, saying, “Let us cross the way; my soul so\r\nsickens at this sight, that I cannot endure it.”\r\n\r\nThere are certain enormities in this man-of-war world that often secure\r\nimpunity by their very excessiveness. Some ignorant people will refrain\r\nfrom permanently removing the cause of a deadly malaria, for fear of\r\nthe temporary spread of its offensiveness. Let us not be of such. The\r\nmore repugnant and repelling, the greater the evil. Leaving our women\r\nand children behind, let us freely enter this Golgotha.\r\n\r\nYears ago there was a punishment inflicted in the English, and I\r\nbelieve in the American Navy, called _keel-hauling_—a phrase still\r\nemployed by man-of-war’s-men when they would express some signal\r\nvengeance upon a personal foe. The practice still remains in the French\r\nnational marine, though it is by no means resorted to so frequently as\r\nin times past. It consists of attaching tackles to the two extremities\r\nof the main-yard, and passing the rope under the ship’s bottom. To one\r\nend of this rope the culprit is secured; his own shipmates are then\r\nmade to run him up and down, first on this side, then on that—now\r\nscraping the ship’s hull under water—anon, hoisted, stunned and\r\nbreathless, into the air.\r\n\r\nBut though this barbarity is now abolished from the English and\r\nAmerican navies, there still remains another practice which, if\r\nanything, is even worse than _keel-hauling_. This remnant of the Middle\r\nAges is known in the Navy as “_flogging through the fleet_.” It is\r\nnever inflicted except by authority of a court-martial upon some\r\ntrespasser deemed guilty of a flagrant offence. Never, that I know of,\r\nhas it been inflicted by an American man-of-war on the home station.\r\nThe reason, probably, is, that the officers well know that such a\r\nspectacle would raise a mob in any American seaport.\r\n\r\nBy XLI. of the Articles of War, a court-martial shall not “for any one\r\noffence not capital,” inflict a punishment beyond one hundred lashes.\r\nIn cases “not capital” this law may be, and has been, quoted in\r\njudicial justification of the infliction of more than one hundred\r\nlashes. Indeed, it would cover a thousand. Thus: One act of a sailor\r\nmay be construed into the commission of ten different transgressions,\r\nfor each of which he may be legally condemned to a hundred lashes, to\r\nbe inflicted without intermission. It will be perceived, that in any\r\ncase deemed “capital,” a sailor under the above Article, may legally be\r\nflogged to the death.\r\n\r\nBut neither by the Articles of War, nor by any other enactment of\r\nCongress, is there any direct warrant for the extraordinary cruelty of\r\nthe mode in which punishment is inflicted, in cases of flogging through\r\nthe fleet. But as in numerous other instances, the incidental\r\naggravations of this penalty are indirectly covered by other clauses in\r\nthe Articles of War: one of which authorises the authorities of a\r\nship—in certain indefinite cases—to correct the guilty “_according to\r\nthe usages of the sea-service_.”\r\n\r\nOne of these “usages” is the following:\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJVX0Y918EMRYPFFE2VBV","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMFD0YPG4TX6JJNCDGEWA","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:38.310Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:55.466Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}