{"id":"01KG8AMJWFP7QDTBVBVK8NKVDB","cid":"bafkreiggvi3a63wpzmsd4dyxbrlezasjsqdqcuhjkhulvnbzuwexihsvtm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5738,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.271Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":5670,"text":"CHAPTER XXXVI.\r\nFLOGGING NOT NECESSARY.\r\n\r\n\r\nBut White-Jacket is ready to come down from the lofty mast-head of an\r\neternal principle, and fight you—Commodores and Captains of the navy—on\r\nyour own quarter-deck, with your own weapons, at your own paces.\r\n\r\nExempt yourselves from the lash, you take Bible oaths to it that it is\r\nindispensable for others; you swear that, without the lash, no armed\r\nship can be kept in suitable discipline. Be it proved to you, officers,\r\nand stamped upon your foreheads, that herein you are utterly wrong.\r\n\r\n“Send them to Collingwood,” said Lord Nelson, “and _he_ will bring them\r\nto order.” This was the language of that renowned Admiral, when his\r\nofficers reported to him certain seamen of the fleet as wholly\r\nungovernable. “Send them to Collingwood.” And who was Collingwood,\r\nthat, after these navy rebels had been imprisoned and scourged without\r\nbeing brought to order, Collingwood could convert them to docility?\r\n\r\nWho Admiral Collinngwood was, as an historical hero, history herself\r\nwill tell you; nor, in whatever triumphal hall they may be hanging,\r\nwill the captured flags of Trafalgar fail to rustle at the mention of\r\nthat name. But what Collingwood was as a disciplinarian on board the\r\nships he commanded perhaps needs to be said. He was an officer, then,\r\nwho held in abhorrence all corporal punishment; who, though seeing more\r\nactive service than any sea-officer of his time, yet, for years\r\ntogether, governed his men without inflicting the lash.\r\n\r\nBut these seaman of his must have been most exemplary saints to have\r\nproved docile under so lenient a sway. Were they saints? Answer, ye\r\njails and alms-houses throughout the length and breadth of Great\r\nBritain, which, in Collingwood’s time, were swept clean of the last\r\nlingering villain and pauper to man his majesty’s fleets.\r\n\r\nStill more, _that_ was a period when the uttermost resources of England\r\nwere taxed to the quick; when the masts of her multiplied fleets almost\r\ntransplanted her forests, all standing to the sea; when British\r\npress-gangs not only boarded foreign ships on the high seas, and\r\nboarded foreign pier-heads, but boarded their own merchantmen at the\r\nmouth of the Thames, and boarded the very fire-sides along its banks;\r\nwhen Englishmen were knocked down and dragged into the navy, like\r\ncattle into the slaughter-house, with every mortal provocation to a mad\r\ndesperation against the service that thus ran their unwilling heads\r\ninto the muzzles of the enemy’s cannon. _This_ was the time, and\r\n_these_ the men that Collingwood governed without the lash.\r\n\r\nI know it has been said that Lord Collingwood began by inflicting\r\nsevere punishments, and afterward ruling his sailors by the mere memory\r\nof a by-gone terror, which he could at pleasure revive; and that his\r\nsailors knew this, and hence their good behaviour under a lenient sway.\r\nBut, granting the quoted assertion to be true, how comes it that many\r\nAmerican Captains, who, after inflicting as severe punishment as ever\r\nCollingwood could have authorized—how comes it that _they_, also, have\r\nnot been able to maintain good order without subsequent floggings,\r\nafter once showing to the crew with what terrible attributes they were\r\ninvested? But it is notorious, and a thing that I myself, in several\r\ninstances, _know_ to have been the case, that in the American navy,\r\nwhere corporal punishment has been most severe, it has also been most\r\nfrequent.\r\n\r\nBut it is incredible that, with such crews as Lord\r\nCollingwood’s—composed, in part, of the most desperate characters, the\r\nrakings of the jails—it is incredible that such a set of men could have\r\nbeen governed by the mere _memory_ of the lash. Some other influence\r\nmust have been brought to bear; mainly, no doubt, the influence wrought\r\nby a powerful brain, and a determined, intrepid spirit over a\r\nmiscellaneous rabble.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJRBP8WW7ATFWPYWQXFEQ","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMJWDW8TP3FM1CN3MSYBM","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:41.871Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:47.359Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}