METEOROLOGICAL REGISTER,

KEPT AT THE OBSERVATORY OF CAPT. W. H. SMYTH, AT BEDFORD.

ON NAVAL PUNISHMENTS.

WHENEVER a crying abuse exists in Great Britain, however disgraceful to humanity, repugnant to good morals, or inimical to public honour, the State invariably turns a deaf ear and a blind eye to its operations, as though it had nothing to do with individual misgovernment; but as soon as, by the course of events, the increase of intelligence, a better feeling pervading the community, or a sense of shame arising among the few chiefly interested, the abuse is being amended, and bids fair to be absorbed in mild measures, or so much of it only preserved as may prove beneficial to society, like a necessary, though severe law, the state with strange inconsistency fulminates against it in toto, and refuses to tolerate it any longer; whereby the course of amelioration, by being unwisely hastened, is obstructed, and those who originated, and were steadily pursuing it, become disgusted on finding their motives maligned, their labours unappreciated, and their shoulders made to bear the burden of their predecessors' sins; whereby the state preserves the odium of having tolerated the abuse while actually disgraceful, and incurs the ridicule of legislating for it when existing little more than in theory, the ridicule-to use a metaphor-of cutting off a limb when the gangrene which endangers it is being cured.

Thus, by way of evidencing the above, when the condition of slavery in our West India isles was horrible, so horrible that we like not to trust our feelings to read the details of it;-when planters flogged their dusky victims till life was merging in death, and then let them perish in outhouses amid the vermin engendered in their sores;-when planters' ladies were wont to divert ennui, and refine their auricular faculties, by eliciting the various notes of sorrow and anguish from their waiting-slaves;-when planters' children were early taught to avoid running into the sin of treating Cain's descendants as human beings, by having the young kine consigned over to the bent of infantine propensities, of which mischief and cruelty (inborn, as cats, dogs, sparrows, cockchafers, &c., could they speak, would testify) predominate ;-when, in short, it was a question with slave-owners (as with masters of stage-coach horses) whether it were more profitable to work their cattle hard and feed them high, to kill them quickly, or let them live longer at a less expensive and easier rate, no voice of indignation rose in behalf of the African. When such a picture of infamy existed and was gloried in, in the broad glare of day, and it was the bounden duty of the state to efface it, and visit the immediate authors of it with condign punishment, the state not only was silent, but encouraged the demoniac trade (for demoniac it then was) by various acts in its favour. But now, when, by the testimony of all travellers, and the evidence of people of all stations, the system is shown to be radically changed, and slavery proved to be but a name, regulations which should have been made, in part, a century since, and which would then have been as humane and politic as they are now unnecessary and specious, issue, tending to fix the brand of cruelty on the very men who have practically benefited the slaves, to St. Domingo-ize flourishing isles, and to convert a state of comfortable servitude into one of free, uncared-for indigence.

Thus, in the present day, when the case of the infant white slavesU. S. JOURN. No. 60, Nov. 1833.

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victims of Mammon, more dreadful their fate, because more protracted their sufferings, than that of the child-offerings of old to the gods of the Druids, without even the transitory charm of being dressed for the altar— is laid before the state, the state rejects it;-when legislative interference is solicited in behalf of such British children, their moral and physical sufferings (unsurpassed in any age, in any clime) exposed with a startling atrocity of detail, and stamped, indelibly stamped, with truth, to the shame of Britain and of Christianity, their cause taken up by the wise and the good, fortified by reason and adorned by eloquence, the prayer is rejected, and we are insulted instead by appeals in behalf of Polish children! Years hence, when, by the exertions of the press, or (let us hope it) by better feelings pervading manufacturers, those illuminated dungeon-palaces which arrest the traveller's attention on entering a manufacturing town at night shall cease to raise sighs for the wretched somnambules within,-when the billy-roller (type of the cartwhip) be laid aside, and the hemp-extracting emetic be forgotten,when factory children shall sing and laugh at their work, and a master manufacturer find more pleasure in making thousands happy during his life than in indulging the culpable ostentation of bequeathing a colossal fortune, gained at the expense of infants' tears and mothers' sorrow,— then, when interference will no longer be requisite, the State, urged on by the selfish notoriety-hunting Saints of the day, will legislate for the factories; and, citing former, no longer existing abuses as a reason, will deprive the manufacturers of the slight power of coercion absolutely necessary where numbers work together, and so will cause the masters to cease their employ, and consign their industrious people to the tender mercies of the workhouse.

Thus--to come to our own case, to which those above cited are strictly analogous-when the mode of enforcing naval discipline rendered nearly every one of His Majesty's ships a cittú dolente, causing the service to be looked on in no better light than as a condition of slavery, and the name of " Captain" to be regarded as a synonyme of" tyrant," -when the whole system was such-who can be surprised?-as disgusted people with the navy, and saddled the country with the expense and opprobrium of press-gangs,-when legislation, in a word, on behalf of the seaman was loudly called for by policy and humanity, the state was silent; it authorized the acts of its officers, added to their irresponsi bility, and countenanced, as it were, cruelty, by rewarding (generally speaking) any officer whose oppression caused him to be tried by a court-martial. Now, however, (an incontrovertible statement) that the service has undergone a complete change, that the interior of a ship presents a picture of health, comfort, and satisfaction, that the men have ample indulgences, little work, and scarcely any punishment, are well fed and well clothed, we hear of nothing but the horrors of our discipline, the cruelty of our officers, and we are threatened by pseudosaints and sentimental liberals, who make a rapprochement of twenty or thirty years to suit their argument, with being deprived of that mode of punishment for which no secondary punishment, and no talent can act (completely) as a substitute, and without which (used chiefly in terrorem) it will be hopeless to expect to maintain effective discipline among large bodies of men confined in narrow spaces, exposed to infinite hardships and many privations. We hesitate not to say, that

as beneficial as interference on the subject would have been thirty years since, as mischievous will it now prove, that is to the extent contemplated by some members of the legislature. Non-interference before on the subject of naval punishment was a crime; interference now will be a fault. Some member (we forget his name) said, with a feeling, no doubt, of superior humanity, that the community was so widely changed, its sentiments become so enlarged and refined, that it would no longer suffer a continuance of the lash in the navy. Good; but the honourable member, in giving the community at large, among whom drinking and immorality have much increased of late years, (as the Excise and the venders of obscene publications know,) credit for superior refinement of ideas, and a keener shuddering of the flesh, might also have assumed that a corresponding improvement had taken place among naval officers, and that they were as unwilling to inflict unnecessary punishment as their countrymen to tolerate it. We cannot suppose that any member seriously believes that scenes of tyranny, similar to those which used to be acted on many of our quarter-decks, are now to be witnessed in the remotest degree; although, to hear them talk about it in the House, one might be almost inclined to credit it (on the faith of such revered authority) against the evidence of our senses: and certainly, without further argument, the presence of many naval members on such occasions, and their silence invariably, are well adapted to lead the people at large to that judgment. Why do they not rise in their places, and endeavour to rescue the service from the charge of being tyrannic and ignorant, as is implied by a wish to deprive it of a discretionary power? We fain look on them as our representatives; why will they not regard us as their constituents, and uphold our interests? Why do they not explain the question, and set it in the true light, and not leave it to landsmen, who cannot be conversant about it, who can only speak from theory (on a subject to which, of all others, theory is no guide,) whose yachting, beautiful as it is, is no practice-to bandy the pros and cons as confidently as though they had passed their lives at sea, and as carelessly as though naval discipline were a trifle, to be disposed of as a road-bill?

But, mark us well! in upholding naval discipline (on which mainly depends our naval supremacy-the keystone of England's security) another course must be adopted than that which is usually followed by its supporters. We must cease to defend the past, or screen the real delinquent; and we must show, by a readiness to acknowledge our former errors, that we have a sincere desire to avoid committing similar ones. On the contrary, (actuated by an excusable failing-an esprit de corps,) in throwing a gloss over the conduct of some commanders, we lead people to suppose that we do not disapprove of it, that we even consider it necessary. Nothing is more detrimental to the service than the efforts of some persons, well-meaning, no doubt, to throw discredit on, or to turn into ridicule, as if they had never taken place, or were exaggerated, the instances of quarter-deck misgovernment that are occasionally introduced into naval publications. We dislike the tone of these publications, because the show-up in them is intended rather to bring discredit on the service than to act as an example,— example moreover being no longer requisite, and because they are written in a spirit of unfairness; the unities of time and place and the