FLOGGING AND ITS SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 A VOICE FROM THE RANKS: 
 
 OK, 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 SIR FRANCIS BURDETT, 
 
 BARBAROUS AND DEGRADING SYSTEM 
 
 FLOGGING SOLDIERS AND SAILORS. 
 
 BY JOHN SHIPP, 
 
 LATE A LIEUTENANT IN HIS MAJESTY’S 87t» FOOT ; AUTHOR OF MEMOIRS 
 OF AN EXTRAORDINARY MILITARY CAREER, AND THE MILITARY BIJOU. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY WHITTAKER, TREACHER & Co. 
 
 AVE MARIA LANE ; 
 
 AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS. 
 
 1831. 
 
 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 
Westley and Co., 27, Ivy Lane 
 
TO SIR FRANCIS BURDETT, BART. 
 
 Sir Francis, 
 
 Had I not, as I presume to think I have, a most perfect 
 knowledge of the evil tendency of Hogging soldiers, I should 
 not venture to offer my remarks on a system, the abolition of 
 which has been advocated in Parliament, with all the power 
 which reason and humanity can impart to eloquence. But my 
 sentiments against this mode of punishment arise from a long- 
 continued observation of its pernicious and dangerous effects ; 
 and my utter aversion to it, from a cordial sympathy with the 
 oppressed, and an ardent admiration of the brave. 
 
 Who, that has seen the inlliction, can contemplate without 
 horror the destructive instrument of degradation, the Cat-o’- 
 nine-tails. Surely it must have been the studied invention of 
 a cold, malignant heart, existing in the bosom of one who lives 
 and feasts upon the woes and miseries of others — who delights 
 in inflicting torture, and erects the triumph of his vengeance 
 upon the fall and ruin of others. It must have been his glory 
 to oppress, his pride to goad, his delight to tantalize and make 
 unhappy. Could any but a cruel and despotic mind have 
 devised such an effectual means of degrading and debasing 
 human nature ? If its author had arisen from the dark abyss 
 of despair, where there is every thing that awful retribution 
 can devise to punish unrepented iniquity, he could not have 
 contrived a more corresponding instrument. It never could 
 have been the invention or offspring of a man who had one 
 spark of humanity — one jot of love for his fellow-creatures — 
 one thought, but that on which to feed his vindictive spirit. 
 Its infliction is the very acme of disgrace; and that the demo- 
 ralizing system should be permitted still to dishonour the sons of 
 Britain, yea, even those who have bled and conquered, is — in 
 these times of intellectual pursuit, these boasted times of 
 humanity, in this free, liberal, and generous country— a foul 
 blot upon its historic page. 
 
 b 2 
 
4 
 
 During the first eight years of my military career, it was 
 my painful duty to inflict, some three times a week, the punish- 
 ment which I so heartily deprecate. At that early period I 
 felt a profound disgust at being made the unwilling instrument 
 of the torture which is thought essential to the support and 
 promotion of discipline ; even then, from my necessarily super- 
 ficial and imperfect notice of the general effect of corporal 
 punishment, I entertained doubts as to its efficiency in produc- 
 ing the desired end : subsequent occurrences and considerations 
 have confirmed those doubts into a decided and permanent 
 opinion. 
 
 It is, as I think, Sir Francis, quite demonstrable, notwith- 
 standing all that has been advanced by persons of a different 
 opinion, that those who are illiterate and ignorant are very 
 sensitive of oppression and alive to wrong : I hesitate not to 
 say, more susceptible than those who are better informed. 
 The capacities of the former will not permit them to view 
 the punishment under which they suffer in connexion with 
 the cause by which it is produced ; they are only sensible 
 of the cruelty of the effect ; and thus, irritated by the inflic- 
 tion of a supposed wrong, reason is subdued by the impulse 
 of the moment, and they consider themselves deeply injured 
 when receiving the punishment of offence. On the other hand, 
 those who are possessed of more knowledge and judgment 
 would compare the turpitude of the offence with the severity 
 of the punishment, and thence reflect whether they had 
 received the award of justice, or endured the insult of tyranny. 
 Each of such persons would act according to his respective 
 conclusions ; and their feelings on such an occasion would be 
 consonant with, or considerably modified by, their measure of 
 candour and reason. Whether this position be probably valid, 
 or certainly fallacious, I shall leave you. Sir, to infer; but, 
 it admitted to be tenable, it must be allowed, also, that no 
 good results can be expected from a punishment which is, 
 in general, outrageously disproportioned to the offence, and 
 which, independently of its cruelty, has a certain tendency 
 to degrade the feelings and to harden the heart. 
 
 It is some consolation to me to be able to say that my 
 present views are not induced by the remembrance of per- 
 sonal castigation ; but from the practical observation of its 
 
5 
 
 effect on others, I can most solemnly affirm that, in my opinion 
 flogging is, and always will be, the best, the quickest, and most 
 certain method that can he devised, to eradicate from the 
 bosom of a British soldier his most loyal and laudable feelings. 
 During the whole of my career, which included a period^, f 
 upwards of thirty years, and the length and nature of which 
 afforded me opportunities for extensive inquiry and accurate 
 information, I never knew but one solitary instance in which 
 a man recovered self-respect and general reputation, after 
 having been tortured and degraded by the punishment which is 
 
 the subject of this letter. This isolated case was as follows : 
 
 When I was regimental serjeant-major in the Light Dra- 
 goons, the regiment was one evening paraded for the purpose 
 of seeing punishment inflicted. The delinquent was a private 
 soldier, who had on previous occasions received, altogether, 
 some thousands of lashes. Since his first flogging his name 
 had been constantly in the guard reports, and he had scarcely 
 ever done a day’s duty. His offence, on this occasion, was 
 being drunk on guard, and his sentence was three hundred 
 lashes. The court-martial was read, and even before it was 
 finished he began to undress with apparent indifference and 
 sullen apathy. He knew the heinousness of his crime, and 
 he was well aware of its certain consequences. When he was 
 tied up, his naked back presented so appalling and frightful a 
 spectacle that his kind-hearted commanding officer, on viewing 
 it, turned his head instinctively from the sight, and stood 
 absorbed in thought, with his eyes in another direction, as 
 though reluctant to look on it again. Thus stood the com- 
 manding officer until the adjutant informed him that all was 
 ready. These words roused the colonel from his motionless 
 position, and he started when the adjutant addressed him. 
 
 I can well imagine the struggle between duty and mercy by 
 which his benevolent heart was assailed : but the latter was 
 always his motto : and, thus kindly predisposed, he walked 
 slowly up to the prisoner, and viewed more closely his 
 lacerated back, on which were visible large lumps of thick 
 and callous flesh, and weals which were distressing to behold. 
 The colonel viewed his back for some seconds unknown to the 
 delinquent, and wdien he at length turned round (more from 
 surprise that the flogging did not commence than from any 
 
6 
 
 other motive) his commanding officer addressed him in the 
 
 following words: “ C , you are now tied up to receive 
 
 the just reward of your total disregard and defiance of all 
 order and discipline. Your back presents an awful spectacle 
 to your surrounding comrades, and for my own part I would 
 willingly withdraw it from their sight ; but I fear your heart 
 is as hard as your back, and that I have no alternative but to 
 see that justice administered which the service requires. 
 What possible benefit can you expect to derive from this 
 continual disobedience of orders, and disregard of the regu- 
 lations of the service ?” Thus addressed, in a mingled tone 
 of benignity and firmness, the poor fellow seemed touched, 
 and he wept bitterly. For a time he could say nothing, but 
 at last he exclaimed, “ I wish to God I was dead and out 
 of your way! I am an unfortunate fellow; and I hope this 
 hogging may be my last, and put me beyond the reach of that 
 cursed and vile liquor which has been my ruin.” The colonel 
 and the whole regiment were now much affected; and many 
 of the soldiers turned away their heads to hide their emotion. 
 Seeing this, the colonel called the attention of the offender 
 to the commiseration of his comrades. The unhappy man 
 looked round as he was directed, and seemed much distressed. 
 The colonel then said, “ I cannot bear to see your brother 
 soldiers so much affected for you without removing the cause. 
 Your sentence, therefore, for their sakes, I will remit; and— 
 instead of the chastisement which has been awarded you, and 
 which you so well deserve — if you will pledge yourself to 
 me, in the presence of your commiserating comrades, that 
 you will behave well in future, I will not only pardon you, 
 but promise, when your conduct shall merit it, to promote you 
 to the rank of corporal.” The astonished culprit called upon 
 his comrades to bear witness to his words, while, in a most 
 solemn manner, he protested his firm resolution to amend. 
 A short time after, this man was promoted, and proved one 
 of the best non-commissioned officers in the service. The 
 unlooked-for mercy which had been extended towards him, 
 and the totally unexpected turn which the affair had taken, 
 raised the feelings of his heart far above the level to which 
 disgrace had plunged them, and every exertion was made by 
 him to merit the kind consideration with which he had been 
 
7 
 
 distinguished. This man would often speak to me, on this 
 happy event in his life, with feelings of inefFable pleasure. 
 
 Here, then, is a signal instance of the good effects of well- 
 timed leniency. The commanding officer, in this case, unable 
 to repress the impulses of humanity, would not permit the 
 sentence to be executed, but pardoned the man ; adding to 
 the forgiveness of his present offence, a promise that promo- 
 tion should be the certain reward of his future good conduct. 
 This treatment, as we have seen, had the desired effect. The 
 man’s contrition and good feelings were aroused from the tor- 
 por into which they had been plunged by frequent and unre- 
 lenting severity ; there was an appeal made to his gratitude 
 and rationality ; he felt that he was regarded as a being that 
 possessed some of the distinguishing powers and sympathies of 
 human nature ; and his restoration to order and respectability 
 was suitably evinced by his subsequent good behaviour and 
 elevation. And what, let me ask the advocates of coercion, 
 was the cause of this ? — The poor fellow had received coercion 
 in the right place — the heart. His back might have been mangled 
 by the detestable instrument of barbarous punishment, till the 
 power of endurance was destroyed ; but no such good effects as 
 were the consequences of the contrary treatment would have 
 been elicited. Sentence might have followed upon sentence ; 
 and the unhappy sufferer would have sunk at last into the wel- 
 come tomb, contemned, perhaps, by the ignorant and unthink- 
 ing, overpowered by the acute goadings of self-reproach, and 
 breathing forth curses of hatred against those whom he sup- 
 posed to be his persecutors. But towards the individual to 
 whom I allude, the officer displayed a judicious kindness, 
 which penetrated the hitherto impregnable fortress of the 
 heart, and made him willingly surrender at the discretion 
 of his merciful conqueror. Would that many such instances 
 could be discovered, even by the most laborious research ! 
 
 Having adduced a remarkable instance of the beneficial 
 effects of mercy, I proceed to cite a few cases, out of at least 
 a hundred which came under my own notice, of the baneful 
 
 effects of severity, and the inefficiency of corporal punishment 
 in conducing to the required discipline. 
 
 I recollect once seeing a man tied up without a murmur, 
 and who appeared quite indiflerent to his late. H hen the 
 
8 
 
 drummer was ordered to commence, he accidentally struck 
 the delinquent over the neck, who bellowed out to the com- 
 manding officer, “ Pray, your honour, will you be so mighty 
 kind as to inform me if I am to receive my punishment on my 
 back, or on the back of my neck ?” The next blow was over 
 the face, when he again exclaimed, “ Bad luck to you, M‘Kale, 
 do you want to murder me ?” For this want of skill, the 
 Drum-Major laid his rattan over the drummer’s back, at 
 which the delinquent laughed aloud, saying, “ By the powers, 
 but you have caught it !” This hardened wretch, after having 
 receivecf his three hundred lashes, said, on passing the com- 
 manding officer, “ The divel a day’s duty will you ever get 
 out of Paddy again — you have done for him.” Thus saying, 
 he snapped his fingers as he retired from the square. 
 
 Another man, an old offender, who had been frequently 
 punished before, was ordered to strip to receive another flagel- 
 lation. This fellow, however, would not at first take off his 
 clothes, and, consequently, coercive measures were resorted to; 
 but such was the man’s pow r er, that he defied the united efforts 
 of numbers, until he at last exclaimed, “ Now r , if you will 
 only be shivil, I will do it myself without any help.” He 
 then stripped, and received his quantum of punishment with- 
 out moving a muscle, and, when taken down, he said to the 
 colonel, “ Colonel, honey ! if you w r ill give me six drams of 
 liquor, I will take six hundred lashes more.” To such a pitch 
 of degradation was this poor creature reduced, that he would 
 expose his lacerated back to his comrades, and prided himself 
 exceedingly on the number of lashes he had received. 
 
 On my return home one evening, after having attended the 
 funeral of a soldier belonging to my own company, I got into 
 conversation with the Sergeant relative to the deceased. The 
 Sergeant, who was quite an illiterate man, said, “ the people 
 in the hospital say he died of an information in his side, but 
 he knoivcd the real cause of his death. That ere man never 
 did no good since the time he was flogged for being drunk ’fore 
 guard. He knowed the man well; he was a line high-spirited 
 youth. Bless you, sir ! before his punishment, there was not 
 a smarter or finer-looking soldier in the king’s army; but, 
 after he was (logged, he never did no more good ; but became 
 a dirty slovenly fellow, and was never sober if he had the 
 
9 
 
 means of getting liquor. I have heard him declare that his 
 heart was broken, and that, if liquor did not soon close his 
 miserable life, he would take some more speedy means.” This 
 last desperate alternative was never necessary, for he died of 
 drunkenness ere he had attained the age of twenty-six, adding 
 to the long catalogue of those whose buoyant spirits could not 
 brook the degradation of the Cat. 
 
 When 1 was orderly officer of the main-guard at Cawnpore, 
 several men were condemned to be punished. Among the 
 rest was a youth not more than twenty years of age. The 
 morning on which the punishment was to be inflicted, I visited 
 the prisoners early, and such was the change observable in this 
 poor young fellow, from reflecting during the night on his 
 approaching degradation, that he looked like one wdiose con- 
 stitution had, in a few hours, undergone all the diseases 
 incident to the country. Ilis eyes were glassy and inexpres- 
 sive, his cheeks sunk, and his deportment stooping and loose. 
 Altogether he looked the very picture of woe, and his extreme 
 dejection was so obvious that I could not refrain from asking 
 him if he was unwell. “ No,” replied he, “but I am one of 
 those who are to be flogged this morning, ” and he wept bit- 
 terly. “Come, come,” said I (and it was as much as I dared 
 to say), “keep up your spirits; your extreme youth, and the 
 fact that this is the first time you have been brought to a court- 
 martial, may probably obtain your pardon.” He shook his 
 head, but said nothing in reply. I regret to be obliged to add, 
 that this poor fellow received a hundred and fifty lashes; and, 
 from the day he was flogged until the period ot his death, I 
 can venture to assert that he was never two hours sober. He 
 sold all his own things to purchase liquor, and then stole those 
 of others; and at last he died in the hospital from drunkenness. 
 
 The following is a melancholy instance, of the same character 
 as the foregoing, in which it is my painlul duty to attest the 
 utter ruin of another promising young soldier, by the odious 
 system the existence of which I deplore. Two men w r ere 
 brought to court-martial. The one was an old and hardened 
 offender, whose offence was being drunk on guard, and who 
 was sentenced to receive three hundred lashes ; the other, a 
 youth, who, for his first offence, absenting himself from evening 
 parade, was condemned to one hundred lashes. I lie former 
 
 c 
 
10 
 
 was admonished by his commanding-officer, his corporal pun- 
 ishment remitted, and his sentence commuted to fourteen days* 
 solitary confinement. This proposal, however, the hardened 
 delinquent rejected with indignation, professing that he would 
 rather take fourteen hundred lashes, than suffer fourteen days’ 
 solitary confinement in the black-liole. He accordingly re- 
 ceived his punishment, without moving a muscle, and after- 
 wards, on leaving the square, strutted off, muttering something 
 like, “ D — d hoax,” or “ fudge.” The conduct of this depraved 
 fellow nettled the commanding-officer, and he ordered the 
 youth to strip, and receive his punishment. The poor fellow 
 threw himself on his knees, and implored forgiveness in the 
 most earnest and pathetic manner, or that, in preference to the 
 degradation of flogging, his punishment might be commuted to 
 solitary confinement, if even for six months. But, no; the 
 officer was irritated, and the unhappy youth received every 
 lash, after which he left the square sobbing most piteously. 
 During the infliction of the punishment, many a tear did I see 
 that morning stealing down the cheeks of the commiserating 
 comrades of this ill-fated youth, for they well knew that his 
 prospects as a soldier were irretrievably blighted. From this 
 time forth, day after day, and week after week, might this sad 
 victim of “discipline,” be seen prowling about (when not in 
 the guard-room for subsequent misconduct, which after this 
 event was constantly the case), with a dejected and care-worn 
 countenance, pensive and gloomy, as though he had lost some 
 dear relative, or rather, perhaps, as though he had committed 
 an act on account of which he dared not look an honest man in 
 the face. The disgrace lie had endured had sunk deep into 
 his heart; a leprosy pervaded his mind; and, in despair, he 
 sought consolation from drink, which soon brought to a termi- 
 nation both his troubles and his life. 
 
 One wintry morning, w hen the bleak wind whistled along the 
 ranks of a regiment paraded to see corporal punishment 
 inflicted, every eye was turned in pity towards the delinquent, 
 until the commanding-officer, with Stentorian lungs, pro- 
 nounced the awful words, “ Strip, sir.” The morning was 
 bitterly cold ; the black clouds rolled along in quick suc- 
 cession ; and the weather altogether was such, that the mere 
 exposure of a man’s naked body was of itself a severe punish- 
 
11 
 
 ment. The crime of this man was repeated drunkenness, of 
 which he had, undoubtedly, been guilty; but what was the 
 cause of this constant inebriety ? Let us trace the evil to its 
 source. It was the sad recollection of his former disgrace by 
 to which the course of intoxication that he now 
 pursued might justly have been attributed. When the offender 
 was tied, or rather hung up by the hands, his back, from 
 intense cold jand the effects of previous floggings, exhibited a 
 complete blue and black appearance. On the first lash the 
 blood spirted out some yards, and, after he had received fifty, 
 his back, from the neck to the waist, was one continued stream 
 of blood. The sufferer flinched not a jot, neither did he utter 
 a single murmur, but bore the whole of his punishment with a 
 degree of indifference bordering upon insensibility, chewing, 
 all the while, what l was afterwards informed was a piece of 
 lead or a bullet. When the poor fellow was taken down, he 
 staggered and fell to the ground. His legs and arms, owing to 
 the intense cold and the long period they had remained in one 
 position, still continued distended, and he was obliged to be 
 conveyed to the hospital in a dooly, a kind of palanquin in 
 which sick soldiers are carried. This unfortunate creature 
 shortly afterwards shot himself in his barrack-room, in a sad 
 state of intoxication, and was borne to his solitary pit, and 
 hurled in like a dog. No inquiries were made as to the 
 causes to which this rash act might have been assigned. If 
 any such investigation had been deemed requisite, ample 
 attestations might have been produced, from which it would 
 have appeared that this poor wretch had scarcely ever looked 
 up from the date of his first flogging; that his prospects as a 
 soldier had been utterly destroyed ; and that his degradation 
 had been so acutely felt by him as to paralyze his best efforts 
 towards amendment, and at length to sink him into a state of 
 worthlessness and despair. 
 
 I come now to a case which I have good cause to remember 
 with feelings of intense pain, as the poor sufferer had exhibited 
 much kindness to me on numerous occasions. When I was at 
 the Cape, in 1798 or 1799 (I forget which), a sergeant in the 
 regiment in which I served w'as sentenced to be reduced to the 
 ranks, and to receive one hundred lashes. r lhis man was, I 
 think, one of the finest soldiers I ever saw : in his manners. 
 
12 
 
 firm, but respectful and unassuming ; in liis principles, strict 
 and honest; and in his person, handsome and commanding. 
 He had been pay-sergeant for many years in the regiment, and 
 a kind friend to me. In pursuance of his sentence, the stripes 
 which distinguished him as sergeant were torn from his brave 
 arm, and trampled in the dust; and, when he was ordered to 
 strip, the most intense silence prevailed throughout the ranks, 
 and every heart beat high with the fear that forgiveness was 
 now hopeless The result was looked for with breathless 
 anxiety, and probably it was expected that the offender would 
 have pleaded something in extenuation of his fault ; but, to an 
 ardent love which this man entertained for his profession, was 
 added a manly pride, which probably restrained him from 
 begging publicly for pardon. Certain it is, however, that he 
 did not utter a word. The command “ Go on” was given, and 
 a half-suppressed groan of horror was audible throughout the 
 square. 1 lie savage infliction commenced ; but scarcely had 
 he received five lashes when his affectionate wife rushed 
 through the square, and threw herself between him and the 
 drummer. The lialf-frantic woman wns dragged forcibly from 
 the spot, and her husband received every lash to which he had 
 been condemned ! From this moment he never looked up, but 
 soon sunk into the grave, leaving a wife and child. 
 
 In the experimental corps in wfflich I commenced my mili- 
 tary career, I recollect two boys being sentenced to be flogged 
 for desertion. They were brothers, and the elder was not 
 more than thirteen years of age. They had deserted together, 
 and piobably intended to have gone home again, not much 
 relishing their new mode of life. The elder boy was tied up 
 fiist, and, having received about six dozen lashes, he was 
 ouleied down, and it became the turn of his younger brother 
 to occupy his place. Afflicted by the idea of what his poor 
 little brother w r as about to sutler, the senior boy begged, in the 
 most earnest manner, that he might be permitted to take his 
 brother’s punishment, protesting, most solemnly, that he was 
 the sole cause of his desertion. When this was refused, and 
 the younger one was ordered to strip, the shrieks of the two 
 rent the air. They flew' into each other’s arms, clung together, 
 and, when they were torn asunder, the tear of pity started to 
 the c^es of all around. I he little fellow received every lash 
 
13 
 
 to which he had been sentenced ; and in little more than a 
 year after there were not two greater reprobates or vaga- 
 bonds in the whole corps. The elder boy soon died. Of 
 the fate of the younger I cannot speak with certainty;' but 
 [ think he was found drowned in Table Bay, at the Cane of 
 Good Hope. 1 
 
 One morning, I attended parade, when a wretched-look in 
 half-dead young lad was tied up for flogging; but the doctor 
 reported him unfit to receive his punishment, as the wounds on 
 his back, received in a former flagellation, were not healed. 
 He was taken down and sent to the hospital, and in one week 
 after I followed him to his grave ! Whether the poor fellow’s 
 death was to be attributed to the punishment he had suffered, 
 or to the effect of that punishment on his mind, and conse- 
 quently on his frame, I cannot take upon myself to pronounce ; 
 but 1 fear that it must be assigned to one or other of these 
 causes. 
 
 I one day attended the hospital as orderly-officer, and when 
 I asked, as was my duty, if there were any complaints, a man 
 with a dejected and maniac visage, bellowed out, “ Yes, I 
 have a complaint to make, that neither you nor the King of 
 England can remedy.” I asked him, in the kindest manner, 
 what it was. He laughed most terrifically, and said, “ Don’t 
 you know that I have been flogged for being drunk on parade, 
 —one hour’s neglect of duty.” I replied, that I was sorry for 
 it, when he rejoined, “ So am I most heartily, and the service 
 w ill lose an old and faithful soldier by it. ” A short time after 
 this, the poor fellow was found drowned, but whether this pro- 
 ceeded from intention, or from a fit of inebriety, no trace was 
 left us to judge, and, as there are no coroner’s inquests in the 
 upper provinces of India, the event was buried with the man ; 
 but I should imagine, from his frantic manner to me, and the 
 sort of threat which accompanied it, that it was desperation 
 that had wrought this dreadful catastrophe. 
 
 The instances which I have now laid before you. Sir, in 
 proof of the evil effects of flogging soldiers, will, perhaps, find 
 their way to the heart sooner than all the arguments that can 
 be urged against this barbarous mode of punishment. That 
 the castigation is cruel and agonizing, those who have ever 
 witnessed its infliction cannot doubt; yet it is not, as I think. 
 
14 
 
 
 
 
 
 the bodily anguish, though intense and excruciating, to which 
 the bad results which ever follow the enforcement of this 
 savage system of discipline are to be assigned. In the lace- 
 rated back, the wound is deep ; but in the disgraced bosom, 
 still deeper. The rent and bruised flesh will heal, and the cor- 
 poral pain will subside; but who can administer to the wounded 
 spirit? — what can repair the broken heart? I hesitate not to say, 
 that I consider it monstrous to suppose that any man possessed 
 of the ordinary sensibilities of nature, or whose character is in 
 the slightest degree tinctured with a becoming pride and self- 
 respect, can be reformed by a system of coercion united with 
 degradation ; # and I will even go so far as to assert my conviction, 
 that many men, of the most profligate and hardened disposition, 
 from whose minds all the torture which military law can inflict 
 would not turn the current of vice, might, by an opposite treat- 
 ment, be weaned from their ways of depravity, and diverted 
 into the paths of duty by a single act of well-timed leniency. 
 The attempt, however, as far as I can speak, has been so seldom 
 made, that it would be difficult to find proofs to evidence the 
 truth of such a position, although I have instanced one case. 
 
 The grand objects which are sought when an offender is 
 punished, I take to be two: first, to effect a reform in the 
 conduct of the culprit himself ; and, secondly, to deter others 
 from the commission of the same crime. That the latter 
 object is not in some degree attained by the cruelty of the 
 flogging system, it were absurd to deny. The degrading spec- 
 tacle of a poor fellow being tied up for some trivial offence, to 
 have his naked back scarified with an instrument of torture, 
 must be allowed to be a sight so revolting as to affright others. 
 But the system is not to be vindicated on these grounds; or 
 the practice of hanging a man for laughing at an improper 
 time, might be justified on the same principle. With respect 
 to the other view with which punishment is inflicted, — the 
 amendment of the delinquent, — the system of flogging is not 
 only wholly inefficacious for this desirable purpose, but has, in 
 at least ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a tendency directly 
 the reverse. 
 
 Those who still argue against the abolition of corporal pun- 
 ishment, urge, as the fundamental ground-work of their rea- 
 tliat flogging is better than resorting to the more 
 
15 
 
 rigorous penalties of the law, by shooting soldiers, which 
 many of the crimes incident to the profession would render 
 necessary, if flogging were not allowed. I am willing to grant, 
 without dispute, that, where an individual has justly incurred 
 the penalty of death, the commutation of that dreadful sen- 
 tence to corporal punishment may, in such a case, he deemed 
 a mercy. But, admitting this, what earthly benefit does the 
 service derive from such an alternative ? The individual pun- 
 ished by flogging is dead to a sense of his duty after such 
 debasement, and will ever be found a burden upon his country, 
 and a bitter pest upon his corps. The civil law provides for 
 such offenders by sending them for life from, their native 
 country ; but the flogged soldier is permitted, disgraced as he 
 is, to remain in his regiment, to commit more crime, with the 
 certainty that he has imbibed an utter hatred of his profession. 
 
 An obdurate and disobedient soldier, who sets all order and 
 military discipline at defiance, ought to be driven from the 
 army, and obliged to wear upon his person some mark of his 
 discardment. This, hanging over the heads of soldiers (I 
 mean, of course, as the last extremity), would effect infinitely 
 more than all the chastisement that can be inflicted upon their 
 bodies. It would also he the means of preventing men of bad 
 character from again creeping into either the army or the 
 navy. I am fully persuaded, from my long experience, that 
 flogging will never urge men to reformation ; for I have ever 
 observed that it causes increased disobedience and discontent, 
 and at last drives them to acts of sad desperation. Some of 
 the vehement advocates for the Cat also argue (but I think 
 fallaciously) that the minds of common soldiers are, from their 
 early habits of life, barren and uncultivated, and hence more 
 callous, and not so susceptible of the tenderer and nicer 
 feelings as those of the more enlightened. This is not quite 
 so obvious to me, who have lived with them both boy and man. 
 I would ask those who are enemies to the abolition of corporal 
 punishment, a few simple questions : — Have they served in the 
 ranks , and mixed and lived in social friendship with the private 
 soldiers of our country ? Have they ever sat at the bedside of a 
 flogged man, and witnessed the agony of his heart and the dis- 
 i traction of his mind? Have they ever heard the unintimidated 
 m and unbiassed opinions of the soldiers in their barrack-rooms 
 
 
16 
 
 respecting the ignominious lash ? If not, they are but half- 
 competent judges on this great question. If this great pro- 
 moter of discipline be so requisite to practice, and so efficient 
 in checking the most turbulent soldiers, liow is it that some men 
 who have been once flogged, fall under the lash almost every 
 week afterwards? Why can French soldiers be governed 
 without resorting to similar punishments? The advocates of 
 the flogging system may perhaps say, “ Because they have a 
 higher sense of honour, nicer feelings, more pride,” &c. 
 Granted, that they are superior in all these respects, and the 
 question follows, Why should they he? The answer is palpable 
 — this degrading system is not practised among them: it is 
 THIS VERY SYSTEM THAT IS THE STUMBLING-BLOCK IN OUR 
 
 army. The French liberal system of discipline encourages 
 the young aspirant, and infuses into the minds of the soldiers 
 that they are a people far above the common peasantry. 
 Abrogate the cruel and impolitic law which subjects our brave 
 fellows to the ignominy of the lash, and which, in numberless 
 instances, crushes the best feelings of the man ere they are 
 allowed to bud, and then it will be seen that the notion that 
 British soldiers are not as high-minded and honourable as 
 those of France or any other country, is as futile as that the 
 protectors of Albion cannot be governed without the aid of 
 such means as place them upon a level with the veriest mis- 
 creants in a gaol ! 
 
 . Another ground on which flogging must be reprobated is, 
 that its infliction depends greatly on the disposition or caprice 
 of the commanding officer. The man, it is true, is brought to a 
 court-martial ; but this, also, is at the discretion of the com- 
 manding-officer ; and that tribunal will frequently sentence the 
 offender to a certain number of lashes, to be inflicted “ in such 
 manner as the commanding-officer shall think fit.” 
 
 Let the returns of each regiment be called for, for any given 
 year, and it w ill be found that, in some corps not a man 
 
 HAS BEEN FLOGGED, AND IN OTHERS FIFTY, AND PERHAPS 
 MORE. How is this to be accopnted for? The thing is 
 obvious and clear : it cannot rest so much with the men, for 
 they will be found pretty much alike in all corps: it will 
 DEPEND ENTIRELY ON THE DISPOSITIONS OF THE COM- 
 MANDERS. If an officer be of a tyrannical disposition, or an 
 
17 
 
 ungovernable temper, the Cat will be found in frequent use in 
 the regiment under his command. If the commander be a 
 man of humanity, and possess a heart of kindness, he will 
 admonish, advise, encourage, and endeavour to infuse into the 
 minds of youth a kind of parental love and affection. In the 
 regiment where mercy reigns, discipline, order, harmony, and 
 peace ot mind will be found ; but, in the regiment where rigid 
 flogging is practised, discontent, disorder, and a great deal of 
 bad feeling towards the officers, are sure to prevail. 
 
 We see despotic masters who would, in their rage, cut their 
 servants to pieces; but there is a law that restrains their 
 tyrannic lash, and they know the penalty attached to such a 
 breach of the laws. It should be recollected that the despotic 
 commanding-officer has no penalty of this kind to keep his 
 irritability under subjection. 
 
 I am now, Sir, about to notice another abuse to which the flogg- 
 ing system has given birth, and which, in my opinion, deserves 
 severe reprobation. It is, I believe, but of late years that the 
 practice to which l allude has crept into the service ; but I am 
 informed that it has actually become, in some regiments, an 
 established rule. It consists in giving a soldier, who has fallen 
 under the displeasure of his commanding-officer, the choice, 
 either to receive a certain number of lashes — say fifty, a 
 hundred, or a hundred and fifty, as the case may be, or to 
 abide the decision of a court-martial. Monstrous as this in- 
 fringement of military law may appear, I hesitate not to state 
 that I have myself been ordered (by the commanding-officer of 
 a regiment in which I served) to give soldiers who had offended 
 the option of submitting to receive a stipulated number of lashes, 
 or of standing the chance of the award of a court-martial. As 
 far as my personal experience goes, I should be inclined to 
 say that the number of lashes fixed by the commander would 
 be generally accepted by the offender in preference to risking 
 the sentence of the court. Most men would be inclined to 
 look upon the prescribed amount of lashes as a mitigation of 
 punishment, and to receive them accordingly; but it is not, 
 of course, because the men approve of such an expedient, that 
 the custom is to be vindicated ; nor is the commander justifiable, 
 even if he resort to it from the best motives. The practice, as 
 it appears to me, can only be attributed to three motives. I 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 should most willingly say that it might be ascribed wholly to 
 the first motive, viz. an anxiety felt by the commanding-officer 
 to screen the culprit from some portion, at least, ot the punish- 
 ment attached to his offence ; did I not recollect that the 
 second may be, to save the trouble of assembling a court-martial ; 
 and the third, to prevent publicity. But, whatever may be the 
 motive, the practice itself is not only wholly unwairantable, 
 but subversive of the sole principle upon which the necessity 
 for punishment can be maintained — that it operates as an ex- 
 ample to others. The comparative privacy with which punish- 
 ment is inflicted, when received by the men in preference to 
 going before a court-martial, defeats this object; the revolting 
 sight is witnessed only by the troop or company to which the 
 culprit belongs, instead ot by the whole regiment. I f a com- 
 manding-officer resort to such a measure from motives of 
 humanity, which I am convinced is often the case, I think he 
 will find me correct in stating that he is guilty of an unjustifiable 
 assumption of authority. If his object he to save the trouble 
 of assembling a court-martial, it must be evident that he 
 sacrifices justice to convenience ; and if, from a knowledge that 
 these private castigations are not made matter of report, so as 
 to be known to the higher authorities, he seeks to screen from 
 notice the amount of punishment actually inflicted in his regi- 
 ment, the motive is a very unworthy one, and the effect ot 
 such secresy is highly injurious to the service. Of all injustice, 
 that is the greatest, which* goes under the name of a law ; and 
 of all sorts of tyranny, the forcing of the letter of the law 
 against equity, is the most unsupportable. 
 
 Some commanding-officers strike into a most erroneous and 
 fallacious principle of discipline, by endeavouring to break the 
 spirits of volatile youth by coercive means, and the moment 
 they get hold of juvenile offenders, dragging them to the 
 triangles for the most trifling offence. Some of these officers 
 I have actually known to pardon an old and hardened offender, 
 on the ground that they “could catch him every day;” while, 
 at the very same moment, they would insist on a sentence 
 being rigidly carried into execution against a juvenile and 
 thoughtless delinquent, for his first offence, who, simply be- 
 cause he seldom appeared before them, was punished on that 
 very account. 
 
19 
 
 While this is the character of some officers, others 1 have 
 known whose practice was exactly the reverse/ The H on 
 Colonel Monson, late commandant in the 7fith 1 * 
 one who hated the very name of flogging ReS,m<n,t> 
 
 Whenever crime and justice to the service enforced obedience 
 o this mode of discipline, which was his abhorrence, he scarcely 
 ever attended parade. He dared not trust his feelings to wit- 
 ness such a scene; but, when he did attend, I have seen the 
 tear of pity stealing down his cheek, and he would always turn 
 his back towards the suffering object. I have often heard the 
 same brave Colonel deprecate flogging in the bitterest terms- 
 saying it was an evil of the greatest magnitude, against which 
 he would always put his veto. 
 
 When at Jersey, in the year 1808, it was my painful duty to 
 witness the infliction of corporal punishment almost every week 
 lhis was not in my own regiment, for the Colonel of our corps 
 Lieutenant-Colonel John Covell, was one who never resorted 
 to flogging, except as a last resource, and then with great 
 reluctance, and with feelings of sorrow that lie had no alterna- 
 tive. At the period of which 1 speak, we were at war with 
 France, but, in one of the battalions of the (50th Regiment, 
 then at Jersey, we had many French soldiers. Many of these 
 men deserted, and most of them were taken in the attempt. 
 When we consider that they were natives of France, it is no 
 great wonder, that when a war broke out, they should attempt 
 to quit the English service, in preference to fighting against 
 their own country ; and, in my humble opinion, it would have 
 been neither unwise nor impolitic to have discharged them all; 
 lor men who would be base enough to fight against their own 
 country, could scarcely be considered fit to be trusted by any 
 othci power. Rut, be this as it may, many of these men were 
 taken, and sentenced to receive a thousand lashes each for 
 their desertion. lhis punishment was rigidly inflicted, with 
 the additional torture which must have resulted from the num- 
 ber of live being slowly counted between each lash; so that, 
 upon a fair calculation, each delinquent received one lash 
 every twelve seconds, and, consequently, the space of three 
 hours and twenty minutes was occupied in inflicting the total 
 punishment; as though a thousand lashes were not of them- 
 selves a sufficiently awful sentence, without so cruel and un- 
 
20 
 
 necessary a prolongation of misery! Many of these poor 
 creatures fainted several times from intensity ol bodily suf- 
 fering ; but, having been restored to their senses by medicinal 
 applications, the moment they could move their heads the cas- 
 tigation recommenced in all its rigour ! umbers of them 
 were taken down and carried from the square in a state of 
 utter insensibility. The spectacle, altogether, instead of opera- 
 ting as an example to others, created disgust and abhorrence 
 in the breast of every soldier present who was worthy of the 
 name of man. 
 
 The following is a picture of the revolting ceremony of flog- 
 ging, for which, I apprehend, few persons will be prepared. 
 From the very first day I entered the service as drum-boy, and 
 for eight years after, I can venture to assert that, at the lowest 
 calculation, it was my disgusting duty to flog men at least 
 three times a week. From this painful task there was no 
 possibility of shrinking, without the certainty of a rattan over 
 my own shoulders by the drum-major, or of my being sent to the 
 black-hole. When the infliction is ordered to commence, each 
 drum-boy, in rotation, is obliged to strip, for the purpose of 
 administering five-and-twenty lashes (slowly counted by the 
 drum-major), with freedom and vigour. In this practice of 
 stripping there always appeared to me something so unnatural, 
 inhuman, and butcher-like, that I have often felt most acutely 
 my own degradation in being compelled to conform to it. 
 After a poor fellow had received about a hundred lashes the 
 blood would flow down his back in streams, and fly about in 
 all directions with every additional blow of the instrument of 
 torture ; so that, by the time he had received three hundred, I 
 have found my clothes all over blood from the knees to the 
 crown of my head, and have looked as though I had just 
 emerged from a slaughter-house. Horrified at my disgusting 
 appearance, immediately after parade i have run into the liar- 
 rack-room to escape from the observation of the soldiers, and 
 to rid my clothes and person of my comrade’s blood. Here 
 I have picked and washed off my clothes pieces of skin and 
 flesh that had been cut from the poor sufferer’s back. What 
 the flogging in New gate or Bridewell may be I do not know, 
 but this is MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 I am ignorant what kind of Cats w r ere used when this per- 
 
21 
 
 n .c.ous system was first introduced into the army, but they are 
 now I believe, very different in different regiments and, in- 
 deed, there ,s sometimes a variety kept in the same corps 
 those which I have seen and used were made of a thick 
 and strong kind of whipcord : and in each lash, nine in num- 
 ber, and generally about two feet long, were tied three large 
 knots, so that a poor wretch who was doomed to receive one 
 thousand lashes, had twenty-seven thousand knots cutting into 
 his back ; and men have declared to me that the sensation 
 experienced at each lash was as though the talons of a hawk 
 were tearing the flesh oil* their hones. 
 
 Have the advocates for the continuance of this barbarous 
 system ever handled one of these savage instruments ? Have 
 they ever poised the Cat in their hands when clotted with a 
 soldier’s blood after punishment has been inflicted? If not, 
 let me inform them that it has then almost weight enough to 
 stun an ox, and requires the greatest exertion and dexterity in 
 the drummer to wield it. I have heard poor fellows declare 
 that, in this state, it falls like a mass of lead upon their backs. 
 
 If those whose duty it is to form the code of military laws 
 will allow soldiers to possess the common feelings and sensi- 
 bilities of other men, it must be obvious that degrading a man, 
 b y him like some vile miscreant, must be attended 
 
 with great and irreparable injury to the service. Since I 
 entered the army, the practice of flogging has considerably 
 abated, thanks to the noble advocates for its total abolition ; 
 but even still the terrific cries for mercy are heard from the ranks 
 of almost every regiment in the service, especially those which 
 are abroad. If a man deserve such ignominy and debasement, 
 he is unfit for a soldier, and ought to be discharged the ser- 
 vice. Often have I been agonised to see the skin torn off the 
 poor suflerer!s wrists and legs, by lugging him up to the trian- 
 gles as you would the vilest miscreant of the land, and after- 
 wards an inexperienced drum-boy flogging him over the face 
 and eyes. I have heard men beg for a drop of water to cool 
 their parched mouths and burning tongues, which has been 
 denied them. If we consider the character of all who are 
 flogged by our civil laws, the degradation of the punished 
 soldier becomes dreadfully manifest — they are the very dregs 
 and scum of the earth — the very refuse of infamy ! Do we not 
 
22 
 
 put our brave soldiers on a par with those poor wretches? 
 The mode of Hogging them is the same, except in 
 the severity, which predominates in the military infliction: 
 the disgrace and ignominy are the same. The common 
 thief too is tried by his peers ; he has the advantage of counsel; 
 the proceedings against him are conducted in an open court, 
 the particulars of his trial are communicated to the public, 
 and the conduct of judges, juries, pleaders, and witnesses is 
 subjected to public animadversion. Which of these privileges 
 is conceded to the unfortunate private, amenable to the jurisdic- 
 tion of the secret and inquisitorial tribunal of a court-martial ? 
 Oh ! how have I sighed to see brave fellows stripped to receive 
 the merciless lash, who had often met their country’s foe in 
 bloody battle ! T have seen the gallant spirit whom no danger 
 could deter, no peril could daunt, writhing under the lash of the 
 vilest slave. The very words, “ Strip, sir ! ” carry with them 
 sounds enough to annihilate all the better feelings of a soldier’s 
 nature. I am convinced, on the most mature reflection, that 
 the moment you touch a man’s back, you touch his loyalty. 
 It tears from his brow sprigs of laurel which would otherwise 
 blossom to maturity, and from his bosom all the bright beams 
 of honour, faith, and love. The man feels himself dishonoured 
 and degraded ; and, reflecting on his debasement, obduracy 
 takes the place of obedience ; hatred that of love ; apathy of 
 willingness ; and discontent deprives him for ever of that hap- 
 piness which surely ought to be the lot of him who voluntarily 
 leaves his home, and the dearest ties of nature, to cast his mite 
 into the lap of his country’s glory. The nobler feelings are 
 usurped by those of a hardened and callous nature, and the 
 mind feeds on its debasement, and lingers on its own dishonour. 
 There will be found in such a man a sullen, restless, fretful, 
 and irritable disposition, ever alive to malice and revenge. 
 He becomes a discontented, grumbling, and disobedient soldier, 
 who feels that he has nothing further to lose or care for. Thus 
 he lives; time is but a tell-tale of his woes: and, at last, in 
 the cup of inebriety he seeks refuge from the storm, or, as he 
 would term it, droivns his cares and his sorrows. Repetition of 
 his crime ensues, and further punishment is the sure conse- 
 quence. For the bite of the tarantula there is an antidote ; 
 the moon wanes and becomes bright again ; the rose fades 
 
23 
 
 under the influence ot a meridian sun, but the evening breeze 
 restores its fragrance and its freshness ; the billows rage and 
 are convulsed, yet subside again to calm repose ; but this poor 
 degraded man’s peace returns not to its chamber of rest. If 
 he is not the veriest wretch in the army, the sun of his 
 happiness will begin to set, from the first moment of his degra- 
 dation, never to rise again. 
 
 I will undertake to say that, if I had the opportunity, I 
 could pick out the men who had been subjected to corporal 
 punishment, from the ranks of every regiment in the service ; 
 for they are always to be traced by the sottish features of 
 intemperance, the languid eye of sorrow, the care-worn cheek 
 of despair, and the gait which seems to stoop under accumu- 
 lated woe. They are. well known. They are like spotted and 
 diseased sheep bearing some pestilential mark. Let any medi- 
 cal man attend the landing of troops from foreign climes, and 
 I will be bound that, on examination of their persons, he will 
 find fifteen out of every twenty with frightful backs, and whose 
 ruin of constitution has been caused by an early flogging, for 
 the mere infringement of some regimental order, in which the 
 moral character bears not a part; perhaps for being absent 
 from or late at parade or drill, or some other trivial ollence ot 
 parallel turpitude. By this ill-judged and cruel severity 
 ' the service is robbed of men who might prove to be some ot its 
 brightest ornaments, and this before the bloom of boyhood has 
 left their cheeks. Give a man but five or ten lashes, it scarcely 
 breaks the surface of the skin ; but search the course of the 
 wound, and you will find it buried in the inmost cavities of the 
 heart, where it rankles, and sows the seeds of enmity between 
 the sufferer and his country. If w'e sink or debase a man even 
 beneath the feelings of his own uncultivated and barren mind, 
 what can we expect from him? It is hardly reasonable, in 
 these times, to expect good for evil, though, in justice and 
 right, that ought to he the soldier’s creed ; yet there should, 
 at the same time, he a reciprocation of feeling between him 
 and that country for which he has tendered his life and 
 deserted his all. Cruelty is so contrary to nature that it is 
 distinguished by that scandalous name, inhumanity. 
 
 I have often weighed the flogging system deliberately in my 
 mind, and viewed it in all its bearings, but, looking 
 
24 
 
 in its most favourable aspect, I could never see but one goad 
 consequence that could ensue from it, and that as the result 
 of desperation : viz. that those poor wretches who have been 
 its victims will rush headlong into the cannon’s mouth, or 
 on the bayonet’s point, to wipe away the sting of their dis- 
 grace. Thus numbers have met an early grave unpitied ; as 
 each soldier and comrade would say, “ Poor fellow, it is a 
 happy release from his woes ; he has never done any good 
 since he was punished.” Flogging, I repeat, will never force 
 men to obedience, but will assuredly drive them to commit 
 crime. The very mental exertion which a man makes with 
 the determination of receiving this disgraceful punishment 
 without a murmur, necessarily sows in his bosom the seeds of 
 obdurate and hardened feelings. He meets his ignominy with 
 a sullen apathetic contempt, endeavouring to smother the 
 spark of revenge, which at that very time lurks and rankles in 
 his heart. I have seen the most modest and previously well- 
 conducted men, on receiving their first punishment, leave the 
 square formed to witness their disgrace with indications of an 
 obduracy and hardihood of which, an hour before, they were 
 totally incapable. 
 
 If flogging be necessary, which I shall ever doubt, why cut a 
 man’s hack to pieces, by giving him three or four hundred, 
 and sometimes a thousand, lashes? I have heard soldiers 
 declare that, after receiving one hundred lashes, the flesh be- 
 comes deadened, and they feel not the smart of the remainder; 
 although, after this, J have seen pieces cut out of the back as 
 big as a pea. Some men keep in hospital for months, in con- 
 sequence of their merciless flagellations, and others will not 
 leave it till they are invalided, taking care to keep the back 
 from healing by applications which ultimately ruin their 
 constitutions. At last they are sent home, and saddled upon the 
 country on the ground of a debilitated constitution, or some 
 other complaint, when flogging is in reality the sole cause of 
 t.lieir inefficiency. \ oung men, from their volatile dispositions 
 and from thoughtlessness, are often the victims of the lash, 
 kor almost all the oflenees for which men, generally speaking, 
 are first flogged, two or three hour’s extra drills, or duty, 
 would he an ample reparation to the offended laws ; while 
 the service would be benefited instead of injured. Let the 
 
 

 channel of military delinquency be traced to its source, and it 
 will be found that the very spring of nine-tenths of it is flog- 
 ging ; for if the crimes which are committed among the military 
 were seriously investigated , they would be found almost confined 
 to men who have fallen under the lash. 
 
 The career of a flogged man is, that from one end of the 
 year to another, lie is drunk, confined, tried, punished, sent to 
 the hospital, and thence to the perpetration of some other 
 crime. He becomes a burthen to himself and a disgrace to his 
 regiment, and at last, if he does not sink into an early grave, 
 he is flogged out of the service, to be a further burthen on his 
 country’s bounty. 
 
 There is more expense attending the trial, framing the 
 charges, and making entries against such a man, than would 
 fit out and keep a good soldier. There was one man in the 
 troop with me, that did not do one day’s duty in two years, 
 but during the whole of that period went through a regular 
 routine of flogging, drills, and solitary confinement. Often has 
 he told me, that lie was sunk so low, and felt so debased in his 
 own estimation, that no event could raise him to what he had 
 been before he was flogged. He said, a sense of degradation 
 stuck to him like a pestilential disease ; that all liis efforts had 
 been exerted to shake it off, but he found it still hanging on 
 his mind, and twining round his heart : it was his misery by 
 day, and haunted his wretched pillow by night. He declared 
 to me, that after lying thinking on it, and tossing to and fro, 
 when all his comrades were asleep, he would get up and drink 
 quantities of spirituous liquors, to obtain, by forgetfulness, a 
 short respite from his woes ; and that reflecting on what he 
 had been, and what he then was, almost drove him to take 
 his own life. This poor creature soon after died, with some 
 thousands of lashes upon his back, before he had completed 
 his four-and-twentieth year. 
 
 Our soldiers, now-a-days, are a different class of men to 
 what they were twenty or thirty years ago, and can be manage 
 by less coercive means. As flogging in the army decn a. cj, 
 will crime, in an equal proportion. I am persuaded that, 
 
 soldier’s adage, “ If we flog one devil out, we 
 
 use a 
 
 
 
 ,c\ 
 
26 
 
 flog fifty in.” in all professions, in whatsoever sphere 
 we move, we all expect to rise above our first apprenticeship; 
 but the moment you touch a soldier’s back, it writes opposite 
 his name, in the black book of crime, “ A private you are, and 
 a private you must remain.” A man, after this, has no 
 encouragement to amend, no inducement to do good, no in- 
 centive to fly from his disobedient ways ; his channel of emu- 
 lation is dammed up ; his good actions pass unheeded; while 
 his crimes are readily noticed, and tenaciously and rigidly 
 punished. A continual watch is kept upon such a man’s con- 
 duct ; the broad A of infamy is written upon his back; and 
 it would be better that a man immediately died after being 
 once touched by the crimsoned Cat-o’-nine-tails. 
 
 The opinions which I have thus advanced have been directed 
 to you, Sir, from a conviction that your political consistency 
 has given you a character and a weight in the assembly of our 
 law makers that will ensure attention to any subject you may 
 advocate, and I am induced to suppose you will now be the 
 soldier’s friend, from your expressed determination of bringing 
 the subject before Parliament. These opinions on the too 
 long allow ed practice of flogging soldiers are founded on my 
 observation of its effects during a service of thirty-four years ; 
 from having patiently listened to, and estimated the validity of, 
 the remarks of men who had been its victims ; and from having 
 watched the subsequent conduct of these men, and marked 
 their progress onward, either to utter ruin or to death. The 
 facts which I have detailed are undeniable, having been 
 witnessed by me in passing through the several gradations 
 of the service, from the waddling drum-boy to the strutting 
 Sub. In my humble opinion, the system of corporal punish- 
 ment calls aloud for total abolition. Its infliction is cruel, 
 and fraught with every kind of evil ; it is unnecessary, because 
 I am convinced that our brave soldiers may be restrained by 
 milder fetters than those of despotism; and it is grossly im- 
 politic, because it never conduces to the end desired. It is a 
 foul blot on our military regulations; a bloody page in our 
 code of military law; and a disgrace to a civilized nation. 
 It strikes at the very basis of the army’s welfare, and will, 
 so long as continued, be the barrier which shall prevent many 
 
27 
 
 a young man of respectability from adding his name to the list 
 of competitors for glory. 
 
 Having freely expressed my humble opinion in favour of 
 the abolition of corporal punishment, it may naturally be said, 
 “Well, admitting that we flog no more in the army, military 
 crime, of course, cannot go unpunished or unchecked ; — some 
 substitute must be found tor the mode of discipline hitherto 
 practised.” Now, although it must be quite obvious that a 
 
 ] man may be able to point out the decided evil resulting from 
 any given system, and yet not qualified to indicate the remedy 
 which shall compensate for its supercession; yet I shall, with 
 
 ! the same candour with which I have deprecated the practice 
 of flogging, not hesitate to state what I should substitute in 
 its room, confidently assured that no remedy which may be 
 proposed can be attended with worse effects to the service 
 than the system at present practised, or with less advantage 
 to the individual who incurs its infliction. 
 
 If I commanded a regiment, I should make it my primary 
 
 I study to ascertain what description of men I had to deal 
 with ; for I do not think it at any time consistent or reasonable 
 to punish every man in the same manner. What would be 
 a punishment to one, would be laughed at and ridiculed by 
 another. If a man appeared in the guard report for any 
 crime of moment, I should endeavour to ascertain from his 
 officer the disposition of that man ; and then, if possible, 
 adapt a punishment suitable to his disposition. An admoni- 
 tion, kindly tendered, would have the desired efiect on some 
 men, when harsh means would only serve to sink them deeper 
 in crime. On the other hand, harsh measures would be the 
 only means to check a man of a contrary disposition. 
 
 I should be very tenacious in punishing a man for a first 
 offence, or permitting such a man to remain an hour in a 
 common guard-room, or of classing him with the hardened 
 delinquents of the regiment. A young man kept confined 
 in a guard-room will learn more depravity in twenty-four 
 hours, than in his barrack-room in ten years. I have seen 
 sixty men confined in one small guard-room, all in a state 
 k of intoxication ; some reeling and tumbling about, some sing- 
 ming, some dancing, some swearing, some fighting, some quite 
 Snaked, and some in a state of utter insensibility. A place in 
 
28 
 
 which such examples are constantly to he found, cannot be 
 deemed very likely to improve the morals of inexperienced 
 youth. It must, therefore, be admitted to be advisable that 
 all officers, before they order men into confinement, should 
 ascertain who and what these men are, as the guard- 
 room is a seat of vice, where the drunkard glories in his 
 shame, the hardened offender in his depravity, and where 
 all the vicious characters assembled will unite their efforts to 
 endeavour to instil into the mind of their new associate in 
 disgrace, the germ of revenge against him who condemned 
 him to such company. I am persuaded that' much mischief 
 is done by confining the moral with the immoral prisoner. 
 It is incumbent on the commanding officer of every regiment 
 to make himself as thoroughly acquainted as possible with 
 the character, temper, and turn of mind, of every man of 
 his troop or company. If an officer omit this, he neglects 
 a most prominent feature of his duty ; for, until he is ac- 
 quainted with his men, he cannot duly administer justice. 
 But, while I am thus speaking of the duty of an officer, I 
 must not allow you to forget that, as our martial law is at 
 present constituted, the character of a man avails him nothing 
 at the court-martial : they must award a certain quantity of 
 lashes for a particular offence ; so that a man who becomes 
 intoxicated for the* first time in his life, and hates himself 
 for the act, is awarded the same punishment as the habitual 
 drunkard. It rests in the power of the commanding officer 
 to be sure, to mitigate or remit, as before stated ; but this prerog- 
 ative is seldom exercised : as his sending the man to a court- 
 martial is an avowal that he considers him worthy of punishment. 
 
 1 will now give what I consider a proper and efficient 
 substitute for military flogging, and the first and best is 
 solitary confinement ; for, when a man has suffered his 
 confinement, his person being unstained and unspotted, he 
 begins, as it were, a new career, endeavouring to regain 
 that character which for a time he has lost by some trifling 
 breach of orders. Extra drills, parades, &c., are also effi- 
 cacious remedies to compel soldiers to obedience, instead 
 of flogging them and degrading them in the eyes of their 
 comrades. I am convinced, from incontestiblc proofs, that, 
 by the system of Hogging even as at present practised, the 
 
29 
 
 service is yearly robbed of some of its best men, for mere 
 i offences in which there was no actual criminality. 
 
 I have often thought it would be an excellent plan for 
 soldiers to be subject to a forfeiture of their pay, for each 
 breach ot military discipline. I can see no reason why it 
 should not be considered fair to put the soldier on the same 
 pj,. footing with a mechanic; that is to say, if he would not work 
 f or do his appointed duty, or if he disabled himself from per. 
 * forming that duty by improper means, drunkenness or other- 
 r wise, for those periods during which the service was deprived 
 of his exertions he should forfeit his daily pay, and receive 
 only the rations usually given to prisoners. Indeed, thd arti- 
 ‘ c,es of war express, in their very first section, that for a first 
 S offence, a soldier shall forfeit twelve pence, & c. &c. If soldiers 
 r were forced to pay tor crime, I am convinced that we should 
 l hear but little of it. The money so forfeited might go towards 
 a bounty for purchasing substitutes to serve in the room of 
 the offender, should he persist ii? disobedience ; but, should 
 | he continue a certain number of years well-behaved, then it 
 would be a judicious measure that the money should be 
 returned to him with interest. This would be at once a check 
 upon his bad actions, and an incentive to spur him on to 
 regain that which through his misconduct he had lost. But 
 if no amendment could be discovered in the offender, by the 
 time the forfeits amounted to a sufficient sum to purchase a 
 substitute, then let this be done, and the offender discharged 
 and branded (as before hinted) in such a way as would prevent 
 him again entering the service, say on the right shoulder, 
 which would not be a bar to his returning to respectability in 
 civil society if he pleased. This would be some saving to the 
 ; nation, and an essential benefit to the service. The forfeited 
 sums belonging to men who might happen to die before the 
 expiration of their period of probation, might be appropriated 
 to some benevolent purposes that would benefit the service ; 
 or, under certain circumstances, perhaps paid over to the man s 
 widow or family. These are a few of the substitutes which I 
 have ventured to recommend in the room of logging. 
 
 If then, Sir, the hints contained in this letter meet your 
 tp probation, I may be induced to bring before you other 
 abuses in the army which equally require attention ; among 
 
which, those connected with military court-martials, and the A 
 unclaimed property of deceased soldiers are not the least. \ 
 Continue, then, your praiseworthy exertions in favour of the | 
 soldier. Let him, by petition, present his wrongs to the 
 sight of our beloved and benevolent king, and he will most 
 certainly redress them. When this is done, the army will J 
 ’heroine purified ; ail those who now stand aloof for fear of 
 falling victims to the debasing and demoralizing system of 
 Hogging, will rally round the standard of Britain. Who, then, 
 could cope with us ? — who, then, vanquish us ? None. This 
 act will be a halo of glory encircling the crown of William 
 the Fourth, and a radiance from Heaven on this age of 
 improvement. 
 
 I am, Sir Francis, 
 
 Your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 JOHN SHIPP, 
 
 Late Lieutenant in His Majesty's ' 
 87 th Regiment of Foot.