, the results must be proportionable in monstrousness to the custom
that authorises this worse than cruel absurdity.

Nor is it unworthy of remark that, while the noblest-minded and most
heroic sea-officers--men of the topmost stature, including Lord Nelson
himself--have regarded flogging in the Navy with the deepest concern,
and not without weighty scruples touching its general necessity, still,
one who has seen much of midshipmen can truly say that he has seen but
few midshipmen who were not enthusiastic advocates and admirers of
scourging. It would almost seem that they themselves, having so
recently escaped the posterior discipline of the nursery and the infant
school, are impatient to recover from those smarting reminiscences by
mincing the backs of full-grown American freemen.

It should not to be omitted here, that the midshipmen in the English
Navy are not permitted to be quite so imperious as in the American
ships. They are divided into three (I think) probationary classes of
"volunteers," instead of being at once advanced to a warrant. Nor will
you fail to remark, when you see an English cutter officered by one of
those volunteers, that the boy does not so strut and slap his dirk-hilt
with a Bobadil air, and anticipatingly feel of the place where his
warlike whiskers are going to be, and sputter out oaths so at the men,
as is too often the case with the little boys wearing best-bower
anchors on their lapels in the American Navy.

Yet it must be confessed that at times you see midshipmen who are noble
little fellows, and not at all disliked by the crew. Besides three
gallant youths, one black-eyed little lad in particular, in the
Neversink, was such a one. From his diminutiveness, he went by the name
of _Boat Plug_ among the seamen. Without being exactly familiar with
them, he had yet become a general favourite, by reason of his kindness
of manner, and never cursing them. It was amusing to hear some of the
older Tritons invoke blessings upon the youngster, when his kind tones
fell on their weather-beaten ears. "Ah, good luck to you, sir!"
touching their hats to the little man; "you have a soul to be saved,
sir!" There was a wonderful deal of meaning involved in the latter
sentence. _You have a soul to be saved_, is the phrase which a
man-of-war's-man peculiarly applies to a humane and kind-hearted
officer. It also implies that the majority of quarter-deck officers are
regarded by them in such a light that the