is not a greater torture to undergo than the Navy
cat-o'-nine-tails.

Some years ago a fire broke out near the powder magazine in an American
national ship, one of the squadron at anchor in the Bay of Naples. The
utmost alarm prevailed. A cry went fore and aft that the ship was about
to blow up. One of the seamen sprang overboard in affright. At length
the fire was got under, and the man was picked up. He was tried before
a court-martial, found guilty of cowardice, and condemned to be flogged
through the fleet, In due time the squadron made sail for Algiers, and
in that harbour, once haunted by pirates, the punishment was
inflicted--the Bay of Naples, though washing the shores of an absolute
king, not being deemed a fit place for such an exhibition of American
naval law.

While the Neversink was in the Pacific, an American sailor, who had
deposited a vote for General Harrison for President of the United
States, was flogged through the fleet.

CHAPTER LXXXIX.

THE SOCIAL STATE IN A MAN-OF-WAR.

Bur the floggings at the gangway and the floggings through the fleet,
the stealings, highway robberies, swearings, gamblings, blasphemings,
thimble-riggings, smugglings, and tipplings of a man-of-war, which
throughout this narrative have been here and there sketched from the
life, by no means comprise the whole catalogue of evil. One single
feature is full of significance.

All large ships of war carry soldiers, called marines. In the Neversink
there was something less than fifty, two thirds of whom were Irishmen.
They were officered by a Lieutenant, an Orderly Sergeant, two
Sergeants, and two Corporals, with a drummer and fifer. The custom,
generally, is to have a marine to each gun; which rule usually
furnishes the scale for distributing the soldiers in vessels of
different force.

Our marines had no other than martial duty to perform; excepting that,
at sea, they stood watches like the sailors, and now and then lazily
assisted in pulling the ropes. But they never put foot in rigging or
hand in tar-bucket.

On the quarter-bills, these men were stationed at none of the great
guns; on the station-bills, they had no posts at the ropes. What, then,
were they for? To serve their country in time of battle? Let us see.
When a ship is running into action, her marines generally lie flat on
their faces behind the bulwarks (the sailors are sometimes ordered to
do the same), and when the vessel is fairly engaged, they are