CONSIDERATIONS ON MANNING THE NAVY FOR FUTURE WAR. LOOKING at the system, or rather the total want of system, with which the manning of our Navy was conducted during the war, every one readily sees and admits the injustice to one class of his Majesty's subjects, which was practised in the impressment of seamen; and most men, who are not interested by the application of that hardship to themselves, fancy that they give a conclusive answer to the charge of injustice by urging its necessity. The necessity for British seamen being liable to a peremptory call for service in the time of war, there is no way to avoid; but I deny that this plea of necessity can be made in justification, while the country that is to make it remains in a state of apathy upon the question of how this peremptory call may be rendered less vexatious in its operation, either in the manner of calling out the seamen, or towards them during the progress of their term of service. And, as clearly, this plea of necessity cannot be a justification while the country retains in its power the means of making a compensation for the acknowledged injustice. I believe, however, that the country is not dead to such considerations; but only requires that they should be clearly placed before it, in order to produce a disposition to give such relief as the case will admit of. The Government has done much within the last twenty years, to ameliorate the condition of seamen on board a man-of-war; but the regulations for this purpose have been made applicable to the Navy during a state of peace, when manned with volunteers for a comparatively short period of service; and they have not provided for a state of war, for which, if we were called upon again to man a large fleet, nothing that has yet been done would supersede the ruffianly pressgangs, the unlimited service, and to secure this service, the perpetual imprisonment, where the honest mariner is locked up upon equal terms with the convict and the felon. It must be noticed, that these pressgangs followed their vocations under the orders of men who wore the dress, and bore the title of naval officers, as if it was not sufficient to place the naval officer in the odious situation of gaoler, over the men that he was to lead against an enemy; but even before the sailor was brought into this relation with them, the sight of their uniform was made hateful to him, by decking the bodies of these mencatchers.* If pressgangs are ever again to be let loose on the shores of Britain, rather by the connivance than by the sanction of the law, at least this augmentation of the evil need not be. Let the leaders of such gangs be called constables, or some name which is not given to any grade of naval officers, however humble. Yet, if the country be called upon to go to war to-morrow, we must again see this, and again * Pressgangs were under the superintendence of a lieutenant of the Navy, generally an old officer who had got into some scrape, such as getting married, and to whom the pecuniary advantage was an object greater than the distant chance of promotion. The assistants of this officer were called Midshipmen, and wore that uniform, but their service in this line was not admitted as a part of the six years necessary to qualify for promotion. U. S. JOURN. No. 41. APRIL 1832. 2 F METEOROLOGICAL REGISTER, KEPT AT THE OBSERVATORY OF CAPT. W. H. SMYTH, AT BEDFORD. N.N.E. fresh br. drizly rain.) TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. The Finding and Sentence of the Court Martial on Capt. Warrington not having been yet officially promulgated, we cannot record that document in our present Number; nor are we tempted to substitute the surreptitious version which has found its way into the newspapers. Next month we hope to find room also for such portion of the General Proceedings of that Court Martial as it may be desirable to preserve. Our overflowing Correspondence, for a great part of which we cannot this month find room, and the unusual length of the Parliamentary Debates upon the Naval and Military Estimates, have not left us a corner in our present Number for Literary Notices. A crowd of claimants upon our critical department, to whom we are anxious to do justice, including Sebastian Cabot, shall be duly attended to next month. We shall be happy to see the promised MS. of "I. W.:" his last is forthcoming. "W." is reserved for the corner he craves. "Not yet Chelsea," squares with our humour. We cannot, for obvious reasons, open our pages to the discussion between Major Fitzgerald and Lord Bingham. We accept the proposal of "H. B. R." with whom we are not disposed to part so abruptly. We are interested by "P. W.'s" enclosure, for which we shall endeavour to make room. We shall be happy to hear farther from "F. J. B." (H. C. S.) The Military Memoranda will be the most acceptable; also the projected route. Many thanks to "Capt. R. H. B:"—next month. Any thing more in the Log? "An Old Whig" cannot, on reflection, expect us to give currency to a mere assumption. Our very numerous Correspondents and Contributors will be pleased to accept our general assurance that they are duly appreciated. N. C. is in print. CONSIDERATIONS ON MANNING THE NAVY FOR FUTURE WAR. LOOKING at the system, or rather the total want of system, with which the manning of our Navy was conducted during the war, every one readily sees and admits the injustice to one class of his Majesty's subjects, which was practised in the impressment of seamen; and most men, who are not interested by the application of that hardship to themselves, fancy that they give a conclusive answer to the charge of injustice by urging its necessity. The necessity for British seamen being liable to a peremptory call for service in the time of war, there is no way to avoid; but I deny that this plea of necessity can be made in justification, while the country that is to make it remains in a state of apathy upon the question of how this peremptory call may be rendered less vexatious in its operation, either in the manner of calling out the seamen, or towards them during the progress of their term of service. And, as clearly, this plea of necessity cannot be a justification while the country retains in its power the means of making a compensation for the acknowledged injustice. I believe, however, that the country is not dead to such considerations; but only requires that they should be clearly placed before it, in order to produce a disposition to give such relief as the case will admit of. of war, The Government has done much within the last twenty years, to ameliorate the condition of seamen on board a man-of-war; but the regulations for this purpose have been made applicable to the Navy during a state of peace, when manned with volunteers for a comparatively short period of service; and they have not provided for a state for which, if we were called upon again to man a large fleet, nothing that has yet been done would supersede the ruffianly pressgangs, the unlimited service, and to secure this service, the perpetual imprisonment, where the honest mariner is locked up upon equal terms with the convict and the felon. It must be noticed, that these pressgangs followed their vocations under the orders of men who wore the dress, and bore the title of naval officers, as if it was not sufficient to place the naval officer in the odious situation of gaoler, over the men that he was to lead against an enemy; but even before the sailor was brought into this relation with them, the sight of their uniform was made hateful to him, by decking the bodies of these mencatchers.* If pressgangs are ever again to be let loose on the shores of Britain, rather by the connivance than by the sanction of the law, at least this augmentation of the evil need not be. Let the leaders of such gangs be called constables, or some name which is not given to any grade of naval officers, however humble. Yet, if the country be called upon to go to war to-morrow, we must again see this, and again Pressgangs were under the superintendence of a lieutenant of the Navy, generally an old officer who had got into some scrape, such as getting married, and to whom the pecuniary advantage was an object greater than the distant chance of promotion. The assistants of this officer were called Midshipmen, and wore that uniform, but their service in this line was not admitted as a part of the six years necessary to qualify for promotion. U. S. JOURN. No. 41. APRIL 1832. 2 F estrange the British seamen from their officers, by requiring these to enforce the unlimited service of the men through a perpetual imprison ment. pro We have every reason to think, that the present Government is deeply interested in the amendment of such matters: and if it shall do as much in this branch of the subject as the former Government has done towards correcting the system of discipline on board, it will leave nothing for its successors to do in continuing the naval supremacy of Great Britain on a firm foundation. Believing the Government to be truly zealous on this subject, which has long occupied my own mind, it is with much pleasure that I observe other naval officers working in the same field. To a Government desirous to remedy or alleviate these evils, it cannot but be advantageous that they should collect and compare the views of naval officers upon the practical operation and bearing of the matters complained of, as affording the best means by which a cure for them may be discovered. And if naval officers, in the secution of their subject, shall be led to suggest remedies, their proposals will, at least, demand an impartial consideration from those who are better acquainted with the laws already existing. Proposals from such a quarter will be of a practical nature, suggested by experience, and not written to please the taste of those fanciful enthusiasts whe pretend that human nature is changed, and that we shall have no more war, in opposition to our every-day observation, and to the history of Great Britain, including that of the last eight years, in which period, we have been two or three times on the brink of it, and should have been actually engaged in war, at least twice, if the popular voice had been followed. Human nature is not changed, but information is more generally diffused among the people of Great Britain. I do not mean to raise the question as to the advantage of this diffusion of knowledge -that question, I presume, has gone to sleep for ever. Let those who doubt the advantage, look for the blessings of ignorance in the present state of Ireland-or in the recent massacres of Hungary. But the fact, that information is more generally diffused, is all that bears upon my subject. From that fact it arises, that no system of injustice can be practised with the same facility as it could be even forty years ago; and this consideration is not a light one in reference to the ques tion of impressment. The first branch of the subject that I shall take up is, how the neces→ sary restraints in the naval service may be made as little irksome as possible to the sailor, consistently with the efficient discipline of the ship? This will lead to the consideration of punishments. On this point I at once state my opinion, that the restrictions on the power of commanding officers, separated as they often are from all reference to higher authority, however useful they may have been so far as they have have been carried far enough. How much soever we may improve the crews of our men-of-war by a more wise selection of men for them, the habits of a large portion of those crews must still be of that desultory and reckless character, that a power to control them with a strong hand, and to punish any act of insubordination promptly, must remain. I speak of the world as it now is. That the exercise of the power to control these men with a strong hand should be placed under an efficient scrutiny, and subjected to a just responsibility, is gone, quite right; and the improvements in this respect have already done much good. But the power must remain. I do not make these remarks in answer to the drivelling trash which one sees in the newspapers, about the degrading nature of corporal punishment. Will the writers of these articles inform us of any punishment that is not degrading? Would they prefer a month's solitary confinement in the coal-hole on bread and water? or some vexatious extra work, such as polishing ring-bolts, or belaying pins? with, of course, some penalty hanging over him for the nonfulfilment of this work? We can tell them that a sailor would much rather have a couple of dozen and have done with it. But I should not answer those men who make their bread by catering for the diseased appetite for clamour and declamation, which prevails, were it not that I have observed one of them to state with an appearance of authority, that Sir Francis Burdett has in view the prevention of this kind of punishment. Any thing that a naval officer could say upon this subject, would, probably, have little weight with Sir Francis Burdett. My address to him would, therefore, be short, and may be comprised in four words-"Ask the men themselves." Believing that the object of Sir Francis Burdett has all along been the good of his country, and not the merely selfish object of receiving the praise of the ignorant, I have much pleasure in stating my opinion as a naval officer, that he has already done much good by calling attention to this matter; but I would also add, that on this particular branch of his subject, he has gone far enough. Let him look practically at the tempers and dispositions of mankind as they are, and not as we would wish them to be. Let him consider that a man of war is constantly in the situation of being before an enemy, in her liability to be attacked by the elements; and therefore under the necessity of retaining a constant (state of vigilance: that this call for vigilance, sobriety, and alacrity, being constant, has none of that excitement which the sight of an enemy's flag produces. Let him consider the state of six or eight hundred men packed up in a box of boards, and the continued restraint which must thence be required upon each for the cleanliness and order necessary to preserve the lives of the whole, to say nothing of their comfort. Let him further consider the jarring tempers of six or eight hundred men so shut up, and the necessity thence arising for a powerful arm to be stretched over them, in order to protect the weak from the aggressions of the strong; and he will then understand that which every sailor will tell him, viz. “The power of the Captain to inflict such punishment is indispensable." I speak with confidence, when I assure any statesman who is interested on this subject, what the answer which he would receive from old seamen would be, if he would ask them this question, "Could flogging be done away with in the naval service?" The veteran would hang his head, and shaking it with a doubtful smile, would say that it could not that the willing and hard-working man would have to do all the work of the lazy and the skulking. Some he will find more concise in their answer. They would tell him that they (the men on board) would cut each other's throats. These are the answers which I have received from seamen whenever I have put such questions to them. This I have often done-not in the war when I was their officer, but |