at near four o'clock in the afternoon. Having been educated piously, we thought it right to enter the church and listen to the service; after which, being tolerably rested, we progressed homewards, having still about a dozen miles to travel. At nine o'clock at night, we reached Edmonton church-yard; and calling on an old nurse of mine, who occupied one of the almshouses, she regaled us with tea, and engaged a lad to see us safe home. At length, at about half-past ten o'clock, we arrived safe at home; to the inexpressible joy of my mother and sister, whose apprehensions for our safety had thrown them nearly into a fever. The master had driven in his gig to my father's, where he dined, and of course told his own story. My father was, in consequence, prejudiced against us, and utterly refused to see us at all. I believe that this conduct on his part made a strong impression on my brother; as for myself, I was so shocked with its injustice and apparent want of affection, that I can safely aver that from that hour I have never loved my father. I have ever respected him, and, I believe, done my duty towards him: but my affection as a child was gone from the moment that my sister informed us that he would not see us, and that, the 'next morning, we were to be put into a post-chaise, and sent back to school, to be well flogged.

Sore-footed and weary as we both were, after a walk of twenty-five miles by the direct road, besides the extra walk in the forest, which alto- | gether made it near thirty miles, our spirits were not broken, and we unhesitatingly assured my mother that we would again run away, if we should be flogged; but that the next time we would not come towards home. In short, we had both resolved to go down to the river and enter as boys on board some ship; and if my age, for I was only just entered my eleventh year, should be an objection, that then we would join a party of gipsies, whom we frequently had met with in groups of apparently happy faces, and certainly free from fears of flogging and all its abomination. However, my father insisted; and in the morning we were again trundled off to Rumford. My mother accompanied us; and before parting, she extracted a promise from the master that he would pardon us, and in short that we should not be flogged. On the following morning we were paraded before the boys, and my brother, being the eldest, was "soundly flogged" on the back, in despite of the master's promise. My turn came next; and I can assure my readers, that I did not lose any portion of the effects of the stupendous fellow's brutality; for I was unable to crawl for many days.

My brother and I were then handcuffed together for several days; and afterwards, as we both jointly and severally refused to promise that we would not again try to run away, we were, first one, and then the other, chained by the leg to the school-room door. At length, I became quite lame from chilblains, and the chain was remitted, as being no longer necessary. Shortly after,

but, being still resolute on the subject, we were sent to another school.

About eighteen months subsequently, I was appointed one of his Majesty's officers, with the very important rank of midshipman. I was now destined to witness my greatest abomination in all its horrors. I had not been many days on board before I heard a hollow sound reverberating round the frigates decks, and which seemed to bring a shade of gloom over all the faces around me. Again the words were repeated, "All hands, a-hoy!" I eagerly inquired the meaning of this mystery, and was answered by a lad about sixteen years old, " It is all hands to punishment, my boy; you are going to see a man flogged."

The idea of a man being flogged at all, or under any possible circumstances, had never before entered my brain. I had as yet no notion that such a degree of brutality could exist; I had indeed known that boys were flogged, but how they could horse a man was to me a mystery. My reflections were broken in upon by observing all my messmates busily engaged in putting on their cocked-hats, swords, dirks, &c. And as this was the first time I had sported my new dirk, except in play, when I put it on at home to surprise my sister, and to dazzle the brightest eyes in the world, whose owner's name was Caroline, I felt very strange and mingled sensations as I strutted forth on the quarter-deck. The marines were drawn out on the larboard side of the deck, with their bayonets fixed, and their officer with his sword drawn, resting against his shoulder. On the main-deck the seamen had all assembled in a dense crowd about the hatchway, and the said hatchway was ornamented with several gratings fixed up on one end, evidently for some purpose, which I had never yet seen accomplished. The officers in their full uniforms, with swords and cocked-hats, were pacing the deck in great numbers: but all was still and solemn silence. At length the captain, a stern, but yet good-looking man, came forth from his cabin; the marines carrying their arms at the first appearance of his head above the ladder, which led from the cabin-door to the quarterdeck. The first-lieutenant, taking off his hat, approached the captain, and reported that "all was ready."

As the captain came up to the gangway he removed his hat; which was followed by all the men and officers becoming uncovered; and, then, taking from his pocket a printed copy of the articles of war, he read aloud a few lines, which denounced the judgment of a court-martial on any person who should be guilty of some particular offence, the nature of which I did not understand. This done, he ordered Edward Williams to strip; adding, “You have been guilty of neglect of duty, sir, in not laying in off the foretopsail yard, when the first-lieutenant ordered you; and I will give you a d―d good flogging.” By this time the poor fellow had taken off his jacket and shirt, which was thrown over his

shoulders by the master-at-arms, while two quarter-masters lashed the poor fellow's elbows to the gratings, so that he could not stir beyond an inch or two either way. It was in vain that he begged and besought the captain and first-lieutenant to forgive him; protesting that he did not hear himself called, in consequence of having had a bad cold, which rendered him almost deaf. His entreaties were unheeded; and, at the words, "Boatswain's-mate, give him a dozen," a tall, strong fellow came forward with a cat-o'-nine-tails, and having taken off his own jacket, and carefully measured his distance, so as to be able to strike with the full swing of his arm, he flung the tails of the cat round his head, and, with all the energy of his body, brought them down upon the fair, white, plump back of poor Williams. A sudden jerk of the poor fellow almost tore the gratings away from their position; he gave a scream of agony, and again begged the captain, for the sake of Jesus Christ, to let him off. I was horror-struck on seeing nine large welts, as big as my fingers, raised on his back, spreading from his shoulder blades nearly to his loins; but my feelings were doomed to be still more harassed. For, as soon as the tall boatswain's-mate had completed the task of running his fingers through the cords to clear them, and prevent the chance of a single lash being spared the wretched sufferer, he again flung them round his head to repeat the blow. Another slashing sound upon the naked flesh, another shriek and struggle to get free succeeded,-and then another and another, till the complement of twelve agonizing lashes were complete. The back was, by this time, nearly covered with deep red gashes; the skin roughed up and curled in many parts, as it does when a violent blow on the skin causes an extensive abrasion. The poor man looked up with an imploring eye towards the first-lieutenant, and groaned out, "Indeed, sir, as I hope to be saved, I did not hear you call me." The only reply was, on the part of the captain, who gave the word, " Another, boatswain's mate!" "Oh, God, sir, have mercy on me." "Boatswain's mate, go on; and mind you do your duty!"

The effect of one hundred and eight cuts upon his back had rendered it a fearful sight, but when these had been repeated with all the vigour of a fresh and untired arm, the poor fellow exhibited a sad spectacle. The dark red of the wounds had assumed a livid purple, the flesh stood up in mangled ridges, and the blood trickled here and there like the breaking out of an old wound. The pipes of the boatswain and his mates now sounded, and they called "all hands up anchor!" The gratings were quickly removed, and of all the human beings who had witnessed the cruel torture on the body of poor Edward Williams, not one seemed in the slightest degree affected. All was bustle and activity and apparent merriment as they went to work to prepare for quitting old England. As for myself I was sad enough, and heartily wished that I had joined the camp of the gipsies, instead of

the service of his Majesty. A foul wind, however, compelled us again to anchor; and before we set sail for the Mediterranean, which we did in about a week after the flogging, our captain exchanged into another ship, and we were joined by a very brave and excellent officer, who abominated flogging. For four years I served under his orders, and witnessed no more of the inhuman practice. The men were allowed to go on shore at Malta and other places, sometimes sixty or seventy at a time; and so kindly were they treated, that there was only one instance of desertion during all that period. The captain made a point of visiting the whole crew while at dinner, to see himself that they had everything they required to make them comfortable. This he did every day. The sick were always fed from his own table. The result of this was that our ship was the smartest frigate on the station, and fought the most decidedly glorious action which evergraced the annals of the English navy. I left the frigate eventually, and joined a manof-war, where the disgusting boast was made by the captain, that he never kept a midshipman six weeks without flogging him. It was not the custom of the service to flog a midshipman except on the breech; and, accordingly, I received my due share of what Captain S. facetiously termed his " battering in breach." I had sufficient interest to procure a speedy removal from that tyrant's power; and joined another ship, where the mids, at any rate, escaped. I found that my new captain was a most especial saint. He never forgave a first offence, he was wont to say, for if there were no first offence, there could be no second. He seldom flogged for any other crime than profane swearing or drunkenness ; these he never by any accident forgave. The result was a flogging match every Monday morning, and very frequently once or twice in the week besides. The crew grew worse and worse under this treatment; and at length there was scarcely a sober seaman or marine on board the ship, though her complement was about 600 men and boys. The more drunken they became, the more he flogged them: but the crime and punishment seemed to re-act on each other; for the ship became at length so very notorious for the cat, that he was joked about it by his brother captains. The men deserted at every oppor tunity, and had less of the appearance and manners of English seamen than any I ever witnessed.

Captain A. at length applied to the Admiralty to distribute his crew among the fleet and give him another, for he found those he had incorrigible. Their Lordships kindly granted his request, so far as distributing his crew went ; but they also paid off his ship, and he has never com.. manded another.

While in that ship I witnessed one of those murderous transactions, a flogging round the fleet. I call them murderous, because I know that in many instances, death has been the speedy result, and I believe that it is always hastened by them,

FLOGGING ROUND THE FLEET.-This most barbarous and wicked custom, is one of those things of which people hear occasionally, but of which those who have not been eye-witnesses have no more perfect idea than the people of China may form of a railway or the Thames Tunnel. It is still in existence, and is evidence that all we hear of the boot and other instruments of torture, the horrors of the Inquisition, &c., is not mere fiction. I shall endeavour to give the reader an idea of the horrible transaction which, in my seventeenth year, made such a lasting impression on my youthful mind, that it can never be obliterated on this side the grave.

The perpetual flogging on board His Majesty's ship Rhinoceros, had brought the men into such a state of despair, I may call it, that they were continually getting drunk to escape from the reflection of their miserable state. On one occasion, a half-idiot Welshman had been drinking beyond all the bounds of prudence; he was three parts intoxicated, or what sailors would term three sheets in the wind. In this state he was reprimanded by a very violent, bullying master's mate, for helping himself to water without permission. Some degree of insolence marked the tone in which Evan Evans replied; and the officer, (who, by-the-by, was afterwards turned out of the service for a nameless offence,) gave him some hearty cuffs, which so excited the angry feelings of the Welshman, that he instantly took out his knife and stabbed the master's mate twice in the belly. The man was secured, put in irons, and as soon as convenient brought before a court-martial. Everybody knows that in a civil court, the previous provocation by blows would have been taken into consideration, and a much lighter punishment inflicted for the stabbing than if it had been done in cold blood. The court-martial heard evidence of the facts, and they also took the provocation into consideration, and pronounced a less severe sentence than death, which they might have legally visited upon the offender. They sentenced him to receive five hundred lashes round the fleet, and afterwards to undergo two years' imprisonment in the Marshalsea.

The unhappy man was taken down to the gunroom of the ship, and again placed with both feet in irons, so that he could take no exercise ; and what with this confinement, which from the time of his offence to that of punishment endured three weeks, and the excitement of fear of death, in the first place, and subsequently fear of the dreadful punishment which awaited him, he was wan, and worn, and seemed when he came on deck, on the, to him, fatal morning, more fit for the hospital than the torture.

. It was at a few minutes before eight o'clock in the morning, when the first-lieutenant of the ship ordered me take charge of the launch, and see the punishment carried into effect. Had he given me orders to mount the sides of an enemy's frigate, at the head of a launch's crew, it would not have distressed me half so much; as I might have considered that my good luck might bring

me a broken head or a lieutenant's commission ; but here was a service devoid of honour and full of painful consequences, from which, however, there was no chance of escape. I must needs obey; and the heaviest, bitterest hour of my life was when I stepped into the boat to superintend the infliction of five hundred lashes on the back of poor Evan Evans.

It was on a dull, misty, gloomy morning, towards the end of October, and there were ten line of battle ships and frigates lying in the Downs, alongside of each of which he was to receive fifty lashes with the cat-o'-nine-tails, or 4,500 strokes in all. The launch of a line-of-battle ship is a large wide boat, which may contain easily from thirty to forty men. On this occasion it was to be taken in tow by other boats, and, therefore, there were no rowers in the boat. Its crew consisted of the steersman, four active seamen, to superintend the holding on the boat when alongside the different ships, and to attend to the fastenings which were to be passed round the knees and elbows of the prisoner; also two others, (his own messmates,) to place or remove blankets around him, as occasion might require, give him water, &c.; also the drummer, who was placed in the bow to beat the rogue's march while passing from ship to ship; the surgeon, to watch the pulse; the master-at-arms, to count the lashes; four marines, with fixed bayonets; and, lastly, myself to command the boat.

The boats from the fleet, one from each ship, with an officer and six or eight seamen, and two or more marines in each, were now assembled round the ship by signal; and exactly at a quarter past eight o'clock, the prisoner, in charge of the master-at-arms, came down the side and stepped into the boat, in which I had already taken my station. The seats of the boat were covered with gratings, and above them was erected a stage, consisting of two triangles, one at each end of the boat, between which were lashed two strong and long poles. To these poles the knees and arms of the prisoner were fastened with small cords, and, he being stripped all but his trousers, was then covered with a blanket tied round his waist, and another thrown over his shoulders.

The men on board were next ordered up to the rigging, so that every person on board might see the whole operation. The captain, taking off his hat, which was followed by all on board, and in the boats which were lying on their oars, within earshot, then proceeded to read the sentence of the court-martial. This effected, the boat.. swain of the ship himself stepped into the launch ; the blanket was removed from the culprit's shoulders, and, he (the boatswain) inflicted the first twelve lashes. The poor fellow screamed, and groaned, and struggled; but all this, like the struggles of the dying sheep under the knife of the butcher, passed unheeded. The boatswain returned on board, and two boatswain's mates came down and completed the number of fifty lashes. The blanket was immediately thrown over his shoulders, the people were piped down

out of the rigging, I gave the word of command to shove off, and the boats which took the launch in tow began to row towards the Admiral's ship, the drummer striking up the rogue's march. The origin of this idea of having music in the boat was no doubt to drown the groans of the sufferer, lest the ordinary feelings of humanity should revolt against the barbarous practice of so mutilating the body of a fellow creature.

A quarter of an hour elapsed, during which the poor Welshman's groans mixed with the vile sounds of the drum, and we were again alongside of a large two-decked ship, the men of which exhibited themselves in the rigging on our approach. The towing boats lay on their oars we hooked on to the ship, and three stout fellows jumped into the launch, with each a new cat-o'-nine-tails ready in his hand, prepared to expend his strength on the back of the sufferer. The firstlieutenant of the ship came to the gangway. I handed him a copy of the sentence, which he read aloud to the crew, and the boatswain's mates removed their jackets ready for the infliction. The cats, as I have just observed, were new; their lashes or tails were made of strong white cord, just the thickness of a common quill; and the glew or size, which is worked into the cord, had not been removed by soaking in water: they curled up, and were literally almost as stiff as wires. As officer of the boat, I objected to their being used, for the first time, on the poor man ; and others were procured, which had been well worn, and told many a tale of suffering. He looked at me gratefully, and said, in a weak voice, "Thank ye, sir."

The blanket was removed, and I observed the poor fellow shudder, as the cold air struck the bleeding sore on his flesh. The next moment, a heavy lash fell on it, and his screams were agonizing. He received a dozen lashes, and then began to cry out for water. The punishment was stopped till he had taken some.

He afterwards

told me, that at this period, the thirst he felt became intense; and that each lash caused a violent burning pain at his heart, and seemed to fall like the blows of a large stick on his body; but that the flesh was too dead to feel that stinging smart he felt at first and when the flogging was renewed.

The same scene was repeated alongside two other ships, with the like interval of misery to the sufferer, and of disgust and vexation to myself. My reflections, indeed, were painful enough, for I utterly condemned myself for ever becoming one of the many unfeeling wretches, who were so seriously occupied in torturing this poor wretch. Perhaps many others felt as disgusted as I did. Two hundred lashes had now been inflicted with a cat-o'-nine-tails, or eighteen hundred strokes with a cord of the thickness of a quill. The flesh, from the nape of the neck to below the shoulder-blades, was one deep purple mass, from which the blood oozed slowly. At every stroke a low groan escaped, and the flesh quivered with a sort of convulsive twitch; the eyes were closed, and the poor man began to faint.

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Water was administered, and pungent salts applied to his nostrils, which presently revived him in a slight degree.

At this period I gave the doctor a hint, by asking the master-at-arms, in a loud toe, how many lashes the prisoner had received. "Two hundred lashes, exactly, Sir," was the reply. I knew this very well: but it answered the purpose; for I saw the doctor look at me, and then order him to be taken down. This was instantly done, and I ordered a fast boat in the vicinity to take him on board. The poor fellow was laid on some blankets in the stern sheets, the sail hoisted, and in a quarter of an hour he was in his hammock in the sick berth, and the doctors were engaged dressing his wounds. Five weeks after this, I was again compelled to superintend a farther mutilation of the back of poor Evans. This time he looked more miserable than ever; his frame was shrunken and his cheeks fallen; and when his shirt was removed, I observed that the wounds were barely healed over, and that all about the sides of them there were dark dis colorations, which indicated a state of disease. I was surprised that the medical men allowed him to be again taken out for punishment. The first six lashes, given by the arm of an Herculean Irishman, brought the blood spirting out from the old wounds, and then almost every blow brought away morsels of skin and flesh.

It would be disgusting the reader to detail again the minutiae of this second flogging. Suffice it to say, that the poor fellow fainted when he had received another 150 lashes; but the surgeon, deeming him still capable of a little more punishment, another thirty-three were inflicted. A second faint and a convulsive action of the eyes put an end to his torture; he was removed to the guard-ship; and having taken 383 lashes, the remaining 117 were remitted by order of the Admiral. The ship sailed for a cruise in the North Sea; and some months after, we heard that poor Evan Evans had been sent to the prison of the Marshalsea, where he fell into a consumption and ended his days. This was just what I had expected; for it was clear that the first flogging had given the death-blow to the unfortunate Welshman.

I think that any argument against the system of torturing our seamen would have little effect with those readers whose minds are not made up to condemn it after perusing the above account, which is not in the slightest degree exaggerated; and I have no observation to make to those, who have, like myself, already determined that it is as offensive to humanity, as it is contrary to good policy. How, indeed, can we expect seamen to enter the service, or willingly to remain in it, when they know that they have no protection from such cruel tortures? If it be asserted that discipline demands it, I deny the assertion, on the experience of half a century; and I point to the fact of the strictest discipline being maintained in the Coast Guard service, where no cruelty of the kind is permitted by the law. Let not the indignation of the humane public,

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however, fall upon the officers of the Navy for practising the inhumanity; the law too frequently compels them thereto. Let the law-makers then be blamed; let the members of Parliament wince,

for they are the chief culprits. The articles of war are part and parcel of an Act of Parliament. Why do not the public, with one voice, demand the repeal of that brutal law?

"CAIN, Cain! where is thy brother?" We take up this cry, though in a milder tone, where the Edinburgh Review has left it off. In an article in the last number of that journal, the Memoir of Sir John Moore, or rather the author of that Memoir, is treated with freedom and severity, rare in the modern meally-mouthed periodicals. The review, or the attack and exposure, appears to be written by a fiery and fierce Radical,-an enthusiastic admirer, brother officer, and fervent personal friend of Sir John Moore, who understood his character, enjoyed his confidence, and venerated his opinions,-and who is, accordingly, roused to generous, if somewhat excessive, indignation and scorn, at the "counterfeit presentment" given of that illustrious man to the world by his brother. The greatest marvel about the article is how any thing so "refreshing" should have found a way into the Edinburgh Review. We shall marvel more if it be not made the ground of careful explanation and apology. Though we respect the writer's motives, and acknowledge the necessity of the unpleasant office he has assumed in exposing and branding the omissions, suppressions, and virtual misrepresentations of the biographer of Moore, we are not able to persuade ourselves that Mr. James Moore really feels spite or jealousy to his brother's memory, or that he would wilfully sacrifice the character of Moore to subserve his own paltry prejudices as a virulent Tory. On the contrary, there is ample evidence that, like all his kindred, Mr. James Carrick Moore feels a high and justifiable pride in the fame and talents of the ornament of his family. But he appears a man of a cold and timid nature, strongly warped by the meanest and narrowest spirit of party, just in his intentions, though utterly incapable of appreciating, in its noblest points, the character of his brother. Reading the Memoir, without the gloss subsequently furnished by the reviewer, we had set it down as the cold, flat, tame, and somewhat sneaking production of a frigid and very cautious person, incapable of warm or enlarged sympathy with the subject of his delineation, but honest withal; and it vindicates the propriety of the review to say that the book gave us an unpleasant and rather derogatory impression of the character of Sir John Moore, ina smuch as it tended to dispel those seeming illusions which had hallowed the memory of Moore as a good and also a great man. This original impression derived from the work, we have no doubt would have been the general one, save for the blistering antidote so promptly, though unceremoniously administered

Still we could have largely indulged Mr. James Carrick Moore in venting many of his favourite notions and nostrums, had he not, to favour his own commentaries, suppressed the opinions of his more enlightened and liberal brother. With this he is distinctly charged, and the case is one of pregnant suspicion. By the author's admission, General Moore, from an early period of his professional life, kept a Journal of the public events in which he bore a part, or which were passing around him. This Journal is described by the reviewer in terms which whets curiosity, and enormously increases the weight of the biographer's sins of omission, in having furnished the public with such meagre and comparatively uninteresting extracts.

In censuring some of the details given, with which, however, we have no quarrel, the reviewer thus adverts to what England wants. "She wants the nervous thoughts, the penetrating views, the sagacious anticipations, the careful arrangements, the prompt and daring execution of the consummate Captain.......

.We

protest against this monstrous injustice. We protest against it as Englishmen and as friends of Sir John Moore. We protest against it, because we know the whole' extent of the injustice -because we know that his Journal alone would make more than two thick volumes; and that, in simplicity of style and gravity of matter, that Journal may almost vie with Cæsar's Commentaries; that it treats of nothing mean or irrelevant to great affairs; that it embraces the transactions of many years, ending only within a few days of his death,—and yet seems, from the unity of moral feelings, to have been written in one day; that it exhibits, and in the most natural manner, the thoughts, the feelings, the views, the intentions, and the opinions of a good and great man; and that, from the first word to the last, nothing unworthy of his high spirit is there to be found. Why, then, is this Journal suppressed or garbled? We will inform our readers:-The hatred of oppression, the contempt for folly and weakness in power, the frank and bold opinions, the noble sentiments therein contained, would have rendered his biographer's political prejudices and petty sentiments so ridiculous by the contrast, that he could not, for very shame, have permitted them to stand." These are sorry reasons for suppression; and this description of the rich materials for his work, of which the biographer, to execute his task faithfully and satisfactorily, had only to permit the appearance, leaves him wholly without apology. From what