section fourth.

The nineteenth article of war orders contempt to be punished as a court martial shall think fit, but custom sanctions the captain’s inflicting corporeal punishment for whatever he may deem Edition: current; Page: [54] contempt. And there is an article of the printed naval instructions, which without affixing any punishment to disrespect, vests, through the medium of custom, a power in courts martial to punish it in any way they may deem fit.

Two such indeterminate words as these, left to naval captains to interpret, are very sufficient means; and they are made ample use of in inflicting punishment by men whose anger is roused by the slightest opposition. These things are thought the first steps to mutiny, and they are, therefore, repressed with what is even in the navy thought severity of flogging. Three or four dozen I have generally seen inflicted for what a captain, or a midshipman, a boy just from his mother’s arms, might deem disrespect or contempt. It is here to be observed, that those beings whose conduct they themselves are conscious is creative both of disrespect and contempt, are the very people who inflict, and have most frequent occasion to do it, the greatest severity of punishment for these two things miscalled crimes. If the meaning of these two words is to be taken in its proper acceptation, they can mean nothing but that sentiment which arises in the mind, at feeling pain from the actions of others, at witnessing absurdity, folly, or vice; the greater a man’s knowledge is, the greater his love for virtue; the stronger must be his sentiments of contempt and Edition: current; Page: [55] disrespect for actions vicious, foolish, or absurd. Now, as the Almighty has evidently bestowed upon man a power of producing, by his praise, those actions in others which may promote his own happiness, and of repressing, by his contempt or censure, whatever may injure him; to entrust captains or admirals with a power to injure a man, and then punish him for feeling contempt at such an injury, what is it but to punish us for the possession of feelings the Almighty has implanted in us for the most beneficial purpose, that we may be able to repress actions that injure us.

In my opinion, to punish any man’s contempt of a vice that injures him, is to give a bounty upon vice, and to employ all the terrors of law in repressing virtue; it is to destroy all the boundaries of vice and virtue in the mind; it is to repress those sentiments of pleasure we feel at witnessing virtue, and which would lead us to imitate it; it is an endeavour to substitute pleasure, instead of that pain we feel at the sight of vice, and which would teach us to avoid it. Before the enactment of such a law, our legislators should have taken care thoroughly to convince us of their infallibility, then it is probable we should have submitted to the pain they inflicted, and thought it pleasure: but now, unfortunately, every day’s experience only adds to our conviction, that they are more prone to errors than other men.

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From the indefinite nature of these two words, it is not uncommon in the navy for looks to be punished as contempt, for a claim to justice, as a right belonging to every member of society, for a protestation of innocence, particularly if supported by reasoning, against the rash intuitive convictions of a superior, to be punished at this enlightened period of the world as disrespect.

The two words themselves, as applied to actions, are dreadfully indeterminate and ill defined; for no two human beings agree about what is the exact measure of respect. In the navy, with many, it is positive servility or unlimited obedience to any commands, however absurd: with others, it is simple obedience to positive and legal commands.