CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN THE MERCANTILE MARINÉ. 367 ends are very liable to puzzle strangers when in the vicinity of known dangers. The numerous islands scattered about the approaches to Batavia roads are merely small sandy cays covered with trees, and I believe wholly destitute of fresh water. The resemblance they bear to each other is so very great, that one would imagine it to be almost impossible to distinguish one from the other in hazy weather. [We are compelled by a pressure of other matter to reserve the conclusion of this interesting paper from the pen of the commander of a British merchantman for our next number. In the meantime we recommend those who would inform themselves on Batavia Roads, and its approaches, to refer to the Admiralty chart of those roads, along with our last volume, where they will find some further important information concerning them from the pen of Captain Drinkwater Bethune, R.N.-ED. N.M.] CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN THE MERCANTILE MARINE. SIR. In the remarks of your intelligent correspondent "Mexicano," (Nautical for April, p. 229,) is the following passage. "Any offence occurring at sea, when it may be necessary, for example and safety of the vessel, to be punished at once; masters to do so only with consent of at least one officer; circumstances to be fully stated in the log-book; and seamen to have recourse [to the law-I suppose,] when on shore if he considers himself aggrieved." A man in authority, such as the Captain of a trading ship, with a discreet mind and feelings attuned to the dictates of humanity, writing on this subject, may perhaps, be excused for entertaining a desire to hold the power of summarily punishing a mutinous seaman at sea; but, he should recollect that, unfortunately all Masters of ships, or other vessels, are not possessed of that strict integrity of principle that would control the fiery spirit of anger, dislike of a particular individual, or any other unworthy passion of the heart. Every man, in whatever station of life he may be, might just as well desire to be the executor of the law, as a Judge, or as a Magistrate; but, it would be incompatible with reason and common sense to delegate such power to those who, in the ordinary way, have any body of persons under their authority. The qualification required for the command of a Merchant vessel does not necessarily constitute the possessor a good judge of the mode of punishing subordinate men. Instruction, as well as character, would seem to be necessary to qualify any individual as Arbiter of the law embracing physical chastisement. And even among those who do qualify themselves, and are men of integrity, or-possess the reputation of being such we find instances of mal-administration. I believe that, we may consistently with truth, contend that the education, the habits, and the little check that there is upon the will of the particular class alluded to, would disqualify very many of the ship-masters for exercising, with that moral control which is absolutely necessary, a power of such latitude. Is it not notorious that men in command view impropriety of conduct in their subordinates through a very different medium? One will think the transgression sufficiently punished by verbal correction, and by serious warning-whilst another will fancy it deserving of severe bodily punishment. It is true many persons may entertain opinions very similar; but assuredly all do not, in cases of this very nature; and we see instances every day of the inconsistency of human nature, of its capriciousness, and above all, often, how slightly the passions of the heart are held in due subjection by the dictates of reason or of conscience! I would calmly ask of the disinterested, whether such a responsibility would sit well upon a class in which the conduct of so many of its members have met with deserved reprehension? The voice is from themselves-you cannot discriminate-the power must be general, if allowed-and, if it were possible to find out those who are sober, steady, and humane, in disposition and practice, and to delegate such authority to them-would not such a law be a monstrous and anomalous absurdity? For my own part, if I was the Master of a ship, I should not feel very comfortable with such a privilege in my possession; because, as such, unqualified in any way for the exercise of so grave a power, should mistrust my impartiality. Depend upon it, Sir, that the Merchant service would not be improved by such a concession being granted to it. I At present the Captain of a Ship has the power of confining an outrageous mutineer in irons, or "bilboes," as the sailors term the antilocomotive instrument; and to bring him to punishment when he arrives in harbour.* Besides if summary chastisement should, in any case, prove to be absolutely necessary, by the testimony of creditable witnesses, to check general mutiny, the law of the land will not desert the Captain that inflicts it-on that point nothing more seems to be called for. But I am of opinion that, few cases can arise when the necessity for extreme coercion would supercede the good effect of a temperate but firm determination, seasonably applied, to be obeyed in every lawful command. Mutiny-such at least as would seem to require only corporal punishment, seldom displays itself, when the men are governed correctly, and the Commander in every respect supports his station. This is my belief; and I think, from all which has appeared in the Nautical, it will be subscribed to by most of your readers. A CAUTIOUS (and therefore a true) FRIEND TO THE Sea-Service. TYPHOON IN THE CHINA SEA. City of Dublin Steam Company's Vessel Liffey, the SIR.-Being restrained by diffidence from obtruding myself upon notice of the readers of the Nautical Magazine, I requested you to affix merely my initials J. B. C. to the account of a typhoon which appeared I think the expense of such a proceeding should be paid from the offender's wages, and by the public, if he is condemned; if not so, by the master. Comparatively with the last of punishments-Death. in the August number of your periodical for 1842; I however am now reluctantly compelled to abandon my incognito in consequence of having read in the Nautical for this month, an account of the same typhoon written by Commander Hay, R.N., in which some discrepancy appears between our respective registers as to the points from which the wind blew at 4h. 8m. and 10h. to 11h. A.M.: for the information of Captain Hay I beg to state that, the ship I commanded, the Bencoolen of Liverpool, lay about half a mile from the battery on the main land, and in which the Bengal volunteers and a party of the 18th regiment were at different periods quartered, and bearing about E.b.S. from the ship; H.M.S. Druid being the only man-of-war anchored between the fort and ourselves. All the rest of H.M. ships were to the westward and south-westward of us. With regard to the accuracy of my barometer I have to remark, that it always stood a tenth lower than many others I have met with, but it is a glass upon which the utmost reliance can be placed. I left it in the care of Messrs. Steele, the opticians of Liverpool, for some length of time after my arrival, and they have assured me that a more correct instrument cannot be; and during the late tempestuous winter, I tested it severely upon my passages between Liverpool and Dublin, and must say that its predictions were almost miraculous. The perfect coincidence too between it and the sympiesometer, during the height of the hurricane, and upon the breaking of the gale the steady rise of the barometer, irrespective of the squalls which like the last flashes of the expiring lamp, were the precursors of the stilling of the tempest, and had the due effect of retarding the rise of the more sensitive instrument, are beautiful evidences of the correctness of the mercurial observation. The glasses on board of my ship began to rise at precisely 11h. 42m. by the Commodore, I being very punctilious about keeping my pocket-watch set by the time of one of H.M. ships, it being a compliment which, in my opinion, is due from every merchant ship (while in harbour) to the pendant, and my chief officer and I were most attentive to the first rise of the mercury, on account of the crisis which might be expected at the change, and consequently relieved each other on deck, not leaving the instruments unobserved for one moment after they were at the minimum. Adverting to my notices of all the circumstances connected with the hurricane of the 21st of July, I beg to say that I showed my slate, having the original remarks on it, written during the height of the gale, to several Naval officers, and Commanders of merchant vessels in Hong-Kong, all of whom were perfectly satisfied of the correctness of my observations. I also furnished copies to several persons, and among them to the Naval instructor of one of the frigates, and throughout made every endeavour to give a matter of fact account of the storm, with the hope of furnishing a link in the advancement of our knowledge of the theory of storms, by giving merely a statement of occurrences as I observed them, leaving the mysteries to be developed by correspondents possessing such scientific attainments as Captain Hay, and other contributors, it being my object as an humble collaborateur in the cause, to search for the raw material, leaving the fashioning of it to persons more "au fait" at the handling of a subject so abstruse as the laws regulating the movements of hurricanes. ENLARGED SERIES.-NO. 6.-VOL. FOR 1843. 3 B I regret that any differences should exist between the respective accounts, and can duly appreciate the gallant officer's disinterested anxiety to reconcile them, but still I must say that no occurrence during my nautical career, engaged so much of my attention as this typhoon, in consequence of my mind being deeply pre occupied on the subject, by the perusal of Colonel Reid's work on storms, and also of the articles from the instructive pens of Stormy Jack and others, from time to time appearing in the Nautical Magazine; and also being under the thorough conviction that a typhoon might be expected, I housed everything a fortnight beforehand, and made every other preparation for encountering it, and on the night of the 20th, securely griped the boats, sent the awnings below, &c., and on the morning of the 21st, when the hurricane commenced in earnest, ruled columns for wind and fluctuations of the mercury, on the marble slate upon which I work my time, &c., when at sea, and remarked to my chief officer, a very intelligent man, and now in command of the Bencoolen, that it behoved us to watch narrowly all the phenomena that might occur during the progress of the meteor with a view of sending a correct account of it to the editor of the N. M. In conclusion I hope upon a review of my article on the typhoon, that the minuteness of my observations both before and during the gale, as well as the opinion expressed by your valuable correspondent "Stormy Jack," in page 682 of your volume for 1842, of the perfect coincidence of the observations, will substantiate my account of the gale, as I experienced it in that part of the harbour in which I lay. I also beg to suggest to Capt. Hay that, the wind which the Bencoolen, lying at the north side of the anchorage, experienced at N.W.b.N.; and at 8h. A.M. at N.b.W. (the wind at 7h. 30m. A.M. being N.N.W.,) might after blowing across the harbour, and striking the high land of HongKong with tremendous violence, be deflected, sweeping in a direction eddying parallel to the beach of the island, and rush upon the Pylades in a direction from east to west, (that ship to the best of my recollection being at a considerable distance to the south-west of us, and close to Hong-Kong,) until at last the gale veering to east became a true wind down the harbour from the Ly-e-Moon passage to both vessels. I leave this to his consideration, and perhaps upon further investigation it may be found we are both correct, and what are, perhaps only apparent discrepancies reconciled. However, being unshaken in the faith of my observations made on the north side of the harbour, I will be guilty of a plagiarism from Captain Hay, and using his words say:"But I will leave it in your hands as it cannot be in better, and will be happy to attend to any suggestions you may make." I am, &c., JOHN B. CALDBECK, Late Commander Ship Bencoolen. P.S. I have to remark that the Bencoolen did not start her anchors in the slightest degree whatever during the typhoon; it is recorded in the journal of the Pylades that all the merchant ships were driving. We think that our correspondent, the late commander of the Bencoolen, who has given satisfactory evidence of his attention to this im portant branch of his profession, has amply accounted for the difference in the direction of the winds experienced by his ship and the Pylades. No doubt the immediate presence of high lands must influence to a certain extent the direction of the wind in their vicinity, and the island of Hong-Kong, as well as the adjacent coast, is sufficiently high to do so, as Captain Hay admits. With regard to the barometer there are so many causes operating to produce a difference between the heights of all barometers, that it would perhaps be difficult to find two always alike. Still the fact of its rising or falling is a sufficient indication for the seaman, but this quality will be vitiated if there should be the least particle of air in the mercury. The difference of level or the absolute height of the mercurial column will be affected by this fault, and also by the different relative capacities between the cisterns and their tubes in different barometers.* We have recently had under our own immediate inspection about 20 barometers of the first makers, some of which shew the difference of a tenth of an inch and more from the standard; some provided with a correction for capacity of the cistern, and some not, to compensate for the difference of level of the mercury in it after any displacement or accumulation of it in the tube. We, therefore, consider both the observations of Captain Hay and Captain Caldbeck to have been correctly made, and in themselves perfectly satisfactory, and we are glad to see officers of the two services thus directing attention to a branch of their profession, to study and acquire a knowledge of which should be the care of every one. Indeed we consider that the captain of a ship without the theory of hurricanes at his fingers' ends, has only half learnt the use of his barometer, for what concerns him more we should like to know, than a knowledge of the changes of wind likely to follow each other in a gale, in order that he may know the best thing he can do while he is in it so as to get soonest out of it, and perhaps save his ship from destruction. It is not surrounded with the difficulties it is imagined to be, and any one following the simple method of laying down the direction of the focus at consecutive times, as we mentioned in our last number, from a point of observation will after a little practice, by a comparison of his observations with others, not only soon master the subject, but acquire an insight to it which will gradually induce a taste for it, that may on some unexpected occasion be of the utmost service to him. We hope both these gentlemen will enable us to record their future observation on this important subject.-ED. N.M. THE LIFE BOAT EXPERIMENT.-The Beach lately displayed a very animated scene from the concourse of people, of all ranks, who assembled to witness the Life Boat Experiment and Capt. Manby's Rockets. The evening unfortunately, however, was exceedingly wet, and it rained incessantly during the whole of the time,-notwithstanding which the Rockets and Shells were tried and found completely to answer the purpose. A paper on this subject by Capt. Milne, R.N., will be found in our volume for 1835, p. 212. |