Courts-martial. the boarding-pike, more especially for the purpose of defence. Courts-martial were held on board, as in ships of war, the members of which were composed of the commander and the four senior or sworn officers, the fourth or junior mate giving his opinion of what the verdict ought to be before any of the other members. And when punishments were inflicted, which was too frequently the case for the most trifling offences, the lash from the brawny arm of a boatswain's mate over the bare back and shoulders of the delinquent was much more severely felt than would have been the lash of a drummer's mate. Three dozen of such lashes was no uncommon punishment.
Change in the policy of the East India Company. The renewal of the Company's charter in 1814, until 1831, though granted by Parliament, was, as we have seen, so stoutly opposed by the representatives in Parliament of the out-ports and the great manufacturing districts, that various concessions were offered to the growing intelligence of the people and to their increasing wants. But the granting of licences and the extension of conditional privileges did not satisfy the demands of a people who were beginning to ask their rulers the unanswerable question why they should not be allowed to purchase what they required in the cheapest markets; and who saw that though the territory of the Company had increased to an enormous extent, its commerce, considering the extent of the land and the richness of the soil now in the Company's possession, was altogether insignificant; in a word, that territorial aggrandisement had now become the Alpha and Omega of the Company's policy.
