few instances in which I have been compelled to inflict corporal punishment, have been on these gentry, to whom I show no mercy, if detected in fomenting disturbances; and I have invariably found, that flogging a lawyer has a wonderful effect in preserving order among the other prisoners.
The prisoners frequently, through mere bravado, make use of mutinous expressions, particularly in the hearing of young soldiers. In place of punishing such impudence with severity, I force the vaunters to parade the decks, with mock solemnity, and to beat up for volunteers to take the ship—to their infinite chagrin and mortification.
As soon as we get into fine weather, which, unless the wind be very unfavourable, happens in ten days or a fortnight after leaving England, schools are established, which all the boys are obliged to attend; and the adults are encouraged, but not compelled, to do so. The boys are divided into classes, according to their previous progress, and placed under the best educated, and most moral men among the prisoners, to whom I grant some authority, and several indulgences.
Every Sunday, after prayers, a public examination takes place, and trifling rewards are bestowed on those whose progress and conduct have merited praise. Divine service is performed by the surgeon, at least every Sunday forenoon, after muster, when the weather will admit of it, on the quarter-deck, where the prisoners are all assembled,—the guard and sailors being on the poop. I do not hesitate to say, that there may be as much real devotion—certainly far more outward decorum—in a convict ship, as in many churches on shore, where whispering, and other unseemly conduct occur during the performance of Worship, which would subject the prisoner, so irreverently behaving, to condign punishment.
Divine Worship at sea has often struck me, as particularly solemn, and calculated to make an impression on the most depraved of the human race. Indeed, I have observed, on several such occasions, many of the prisoners (who, according to their own statement, rarely attended a place of worship
