Flogging had been introduced into the American navy in 1799, when “the cat-of-nine tails” was made the legal instrument of punishment, “no other cat being allowed.” Not more than twelve lashes were allowed on the bare back. Even a court martial could not order over a hundred lashes. As to its total abolition, Perry felt that his own opinion should be formed by a consensus of the most respectable sailors. Personally he was in favor of immediately modifying, but not at once abolishing the penalty. This was to him “the most painful of all the duties of an officer.” He would rather make it more formal, leaving the question of its administration not in the hands of the captain, but of an inferior court on ship of three officers, the finding of the court to be subject to the captain’s revision. Perry believed, as the result of long experience, that the old sailors and the good ones were opposed to total abolition of flogging, since the punishment operated as a protection to them against desperate characters. To satisfy himself of public opinion, he went on board the _North Carolina_ and asked Captain J. R. Sands to call to him eight of the oldest active sailors. The men came in promptly to the cabin, not knowing who called them or why. All were native Americans, and all were opposed to the abolition of flogging. Nevertheless, Perry was glad when this relic of barbarism was abolished from the decks of the American ships of war. On him fell the brunt of the decision. He first enforced discipline, chiefly by moral suasion, on a fleet in which was no flogging. The grog ration was not abolished until 1862. Until the great civil war, only two fleets—that is, collections of war vessels numbering at least twelve—had assembled under the American flag. These were in the waters of Mexico and Japan. Both were commanded by Matthew C. Perry.