To our modern ideas the punishments afloat were horribly brutal; but here again it is necessary to remember the difference in era. Floggings and kindred punishments were plentiful enough ashore; and there is a good deal of evidence to indicate that they were taken as “all in the day’s work afloat.” The victim was usually “doped” by his messmates, who saved up part of their rum tots for the purpose, and the horrors of the cat have undoubtedly been somewhat exaggerated. It was undeniably brutal and cruel; but, to select a homely simile, so were dental methods a few years ago. Our fathers submitted to things in this direction which none of us would, or, for that matter, could stand nowadays. The bulk of contemporary evidence is that the (to our eyes) brutal punishments of the Navy of a hundred odd years ago were never regarded as serious grievances by those who stood to undergo them. The actual grievances revolved entirely around the administration of undeserved punishments. A certain number of captains misused their powers and prerogatives, but only a small percentage did so. At no time does the average captain appear to have been a brutal bully. This is, however, to be qualified by the midshipmen, of whom a certain number deliberately bullied men into doing things for which they got brutally punished afterwards. But outside this the conditions were by no means so horrible as generally depicted. The real sufferers were the pressed landsmen, who certainly learned to be seamen in a very hard school. It is necessary, however, even here to remember the times and the conditions. This view is borne out by the Great Mutiny. The mutineers, even at the Nore, never demanded the abolition of the cat. When trouble was connected with it in any way, it was over its unreasonable use, as, for instance, in the insensate flogging of the last two men off the rigging, which led to the Mutiny in the _Hermione_. This--which entailed punishing the smartest men since these had furthest to go--goaded the “prime seamen” to desperation and sympathy with the landsmen element afloat, which was ever in a semi-mutinous condition. It is impossible to hold that Captain Pigot of the _Hermione_ did not deserve his fate. But Pigots were comparatively rare, and captains like Nelson by no means scarce. Nelson had no hesitation in flogging men, but he flogged justly, and no troubles ever occurred in any ship commanded by him. For that matter it was characteristic of the time that a captain might be a Tartar, and yet be quite popular with his crew so long as he was just. The “prime seamen” who formed the nucleus of the ship’s company realised the necessity of severe measures and strict discipline in order to tame the human ullage which made up the rest of the crew. In this connection it is interesting to note that towards the end of the period there began to creep in the commencement of a later classification of ratings not liable to corporal punishment.