However, on personally applying for reinstatement, he obtained it, and once more joined his old corps at Harwich, where he many a night amused the mess with the recital of his trip to sea in the coach; which was always given with most effect when he was _half-seas-over_. THE PUNISHMENT. The image of this suffering quite unmans me. _Lee._ “Parade, Sir!--Parade, Sir!--There’s a parade this morning, Sir!” With these words, grumbled out by the unyielding leathern lungs of my servant, I was awakened from an agreeable dream in my barrack-room bed one morning about a quarter before eight o’clock. “Parade!”--I reflected a moment;--“Yes,” said I, “_a punishment_ parade.” I proceeded to dress; and as I looked out of my window I saw that the morning was as gloomy and disagreeable as the duty we were about to perform. “Curse the punishment!--curse the crimes!” muttered I to myself. I was soon shaved, booted, and belted. The parade-call was beaten, and in a moment I was in the barrack-yard. The non-commissioned officers were marching their squads to the ground: the officers, like myself, were turning out: the morning was cold as well as foggy: and there was a sullen, melancholy expression upon every man’s countenance, indicative of the relish they had for a punishment parade: the faces of the officers, as upon all such occasions, were particularly serious: the women of the regiment were to be seen in silent groups at the barrack-windows--in short, every thing around appealed to the heart, and made it sick. Two soldiers were to receive three hundred lashes each! One of them, a corporal, had till now preserved a good character for many years in the regiment; but he had been in the present instance seduced into the commission of serious offences, by an associate of very bad character. Their crimes, arising doubtless from habits of intoxication, were, disobedience of orders, insolence to the sergeant on duty, and the making away with some of their necessaries. The regiment formed on the parade, and we marched off in a few minutes to the riding-house, where the triangle was erected, about which the men formed a square, with the Colonel, the Adjutant, the Surgeon, and the drummers in the centre. “Attention!” roared out the Colonel. The word, were it not that it was technically necessary, need not have been used, for the attention of all was most intense; and scarcely could the footsteps of the last men, closing in, be fairly said to have broken the gloomy silence of the riding-house. The two prisoners were now marched into the centre of the square, escorted by a corporal and four men. “Attention!” was again called, and the Adjutant commanded to read the proceedings of the court-martial. When he had concluded, the Colonel commanded the private to “_strip_.” The drummers now approached the triangle, four in number, and the senior took up the “_cat_” in order to free the “tails” from entanglement with each other.