We now received sailing orders, and were very soon under weigh, bound to the Balize at the mouth of the Mississippi. On this passage we had further opportunities of learning the character of our officers. Although Captain Porter was stern and severe, yet he never used bad language. He always spoke with the utmost deliberation, but with such obvious indications of feeling, that we often trembled to hear his voice. Most of the other officers were by no means novitiates in the art of swearing; but our sailing-master exceeded all the rest in this diabolical habit. Whenever it was his watch on deck, he exercised his voice, and practised the use of his choice and varied vocabulary of oaths, by hallooing and threatening the men continually. Whenever we had to set on sail, or to reef, he was especially diligent in these matters; mingling with his curses, threats of the lash to those who were tardy, or whose movements did not exactly suit his taste. If such officers could only apprehend the profound contempt and bitter hatred with which they are regarded by their maddened crew, they would both tremble for safety, and despise their own littleness of soul. No really great man would enact the childish vagaries of a petty tyrant. There was one respect in which we were more annoyed in the _Boxer_ than I had been in the _Macedonian_. In this latter ship, none but the captain could order a man to be flogged; in the _Boxer_, the lieutenant or the officer of the watch could send a man to the gangway, and order the boatswain to lay on with a rope’s-end. This is a liberty which the laws of the navy should prohibit. A man should be secured the rights of a citizen, as well on the _planks_ as on the _soil_ of his country. True, it may be said, severity of discipline is necessary to good order in a ship. Not _severity_, but _strictness_, is what is wanted. Let a strict discipline be enforced, with pleasant looks, and a “Hurrah my lads, bear a hand!” and obedience will be more prompt and more perfect than when every order is accompanied with a “Damn you,” and with an exhibition of the rope’s-end or cat-o’-nine-tails. Common sense, as well as experience, will sustain this opinion.