With my return to active life, came my exposure to hardships, and, what I dreaded still more, to punishment. Some of the boys were to be punished on the main deck; the rest were ordered forward to witness it, as usual. Being so far aft that I could not hear the summons, as a matter of course, I remained at my post. The hawk-eye of the lieutenant missed me, and in a rage he ordered me to be sent for to receive a flogging for my absence. Excuse was vain; for, such was the fiendish temper of this brutal officer, he only wanted the shadow of a reason for dragging the poor helpless boys of his charge to the grating. While I stood in trembling expectation of being degraded by the hated cat, a summons from the captain providentially called off our _brave_ boy-flogger, and I escaped. The _offence_ was never mentioned afterwards. The reader can easily perceive how such a constant exposure to the lash must embitter a seaman’s life. Already, since the _Macedonian_ had been in commission, had she changed captains twice. Why it so happened, it is not in my power to explain; but while at Lisbon, after the cruise last mentioned, our present captain was superseded by Captain John S. Carden. His arrival excited a transitory hope of a brighter lot, as he was an older man than the others, and, as we vainly trusted, a kinder one. Here, however, we were mistaken; he was like all the rest, the same heartless, unfeeling lover of whip discipline. At first the men under sentence tried their powers at flattery with the grave old man; but he was too experienced a sea-dog to be cajoled by a long-faced sailor under sentence: when, therefore, they told him he was a kind-hearted _fatherly_ gentleman, he only replied by a most provoking laugh, and by saying they were a set of very undutiful sons. Captain Carden was mercilessly severe in punishing theft. He would on no account forgive any man for this crime, but would flog the thief almost to death. Of this, we soon had a cruel instance. A midshipman named Gale, a most rascally, unprincipled fellow, found his pocket handkerchief in possession of one of the crew. He charged the man with stealing it. It was in vain that the poor wretch asserted that he found it under his hammock. He was reported as a thief; a court-martial sat upon him, and returned the shamefully disproportionate sentence of three hundred lashes through the fleet, and one year’s imprisonment! Any of my shipmates who are living, will certify to the truth of this statement, brutal and improbable as it may appear.