The very instant punishment is over, he should be allowed to start afresh for his character.

If a man is never to have his offence or his chastisement forgotten, he can hardly be expected to set seriously about the re-establishment of his damaged reputation.
Neither ought it to be forgotten, that a man so circumstanced has really stronger claims on our sympathy, and is more entitled to our protection, than if he had never fallen under censure.

He has, in some sort, if not entirely, expiated his offence by the severity of its consequences; and every generous-minded officer must feel that a poor seaman whom he has been compelled, by a sense of duty, to punish at the gangway, instead of being kept down, has need of some extra assistance to place him even on the footing he occupied before he committed any offence.

If this be not granted him, it is a mere mockery to say that he has any fair chance for virtue.
It might, therefore, I think, be very usefully made imperative upon the captain, at some short period after a punishment has taken place (say on the next muster-day), and when the immediate irritation shall have gone off, to call the offender publicly forward, and in the presence of the whole ship's company give him to understand that, as he had now received the punishment which, according to the rules of the service, his offence merited, both the one and the other were, from that time forward, to be entirely forgotten; and that he was now fully at liberty to begin his course anew.

I can assert, from ample experience, that the beneficial effects of this practice are very great.
FOOTNOTES: [7] The recent instructions issued by the Board of Admiralty would have gratified Captain Hall had he lived to read them; harmonizing as they do with the system he so earnestly advocates..