But there are two very different methods by which this vital object of exact discipline may be accomplished: one is the prevention, the other the punishment, of offences.

Some officers have endeavoured to do away with corporal punishment altogether; and some, on the other hand, have had recourse to hardly anything else.

The just union of the two systems will, I believe, in the end, perform the greatest public service, at the least cost of human suffering.[7] Antecedent to June 1811, the date of the order by which officers in command of ships were required to send quarterly returns of punishments to the Admiralty, there was little or no restraint upon the despotic authority of the captain, as far as corporal punishments were concerned.

And it must be in the recollection of every one who served in those days, that captains, not really cruel by nature, nor more intemperate than the ordinary run of men, were sometimes led, by the mere indulgence of unlimited and unscrutinised authority, to use a degree of severity not only out of proper measure with the crime, but, by reason of its questionable justice, hurtful to the discipline of the ships, and to the general character of the service.

Such things may also possibly have happened even of late years; but certainly, they have been much less frequent; for although no Admiralty regulations can convert a hot-headed captain into a cool, experienced, or reflecting person, nevertheless, it does seem to be quite within the legitimate range of official power, to compel all intemperate officers, whether young or old, to behave, as far as their nature will allow, in the same manner as men of sense, feeling, and thorough knowledge of the service would act in like circumstances.
It is a rule, now very generally observed by the best authorities in the Navy, never to punish a man on the day the offence has been committed.