If possible, also, not more than one day should be allowed to elapse after the inquiry; for, although there is always something like passion in a punishment which is too prompt, there may, on the other hand, frequently appear something akin to vindictiveness in one which has been delayed until the details of the offence are well-nigh forgotten.

The captain should avoid pronouncing, either during or immediately after the investigation of an offence, any opinion on the case; much of its influence would be destroyed if the captain were to commit himself by threats made in the moment of greatest irritation; he might be apt to follow up, when cool, a threat made in anger, to show his consistency.
I could relate many instances of injustice arising from precipitancy in awarding punishment; but the following anecdotes, for the accuracy of which I can vouch, seem sufficient to arrest the attention to good purpose.
Two men-of-war happened to be cruising in company: one of them a line-of-battle ship, bearing an admiral's flag; the other a small frigate.

One day, when they were sailing quite close to each other, the signal was made from the large to the small ship to chase in a particular direction, implying that a strange sail was seen in that quarter.

The look-out man at the maintop mast-head of the frigate was instantly called down by the captain, and severely punished on the spot, for not having discovered and reported the stranger before the flag ship had made the signal to chase.
The unhappy sufferer, who was a very young hand, unaccustomed to be aloft, had merely taken his turn at the mast head with the rest of the ship's company, and could give no explanation of his apparent neglect.
Before it was too late, however, the officer of the watch ventured to suggest to the captain, that possibly the difference of height between the masts of the two ships might have enabled the look-out man on board the admiral to discover the stranger, when it was physically impossible, owing to the curvature of the earth, that she could have been seen on board the frigate.

No attention, however, was paid to this remark, and a punishment due only to crime, or to a manifest breach of discipline, was inflicted.
The very next day, the same officer, whose remonstrance had proved so ineffectual, saw the look-out man at the flag ship's mast-head again pointing out at a strange sail.