Moreover, it was as close akin to murder as it could be, for I don’t know how it was I didn’t fall overboard, and then nothing could have saved my life.  However, as I didn’t fall, I was not drowned, and the effect on me was curious enough.  For all I had seen and suffered on that the opening day of my sea-life made me think for the first time—­and I have never ceased thinking (half a century has passed since then)—­how to oppose tyranny in every shape.  Indeed, I have always done so to such an extent as to have been frequently called by my superiors ’a troublesome character,’ ‘a sea lawyer,’ &c.

Perhaps in this way I have been able to effect something, however small, towards the entire change that has taken place in the treatment of those holding subordinate positions in the navy—­and that something has had its use, for the tyrant’s hand is by force stayed now, ’for once and for all.’

With this little I am satisfied.

Now let us briefly look into the question, ’Why are men tyrants when they have it in their power to be so?’

Unfortunately, as a rule, it appears to come natural to them!  What caused the Indian Mutiny?  Let Indian officers and those employed in the Indian civil service answer that question.

However, I have only to do with naval officers.  My experience tells me that a man clothed with brief but supreme authority, such as the command of a man-of-war, in those days when for months and months he was away from all control of his superiors and out of reach of public censure, is more frequently apt to listen to the promptings of the devil, which more or less attack every man, especially when he is alone.

Away from the softening influence of society and the wholesome fear of restraint, for a time at least the voice of his better angel is silenced.  Perhaps also the necessarily solitary position of a commander of a man-of-war, his long, lonely hours, the utter change from the jovial life he led previous to being afloat, to say nothing of his liver getting occasionally out of order, may all tend to make him irritable and despotic.

I have seen a captain order his steward to be flogged, almost to death, because his pea-soup was not hot.  I have seen an officer from twenty to twenty-five years of age made to stand between two guns with a sentry over him for hours, because he had neglected to see and salute the tyrant who had come on deck in the dark.  And as a proof, though it seems scarcely credible, of what such men can do when unchecked by fear of consequences, I will cite the following:—­

On one occasion the captain of whom I have been writing invited a friend to breakfast with him, and there being, I suppose, a slight monotony in the conversation, he asked his guest whether he would like, by way of diversion, to see a man flogged.  The amusement was accepted, and a man was flogged.

It was about the time I write of that the tyranny practised on board Her Majesty’s ships was slowly but surely dawning upon the public, and a general outcry against injustice began.