Identifier: youthfulmanowars00macl (find matches)
Title: A youthful man-o'-warsman, from the diary of an English lad ... who served in the British frigate Macedonian during her memorable action with the American frigate United States; who afterward deserted and entered the American Navy ..
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Maclay, Edgar Stanton, 1863-1919
Subjects: Leech, Samuel, 1798-1848 Adventure and adventurers Sailors United States -- History War of 1812 Personal narratives
Publisher: Greenlawn, N.Y., Navy Blue Company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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e limit of endurance and aboat from every ship in the fleet attended and wasconnected by a tow-line with the execution launch—so as to give greater humiliation to theprisoner. These preliminaries being completed, the crewof the victims ship manned the rigging to betterview the proceedings—for the ordeal was de-signed as a warning for them also. At the wordfrom the officer in charge, the Macedoniansboatswain, with coat off and sleeves rolled up,carefully spread out the nine cords of the cator whip and brought it down with all his strengthon the bare back of the victim. The flesh creptand reddened. Lash followed lash with nothingto break the awful silence save the swish of thenine cords cutting through the air and landingwith a sickening thud on human flesh, or theagonizing cries of the prisoner. In order that the blows might be delivered withundiminished vigor to the last, the boatswain, oncompleting one dozen lashes, handed the brutalinstrument to one of his mates; they delivering
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A Ghastly SriicxACLE. 49 one dozen lashes each. Tlic first sixty lasheswere given alongside the Macedonian, in con-formity with the custom of giving the greatestnumber of blows alongside the prisoners shij)so that his gory back might strike terror in thecrews of the other ships. By this time the prisoners back had beenlacerated beyond description, the flesh resembling roasted meat, burned nearly black before ascorching fire, as Samuel described it. Hisshirt was now thrown over his wounds, the boat-swain and mates returned to their ship, all handswere piped down; and as the procession pro-ceeded to the next ship, the drummer beat theRogues March. At the next man-of-war, the crew manned theyards and rigging as before and her boatswainand his mates descended into the launch, cat inhand. Removing his shirt, he revealed theghastly spectacle to his shipmates aloft. Thenthey proceeded to deliver one, two or three dozenlashes, according to the number of ships in thefleet. This horrible drama

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