ABSTRACT
The purpose of this section is not to discuss the broader aspects of naval punishment in great detail, as this has been dealt with in recent works. 1 Flogging has long been an emotive subject, and it is hoped that the Blake's Black list [23], taken in the context of the Captain‘s known attitudes and feelings, will help throw some light on the question of how severe naval discipline actually was. The court martial, from the Intrepid [21] has been reproduced in full, because it gives a typical example of procedure. The main purpose in transcribing extracts from several courts martial, however, is because they include evidence which reveals something about shipboard life in ways that are not found elsewhere. One important point, illuminated in the Pine and Corbett cases [18, 22], is the question of informal beatings, and just what was allowed in different periods.
