“Striking Examples”

In 1811, a navy court heard a disturbing case in which a marine, James Parker, was accused of raping a ship’s boy named James Nowlan. Nowlan was only about 15 years of age. This was the standard charge naval courts considered in buggery cases; most involved power imbalances, and most also involved allegations that men had sex with boys or adolescents. While it resembled hundreds of other cases, though, Parker’s gained special notoriety because it happened to set an important precedent in sodomy law.