ABSTRACT
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, newspapers regularly carried stories about sailors misbehaving sexually, including by taking part in same-sex acts. While these reports usually condemned “unnatural” relationships and celebrated when they were punished, they also often revealed the limits of policing and the criminal justice system. In this report, which was carried in several papers in the early 1730s, one ship carpenter punishes another brutally for soliciting sex. The report is celebratory; it even jokes about the event. Yet it also betrays anxiety about policing such behavior. It had been a full decade since the last naval buggery trial. Perhaps, the report suggests, vigilante violence is necessary to reign in same-sex relationships.
