This chapter starts with the summary punishment in the sample ships by analysing the data by ship and officer. The Admiralty's assessment of the level of punishment on the North American and West Indies Station will assist in our analysis of its harshness. The review of courts martial offers an opportunity to see how the officers used the courts to deal with behaviour for which summary punishment was not considered appropriate or were necessitated by the rank of the accused. Convictions, acquittal rates and sentences, together with reprieves from hanging, will help to assess the purpose and fairness of the court martial procedure. Other responses to behaviour deemed inappropriate and harmful to the service will be reviewed. Finally, this chapter closes with an overall analysis of the Royal Navy's response to behaviour which undermined authority's order.

Summary Punishment

Of the 2,697 incidents of summary punishment found in the captains’ logbooks for the sample ships, almost all listed a reason for the flogging. The individual reasons were assigned to one of eighteen categories of punishment. Markus Eder, looking at the navy from 1755 to 1763, and John Byrn, studying the period 1783 to 1812, found more summary punishment for disobedience and neglect of duty than I found. A higher level of alcohol-related offences was found in the current study than reported by either Eder or Byrn. This may reflect a greater concern by authority over the use of alcohol at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, or the heavier use of alcohol after twenty-eight years of war among those serving aboard ship. The present study cannot answer this question. The results in this study were similar to Byrn's in the area of contempt, insolence and disrespect, desertion and mutinous behaviour, but higher than those of Eder, with the exception of desertion. Eder's higher rate of desertion in North America during the Seven Years War reflects the fact that the British still controlled the American colonies, allowing ships to make port, facilitating more opportunity for seamen to run. Similarity between this study and Byrn's reinforces the present results. The increase in ‘disorderly’ behaviour over the levels found in Eder's earlier time period might indicate an overall increased level of everyday recalcitrance in the Royal Navy between 1755 and 1815, or perhaps a more determined effort at its detection.