In March 1813 Captain Hassard Stackpoole ordered seaman William Miller punished with twenty-four lashes for “neglect of duty and wilfully destroying the spy glass.” Tenedos seaman Robert Duncan received eighteen lashes, for “throwing a grindstone overboard,” on 22 February 1814. On 16 December 1814 the crew of HMS Severn watched seaman Samuel Hawkins receive two dozen lashes for the offence of “breeding disturbance.” What are we to make of these brief entries in the captains’ logbooks? Did Miller smash the spy glass against the bulwark in response to the charge of neglect of duty? Was throwing the grindstone overboard an act of frustration or part of a larger, unrecorded, labour dispute aboard ship? What was the disturbance Hawkins tried to breed, a fight over ill-spoken words between crewmates, or rebellion against the officers? As the logbooks offer no further description of the events, a certain answer to the question is impossible. The salient work on discipline aboard ships, typified by Eder and Byrn, counts incidences, like the ones above and those noted in courts martial, to build their understanding of the frequency and level of punishment in the Royal Navy. In this part I attempt to read the behaviour that was the target of summary punishment and courts martial as different forms of action creating ‘disorder.’ The punishment inflicted for these actions will be dealt with in Chapter 7. By concentrating on the behaviour, we can examine the nature of the recalcitrance and the level of intentional or inadvertent ‘disorder’ it created.

As Michel Foucault suggested, “Where there is power, there is resistance …” Resistance assumes many different forms, from private acts done in secrecy to public displays of outright rejection of authority's claim over the individual or group. Most of the resistance discussed in this study involves the removal of an individual from the control of the navy's authority, either momentarily or more permanently. In this period this came principally in two forms: as an act of desertion or disobedience. Contempt, insolence and disrespect present other modes of resisting authority's order and discipline. Sometimes resistance manifested itself as “mutinous activity,” a direct public confrontation with authority, however momentary. In the specific context of the War of 1812 it came, at times, in the form of declaring American citizenship. These acts receive our attention in Chapter 4.