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"The master-at-arms [assisted the prisoner] off with his shirt,
leaving him naked to the waist, but throwing the garment loosely over his shoulders. Removing the port gangway ladder, his wrists were made fast, with a lashing, to the brass man-rope eyebolts, and his ankles to a small grating laid on the deck. Thus standing straight up, his arms were stretched considerably above his head. The assistant surgeon then stepped up close on one side of the man to see that the punishment was not excessive. The boatswain had, in the mean time, produced a green baize bag, which contained the 'cats.' These consisted of a wooden handle, about fifteen inches long, covered with cloth, with nine tails of white line about as thick as thick pack-cord, twenty inches long, and the ends 'whipped,' not knotted. One of these cats was handed to the chief boatswain's mate, who was mildly cautioned by the captain to 'do his duty, and not favor the man, or he would be triced up himself.' ...At this the master-at-arms removed the blue shirt, and [the] boatswain's mate swung round and brought the 'cats' down across the man's shoulders, the master-at-arms called out, aloud, 'One - two,' and so on, until 'twelve,' when the captain said, 'Stop. Take him down.'" Quotation and illustration from Edward Shippen, Thirty Years at Sea; the Story of a Sailor's Life, 1879. |