But the
question might be made more impressive still by devoting a
chapter to the hideous butchery which horrified creation
when the news came of the mutiny of the _Flowery Land_ and
the _Caswell_. I should like people who are so deadly
virtuous as to repudiate self-preservation to picture the
decks of these two vessels washed in human blood, and to
imagine (if it is not too dreadful to do so) that some of it
belonged to a kinsman who was very dear to them. I think if
they are not past praying for they would then give up
dispensing cant, and direct their sympathies to a policy
that has the merit of being not only humane but logical. I
well know how narrow the dividing line is between proper and
improper discipline; and know also the care that should be
used in such circumstances to act with fairness and even
kindness. But I am writing about a section of men who
mistake kindness for weakness, and who can only be appealed
to and swayed by the magic of fear. I could find material to
fill a three-hundred page book with the experiences of that
one eventful and hazardous voyage. Space forbids my giving
more than a brief account of it.
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