Crime and Punishment in the Royal Navy : Discipline on the Leeward Islands Station 1784-1812

There is a long tradition of viewing discipline in the navy as being administered by tyrannical petty officers, eager to use the 'cat' for any minor transgression of the draconian naval laws. The actions of these officers, it was believed, prompted desertion and mutiny. Evidence for this persecution was often derived from contemporary accounts which had been designed for the purposes of political propaganda rather than for historical accuracy; the author shows that the laws enforced at sea were similar to those of the eighteenth-century English system of criminal justice and that the harsh laws were often administered moderately. This book therefore redresses the balance and places naval law and its administration in a wider context.