were stroking down the tails of their cats coaxingly, in order to make them lie straight. These preparations did not, however, startle Richard Stubbs. There was generally somebody to be punished at noon, and he was preparing with a great deal of nonchalance to play the part of the spectator.

It is twelve o'clock, Sir Octavius," said the master.

"Make it so, and turn the hands up to punishment ;" and to punishment the hands were turned up accordingly. The marines having been drawn up under arms on the gangway, and the other forms having been observed, the black list was called through, and the culprits took their two, three, or four dozen, in all varieties of ways. When the list was exhausted, and every one was expecting the order to pipe to dinner, the Commodore ordered James Stubbs to stand forward and to strip: every one was surprised, and Augustus disgusted. All this Sir Octavius knew not,

cency, put in the plea that he wanted no religion, so, much to his annoyance, he had a chaplain appointed to his ship. We respect the sacred calling, and honour its ministers, and, therefore, when we describe what a chaplain was sixty years since, our motives must not be misunderstood, though the accuracy of our picture may be doubted.

In the first place, they were not the men of learning and piety that now are a grace and a blessing to his Majesty's navy. No man in orders, whilst he could procure a curacy on shore, would accept a chaplaincy afloat. We forget the exact amount of the remuneration then offered them, but it was so low, that it was an insult. When the persecuted divine got on board his ship, he was repelled by all classes, and reverenced by a few individuals only, who dared not betray their feelings. He was shifted about from ship to ship continually, all being anxious to pass him away as an incumbrance. If Captain A. wanted a couple

of good sail-makers, and Captain B. could spare them in exchange for two able seamen, the latter would not let the former have them, unless he relieved him of his chaplain into the bargain. Against the general contempt no man can bear up; and generally, not being the élite of the profession, they soon gave way to circumstances, and always settled down into the captain's sycophant, and generally into the captain's spy.

To the ship's company they were neither of spiritual, nor any other service; and, as to their reading the funeral service over the dead, we have seen that imposing rite performed by officers, in a manner as pious, as effective, and as solemn, as ever stoled clergyman, or even mitred bishop, could have achieved. The chaplains of that time were never to be found encouraging the departing soul, strengthening the wavering faith, or endeavouring to penetrate the hardness, or shame the depravity of the human heart. If they were of any utility

VOL. I.

H

at all, they were useful after a strange fashion. The instructors of the midshipmen in what? in the articles of their faith? in making them humble, self-denying, and truly christian? none of those; but in geometry and trigonometry, plane and middle latitude sailing; not how to perform a work of grace, but to work a day's work. For doing all this, they were usually paid, at the rate of half-a-crown per month by each pupil.

There Under

For my own part, startling as my opinion may be, I shall state it, but with all humility. Chaplains have no business on board of his Majesty's fleets in time of actual war. I have come to this conclusion from motives of religion only. is an air of hypocrisy about the thing. the new and blessed dispensation, we taught to worship Him as a God of love; to resist oppression and injustice, not by bloodshed and murder, but by returning good for evil; by offering our cloak to the robber of our coat, and the left cheek to the smiter of

are

our right. We know, from the depravity of our common nature, we cannot act up to this scale of perfection; all I say is, that it looks something like a pious mockery, to place a person who is bound, by everything solemn and holy, to preach all this, in a machine armed with the most deadly and dreadful engines of destruction that can be devised, wherewith to commit homicide by wholesale. I have often inwardly smiled, on a Sunday, in the Toulon fleet, when we were doing all we could to bring the French into action, at the pious unction which the chaplain bestowed on the part of the litany which says, "From battle, murder, and from sudden death, Good Lord deliver us." Surely, surely, this is a grievous mockery.

We know not whether this particular petition is now omitted, but we do know that then it was always constantly used; and we also know, that it is in direct opposition to the articles of war, in which officers and men are