Sea of Glory

find adequate replacements in Hawaii. He therefore demanded that they remain with the Expedition until its conclusion. When four marines refused to reenlist, Wilkes responded by placing them in solitary confinement in a rat-infested fort in Honolulu. Twelve days later, he cut their meager rations of taro and goat’s milk in half. A week after that, the marines, all of them in double irons and deathly pale after almost a month’s imprisonment, were brought back to the Vincennes. Wilkes asked if they were now willing to return to duty. When they refused, he threw them in the ship’s brig. Two days later he brought all four to the gangway and asked if they had changed their minds. After they once again insisted that their enlistments had expired, Wilkes gave each of them a dozen lashes, then threw them back in the brig.
    Marines were in a peculiar situation when it came to flogging. The U.S. Army had outlawed the practice back in 1812; but it was still legal in the navy. This meant that a marine on land couldn’t be flogged; but if he should be unlucky enough to serve aboard a naval vessel, he, along with the sailors, must fear the lash. Three days later, Wilkes ordered the marines back to the gangway, where they were each given another twelve lashes. Only then, “for the preservation of their lives,” did the marines agree to reenlist.
    Wilkes would save the most horrendous display of brutality for two marines and a sailor who had been tried by courts-martial aboard the Peacock in October. The marines had gotten drunk and threatened to kill Hudson’s steward along with several officers. The sailor, an Englishman named Peter Sweeney who had joined the Vincennes in New Zealand, had been guilty of a variety of outrages stemming from a seemingly pathological hatred of all things American. The punishment Wilkes chose to inflict on Sweeney would only strengthen his prejudices.
    That fall there were nine American whaleships at Honolulu. When the American consul complained of the whalemen’s “unruliness,” Wilkes determined “to show the crews of all these vessels that authority to punish offences existed.” Sweeney and the two marines would be flogged “round the fleet,” in which a man was tied to a gallows mounted on a boat and towed alongside each ship in a squadron, where he received a portion of the lashes sentenced him by court-martial.
    In the British navy, flogging round the fleet was regarded as “a diabolical punishment” and “the equivalent to a death sentence.” Precious little is known about its use in the U.S. Navy, primarily because it was rarely resorted to. But Wilkes, who appears to have taken an almost sadistic pleasure in punishing his men, described it as “the usual manner in such cases.”
    When the time for punishment arrived on October 31, the Honolulu waterfront was thronged with people. The Vincennes was moored with her stern to the wharf, and thousands of natives, along with a sprinkling of American and European merchants and sailors, lined the shore. Many had climbed to the rooftops of the houses so that they could get a better view. The decks and rigging of the whaleships also provided good places to watch as a disorderly flotilla of native canoes jockeyed for position beside the Vincennes, the Peacock, and the Porpoise.
    The ship’s launch had been fitted out with a platform of square gratings and a gallows sufficient to accommodate three men. Under the direction of Lieutenant Robert Johnson, the boatswain’s mate and several quarter-gunners prepared the prisoners for punishment. First, the prisoners’ shirts were taken off and draped over their shoulders. Then shot-boxes were placed between their feet as their ankles were tied to the gratings and their wrists were raised above their heads and secured to the gallows. The launch was brought alongside the Vincennes, where Wilkes, in full dress uniform, read the sentences: the launch would take the prisoners from the Vincennes to the Peacock and to the Porpoise; at each vessel, the men would receive a portion of their total lashes—thirty-six and fifty for the marines Ward and Riley, respectively, and twenty-four for Sweeney. With the order, “Boatswain’s mate, do your duty,” the punishment began.
    As the quarter-gunners removed the shirts from the prisoners’ backs, the boatswain’s mate took the cat-o’-nine-tails out of its bag. After drawing the nine cotton cords of the cat (each of which ended with a knot or a