It is the
invariable appeal, the last resort, of counsel, when everything else
has failed. I have known cases of the most flagrant nature, where
after every effort has been made for the captain, and yet a verdict
rendered against him, and all other hope failed, this appeal has
been urged, and with such success that the punishment has been reduced
to something little more than nominal, the court not seeming to
consider that it might be made in almost every such case that could
come before them. It is a little singular, too, that it seems to be
confined to cases of shipmasters and officers. No one ever heard of
a sentence, for an offence committed on shore, being reduced by the
court on the ground of the prisoner's poverty, and the relation in
which he may stand to third persons. On the contrary, it had been
thought that the certainty that disgrace and suffering will be brought
upon others as well as himself, is one of the chief restraints upon
the criminally disposed. Besides, this course works a peculiar
hardship in the case of the sailor. For if poverty is the point in
question, the sailor is the poorer of the two; and if there is a man
on earth who depends upon whole limbs and an unbroken spirit for
support, it is the sailor.
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