Topic: Discipline
Such is the Reward of My Merit
"Military Matters," The Toronto Daily Mail, 21 June 1884
The following anecdote, extracted from Knox's "Campaigns in North America," under date the 11th December, 1757, may not be uninteresting to our readers.:---
"Yesterday a court martial sat on the grenadier (43rd Regiment) for absenting his command on the 8th inst., when attacked by the enemy. He was found guilty of cowardice, and I think the particular punishment ordered for him evinces great discernment in the members of that court. Their sentence ran thus:
"'It is the opinion of the court that the prisoner is a notorious coward, and they sentenced him to ride the wooden horse half an hour every day for six days, with a petticoat on him, a broom in his hand, and a paper pinned on his back bearing this inscription, "Such is the reward of my merit."'
"Which sentence was duly executed, to the inexpressible mirth of the whole garrison, and of the women in particular."
"In a footnote the author adds: "This poor fellow on many subsequent occasions approved himself a remarkably gallant soldier, insomuch that I have heard his captain (now a field officer) sat that, if he was ordered on any desperate service, he could wish all his party as well to be depended upon."
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