In previous “talks” we have mentioned the seagoing practice of flogging as the principal form of punishment, and how the recipients of such punishment usually were triced up in a spread-eagle position to receive it.
Occasionally, some skippers of men-of-war preferred to have the men bent over a cannon to receive their lashes. This position was more commonly used, however, for the ships’ boys and young student officers (midshipmen) when they required discipline. Sometimes, they got the “cat,” but, at least in the U.S. Navy by the mid-19th century, a “boy’s cat” or “colt”—a somewhat less lethal device—was used. Unlike their more mature counterparts, the boys were expected to drop their drawers and bend over the gun, providing a clear view of that posterior target, the traditional favorite of parent and teacher.
Assuming this position was known to the men in the ship as “Kissing the gunner’s daughter,” but it was the source of the shore phrase of “being over a barrel.”