Dep't of Serendipitous Research (Military Justice Section)

Lord Loughborough

In Grant v. Gould (C.P. 1792), a British recruiting sergeant sought a writ of prohibition against the Judge Advocate General and others following his general court-martial conviction on a charge of having promoted and being instrumental in the recruitment of soldiers of the Coldstream Guards into the service of the East India Company. 

Grant was sentenced to be reduced to private and "to receive" -- wait for it -- "one thousand lashes on the bare back, with a cat-o'-nine tails, by the drummers of such corp or corps, at such time or times, and in such proportions as his Majesty shall think fit to appoint." 

The Court of Common Pleas, per Lord Loughborough, denied relief. The last paragraph of the opinion reads (at p. 107):

With respect to the sentence itself, and the supposed severity of it, I observe that the severe part is by the court deposited, where it ought to be, in the breast of his majesty. I have no doubt but that the intention of that was, to leave room for an application for mercy to his majesty, from the goodness and clemency of whose disposition, applications of this nature are always sure to be duly considered, and to have all the weight they can possibly deserve.