[Flintlock]

Wasen’t Napoleon’s “whiff of grapeshot” fired so as to “encourage the others?”

So, FIRE—and encourage the rest.

[ClearCase_guy]

Wasen’t Napoleon’s “whiff of grapeshot” fired so as to “encourage the others?”

Not to quibble, but these are separate.

British naval engagement (Battle of Minorca in the Seven Years War)-- Admiral Byng didn't really do anything wrong, but was not as aggressive against the French as others might have preferred, so the British Admiralty hanged him "to encourage the others".

Rather late in the French Revolution (1795) there was a street battle in Parish between Royalists and Revolutionaries. The relatively unknown revolutionary officer Napoleon Bonaparte ruthlessly cleared the streets by giving the royalists a "whiff of the grape" (grapeshot from cannons). This basically started him on his rise to power.

[reaganaut]

See post just above this.