WHAT THE PRESS-GANG WAS.
From the standpoint of a systematic supply of men to the fleet, the
press-gang was a legitimate means to an imperative end. This was the
official view. In how different a light the people came to regard the
petty man-trap of power, we shall presently see.
Designed as it was for the taking up of able-bodied adults, the main
idea in the formation of the gang was strength and efficiency. It was
accordingly composed of the stoutest men procurable, dare-devil fellows
capable of giving a good account of themselves in fight, or of carrying
off their unwilling prey against long odds. Brute strength combined
with animal courage being thus the first requisite of the ganger, it
followed--not perhaps as a matter of course so much as a matter of
fact--that his other qualities were seldom such as to endear him to the
people. Wilkes denounced him for a "lawless ruffian," and one of the
newspapers of his time describes him, with commendable candour and
undeniable truth, as a "profligate and abandoned wretch, perpetually
lounging about the streets and incessantly vomiting out oaths and horrid
curses." [Footnote: _London Chronicle,_ 16 March 1762.]
The getting of a gang together presented little difficulty. The first
business of the officer charged with its formation was to find suitable
quarters, rent not to exceed twenty shillings a week, inclusive of fire
and candle. Here he hung out a flag as the sign of authority and a bait
for volunteers. As a rule, they were easily procurable. All the roughs
of the town were at his disposal, and when these did not yield material
enough recourse was had to beat of drum, that instrument, together with
the man who thumped it, being either hired at half-a-crown a day or
"loaned" from the nearest barracks. Selected members of the crowd thus
assembled were then plied with drink "to invite them to enter"--an
invitation they seldom refused.
It goes without saying that gangs raised in this manner were of an
exceedingly mixed character. On the principle of setting a thief
to catch a thief, seafaring men of course had first preference, but
landsmen were by no means excluded. The gang operating at Godalming in
1782 may be cited as typical of the average inland gang. It consisted of
three farmers, one weaver, one bricklayer, one labourer, and two others
whose regular occupations are not divulged. They were probably sailors.
[Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1502--Capt. Boston, Report on
Rendezvous, 1782.]
Landsmen entered on the express understanding that they should not
be pressed when the gang broke up. Sailor gangsmen, on the contrary,
enjoyed no such immunity. The most they could hope for, when their
arduous duties came to an end, was permission to "choose their ship."
The concession was no mean one. By choosing his ship discreetly the
gangsman avoided encounters with men he had pressed, thus preserving his
head unbroken and his skin intact.
Ship-gangs, unlike those operating on land, were composed entirely of
seamen. For dash, courage and efficiency, they had no equal and few
rivals.
Apart from the officers commanding it, the number of men that went to
the making of a gang varied from two to twenty or more according to the
urgency of the occasion that called it into being and the importance or
ill-repute of the centre selected as the scene of its operations.
For Edinburgh and Leith twenty-one men, directed by a captain, two
lieutenants and four midshipmen, were considered none too many. Greenock
kept the same number of officers and twenty men fully employed, for
here there was much visiting of ships on the water, a fast cutter being
retained for that purpose. The Liverpool gang numbered eighteen men,
directed by seven officers and backed by a flotilla of three tenders,
each under the command of a special lieutenant. Towns such as
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Great Yarmouth, Cowes and Haverfordwest also had
gangs of at least twenty men each, with boats as required; and Deal,
Dover and Folkstone five gangs between them, totalling fifty men and
fifteen officers, and employing as many boats as gangs for pressing in
the Downs.
In the case of ship-gangs, operating directly from a ship of war in
harbour or at sea, the officers in charge were as a matter of course
selected from the available ward or gun-room contingent. Few, if any, of
the naval men whose names at one time or another spring into prominence
during the century, escaped this unpleasant but necessary duty in their
younger days. But on shore an altogether different order of things
prevailed.
[Illustration: MANNING THE NAVY. Reproduced by kind permission from a
rare print in the collection of Mr. A. M. Broadley.]
The impress service ashore was essentially the grave of promotion.
Whether through age, fault, misfortune or lack of influence in high
places, the officers who directed it were generally disappointed men,
service derelicts whose chances of ever sporting a second "swab," or
of again commanding a ship, had practically vanished. Naval men afloat
spoke of them with good-natured contempt as "Yellow Admirals," the
fictitious rank denoting a kind of service quarantine that knew no
pratique.
Like the salt junk of the foremast--man, the Yellow Admiral got
fearfully "out of character" through over-keeping. With the service he
lost all touch save in one degrading particular. His pay was better
than his reputation, but his position was isolated, his duties and his
actions subject to little official supervision. With opportunity came
peculiar temptations to bribery and peculation, and to these he often
succumbed. The absence of congenial society frequently weighed heavy
upon him and drove him to immoderate drinking. Had he lived a generation
or so later the average impress officer ashore could have echoed with
perfect truth, and almost nightly iteration, the crapulous sentiment
in which Byron is said to have toasted his hosts when dining on board
H.M.S. _Hector_ at Malta:--
"Glorious Hector, son of Priam,
Was ever mortal drunk as I am!"
[Footnote: The authenticity of the anecdote, notwithstanding the fact
that it was long current in naval circles, is more than doubtful. When
Bryon visited Malta in 1808 the _Hector_ was doing duty at Plymouth as a
prison-ship, and naval records disclose no other ship of that name till
1864.]
A lieutenant attached to the gang at Chester is responsible for a piece
of descriptive writing, of a biographical nature, which perhaps depicts
the impress officer of the century at his worst. Addressing a brother
lieutenant at Waterford, to which station his superior was on the point
of being transferred, "I think but right," says he, "to give you a
character of Capt. P., who is to be your Regulating Captain. I have been
with him six months here, and if it had not been that he is leaving
the place, I should have wrote to the Board of Admiralty to have been
removed from under his command. At first you'll think him a Fine old
Fellow, but if it's possible he will make you Quarrel with all your
Acquaintance. Be very Careful not to Introduce him to any Family that
you have a regard for, for although he is near Seventy Years of Age, he
is the greatest Debauchee you ever met with--a Man of No Religion, a
Man who is Capable of any Meanness, Arbitrary and Tyrannicall in his
Disposition. This City has been several times just on the point of
writing against him to the Board of Admiralty. He has a wife, and
Children grown up to Man's Estate. The Woman he brings over with him
is Bird the Builder's Daughter. To Conclude, there is not a House in
Chester that he can go into but his own and the Rendezvous, after having
been Six Months in one of the agreeablest Cities in England." [Footnote:
_Ad,_ 1. 1500--Lieut. Shuckford, 7 March 1780.]
Ignorant of the fact that his reputation had thus preceded him, Capt. P.
found himself assailed, on his arrival at Waterford, by a "most Infamous
Epitaph," emanating none knew whence, nor cared. This circumstance,
accentuated by certain indiscretions of which the hectoring old officer
was guilty shortly after his arrival, aroused strong hostility against
him. A mob of fishwives, attacking his house at Passage, smashed the
windows and were with difficulty restrained from levelling the place
with the ground. His junior officers conspired against him. Piqued by
the loss of certain perquisites which the newcomer remorselessly swept
away, they denounced him to the Admiralty, who ordered an inquiry into
his conduct. After a hearing of ten days it went heavily against him,
practically every charge being proved. He was immediately superseded and
never again employed--a sad ending to a career of forty years under such
men as Anson, Boscawen, Hawke and Vernon. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_
1. 1500--Capt. Bennett, 13 Nov. 1780, and enclosures constituting the
inquiry.] Yet such was the ultimate fate of many an impress officer.
A stronger light focussed him ashore, and habits, proclivities and
weaknesses that escaped censure at sea, were here projected odiously
upon the sensitive retina of public opinion.
Of the younger men who drifted into the shore service there were some,
it need scarcely be said, who for obvious reasons escaped, or, rather,
did not succumb to the common odium. A notable example of this type
of officer was Capt. Jahleel Brenton, who for some years commanded the
gangs at Leith and Greenock. Though a man of blunt sensibilities and
speech, he possessed qualities which carried him out of the stagnant
back-water of pressing into the swim of service afloat, where he
eventually secured a baronetcy and the rank of Vice-Admiral. Singularly
enough, he was American-born.
The senior officer in charge of a gang, commonly known as the Regulating
Captain, might in rank be either captain or lieutenant. It was his duty
to hire, but not to "keep" the official headquarters of the gang, to
organise that body, to direct its operations, to account for all moneys
expended and men pressed, and to "regulate" or inspect the latter and
certify them fit for service or otherwise. In this last-named duty a
surgeon often assisted him, usually a local practitioner, who received a
shilling a head for his pains. One or more lieutenants, each of whom had
one or more midshipmen at his beck and call, served under the Regulating
Captain. They "kept" the headquarters and led the gang, or contingents
of the gang, on pressing forays, thus coming in for much of the hard
work, and many of the harder knocks, that unpopular body was liable to.
Sometimes, as in the case of Dover, Deal and Folkestone, several gangs
were grouped under a single regulating officer.
The pay of the Regulating Captain was 1 Pound a day, with an additional
5s. subsistence money. Lieutenants received their usual service pay, and
for subsistence 3s. 6d. In special cases grants were made for coach-hire
[Footnote: Capt. William Bennett's bill for the double journey between
Waterford and Cork, on the occasion of the inquiry into the conduct
of the Regulating Officer at the former place, over which he presided,
amounted to forty-three guineas--a sum he considered "as moderate as
any gentleman's could have been, laying aside the wearing of my uniform
every day." Half the amount went in chaise and horse hire, "there
being," we are told, "no chaises upon the road as in England," and
"only one to be had at Cork, all the rest being gone to Dublin with
the Lawyers and the Players, the Sessions being just ended and the Play
House broke up" (_Admiralty Records_ 1. 1503--Capt. Bennett, 24 March
1782). Nelson's bill for posting from Burnham, Norfolk, to London
and back, 260 miles, in the year 1789, amounted to 19 Pounds, 55. 2d.
(_Admiralty Records_ Victualling Dept, Miscellanea, No. 26).] and
such purposes as "entertainments to the Mayor and Corporation, the
Magistrates and the Officers of the Regulars and the Militia, by way of
return for their civilities and for their assistance in carrying on the
impress." The grant to the Newcastle officers, under this head, in 1763
amounted to upwards of 93 Pounds. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1.
1493--Capt. Bover, 6 March 1763, and endorsement.]
"Road-money" was generally allowed at the rate of 3d. a mile for
officers and 1d. a mile for gangers when on the press; but as a matter
of fact these modest figures were often largely exceeded--to the no
small emolument of the regulating officer. Lieut. Gaydon, commanding at
Ilfracombe, in 1795 debited the Navy Board with a sum of 148 Pounds for
1776 miles of travel; Capt. Gibbs, of Swansea, with 190 Pounds for 1561
miles; and Capt. Longcroft, of Haverfordwest, with 524 Pounds for 8388
miles--a charge characterised by Admiral M'Bride, who that year reported
upon the working of the impress, as "immense." [Footnote: _Admiralty
Records_ 1. 579--Admiral M'Bride, 19 March 1795.] He might well have
used a stronger term.
An item which it was at one time permissible to charge, possesses a
special interest. This was a bonus of 1s. a head on all men pressed--a
bonus that was in reality nothing more than the historic prest shilling
of other days, now no longer paid to pressed men, diverted into the
pockets of those who did the pressing. The practice, however, was
short-lived. Tending as it did to fill the ships with unserviceable men,
it was speedily discontinued and the historic shilling made over to the
certifying surgeon.
The shore midshipman could boast but little affinity with his namesake
of the quarter-deck. John Richards, midshipman of the Godalming gang,
had never in his life set foot on board a man-of-war or been to sea. His
age was forty. The case of James Good, of Hull, is even more remarkable.
He had served as "Midshipman of the Impress" for thirty years out of
sixty-three. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1455--Capt. Acklom,
6 Oct. 1814. _Admiralty Records_ 1.1502--Capt. Boston, Report on
Rendezvous, 1782.] The pay of these elderly youths at no time exceeded a
guinea a week.
The gangsman was more variously, if not more generously remunerated. At
Deal, in 1743, he had 1s. per day for his boat, and "found himself," or,
in the alternative, "ten shillings for every good seaman procured, in
full for his trouble and the hire of the boat." At Dover, in 1776, he
received 2s. 6d. a day; at Godalming, six years later, 10s. 6d. a week;
and at Exeter, during the American War of Independence, when the demand
for seamen was phenomenal, 14s. a week, 5s. for every man pressed, and
clothing and shoes "when he deserved it." Pay and allowances were thus
far from uniform. Both depended largely upon the scarcity or abundance
of suitable gangsmen, the demand for seamen, and the astuteness of the
officer organising the gang. Some gangs not on regular wages received as
much as "twenty shillings for each man impressed, and six-pence a mile
for as many miles as they could make it appear each man had travelled,
not exceeding twenty, besides (a noteworthy addition) the twelve-pence
press-money "; but if a man pressed under these conditions were found
to be unserviceable after his appearance on shipboard, all money
considerations for his capture were either withheld or recalled. On the
whole, considering the arduous and disagreeable nature of the gangsman's
calling, the Navy Board cannot be accused of dealing any too generously
by him.
"If ever you intend to man the fleet without being cheated by the
captains and pursers," Charles II. is credited with having once said
to his council, "you may go to bed." What in this sense was true of the
service afloat was certainly not less true of that loosely organised and
laxly supervised naval department, the impress ashore. Considering the
repute of the officers engaged in it, and the opportunities they enjoyed
for peculation and the taking of bribes--considering, above all, the
extreme difficulty of keeping a watchful eye upon officers scattered
throughout the length and breadth of the land, the wonder is, not that
irregularities crept in, but that they should have been, upon the whole,
so few and so venial.
To allow the gangsmen to go fishing for sea-fish or dredging for
oysters, as was commonly done when there was little prospect of a catch
on land, was no more heinous than the custom prevailing--to everybody's
knowledge--at King's Lynn in Norfolk, where the gang had no need to
go a-fishing because, regularly as the cobbles came in, the midshipman
attached to the gang appeared on the quay and had the "insolence to
demand Three of the Best Fysh for the Regulating Captain, the Lieutenant
and himself." [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1546--Petition of the
Owners of the Fishing Cobbles of Lynn, 3 March 1809.] And if, again,
rating a gangsman in choicest quarterdeck language were no serious
offence, why should not the Regulating Captain rate his son as
midshipman, even though "not proper to be employed as such." And
similarly, granting it to be right to earn half a sovereign by pressing
a man contrary to law, where was the wrong in "clearing him of the
impress" for the same amount, as was commonly done by the middies at
Sunderland and Shields. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1557--Capt.
Bell, 27 June 1806, enclosure.] These were works of supererogation
rather than sins against the service, and little official notice was
taken of them unless, as in the case of Liverpool, they were carried
to such lengths as to create a public scandal. [Footnote: _Admiralty
Records_ 1. 579--Admiral Child, 30 Jan. 1800.]
There were, as a matter of course, some officers in the service who went
far beyond the limits of such venial irregularities and, like Falstaff,
"misused the king's press damnably." Though according to the terms
of their warrant they were "to take care not to demand or receive any
money, gratuity, reward, or any other consideration whatsoever for the
sparing, exchanging or discharging any person or persons impressed or to
be impressed," the taking of "gratifications" for these express purposes
prevailed to a notorious extent. The difficulty was to fasten the
offence upon the offenders. "Bailed men," as they were called, did not
"peach." Their immunity from the press was too dearly bought to admit of
their indulging personal animus against the officer who had taken their
money. It was only through some tangle of circumstance over which the
delinquent had no control that the truth leaked out. Such a case was
that of the officer in command of the _Mary_ tender at Sunderland, a
lieutenant of over thirty years' standing. Having pressed one Michael
Dryden, a master's mate whom he ought never to have pressed at all, he
so far "forgot" himself as to accept a bribe of 15 Pounds for the man's
release, and then, "having that day been dining with a party of military
officers," forgot to release the man. The double lapse of memory
proved his ruin. Representations were made to the Admiralty, and the
unfortunately constituted lieutenant was "broke" and black-listed.
[Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 2740--Lieut. Atkinson, 24 June 1798,
and endorsement.]
Another species of fraud upon which the Admiralty was equally severe,
was that long practised with impunity by a certain regulating officer at
Poole. Not only did he habitually put back the dates on which men were
pressed, thus "bearing" them for subsistence money they never received,
he made it a further practice to enter on his books the names of
fictitious pressed men who opportunely "escaped" after adding their
quota to his dishonest perquisites. So general was misappropriation of
funds by means of this ingenious fraud that detection was deservedly
visited with instant dismissal. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1.
1526--Capt. Boyle, 2 Oct. 1801, and endorsement.]
Though to the gangsman all things were reputedly lawful, some things
were by no means expedient. He could with impunity deprive almost any
ablebodied adult of his freedom, and he could sometimes, with equal
impunity, add to his scanty earnings by restoring that freedom for a
consideration in coin of the realm; but when, like Josh Cooper, sometime
gangsman at Hull, he extended his prerogative to the occupants of
hen-roosts, he was apt to find himself at cross-purposes with the law as
interpreted by the sitting magistrates.
Amongst less questionable perquisites accruing to the gangsman two only
need be mentioned here. One was the "straggling-money" paid to him
for the apprehension of deserters--20s. for every deserter taken, with
"conduct" money to boot; the other, the anker of brandy designedly
thrown overboard by smugglers when chased by a gang engaged in pressing
afloat. Occasionally the brandy checked the pursuit; but more often
it gave an added zest to the chase and so hastened the capture of the
fugitive donors.
To the unscrupulous outsider the opportunities for illicit gain afforded
by the service made an irresistible appeal. Sham gangs and make-believe
press-masters abounded, thriving exceedingly upon the fears and
credulity of the people until capture put a term to their activities
and sent them to the pillory, the prison or the fleet they pretended to
cater for.
Their mode of operation seldom varied. They pressed a man, and then took
money for "discharging" him; or they threatened to press and were bought
off. One Philpot was in 1709 fined ten nobles and sentenced to the
pillory for this fraud. He had many imitators, amongst them John Love,
who posed as a midshipman, and William Moore, his gangsman, both of
whom were eventually brought to justice and turned over to His Majesty's
ships.
The rôle adopted by these last-named pretenders was a favourite one with
men engaged in crimping for the merchant service. Shrewsbury in 1780
received a visit from one of these individuals--"a Person named Hopkins,
who appeared in a Lieutenant's Uniform and committed many fraudulant
Actions and Scandalous Abuses in raising Men," as he said, "for the
Navy." Two months later another impostor of the same type appeared at
Birmingham, where he scattered broadcast a leaflet, headed with the
royal arms and couched in the following seductive terms: "Eleven Pounds
for every Able Seaman, Five Pounds for every ordinary Seaman, and Three
Pounds for every Able-bodied Landsman, exclusive of a compleat set of
Sea Clothing, given by the Marine Society. All Good Seamen, and other
hearty young Fellows of Spirit, that are willing to serve on board any
of His Majesty's Vessels or Ships of War, Let them with Chearfulness
repair to the Sailors' Head Rendezvous in this Town, where a proper
Officer attends, who will give them every encouragement they can desire.
Now my Jolly Lads is the time to fill your Pockets with Dollars, Double
Doubloon's & Luidores. Conduct Money allowed, Chest and Bedding sent
Carriage Free." Soon after, the two united forces at Coventry, whither
Capt. Beecher desired to "send a party to take them," but to this
request the Admiralty turned a deaf ear. In their opinion the game was
not worth the candle. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1500--Letters of
Capt. Beecher, 1780]
Ex-midshipman Rookhad, who when dismissed the service took to boarding
vessels in the Thames and extorting money and liquor from the masters as
a consideration for not pressing their men, did not escape so lightly.
Him the Admiralty prosecuted. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 7. 298--Law
Officers' Opinions, 1733-56, No. 12. Process was by information in the
Court of King's Bench, for a misdemeanour.]
It was in companies, however, that the sham ganger most frequently took
the road, for numbers not only enhanced his chances of obtaining money,
they materially diminished the risk of capture. One such gang was
composed of "eighteen desperate villians," who were nevertheless taken.
Another, a "parcel of fellows armed with cutlasses like a pressgang,"
appeared at Dublin in 1743, where they boldly entered public-houses on
pretence of looking for sailors, and there extorted money and drink.
What became of them we are not told; but in the case of the pretended
gang whose victim, after handing over two guineas as the price of his
release, was pressed by a regularly constituted gang, we learn the
gratifying sequel. The real gang gave chase to the sham gang and pressed
every man of them.
According to the "Humble Petition of Grace Blackmore of Stratford le
Bow, widow," on Friday the 29th of May, in an unknown year of Queen
Anne's reign, "there came to Bow ffaire severall pretended pressmasters,
endeavouring to impress." A tumult ensued. Murder was freely "cryed
out," apparently with good reason, for in the mêlée petitioner's
husband, then constable of Bow, was "wounded soe that he shortly after
dyed." [Footnote: _State Papers Domestic,_ Anne, xxxvi. No. 17.]
There were occasions when the sham gang operated under cover of a real
press-warrant, and for this the Admiralty was directly to blame. It had
become customary at the Navy Office to send out warrants, whether to
commanders of ships or to Regulating Captains, in blank, the person
to whom the warrant was directed filling in the name for himself. Such
warrants were frequently stolen and put to irregular uses, and of this a
remarkable instance occurred in 1755.
In that year one Nicholas Cooke, having by some means obtained
possession of such a warrant, "filled up the blank thereof by directing
it to himself, by the name and description of Lieutenant Nicholas Cooke,
tho' in truth not a Lieutenant nor an Officer in His Majesty's Navy,"
hired a vessel--the _Providence_ snow of Dublin--and in her cruised the
coasts of Ireland, pressing men. After thus raising as many as he could
carry, he shaped his course for Liverpool, no doubt intending, on his
arrival at that port, to sell his unsuspecting victims to the merchant
ships in the Mersey at so much a head. Through bad seamanship, however,
the vessel was run aground at Seacombe, opposite to Liverpool, and Capt.
Darby, of H.M.S. _Seahorse_, perceiving her plight, and thinking to
render assistance in return for perhaps a man or two, took boat and
rowed across to her. To his astonishment he found her full of Irishmen
to the number of seventy-three, whom he immediately pressed and removed
to his own ship. The circumstance of the false warrant now came to
light, and with it another, of worse omen for the mock lieutenant. In
the hold a quantity of undeclared spirits was discovered, and this fact
afforded the Admiralty a handle they were not slow to avail themselves
of. They put the Excise Officers on the scent, and Cooke was prosecuted
for smuggling. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 7. 298--Law Officers'
Opinions, 1733-56, No. 101.]
The most successful sham gang ever organised was perhaps that said to
have been got together by a trio of mischievous Somerset girls. The
scene of the exploit was the Denny-Bowl quarry, near Taunton. The
quarrymen there were a hard-bitten set and great braggarts, openly
boasting that no gang dare attack them, and threatening, in the event
of so unlikely a contingency, to knock the gangsmen on the head and bury
them in the rubbish of the pit. There happened to be in the neighbouring
town "three merry maids," who heard of this tall talk and secretly
determined to put the vaunted courage of the quarrymen to the test.
They accordingly dressed themselves in men's clothing, stuck cockades in
their hats, and with hangers under their arms stealthily approached the
pit. Sixty men were at work there; but no sooner did they catch sight of
the supposed gang than they one and all threw down their tools and ran
for their lives.
Officially known as the Rendezvous, a French term long associated with
English recruiting, the headquarters of the gang were more familiarly,
and for brevity's sake, called the "rondy." Publicans were partial to
having the rondy on their premises because of the trade it brought
them. Hence it was usually an alehouse, frequently one of the shadiest
description, situated in the lowest slum of the town; but on occasions,
as when the gang was of uncommon strength and the number of pressed
men dealt with proportionately large, a private house or other suitable
building was taken for the exclusive use of the service. It was
distinguished by a flag--a Jack--displayed upon a pole. The cost of the
two was 27s., and in theory they were supposed to last a year; but in
towns where the populace evinced their love for the press by hewing
down the pole and tearing the flag in ribbons, these emblems of national
liberty had frequently to be renewed. At King's Lynn as much as 13
Pounds was spent upon them in four years--an outlay regarded by the
Navy Board with absolute dismay. It would have been not less dismayed,
perhaps, could it have seen the bunting displayed by rendezvous whose
surroundings were friendly. There the same old Jack did duty year after
year until, grimy and bedraggled, it more resembled the black flag than
anything else that flew, wanting only the skull and cross-bones to make
it a fitting emblem of authorised piracy.
The rondy was hardly a spot to which one would have resorted for a
rest-cure. When not engaged in pressing, the gangsmen were a roistering,
drinking crew, under lax control and never averse from a row, either
amongst themselves or with outsiders. Sometimes the commanding officer
made the place his residence, and when this was the case some sort of
order prevailed. The floors were regularly swept, the beds made, the
frowsy "general" gratified by a weekly "tip" on pay-day. But when, on
the other hand, the gangsmen who did not "find themselves" occupied
the rondy to the exclusion of the officer, eating and sleeping there,
tramping in and out at all hours of the day and night, dragging pressed
men in to be "regulated" and locked up, and diverting such infrequent
intervals of leisure as they enjoyed by pastimes in which fear of the
"gent overhead" played no part--when this was the case the rondy became
a veritable bear-garden, a place of unspeakable confusion wherein papers
and pistols, boots and blankets, cutlasses, hats, beer-pots and staves
cumbered the floors, the lockers and the beds with a medley of articles
torn, rusty, mud-stained, dirt-begrimed and unkept.
Amongst accessories essential to the efficient activity of gangs
stationed at coast or river towns the boat had first place. Sometimes
both sail and row-boats were employed. Luggers of the old type, fast
boats carrying a great press of sail, served best for overhauling ships;
but on inland waterways, such as the Thames, the Humber or the Tyne, a
"sort of wherry, constructed for rowing fast," was the favourite vehicle
of pursuit. The rate of hire varied from 1s. a day to two or more
guineas a week, according to the size and class of boat. At Cork it was
"five shillings Irish" per day.
Accessories of a less indispensable nature, occasionally allowed, were,
at Dartmouth and a few other places, cockades for the gangsmen's hats,
supplied at a cost of 1s. each; at Tower Hill a messenger, pay 20s. a
week; and at Appledore an umbrella for use in rainy weather, price 12s.
6d.
The arms of the gang comprised, first, a press-warrant, and, second,
such weapons as were necessary to enforce it.
In the literature of the eighteenth century the warrant is inseparably
associated with the short, incurvated service sword commonly known as
the cutlass or hanger; but in the press-gang prints of the period the
gangsmen are generally armed with stout clubs answering to Smollett's
"good oak plant." Apart from this artistic evidence, however, there is
no valid reason for believing that the bludgeon ever came into general
use as the ganger's weapon. As early as the reign of Anne he went armed
with the "Queen's broad cutlash," and for most gangs, certainly for all
called upon to operate in rough neighbourhoods, the hanger remained the
stock weapon throughout the century. In expeditions involving special
risk or danger, the musket and the pistol supplemented what must have
been in itself no mean weapon.
As we have already seen, the earliest recorded press-warrants emanated
from the king in person, whilst later ones were issued by the king in
council and endorsed by the naval authorities. As the need of men became
more and more imperative, however, this mode of issue was found to be
too cumbersome and inexpeditious. Hence, by the time the eighteenth
century came in, with its tremendously enhanced demands on behalf of the
Navy, the royal prerogative in respect to warrants had been virtually
delegated to the Admiralty, who issued them on their own initiative,
though ostensibly in pursuance of His Majesty's Orders in Council.
An Admiralty warrant empowered the person to whom it was directed to
"impress" as many "seamen" as possibly he could procure, giving to each
man so impressed 1s. "for prest money." He was to impress none but such
as "were strong bodies and capable to serve the king"; and, having
so impressed such persons, he was to deliver them up to the officer
regulating the nearest rendezvous. All civil authorities were to be
"aiding and assisting" to him in the discharge of this duty.
Now this document, the stereotyped press-warrant of the century, here
concisely summarised in its own phraseology, was not at all what it
purported to be. It was in fact a warrant out of time, an official
anachronism, a red-tape survival of that bygone period when pressing
still meant "presting" and force went no further than a threat. For men
were now no longer "prested." They were pressed, and that, too, in the
most drastic sense of the term. The king's shilling no longer changed
hands. Even in Pepys' time men were pressed "without money," and in
none of the accounts of expenses incurred in pressing during the century
which followed, excepting only a very few of the earlier ones, can
any such item as the king's shilling or prest-money be discovered.
Its abolition was a logical sequence of the change from presting to
pressing.
The seaman, moreover, so far from being the sole quarry of the
warrant-holder, now sought concealment amongst a people almost without
exception equally liable with himself to the capture he endeavoured to
elude. Retained merely as a matter of form, and totally out of keeping
with altered conditions, the warrant was in effect obsolete save as an
instrument authorising one man to deprive another of his liberty in
the king's name. Even the standard of "able bodies and capable" had
deteriorated to such an extent that the officers of the fleet were kept
nearly as busy weeding out and rejecting men as were the officers of the
impress in taking them.
Still, the warrant served. Stripped of its obsolete injunctions, it
read: "Go ye out into the highways and hedges, and water-ways, and
compel them to come in"--enough, surely, for any officer imbued with
zeal for His Majesty's service.
Though according to the strict letter of the law as defined by various
decisions of the courts a press-warrant was legally executable only by
the officer to whom it was addressed, in practice the limitation was
very widely departed from, if not altogether ignored; for just as a
constable or sheriff may call upon bystanders to assist him in the
execution of his office, so the holder of a press-warrant, though
legally unable to delegate his authority by other means, could call upon
others to aid him in the execution of his duty. Naturally, the gangsmen
being at hand, and being at hand for that very purpose, he gave them
first preference. Hence, the gangsman pressed on the strength of a
warrant which in reality gave him no power to press.
While the law relating to the intensive force of warrants was thus
deliberately set at naught, an extraordinary punctiliousness for legal
formality was displayed in another direction. According to tradition and
custom no warrant was valid until it had received the sanction of the
civil power. Solicitor-General Yorke could find no statutory authority
for such procedure. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 7. 298--Law Officers'
Opinions, 1733-56, No. 102.] He accordingly pronounced it to be
non-essential to the validity of warrants. Nevertheless, save in cases
where the civil power refused its endorsement, it was universally
adhered to. What was bad law was notoriously good policy, for a
disaffected mayor, or an unfriendly Justice of the Peace, had it in his
power to make the path of the impress officer a thorny one indeed. "Make
unto yourselves friends," was therefore one of the first injunctions
laid upon officers whose duties unavoidably made them many enemies.