WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT.
"A man we want, and a man we must have," was the naval cry of the
century. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1531--Deposition of John
Swinburn, 28 July 1804.]
Nowhere was the cry so loud or so insistent as on the sea, where every
ship of war added to its volume. In times of peace, when the demand
for men was gauged by those every-day factors, sickness, death and
desertion, it dwindled, if it did not altogether die away; but given
a war-cloud on the near horizon and the cry for men swelled, as
many-voiced as there were keels in the fleet, to a sudden clamour of
formidable proportions--a clamour that only the most strenuous and
unremitting exertions could in any measure appease.
Every navy is argus-eyed, and in crises such as these, when the
very existence of the nation was perhaps at stake, it was first and
principally towards the crews of the country's merchant ships that the
eyes of the Navy were directed; for, shipboard life and shipboard duty
being largely identical in both services, no elaborate training
was required to convert the merchant sailor into a first-rate
man-o'-war's-man. The ships of both services were sailing ships. Both,
as a rule, went armed. Hence, not only was the merchant sailor an able
seaman, he was also trained in the handling of great guns, and in the
use of the cutlass, the musket and the boarding-pike. In a word, he was
that most valuable of all assets to a people seeking to dominate the
sea--a man-o'-war's-man ready-made, needing only to be called in in
order to become immediately effective.
The problem was how to catch him--how to take him fresh and vigorous
from his deep-sea voyaging--how to enroll him in the King's Navy ere he
got ashore with a pocketful of money and relaxed his hardened muscles in
the uncontrolled debauchery he was so partial to after long abstention.
A device of the simplest yet of the most elaborate description met the
difficulty. It was based upon the fact that to take the sailor afloat
was a much easier piece of strategy than to ferret him out of his
hiding-places after he got ashore. The impress trap was therefore set in
such a way as to catch him before he reached the land.
With infinite ingenuity and foresight sea-gangs were picketed from
harbour to harbour, from headland to headland, until they formed an
almost unbroken chain around the coasts and guarded the sailor's every
point of accustomed approach from overseas: This was the outer cordon
of the system, the beginning of the gauntlet the returning sailor had to
run, and he was a smart seaman indeed who could successfully negotiate
the uncharted rocks and shoals with which the coast was everywhere
strewn in his despite.
The composition of this chain of sea-gangs was mixed to a degree, yet
singularly homogeneous.
First of all, on its extreme outer confines, perhaps as far down Channel
as the Scillies, or as far north as the thirteen-mile stretch of sea
running between the Mull of Kintyre and the Irish coast, where the trade
for Liverpool, Whitehaven, Dublin and the Clyde commonly came in, the
homing sailor would suddenly descry, bearing down upon him under press
of sail, the trim figure of one of His Majesty's frigates, or the clean,
swift lines of an armed sloop. The meeting was no chance one. Both
the frigate and the sloop were there by design, the former cruising
to complete her own complement, the latter to complete that of some
ship-of-the-line at Plymouth, Spithead or the Nore, to which she stood
in the relation of tender.
Tenders were vessels taken into the king's service "at the time of
Impressing Seamen." Hired at certain rates per month, they continued in
the service as long as they were required, often most unwillingly, and
were principally employed in obtaining men for the king's ships or in
matters relative thereto. In burden they varied from thirty or forty to
one hundred tons, [Footnote: This was the maximum tonnage for which the
Navy Board paid, but when trade was slack larger vessels could be had,
and were as a matter of fact frequently employed, at the nominal tonnage
rate.] the smaller craft hugging the coast and dropping in from port
to port, the larger cruising far beyond shore limits. For deep-sea or
trade-route cruising the smaller craft were of little use. No ship of
force would bring-to for them.
While press-warrants were supplied regularly to every warship, no matter
what her rating, the supply of tenders was less general and much more
erratic. It was only when occasion demanded it, and then only to ships
of the first, second and third rate, that tenders were assigned for the
purpose of bringing their crews up to full strength. The urgency of
the occasion, the men to be "rose," the diplomacy of the commander
determined the number. A tender to each ship was the rule, but however
parsimonious the Navy Board might be on such occasions, a carefully
worded appeal to its prejudices seldom failed to produce a second,
or even a third attendant vessel. Boscawen once had recourse to this
ingenious ruse in order to obtain tender number two. The Navy Board
detested straggling seamen, so he suggested that, with several tenders
lying idle in the Thames, his men might be far more profitably employed
than in straggling about town. "Most reprehensible practice!" assented
the Board, and placed a second vessel at his disposal without more ado.
Lieut. Upton was immediately put in charge of her and ordered seawards.
He returned within a week with twenty-seven men, pressed out of
merchantmen in Margate Roads. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1.
1478--Letters of Capt. Boscawen, July and August 1743.]
The tender assigned to Boscawen on this occasion was the _Galloper_, an
American-built vessel, "rigged in the manner the West Indians do
their sloops." Her armament consisted of six 9-pounders and threescore
small-arms, but as a sea-boat she belied her name, for she was
hopelessly sluggish under sail, and the great depth of her waist, and
her consequent liability to ship seas in rough weather, rendered her
"very improper" for cruising in the Channel.
For her company she had a master, a mate and six hands supplied by the
owners, in addition to thirty-four seamen temporarily drafted into her
from Boscawen's ship, the _Dreadnought_. It was the duty of the former
to work the vessel, of the latter to do the pressing; but these
duties were largely interchangeable. All were under the command of the
lieutenant, who with forty-two men at his beck and call could organise,
on a pinch, five gangs of formidable strength and yet leave sufficient
hands, given fair weather, to mind the tender in their temporary
absence. Tender's men were generally the flower of a ship's company,
old hands of tried fidelity, equal to any emergency and reputedly proof
against bribery, rum and petticoats. Yet the temptation to give duty the
slip and enjoy the pleasures of town for a season sometimes proved too
strong, even for them, and we read of one boat's-crew of eight, who,
overcome in this way, were discovered after many days in a French
prison. Instead of going pressing in the Downs, they had gone to
Boulogne.
On the commanders of His Majesty's ships the onus of raising men fell
with intolerable insistence. Nelson's greatest pleasure in his promotion
to Admiral's rank is said to have been derived from the fact that with
it there came a blessed cessation to the scurvy business of pressing;
and there were in the service few captains, whether before or after
Nelson's day, who could not echo with hearty approval the sentiment of
Capt. Brett of the _Roebuck_, when he said: "I can solemnly declare
that the getting and taking care of my men has given me more trouble and
uneasiness than all the rest of my duty." [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_
1. 1478--Capt. Brett, 27 Oct. 1742.]
Commanders of smaller and less effective ships found themselves on the
horns of a cruel dilemma did they dare to ask for tenders. Beg and
pray as they would, these were rarely allowed them save as a special
indulgence or a crying necessity. To most applications from this source
the Admiralty opposed a front well calculated "to encourage the others."
"If he has not men enough to proceed on service," ran its dictum, "their
Lordships will lay up the ship." [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1.
1471--Capt. Boyle, 1 March 1715-6, endorsement, and numerous instances.]
Faced with the summary loss of his command, their Lordships' high
displeasure, and consequent inactivity and half-pay for an indefinite
period, the captain whose complement was short, and who could obtain
neither men nor tender from the constituted authority, had no option but
to put to sea with such hands as he already bore and there beat up for
others. This, with their Lordships' gracious permission, he accordingly
did, thus adding another unit to the fleet of armed vessels already
prowling the Narrow Seas on a similar errand. It can be readily imagined
that such commanders were not out for pleasure.
To the great and incessantly active flotilla got together in this way,
the regulating captains on shore contributed a further large contingent.
Every seaport of consequence had its rendezvous, every seaport
rendezvous its amphibious gang or gangs who ranged the adjacent coast
for many leagues in swift bottoms whose character and mission often
remained wholly unsuspected until some skilful manoeuvre laid them
aboard their intended victim and brought the gang swarming over her
decks, armed to the teeth and resolute to press her crew.
We have now three classes of vessels, of varying build, rig, tonnage and
armament, engaged in a common endeavour to intercept and take the homing
sailor. Let us next see how they were disposed upon the coast.
Tenders from Greenwich and Blackwall ransacked the Thames below bridge
as far as Blackstakes in the river Medway, the Nore and the Swin
channel. Tenders from Margate, Ramsgate, Deal and Dover watched the
lower Thames estuary, swept the Downs, and kept a sharp lookout along
the coasts of Kent and Sussex, of Essex and of Norfolk. To these tenders
from Lynn dipped their colours off Wells-on-Sea or Cromer, whence
they bore away for the mouth of Humber, where Hull tenders took up the
running till met by those belonging to Sunderland, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
and Shields, which in turn joined up the cordon with others hailing
from Leith and the Firth of Forth. Northward of the Forth, away to the
extreme Orkneys, and all down the west coast of Scotland through the two
Minches and amongst the Hebrides, specially armed sloops from Leith and
Greenock made periodic cruises. Greenock tenders, again, united with
tenders from Belfast and Whitehaven in a lurking watch for ships making
home ports by way of the North Channel; or circled the Isle of Man, ran
thence across to Morecambe Bay, and so down the Lancashire coast the
length of Formby Head, where the Mersey tenders, alert for the Jamaica
trade, relieved them of their vigil. Dublin tenders guarded St. George's
Channel, aided by others from Milford Haven and Haverfordwest. Bristol
tenders cruised the channel of that names keeping a sharp eye on Lundy
Island and the Holmes, where shipmasters were wont to play them tricks
if they were not watchful. Falmouth and Plymouth tenders guarded the
coast from Land's End to Portland Bill, Portsmouth tenders from Portland
Bill to Beachy Head, and Folkestone and Dover tenders from Beachy Head
to the North Foreland, thus completing the encircling chain. Nor was
Ireland forgotten in the general sea-rummage. As a converging point for
the great overseas trade-routes it was of prime importance, and tenders
hailing from Belfast, Dublin, Waterford, Cork and Limerick, or making
those places their chief ports of call, exercised unceasing vigilance
over all the coast.
In this general scouring of the coastal waters of the kingdom certain
points were of necessity subjected to a much closer surveillance than
others. Particularly was this true of the sea routes followed by the
East and West India, and the Baltic, Virginia, Newfoundland, Dutch
and Greenland trades, where these converged upon such centres of
world-commerce as London, Poole, Bristol, Liverpool and the great
northern entrepôts on the Forth and Clyde, the Humber and the Tyne. A
tender stationed off Poole, when a Newfoundland fish-convoy was expected
in, never failed to reap a rich harvest. At Highlake, near the mouth
of the Mersey, many a fine haul was made from the sugar and rum-laden
Jamaica ships, the privateers and slavers from which Liverpool drew her
wealth. Early in the century sloops of war had orders "to cruise between
Beechy and the Downs to Impress men out of homeward-bound Merchant
Ships," and in 1755 Rodney's lieutenants found the Channel "full of
tenders." Except in times of profound peace--few and brief in the
century under review--it was rarely or never in any other state. An
ocean highway so congested with the winged vehicles of commerce could
not escape the constant vigilance of those whose business it was to
waylay the inward-bound sailor.
A favourite station in the Channel was "at ye west end of ye Isle of
Wight, near Hurst Castle," where the watchful tender, having under her
eye all ships coming from the westward, as well as all passing through
the Needles, could press at pleasure by the simple expedient of sending
gangs aboard of them. At certain times of the year such ports as
Grimsby, Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Brixham came in for similar
attention. When the fleets were due back from the "Great Fishery" on the
Dogger Banks, tenders cruising off those ports netted more men than they
could find room for; and so heavy was the tribute paid in this way by
the fishermen of the last-named port in 1805, that "not a single man was
to be found in Brixham liable to the impress." Every unprotected man,
out of a total of ninety-six fishing-smacks then belonging to the place,
had been snapped up by the tenders and ships of war cruising off the bay
or further up-Channel. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 581--Admiral
Berkeley, Report on Rendezvous, 15 Sept.]
The double cordon composed of ships and tenders on the cruise by no
means exhausted the resources called into play for the intercepting of
the sailor afloat. Still nearer the land was a third or innermost line
composed of boat-gangs operating, like so many of the tenders, from
rendezvous on shore, or from ships of war lying in dock or riding
at anchor. Less continuous than the outer cordon, it was not less
effective, and many a sailor who by strategy or good luck had all but
won through, struck his flag to the gang when perhaps only the cast of a
line separated him from shore and liberty.
It was across the entrance to harbours and navigable estuaries that this
innermost line was most frequently and most successfully drawn. Pill,
the pilot station for the port of Bristol, threw out such a line to
the further bank of Avon and thereby caught many an able seaman who
had evaded the tenders below King Road. On Southampton Water it was
generally so impassable that few men who could in the slightest
degree be considered liable to the press escaped its toils. [Footnote:
_Admiralty Records_ 1. 581--Admiral Berkeley, Report on Rendezvous, 5
Aug. 1805.] Dublin Bay knew it well. A press "on float" there, carried
out silently and swiftly in the grey of a September morning, 1801,
whilst the mists still hung thick over the water, resulted in the
seizure of seventy-four seamen who had eluded the press-smacks cruising
without the bay; but of this number two proving to be protected
apprentices, the Lord Mayor sent the Water Bailiff of the city, "with a
detachment of the army," and took them by force out of the hands of the
gang. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1526--Capt. Brabazon, 16 Sept.
1801.] On the Thames, notwithstanding the ceaseless activity of the
outer cordons, the innermost line of capture yielded enormously. The
night of October the 28th, 1776, saw three hundred and ninety-nine men,
the greater part of them good seamen, pressed by the boats of a single
ship--the _Princess Augusta_, Captain Sir Richard Bickerton commander,
then fitting out at Woolwich. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1.
1497--Capt. Bickerton, 29 Oct. 1776.] Such a raid was very properly
termed a "hot press."
The amazing feature of this exploit is, that it should have been
possible at all, in view of what was going on in the Thames estuary
below a line drawn across the river's mouth from Foulness to
Sheerness-reach. Seawards of this line lay the two most famous
anchorages in the world, where ships foregathered from every quarter
of the navigable globe. Than the Nore and the Downs no finer
recruiting-ground could anywhere be found, and here the shore-gangs
afloat, and the boat-gangs from ships of war, were for ever on the
alert. No ship, whether inward or outward bound, could pass the Nore
without being visited. Nothing went by unsearched. [Footnote: _Admiralty
Records_ 1. 2733--Capt. Young, 7 March 1756.] The wonder is that any
unprotected sailor ever found his way to London.
Between the Nore and the North Foreland the conditions were equally
rigorous. Through all the channels leading to the sea, channels
affording anchorage to innumerable ships of every conceivable rig and
tonnage, the gangs roamed at will, exacting toll of everything that
carried canvas. Even the smaller craft left high and dry upon the
flats, or awaiting the tide in some sand-girt pool, did not escape their
hawk-like vigilance.
[Illustration: SEIZING A WATERMAN ON TOWER HILL ON THE MORNING OF HIS
WEDDING DAY.]
In the Downs these conditions reached their climax, for thither, in
never-ending procession, came the larger ships which were so fruitful of
good hauls. With the wind at north, or between north and east, few ships
came in and little could be done. But when the wind veered and came
piping out of the west or sou'-west, in they came in such numbers that
the gangs, however numerous they might be, had all their work cut out
to board them. A special tender, swift and exceedingly well-found, was
accordingly stationed here, whose duty it was to be "very watchful that
no vessel passed without a visit from the impress boats." [Footnote:
_Admiralty Records_ 1. 2733--Orders of Vice-Admiral Buckle to Capt.
Yates, 29 April 1778.] In such work as this man-o'-war boats were of
little use. Just as they could not negotiate Deal beach without danger
of being reduced to matchwood, so they could not live in the choppy sea
kicked up in the Downs by a westerly gale. Folkstone market boats and
Deal cutters had to be requisitioned for pressing in those waters. Their
seaworthiness and speed made the Downs the crux of inward-bound ships,
whose only means of escaping their attentions was to incur another
danger by "going back of the Goodwins."
The procedure of boat-gangs pressing in harbour or on rivers seldom
varied, unless it were by accident. As a rule, night was the time
selected, for to catch the sailor asleep conduced greatly to the success
and safety of the venture. The hour chosen was consequently either close
upon midnight, some little time after he had turned in, or in the early
morning before he turned out. The darker the night and the dirtier the
weather the better. Surprise, swiftly and silently carried out, was half
the battle.
A case in point is the attempt made by Lieut. Rudsdale, of H.M.S.
_Licorne_, "to impress all men (without exception) from the ships and
vessels lying at Cheek Point above Passage of Waterford," in the year
'79. Putting-off in the pinnace with a picked crew at eleven o'clock
on a dark and tempestuous October night, he had scarcely left the ship
astern ere he overtook a boatload of men, how many he could not well
discern in the darkness, pulling in the direction he himself was bound.
Fearful lest they should suspect the nature of his errand and alarm
the ships at Passage, he ran alongside of them and pressed the entire
number, sending the boat adrift. Putting back, he set his capture on
board the _Licorne_ and once more turned the nose of the pinnace towards
Passage. There, dropping noiselessly aboard the _Triton_ brig, he caught
the hands asleep, pressed as many of them as he had room for, and with
them returned to the ship. Meanwhile, the master of the _Triton_ armed
what hands he had left and met Rudsdale's second attempt to board
him with a formidable array of handspikes, hatchets and crowbars.
A fusillade of bottles and billets of wood further evinced his
determination to protect the brig against all comers, and lest there
should be any doubt on that point he swore roundly that he would be the
death of every man in the pinnace if they did not immediately sheer
off and leave him in peace. This the lieutenant wisely did. No further
surprises were possible that night, for by this time the alarm had
spread, the pinnace was half-full of missiles, and one of his men lay
in the bottom of her severely wounded. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1.
471--Deposition of Lieut. Rudsdale, 24 Oct. 1779.] As it was, he had a
very fair night's work to his credit. Between the occupants of the boat
and those of the brig he had obtained close upon a score of men.
The expedients resorted to by commanders of ships of war temporarily
in port and short of their tale of men are vividly depicted in a report
made to the Admiralty in 1711. "Three days ago, very privately,"
writes Capt. Billingsley, whose ship, the _Vanguard_, was then lying at
Blackstakes, "I Sent two fishing Smacks with a Lieutenant and some Men,
with orders to proceede along the Essex Coast, and downe as far as the
Wallet, to the Naze, with directions to take all the men out of Oyster
Vessels and others that were not Exempted. The project succeeded, and
they are return'd with fourteen men, all fit, and but one has ever been
in the Service. The coast was Alarm'd, and the country people came downe
and fir'd from the Shore upon the Smacks, and no doubt but they doe
still take 'em to be privateers." [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1.
1470--Capt. Billingsley, 5 May 1711.]
Pressing at sea differed materially in many of its aspects from pressing
on the more sheltered waters of rivers and harbours. Carried out as a
rule in the broad light of day, it was for that very reason accompanied
with a more open and determined display of force than those quieter
ventures which depended so largely for their success upon the element
of surprise. Situated as we are in these latter days, when anyone who
chooses may drive his craft from Land's End to John o' Groats without
hindrance, it is difficult to conceive that there was ever a time when
the whole extent of the coastal waters of the kingdom, as ranged by
the impress tender, was under rigorous martial law. Yet such was
unquestionably the case. Throughout the eighteenth century the flag was
everywhere in armed evidence in those waters, and no sailing master of
the time could make even so much as a day's run with any certainty that
the peremptory summons: "Bring to! I'm coming aboard of you," would not
be bawled at him from the mouth of a gun.
The retention of the command of a tender depended entirely upon her
success in procuring men. As a rule, she was out for no other purpose,
and this being so, it is not to be supposed that the officer in charge
of her would do otherwise than employ the means ordained for that end.
Accordingly, as soon as a sail was sighted by the tender's lookout man,
a gun was loaded, shotted with roundshot, and run out ready for the
moment when the vessel should come within range.
The first intimation the intended victim had of the fate in store for
her was the shriek of the roundshot athwart her bows. This was the
signal, universally known as such, for her to back her topsails and
await the coming of the gang, already tumbling in ordered haste into the
armed boat prepared for them under the tender's quarter. And yet it was
not always easy for the sprat to catch the whale. A variety of factors
entered into the problem and made for failure as often as for success.
Sometimes the tender's powder was bad--so bad that in spite of an extra
pound or so added to the charge, the shot could not be got to carry
as far as a common musket ball. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1.
2485--Capt. Shirley, 5 Nov. 1780, and numerous instances.] When this was
the case her commander suffered a double mortification. His shot,
the symbol of authority and coercion, took the water far short of its
destined goal, whilst the vessel it was intended to check and intimidate
surged by amid the derisive cat-calls and laughter of her crew.
Even with the powder beyond reproach, ships did not always obey the
summons, peremptory though it was. One pretended not to hear it, or to
misunderstand it, or to believe it was meant for some other craft, and
so held stolidly on her course, vouchsafing no sign till a second shot,
fired point-blank, but at a safe elevation, hurtled across her decks and
brought her to her senses. Another, perhaps some well-armed Levantine
trader or tall Indiaman whose crew had little mind to strike their
colours submissively at the behest of a midget press-smack, would pipe
to quarters and put up a stiff fight for liberty and the dear delights
of London town--a fight from which the tender, supposing her to have
accepted the gage of battle, rarely came off victor. Or the challenged
ship, believing herself to be the faster craft of the two, clapped on
all sail, caught an opportune "slatch of wind," and showed her pursuer
a clean pair of heels, the tender's guns meanwhile barking away at her
until she passed out of range. These were incidents in the chapter of
pressing afloat which every tender's commander was familiar with. Back
of them all lay a substantial fact, and on that he relied for his supply
of men. There was somehow a magic in the boom of a naval gun that
had its due effect upon most ship-masters. They brought-to, however
reluctantly, and awaited the pleasure of the gang. But the sailor had
still to be reckoned with.
In order to invest the business of taking the sailor with some semblance
of legality, it was necessary that the commander of the tender, in whose
name the press-warrant was made out, or one of his two midshipmen, each
of whom usually held a similar warrant, should conduct the proceedings
in person; and the first duty of this officer, on setting foot upon the
deck of the vessel held up in the manner just described, was to order
her entire company to be mustered for his inspection. If the master
proved civil, this preliminary passed off quickly and with no more
confusion than was incidental to a general and hasty rummaging of
sea-chests and lockers in search of those magic protections on which
hung the immediate destiny of every man in the ship, excepting only the
skipper, his mate and that privileged person, the boatswain. The muster
effected, the officer next subjected each protection to the closest
possible scrutiny, for none who knew the innate trickery of seamen
would ever "take their words for it." [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1.
1482--Capt. Boscawen, 20 March 1745-6.] Men who had no protections,
men whose papers bore evident traces of "coaxing" or falsification,
men whose appearance and persons failed to tally exactly with the
description there written down--these were set apart from their more
fortunate messmates, to be dealt with presently. To their ranks were
added others whose protections had either expired or were on the point
of expiry, as well as skulkers who sought to evade His Majesty's press
by stowing themselves away between or below decks, and who had been
by this time more or less thoroughly routed out by members of the gang
armed with hangers. The two contingents now lined up, and their total
was checked by reference to the ship's articles, the officer never
omitting to make affectionate inquiries after men marked down as "run,"
"drowned," or "discharged"; for none knew better than he, if an old hand
at the game, how often the "run" man ran no further afield than some
secure hiding-place overlooked by his gangers, or how miraculously the
"drowned" bobbed up once more to the surface of things when the gang had
ceased from troubling. If the ship happened to be an inward-bound, and
to possess a general protection exempting her from the press only
for the voyage then just ending, that fact greatly simplified and
abbreviated the proceedings, for then her whole company was looked upon
as the ganger's lawful prey. In the case of an outward-bound ship, the
gang-officer's duty was confined to seeing that she carried no more
hands than her protection and tonnage permitted her to carry. All others
were pressed. Cowed by armed authority, or wounded and bleeding in a
lost cause as hereafter to be related, the men were hustled into the
boat with "no more violence than was necessary for securing them."
[Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1437--Capt. Aldred, 12 June 1708.]
Their chests and bedding followed, making a full boat; and so, having
cleared the ship of all her pressable hands, the gang prepared to return
to the tender. But first there was a last stroke of business to be done.
The gunner must have his bit.
Up to this point, beyond producing the ship's papers for inspection and
gruffly answering such questions as were put to, him, the master of the
vessel had taken little part in what was going on. His turn now came. By
virtue of his position he could not be pressed, but there existed a very
ancient naval usage according to which he could be, and was, required to
pay for the powder and shot expended in inducing him to receive the
gang on board. In law the exaction was indefensible. Litigation often
followed it, and as the century grew old the practice for that reason
fell into gradual desuetude, a circumstance almost universally deplored
by naval commanders of the old school, [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_
1. 1511--Capt. Bowen, 13 Oct. 1795, and Admiralty endorsement.] who were
ever sticklers for respect to the flag; but during the first five or six
decades of the century the shipmaster who had to be fired upon rarely
escaped paying the shot. The money accruing from his compliance with
the demand, 6s. 8d., went to the gunner, whose perquisite it was, and
as several shots were frequently necessary to reduce a crew to becoming
submissiveness, the gunners must have done very well out of it. Refusal
to "pay the shot" could be visited upon the skipper only indirectly.
Another man or two were taken out of him by way of reprisals, and the
press-boat shoved off--to return a second, or even a third time, if the
pressed men numbered more than she could stow.
From this summary mode of depriving a ship of a part or the whole of her
crew two serious complications arose, the first of which had to do
with the wages of the men pressed, the second with what was technically
called "carrying the ship up," that is to say, sailing her to her
destination.
According to the law of the land, the sailor who was pressed out of a
ship was entitled to his wages in full till the day he was pressed, and
not only was every shipmaster bound to provide such men with tickets
good for the sums severally due to them, tickets drawn upon the owners
and payable upon demand, but it was the duty of every impress officer
to see that such tickets were duly made out and delivered to the men.
Refusal to comply with the law in this respect led to legal proceedings,
in which, except in the case of foreign ships, the Admiralty invariably
won. Eminently fair to the sailor, the provision was desperately hard on
masters and owners, for they, after having shipped their crews for the
run or voyage, now found themselves left either with insufficient hands
to carry the ship up, or with no hands at all. As a concession to the
necessity of the moment a gang was sometimes put on board a ship for the
avowed purpose of pressing her hands when she arrived in port; but such
concessions were not always possible, [Footnote: Nor were they always
effective, as witness the following: "Tuesday the 15th, the _Shandois_
sloop from Holland came by this place (the Nore). I put 15 men on board
her to secure her Company till their Protection was expired. Soon after
came from Sheerness the Master Attendant's boat to assist me on that
service. I immediately sent her away with more Men and Armes for the
better Securing of the Sloop's Company, but that night, in Longreach,
the Vessel being near the Shore, and almost Calme, they hoisted the boat
out to tow the Sloop about, and all the Sloop's men, being 18, got
into her and Run ashore, bidding defiance to my people's
fireing."--_Admiralty Records_ 1. 1473--Capt. Bouler, H.M.S. _Argyle_,
18 Feb. 1725-6.] and common equity demanded that in their absence ample
provision should be made for the safety of vessels suddenly disabled by
the gang. This the Admiralty undertook to do, and hence there grew up
that appendage to the impress afloat generally known as "men in lieu" or
"ticket men."
The vocation of the better type "man in lieu" was a vicarious sort of
employment, entailing any but disagreeable consequences upon him who
followed it. At every point on the coast where a gang was stationed, and
at many where they were not, great numbers of these men were retained
for service afloat whenever required. The three ports of Dover, Deal and
Folkestone alone at one time boasted no less than four hundred and fifty
of them, and when a hot press was in full swing in the Downs even this
number was found insufficient to meet the demand. Mostly fishermen,
Sea-Fencibles and others of a quasi-seafaring type, they enjoyed
complete exemption from the impress as a consideration for "going
in pressed men's rooms," received a shilling, and in some cases
eighteen-pence a day while so employed, and had a penny a mile
road-money for their return to the place of their abode, where they
were free, in the intervals between carrying ships up, to follow any
longshore occupation they found agreeable, save only smuggling. The
enjoyment of these privileges, and particularly the privilege of
exemption from the press, made them, as a class, notorious for their
independence and insolence--characteristics which still survive in not a
few of their descendants. Tenders going a-pressing often bore a score
or two of these privileged individuals as supers, who were drafted into
ships, as the crews were taken out, to assist the master, mate and few
remaining hands, were any of the latter left, in carrying them up. Or,
if no supers of this class were borne by the tender, she "loaned" the
master a sufficient number of her own company, duly protected by tickets
from the commanding officer, and invariably the most unserviceable
people on board, to work the ship into the nearest port where regular
"men in lieu" could be obtained.
Had all "men in lieu" conformed to the standard of the better class
substitute of that name, the system would have been laudable in the
extreme and trade would have suffered little inconvenience from the
depredations of the gangs; but there was in the system a flaw that
generally reduced the aid lent to ships to something little better than
a mere travesty of assistance. That flaw lay in the fact that Admiralty
never gave as good as it took. Clearly, it could not. True, it supplied
substitutes to go in "pressed men's rooms," but to call them "men in
lieu" was a gross abuse of language. In reality the substitutes supplied
were in the great majority of cases mere scum in lieu, the unpressable
residuum of the population, consisting of men too old or lads too
young to appeal to the cupidity of the gangs, poor creatures whom the
regulating captains had refused, useless on land and worse than useless
at sea.
In the general character of the persons sent in pressed men's rooms
Admiralty thus had Trade on the hip, and Trade suffered much in
consequence. More than one rich merchantman, rusty from long voyaging,
strewed the coast with her cargo and timbers because all the able seamen
had been taken out of her, and none better than old men and boys could
be found to sail her. Few seaport towns were as wise as Sunderland,
where they had a Society of Shipowners for mutual insurance against
the risks arising from the pressing of their men. [Footnote: _Admiralty
Records_ 1. 1541--Capt. Bligh, 8 Jan. 1807, enclosure.] Elsewhere
masters, owners and underwriters groaned under the galling imposition;
but the wrecker rejoiced exceedingly, thanking the gangs whose ceaseless
activities rendered such an outrageous state of things possible.
Whichever of these two classes the ticket man belonged to, he was an
incorrigible deserter. "Thirteen out of the fifteen men in lieu that I
sent up in the _Beaufort_ East-Indiaman," writes the disgusted commander
of the _Comet_ bombship, from the Downs, "have never returned. As
they are not worth inquiring for, I have made them run." [Footnote:
_Admiralty Records_ 1. 1478--Capt. Burvill, 4 Sept. 1742. A
man-o'-war's-man was "made run" when he failed to return to his ship
after a reasonable absence and an R was written over against his name on
the ship's books.] Such instances might be multiplied indefinitely. Once
the ticket man had drawn his money for the trip, there was no such thing
as holding him. The temptation to spend his earnings in town proved too
strong, and he went on the spree with great consistency and enjoyment
till his money was gone and his protection worthless, when the
inevitable overtook him. The ubiquitous gang deprived him of his only
remaining possession, his worthless liberty, and sent him to the fleet,
a ragged but shameless derelict, as a punishment for his breach of
privilege.
The protecting ticket carried by the man in lieu dated from 1702, when
it appears to have been first instituted; [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_
1. 1433--Capt. Anderson, 5 April 1702.] but even when the bearer was no
deserter in fact or intention, it had little power to protect him. No
ticket man could count upon remaining unmolested by the gangs except the
undoubted foreigner and the marine, both of whom were much used as men
in lieu. The former escaped because his alien tongue provided him with
a natural protection; the latter because he was reputedly useless on
shipboard. In the person of the marine, indeed, the man in lieu achieved
the climax of ineptitude. It was an ironical rule of the service that
persons refusing to act as men in lieu should suffer the very fate they
stood in so much danger of in the event of their consenting. Broadstairs
fishermen in 1803 objected to serving in that capacity, though tendered
the exceptional wage of 27s. for the run to London. "If not compelled
to go in that way," they alleged, "they could make their own terms
with shipmasters and have as many guineas as they were now offered
shillings." Orders to press them for their contumacy were immediately
sent down. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1450--Capt. Carter, 16 Aug.
1803.]
By the year 1811 the halcyon days of the man in lieu were at an end. As
a class he was then practically extinct. Inveterate and long-continued
pressing had drained the merchant service of all able-bodied British
seamen except those who were absolutely essential to its existence.
These were fully protected, and when their number fell short of the
requirements of the service the deficiency was supplied by foreigners
and apprentices similarly exempt. So few pressable men were to be found
in any one ship that it was no longer considered necessary to send
ticket men in their stead when they were taken out, and as a matter
of fact less than a dozen such men were that year put on board ships
passing the Downs. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1453--Capt.
Anderson, 31 Aug. 1811.] Pressing itself was in its decline, and as for
the vocation of the man in lieu, it had gone never to return.
Ships and tenders out for men met with varied fortunes. In the winter
season the length of the nights, the tempestuous weather and the cold
told heavily against success, as did at all times that factor in the
problem which one old sea-dog so picturesquely describes as "the room
there is for missing you." Capt. Barker, of the _Thetis_, in 1748 made
a haul of thirty men off the Old-Head of Kinsale, but lost his barge
in doing so, "it blowed so hard." Byng, of the _Sutherland_, grumbled
atrociously because in the course of his run up-Channel in '42 he was
able to press "no more than seventeen." Anson, looking quite casually
into Falmouth on his way down-Channel, found there in '46 the _Betsey_
tender, then just recently condemned, and took out of her every man she
possessed at the cost of a mere hour's work, ignorant of the fact that
when pressing eight of those men the commander of the _Betsey_ had been
"eight hours about it." It was all a game of chance, and when you played
it the only thing you could count upon was the certainty of having both
the sailor and the elements dead against you.
[Illustration: JACK IN THE BILBOES. From the painting by Morland.]
But if the "room there is for missing you," conspiring with other
unfavourable conditions, rendered pressing afloat an uncertain and
vexatious business, the chances of making a haul were on the other hand
augmented by every ship that entered or left the Narrow Seas, not even
excepting the foreigner. The foreign sailor could not be pressed unless,
as we have seen, he had naturalised himself by marrying an English
wife, but the foreign ship was fair game for every hunter of British
seamen.--An ancient assumption of right made it so.
From the British point of view the "Right of Search" was an eminently
reasonable thing. Here was an island people to whose keeping Heaven had
by special dispensation committed the dominion of the seas. To defend
that dominion they needed every seaman they possessed or could produce.
They could spare none to other nations; and when their sailors, who
enjoyed no rights under their own flag, had the temerity to seek refuge
under another, there was nothing for it but to fire on that flag
if necessary, and to take the refugee by armed force from under its
protection. This in effect constituted the time-honoured "Right of
Search," and none were so reluctant to forego the prerogative, or so
keen to enforce it, as those naval officers who saw in it a certain
prospect of adding to their ships' companies. The right of search was
always good for another man or two.
It was often good for a great many more, for the foreign skipper was at
the best an arrant man-stealing rogue. If a Yankee, he hated the British
because he had beaten them; if a Frenchman or a Hollander, because
they had beaten him. His animus was all against the British Navy, his
sympathies all in favour of the British sailor, in whom he recognised
as good, if not a better seaman than himself. He accordingly enticed
him with the greatest pertinacity and hid him away with the greatest
cunning.
Every impress officer worth his salt was fully alive to these facts, and
on all the coast no ship was so thoroughly ransacked as the ship whose
skipper affected a bland ignorance of the English tongue or called
Heaven to witness the blamelessness of his conduct with many
gesticulations and strange oaths. Lieut. Oakley, regulating officer at
Deal, once boarded an outward-bound Dutch East-Indiaman in the Downs.
The master strenuously denied having any English sailors on board, but
the lieutenant, being suspicious, sent his men below with instructions
to leave no part of the ship unsearched. They speedily routed out three,
"who discovered that there were in all thirteen on board, most of them
good and able seamen." [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 3363--Lieut.
Oakley, 8 Dec. 1743.] The case is a typical one.
Another source of joy and profit to the gangs afloat were the great
annual convoys from overseas. For safety's sake merchantmen in times
of hostilities sailed in fleets, protected by ships of war, and when a
fleet of this description was due back from Jamaica, Newfoundland or the
Baltic, that part of the coast where it might be expected to make its
land-fall literally swarmed with tenders, all on the _qui vive_ for
human plunder. They were seldom disappointed. The Admiralty protections
under which the ships had put to sea in the first instance expired with
the home voyage, leaving the crews at the mercy of the gangs. If,
that is to say, the commanders of the convoying men-o'-war had not
forestalled them, or the ships' companies were not composed, as in one
case we read of, of men who were all "either sick or Dutchmen."
The privateer had to be approached more warily than the merchantman,
since the number of men and the weight of metal she carried made her an
ugly customer to deal with. She was in consequence notorious for being
the sauciest craft afloat, and though "sauce" was to the naval officer
what a red rag is to a bull, there were few in the service who did
not think twice before attempting to violate the armed sanctity of the
privateer. At the same time the hands who crowded her deck were the
flower of British seamen, and in this fact lay a tremendous incentive to
dare all risks and press her men. Her commission or letter of marque of
course protected her, but when she was inward-bound that circumstance
carried no weight.
Against such an adversary the tender stood little chance. When she
hailed the privateer, the latter laughed at her, threatening to sink her
out of hand, or, if ordered to bring to, answered with all the insolent
contempt of the Spanish grandee: "Mariana!" Accident sometimes stood
the tender in better stead, where the pressing of privateer's-men was
concerned, than all the guns she carried. Capt. Adams, cruising for men
in the Bristol Channel, one day fell in with the Princess Augusta, a
letter of marque whose crew had risen upon their officers and tried
to take the ship. After hard fighting the mutiny was quelled and the
mutineers confined to quarters, in which condition Adams found them.
The whole batch, twenty-nine in number, was handed over to him, "though
'twas only with great threats" that he could induce them to submit,
"they all swearing to die to a man rather than surrender." [Footnote:
_Admiralty Records_ 1. 1440--Capt. Adams, 28 June 1745.]
A year or two prior to this event this same ship, the Princess Augusta,
had a remarkable adventure whilst sailing under the merchant flag of
England. On the homeward run from Barbadoes, some fifty leagues to the
westward of the Scillies, she fell in with a Spanish privateer, who
at once engaged and would undoubtedly have taken her but for an
extraordinary occurrence. Just as the trader's assailants were on the
point of boarding her the Spaniard blew up, strewing the sea with his
wreckage, but leaving the merchantman providentially unharmed. Capt.
Dansays, of H.M.S. the _Fubbs_ yacht, who happened to be out for men
at the time in the chops of the Channel, brought the news to England.
Meeting with the trader a few days after her miraculous escape, he had
boarded her and pressed nine of her crew. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_
1. 1439--Capt. Ambrose, 7 Feb. 1741-2.]
From the smuggling vessels infesting the coasts the sea-going gangs drew
sure returns and rich booty. In the south and east of England people who
were "in the know" could always buy tobacco, wines and silks for a mere
song; and in Cumberland, in the coast towns there, and inland too, the
very beggars are said to have regaled themselves on tea at sixpence or
a shilling the pound. These commodities, as well as others dealt in by
runners of contrabrand, were worth far more on the water than on land,
and none was so keenly alive to the fact as the gangsman who prowled the
coast. Animated by the prospect of double booty, he was by all odds the
best "preventive man" the country ever had.
There was a certainty, too, about the pressing of a smuggler that was
wanting in other cases. The sailor taken out of a merchant ship, or the
fisherman out of a smack, might at the eleventh hour spring upon you a
protection good for his discharge. Not so the smuggler. There was in his
case no room for the unexpected. No form of protection could save him
from the consequences of his trade. Once caught, his fate was a foregone
conclusion, for he carried with him evidence enough to make him a
pressed man twenty times over. Hence the gangsman and the naval officer
loved the smuggler and lost no opportunity of showing their affection.
"Strong Breezes and Cloudy," records the officer in command of H.M.S.
_Stag_, a twenty-eight gun frigate, in his log. "Having made the Signal
for Two Strange Sail in the West, proceeded on under Courses & Double
Reeft Topsails. At 1 sett the Jibb and Driver, at 3 boarded a Smugling
Cutter, but having papers proving she was from Guernsey, and being out
limits, pressed one Man and let her go." [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_
1. 2734--Log of H.M.S. _Stag_, Capt. Yorke commander, 5 Oct. 1794.]
"Friday last," says the captain of the _Spy_ sloop of war, "I sail'd out
of Yarmouth Roads with a Fleet of Colliers in order to press Men, & in
my way fell in with Two Dutch Built Scoots sail'd by Englishmen, bound
for Holland, one belonging to Hull, call'd the _Mary_, the other to
Lyn, call'd the _Willing Traveller_. I search'd 'em and took out of the
former 64 Pounds 14. and out of the latter 300 Pounds 6, all English
Money, which I've deliver'd to the Collector of Custome at Yarmouth.
I likewise Imprest out of the Two Vessells seven men." [Footnote:
_Admiralty Records_ 1. 1438--Capt. Arnold, 29 May 1727. The exporting of
coin was illegal.]
"In the execution of my orders for pressing," reports Capt. Young, from
on board the Bonetta sloop under his command, "I lately met with two
Smuglers, & landing my boats into a Rocky Bay where they were running of
Goods, the Weather came on so Violent I had my pinnace Stove so much as
to be rendered unservisable. They threw overboard all their Brandy, Tea
and Tobacco, of which last wee recover'd about 14 Baggs and put it
to the Custom house. In Endeavouring to bring one of them to Sail, my
Boatswain, who is a very Brisk and Deserving Man, had his arm broke, so
that tho' wee got no more of their Cargo, it has broke their Voyage and
Trade this bout." [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 2732--Capt. Young, 6
April 1739.]
On the 13th of December 1703, George Messenger, boatswain of the _Wolf_
armed sloop, whilst pressing on the Humber descried a "keel" lying high
and dry apart from the other shipping in the river, where it was then
low water. Boarding her with the intention of pressing her men, he found
her deserted save for the master, and thinking that some of the hands
might be in hiding below--where the master assured him he would find
nothing but ballast--he "did order one of his Boat's crew to goe down in
the Hold and see what was therein"; who presently returned and reported
"a quantity of wool conceal'd under some Coales a foot thik." The
exportation of wool being at that time forbidden under heavy penalties,
the vessel was seized and the master pressed--a course frequently
adopted in such circumstances, and uniformly approved. [Footnote:
_Admiralty Records_ 1. 1465--Deposition of George Messenger, 20 Dec.
1703. Owling, ooling or wooling, as the exportation of wool contrary
to law was variously termed, was a felony punishable, according to
an enactment of Edward III., with "forfeiture of life and member." So
serious was the offence considered that in 1565 a further enactment was
formulated against it. Thereafter any person convicted of exporting a
live ram, lamb or sheep, was not only liable to forfeit all his goods,
but to suffer imprisonment for a year, and at the end of the year "in
some open market town, in the fulness of the market on the market day,
to have his right hand cut off and nailed up in the openest place of
such market." The first of these Acts remained in nominal force till
1863.]
While the gangs afloat in this way lent their aid in the suppression
of smuggling, they themselves were sometimes subjected to disagreeable
espionage on the part of those whose duty it was to keep a special
lookout for runners of contraband goods. An amusing instance of this
once occurred in the Downs. The commanding officer of H.M.S. _Orford_,
discovering his complement to be short, sent one of his lieutenants,
Richardson by name, in quest of men to make up the deficiency. In the
course of his visits from ship to ship there somehow found their way
into the lieutenant's boat a fifteen-gallon keg of rum and ten bottles
of white wine. Between seven and eight o'clock in the evening he boarded
an Indiaman and went below with the master. Scarcely had he done so,
however, when an uproar alongside brought him hurriedly on deck--to find
his boat full of strange faces. A Customs cutter, in some unaccountable
way getting wind of what was in the boat, had unexpectedly "clapt them
aboard," collared the man-o'-war's-men for a set of rascally smugglers,
and confiscated the unexplainable rum and wine, becoming so fuddled on
the latter, which they lost no time in consigning to bond, that one of
their number fell into the sea and was with difficulty fished out by
Richardson's disgusted gangsmen. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1.
1473--Capt. Brown, 30 July 1727, and enclosures.]
The only inward-bound ship the gangsmen were forbidden to press from was
the "sick ship" or vessel undergoing quarantine because of the presence,
or the suspected presence, on board of her of some "catching" disease,
and more particularly of that terrible scourge the plague. Dread of the
plague in those days rode the country like a nightmare, and just as the
earliest quarantine precautions had their origin in that fact, so those
precautions were never more rigorously enforced than in the case of
ships trading to countries known to be subject to plague or reported
to be in the grip of it. The Levantine trader suffered most severely
in this respect. In 1721 two vessels from Cyprus, where plague was then
prevalent, were burned to the water's edge by order of the authorities,
and as late as 1800 two others from Morocco, suspected of carrying the
dread disease in the hides composing their cargo, were scuttled and sent
to the bottom at the Nore. This was quarantine _in excelsis_. Ordinary
preventive measures went no further than the withdrawal of "pratique,"
as communication with the shore was called, for a period varying usually
from ten to sixty-five days, and during this period no gang was allowed
to board the ship.
The seamen belonging to such ships always got ashore if they could;
for though the penalty for deserting a ship in quarantine was death,
[Footnote: 26 George II. cap. 6.] it might be death to remain, and the
sailor was ever an opportunist careless of consequences. So, for that
matter, was the gangsman. Knowing well that Jack would make a break
for it the first chance he got, he hovered about the ship both day and
night, alert for every movement on board, watchful of every ripple on
the water, taunting the woebegone sailors with the irksomeness of their
captivity or the certainty of their capture, and awaiting with what
patience he could the hour that should see pratique restored and the
crew at his mercy. Whether the ship had "catching" disease on board or
not might be an open question. There was no mistaking its symptoms in
the gangsman.
Stangate Creek, on the river Medway, was the great quarantine station
for the port of London, and here, in the year 1744, was enacted one of
the most remarkable scenes ever witnessed in connection with pressing
afloat. The previous year had seen a recrudescence of plague in the
Levant and consequent panic in England, where extraordinary precautions
were adopted against possible infection. In December of that year there
lay in Stangate Creek a fleet of not less than a dozen Levantine ships,
in which were cooped up, under the most exacting conditions imaginable,
more than two hundred sailors. At Sheerness, only a few miles distant,
a number of ships of war, amongst them Rodney's, were at the same
time fitting out and wanting men. The situation was thus charged with
possibilities.
It was estimated that in order to press the two hundred sailors from the
quarantine ships, when the period of detention should come to an end,
a force of not less than one hundred and fifty men would be required.
These were accordingly got together from the various ships of war
and sent into the Creek on board a tender belonging to the _Royal
Sovereign_. This was on the 15th of December, and quarantine expired on
the 22nd.
The arrival of the tender threw the Creek into a state of consternation
bordering on panic, and that very day a number of sailors broke bounds
and fell a prey to the gangs in attempting to steal ashore. Seymour,
the lieutenant in command of the tender, did not improve matters by his
idiotic and unofficerlike behaviour. Every day be rowed up and down the
Creek, in and out amongst the ships, taunting the men with what he would
do unless they volunteered, when the 22nd arrived, and he was free to
work his will upon them. He would have them all, he assured them, if he
had to "shoot them like small birds."
By the 22nd the sailors were in a state of "mutinous insolence."
When the tender's boats approached the ships they were welcomed "with
presented arms," and obliged to sheer off in order to obtain "more
force," so menacing did the situation appear. Seeing this, and either
mistaking or guessing the import of the move, the desperate seamen
rushed the cabins, secured all the arms and ammunition they could lay
hands on, hoisted out the ship's boats, and in these reached the shore
in safety ere the tender's men, by this time out in strength, could
prevent or come up with them. The fugitives, to the number of a hundred
or more, made off into the country to the accompaniment, we are told,
of "smart firing on both sides." With this exchange of shots the curtain
falls on the "Fray at Stangate Creek." [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_
1. 1480--Capt. Berkeley, 30 Dec. 1744, and enclosure.] In the engagement
two of the seamen were wounded, but all escaped the snare of the fowler,
and in that happy denouement our sympathies are with them.
Returning transports paid immediate and heavy tribute to the gangs
afloat. Out of a fleet of such vessels arriving at the Nore in 1756
two hundred and thirty men, "a parcel of as fine fellows as were ever
pressed," fell to the gangs. Not a man escaped from any of the ships,
and the boats were kept busy all next day shifting chests and bedding
and putting in ticket men to navigate the depleted vessels to London.
[Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1487--Capt. Boys, 6, 7 and 8 July
1756.] A similar press at the Cove of Cork, on the return of the
transports from America in '79, proved equally productive. Hundreds of
sailors were secured, to the unspeakable grief of the local crimps, who
were then offering long prices in order to recruit Paul Jones, at that
time cruising off the Irish coast. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1.
1499--Letters of Capt. Bennett, 1779.]
The cartel ship was an object of peculiar solicitude to the sea-going
gangsman. In her, after weary months passed in French, Spanish or Dutch
prisons, hundreds of able-bodied British seamen returned to their native
land in more or less prime condition for His Majesty's Navy. The warmest
welcome they received was from the waiting gangsman. Often they got
no other. Few cartels had the extraordinary luck of the ship of that
description that crept into Rye harbour one night in March 1800, and in
bright moonlight landed three hundred lusty sailor-men fresh from French
prisons, under the very nose of the battery, the guard at the port
head and the _Clinker_ gun-brig. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1.
1449--Capt. Aylmer, 9 March 1800.]
Of all the seafaring men the gangsman took, there was perhaps none whom
he pressed with greater relish than the pilot. The every-day pilot of
the old school was a curious compound. When he knew his business, which
was only too seldom, he was frequently too many sheets in the wind to
embody his knowledge in intelligent orders; and when he happened to be
sober enough to issue intelligent orders, he not infrequently showed
his ignorance of what he was supposed to know by issuing wrong ones.
The upshot of these contradictions was, that instead of piloting His
Majesty's ships in a becoming seamanly manner, he was for ever running
them aground. Fortunately for the service, an error of this description
incapacitated him and made him fair game for the gangs, who lost no
time in transferring him to those foremast regions where ship's grog
was strictly limited and the captain's quite unknown. William Cook,
impressed upon an occasion at Lynn, with unconscious humour styled
himself a landsman. He was really a pilot who had qualified for that
distinction by running vessels ashore.
In the aggregate this unremitting and practically unbroken surveillance
of the coast was tremendously effective. Like Van Tromp, the vessels
and gangs engaged in it rode the seas with a broom at their masthead,
sweeping into the service, not every man, it is true, but enormous
numbers of them. As for their quality, "One man out of a merchant ship
is better than three the lieutenants get in town." [Footnote: _Admiralty
Records_ 1. 2379--Capt. Roberts, 27 June 1732.] This was the general
opinion early in the century; but as the century wore on the quality of
the man pressed in town steadily deteriorated, till at length the sailor
taken fresh from the sea was reckoned to be worth six of him.