HOW THE GANG WENT OUT.
Not until the year 1833 did belated Nemesis overtake the press-gang. It
died the unmourned victim of its own enormities, and the manner of
its passing forms the by no means least interesting chapter in its
extraordinary career.
Summarising the causes, direct and indirect, which led to the final
scrapping of an engine that had been mainly instrumental in manning
the fleet for a hundred years and more, and without which, whatever its
imperfections, that fleet could in all human probability never have been
manned at all, we find them to be substantially these:--
_(a)_ The demoralising effects of long-continued, violent and
indiscriminate pressing upon the Fleet;
_(b)_ Its injurious and exasperating effects upon Trade;
_(c)_ Its antagonising effect upon the Nation; and
_(d)_ Its enormous cost as compared with recruiting by the good-will of
the People.
Frederick the Great, it is related, being in one of his grim humours
after the dearly bought victory of Czaslaw, invited the neighbouring
peasantry to come and share the spoil of the carcases on the field of
battle. They responded in great numbers; whereupon he, surrounding
them, pressed three hundred of the most promising and "cloathed them
immediately from the dead." [Footnote: _State Papers Foreign,
Germany,_ vol. cccxl.--Robinson to Hyndford, 31 May 1742.] In this way,
Ezekiel-like, he retrieved his losses; but to the regiments so completed
the addition of these resurrection recruits proved demoralising to a
degree, notwithstanding the Draconic nature of the Prussian discipline.
In like manner the discipline used in the British fleet, while not less
drastic, failed conspicuously to counteract the dry-rot introduced and
fostered by the press-gang. In its efforts to maintain the Navy, indeed,
that agency came near to proving its ruin.
On the most lenient survey of the recruits it furnished, it cannot be
denied that they were in the aggregate a desperately poor lot, unfitted
both physically and morally for the tremendous task of protecting an
island people from the attacks of powerful sea-going rivals. How bad
they were, the epithets spontaneously applied to them by the outraged
commanders upon whom they were foisted abundantly prove. Witness the
following, taken at random from naval captains' letters extending over a
hundred years:--
"Blackguards."
"Sorry poor creatures that don't earn half the victuals they eat."
"Sad, thievish creatures."
"Not a rag left but what was of such a nature as had to be destroyed."
"150 on board, the greatest part of them sorry fellows."
"Poor ragged souls, and very small."
"Miserable poor creatures, not a seaman amongst them, and the fleet in
the same condition."
"Unfit for service, and a nuisance to the ship."
"Never so ill-manned a ship since I have been at sea. The worst set I
ever saw."
"Twenty-six poor souls, but three of them seamen. Ragged and half dead."
"Landsmen, boys, incurables and cripples. Sad wretches great part of
them are."
"More fit for an hospital than the sea."
"All the ragg-tagg that can be picked up."
In this last phrase, "All the rag-tag that can be picked up," we have
the key to the situation; for though orders to press "no aged, diseased
or infirm persons, nor boys," were sufficiently explicit, yet in
order to swell the returns, and to appease in some degree the fleet's
insatiable greed for men, the gangs raked in recruits with a lack of
discrimination that for the better part of a century made that fleet the
most gigantic collection of human freaks and derelicts under the sun.
Billingsley, commander of the _Ferme_, receiving seventy pressed men to
complete his complement in 1708, discovers to his chagrin that thirteen
are lame in the legs, five lame in the hands, and three almost blind.
[Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1469--Capt. Billingsley, 5 May 1708.]
Latham, commanding the _Bristol_, on the eve of sailing for the West
Indies can muster only eighteen seamen amongst sixty-eight pressed men
that day put on board of him. As for the rest, they are either sick,
or too old or too young to be of service--"ragged wretches, bad of the
itch, who have not the least pretensions to eat His Majesty's bread."
Forty of the number had to be put ashore. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_
1. 161--Admiral Watson, 26 Feb. 1754.] Admiral Mostyn, boarding his
flagship, the _Monarch_, "never in his life saw such a crew," though the
_Monarch_ had an already sufficiently evil reputation in that respect,
insomuch that whenever a scarecrow man-o'-war's man was seen ashore the
derisive cry instantly went up: "There goes a _Monarch_!" So hopelessly
bad was the company in this instance, it was found impossible to carry
the ship to sea. "I don't know where they come from," observes the
Admiral, hot with indignation, "but whoever was the officer who received
them, he ought to be ashamed, for I never saw such except in the
condemned hole at Newgate. I was three hours and a half mustering this
scabby crew, and I should have imagined that the Scum of the Earth
had been picked up for this ship." [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1.
480--Admiral Mostyn, 1 and 6 April 1755.] The vigorous protest prepares
us for what Capt. Baird found on board the _Duke_ a few years later.
The pressed men there exhibited such qualifications for sea duty as
"fractured thigh-bone, idiocy, strained back and sickly, a discharged
soldier, gout and sixty years old, rupture, deaf and foolish, fits,
lame, rheumatic and incontinence of urine." [Footnote: _Admiralty
Records_ 1. 1490--Capt. Baird, 22 May 1759.]
That most reprehensible practice, the pressing of cripples for naval
purposes, would appear to have had its origin in the unauthorised
extension of an order issued by the Lord High Admiral, in 1704, to the
effect that in the appointment of cooks to the Navy the Board should
give preference to persons so afflicted. For the pressing of boys there
existed even less warrant. Yet the practice was common, so much so that
when, during the great famine of 1800, large numbers of youths flocked
into Poole in search of the bread they could not obtain in the country,
the gangs waylaid them and reaped a rich harvest. Two hundred was the
toll on this occasion. As all were in a "very starving, ragged, filthy
condition," the gangsmen stripped them, washed them thoroughly in the
sea, clad them in second-hand clothing from the quay-side shops, and
giving each one a knife, a spoon, a comb and a bit of soap, sent them on
board the tenders contented and happy. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_
1. 579--Capt. Boyle, 2 June 1801.] These lads were of course a cut
above the "scum of the earth" so vigorously denounced by Admiral Mostyn.
Beginning their career as powder-monkeys, a few years' licking into
shape transformed them, as a rule, into splendid fighting material.
The utter incapacity of the human refuse dumped into the fleet is justly
stigmatised by one indignant commander, himself a patient long-sufferer
in that respect, as a "scandalous abuse of the service." Six of these
poor wretches had not the strength of one man. They could not be got
upon deck in the night, or if by dint of the rope's-end they were at
length routed out of their hammocks, they immediately developed the
worst symptoms of the "waister"--seasickness and fear of that which
is high. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1471--Capt. Billop, 26 Oct.
1712.] Bruce, encountering dirty weather on the Irish coast, when in
command of the _Hawke_, out of thirty-two pressed men "could not get
above seven to go upon a yard to reef his courses," but was obliged to
order his warrant officers and master aloft on that duty. [Footnote:
_Admiralty Records_ 1. 1477--Capt. Bruce, 6 Oct. 1741.] Belitha, of the
_Scipio_, had but one man aboard him, out of a crew of forty-one, who
was competent to stand his trick at the wheel; [Footnote: _Admiralty
Records_ 1. 1482--Capt. Belitha, 15 July 1746.] Bethell, of the
_Phoenix_, had many who had "never seen a gun fired in their lives";
[Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1490--Capt. Bethell, 21 Aug. 1759.]
and Adams, of the _Bird-in-hand_, learnt the fallacy of the assertion
that that _rara avis_ is worth two in the bush. Mustered for drill in
small-arms, his men "knew no more how to handle them than a child."
[Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1440--Capt. Adams, 7 Oct. 1744.]
For all their knowledge of that useful exercise they might have been
Sea-Fencibles.
Yet while ships were again and again prevented from putting to sea
because, though their complements were numerically complete, they had
only one or no seaman on board, and hence were unable to get their
anchors or make sail; [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1478--Capt.
Boys, 14 April 1742; _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1512--Capt. Bayly, 21 July
1796, and Captains' Letters, _passim_.] while Bennett, of the _Lennox_,
when applied to by the masters of eight outward-bound East-India ships
for the loan of two hundred and fifty men to enable them to engage the
French privateers by whom they were held up in the river of Shannon,
dared not lend a single hand lest the pressed men, who formed the
greater part of his crew, should rise and run away with the ship;
[Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1499--Capt. Bennett, 22 Sept. 1779.]
Ambrose, of the _Rupert_, cruising off Cape Machichaco with a crew of
"miserable poor wretches" whom he feared could be of "no manner of use
or service" to him, after a short but sharp engagement of only an
hour's duration captured, with the loss of but a single man, the largest
privateer sailing out of San Sebastian--the _Duke of Vandome_,
of twenty-six carriage guns and two hundred and two men, of whom
twenty-nine were killed; [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1439--Capt.
Ambrose, 7 July and 26 Sept. 1741.] and Capt. Amherst, encountering a
heavy gale in Barnstable Pool, off Appledore, would have lost his ship,
the low-waisted, over-masted _Mortar_ sloop, had it not been for
the nine men he was so lucky as to impress shortly before the gale.
[Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1440--Capt. Amherst, 12 Dec. 1744.]
Anson regarded pressed men with suspicion. When he sailed on his famous
voyage round the world his ships contained only sixty-seven; but with
his complement of five hundred reduced by sickness to two hundred and
one, he was glad to add forty of those undesirables to their number
out of the India-men at Wampoo. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1.
1439--Capt. Anson, 18 Sept. 1740, and 7 Dec. 1742.] These, however, were
seamen such as the gangs did not often pick up in England, where, as we
have seen, the able seaman who was not fully protected avoided the press
as he would a lee shore.
In addition to the sweepings of the roads and slums, there were in His
Majesty's ships many who trod the decks "wide betwixt the legs, as if
they had the gyves on." Peculiar to the seafaring man, the tailor and
the huckstering Jew, the gait of these individuals, who belonged
mostly to the sailor class, was strongly accentuated by an adventitious
circumstance having no necessary connection with Israelitish descent,
the sartorial board or the rolling deep. They were in fact convicts who
had but recently shed their irons, and who walked wide from force of
habit. Reasons of policy rather than of mercy explained their presence
in the fleet. The prisons of the country, numerous and insanitary though
they were, could neither hold them all nor kill them; America would have
no more of them; and penal settlements, those later garden cities of
a harassed government, were as yet undreamt of. In these circumstances
reprieved and pardoned convicts were bestowed in about equal
proportions, according to their calling and election, upon the army and
the navy.
The practice was one of very respectable antiquity and antecedents. By
a certain provision of the Feudal System a freeman who had committed a
felony, or become hopelessly involved in debt, might purge himself of
either by becoming a serf. So, at a later date, persons in the like
predicament were permitted to exchange their fetters, whether of debt or
iron, for the dear privilege of "spilling every drop of blood in their
bodies" [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 5125--Petition of the Convicts
on board the _Stanislaus_ hulk, Woolwich, 18 May 1797.] on behalf of
the sovereign whose clemency they enjoyed. Broken on the wheel of naval
discipline, they "did very well in deep water." Nearer land they were
given, like the jailbirds they were, to "hopping the twig." [Footnote:
_Admiralty Records_ 1. 2733--Capt. Young, 21 March 1776.]
The insolvent debtor, who in the majority of cases had studied his
pleasures more than his constitution, was perhaps an even less desirable
recruit than his cousin the emancipated convict. In his letters to
the Navy Board, Capt. Aston, R.N., relates how, immediately after the
passing of the later Act [Footnote: 4 & 5 Anne, cap. 6.] for the
freeing of such persons from their financial fetters, he "gave constant
attendance for almost two years at the sittings of the Courts of
Sessions in London and Surrey," lying in wait there for such debtors
as should choose the sea. From the Queen's Bench Prison, the Clink,
Marshalsea, Borough Compter, Poultry Compter, Wood Street Compter,
Ludgate Prison and the Fleet, he obtained in that time a total of one
hundred and thirty-two, to whom in every case the prest-shilling was
paid. They were dear at the price. Bankrupt in pocket, stamina and
health, they cumbered the ships to the despair of commanders and were
never so welcome as when they ran away. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_
1. 1436--Letters of Capt. Aston, 1704-5.]
The responsibility for jail-bird recruiting did not of course rest with
the gangs. They saw the shady crew safe on board ship, that was all.
Yet the odium of the thing was theirs. For not only did association with
criminals lower the standard of pressing as the gangs practised it,
it heightened the general disrepute in which they were held. For an
institution whose hold upon the affections of the people was at the best
positively negative, this was a serious matter. Every convict whom the
gang safeguarded consequently drove another nail in the coffin preparing
for it. The first and most lasting effect of the wholesale pumping
of sewage into the fleet was to taint the ships with a taint far more
deadly than mere ineptitude. A spirit of ominous restlessness
prevailed. Slackness was everywhere observable, coupled with incipient
insubordination which no discipline, however severe, could eradicate or
correct. At critical moments the men could with difficulty be held to
their duty. To hold them to quarters in '97, when engaging the enemy
off Brest, the rattan and the rope's-end had to be unsparingly used.
[Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 5125--Petition of the Company of
H.M.S. _Nymph_, 1797.] In no circumstances were they to be trusted.
Given the slightest opening, they "ran" like water from a sieve. To
counteract these dangerous tendencies the Marines were instituted.
Drafted into the ships in thousands, they checked in a measure the
surface symptoms of disaffection, but left the disease itself untouched.
The fact was generally recognised, and it was no uncommon circumstance,
when the number of pressed men present in a ship was large in proportion
to the unpressed element, for both officers and marines to walk the deck
day and night armed, fearful lest worse things should come upon them.
[Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1499--Capt. Bennett, 22 Sept. 1799,
and Captains' Letters, _passim_.] What they anticipated was the mutiny
of individual crews. But a greater calamity than this was in store for
them.
In the wholesale mutinies at Spithead and the Nore the blow fell with
appalling suddenness, notwithstanding the fact that in one form or
another it had been long foreseen. Fifty-five years had elapsed since
Vernon, scenting danger from the existing mode of manning the fleet, had
first sounded the alarm. He dreaded, he told the Lords Commissioners
in so many words, the consequences that must sooner or later ensue
from adherence to the press. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1.
578--Vice-Admiral Vernon, 27 Jan. 1742-3.] Though the utterance of one
gifted with singularly clear prevision, the warning passed unheeded. Had
it been made public, it would doubtless have met with the derision with
which the voice of the national prophet is always hailed. Veiled as it
was in service privacy, it moved their Lordships to neither comment nor
action. Action, indeed, was out of the question. The Commissioners were
helpless in the grip of a system from which, so far as human sagacity
could then perceive, there was no way of escape. Let its issue be what
it might, they could no more replace or reconstruct it than they could
build ships of tinsel.
Other warnings were not wanting. For some years before the catastrophic
happenings of '97 there flowed in upon the Admiralty a thin but steady
stream of petitions from the seamen of the fleet, each of them a rude
echo of Vernon's sapient warning. To these, coming as they did from an
unconsidered source, little if any significance was attached. Beyond the
most perfunctory inquiry, in no case to be made public, they received
scant attention. The sailor, it was thought, must have his grievances if
he would be happy; and petitions were the recognised line for him to air
them on. They were accordingly relegated to that limbo of distasteful
and quickly forgotten things, their Lordships' pigeon-holes.
Yet there was amongst these documents at least one which should have
given the Heads of the Navy pause for serious thought. It was the
petition of the seamen of H.M.S. _Shannon_, [Footnote: _Admiralty
Records_ 1. 5125--Petition of the Ship's Company of the _Shannon_, 16
June 1796.] in which there was conveyed a threat that afterwards, when
the mutiny at the Nore was at its height, under the leadership of a
pressed man whose coadjutors were mainly pressed men, came within an
ace of resolving itself in action. That threat concerned the desperate
expedient of carrying the revolted ships into an enemy's port, and of
there delivering them up. Had this been done--and only the Providence
that watches over the destinies of nations prevented it--the act would
have brought England to her knees.
At a time like this, when England's worst enemies were emphatically the
press-gangs which manned her fleet with the riff-raff of the nation and
thus made national disaster not only possible but hourly imminent, the
"old stander" and the volunteer were to her Navy what salt is to the
sea, its perpetual salvation. Such men inculcated an example, created an
_esprit de corps_, that infected even the vagrant and the jail-bird, to
say nothing of the better-class seaman, taken mainly by gangs operating
on the water, who was often content, when brought into contact with
loyal men, to settle down and do his best for king and country. Amongst
the pressed men, again, desertion and death made for the survival of the
fittest, and in this residuum there was not wanting a certain savour.
Subdued and quickened by man-o'-war discipline, they developed a
dogged resolution, a super-capacity not altogether incompatible with
degeneracy; and to crown all, the men who officered the resolute if
disreputable crew were men in whose blood the salt of centuries tingled,
men unrivalled for sea-sagacity, initiative and pluck. If they could not
uphold the honour of the flag with the pressed man's unqualified aid,
they did what was immeasurably greater. They upheld it in spite of him.
Upon the trade of the nation the injury inflicted by the press-gang is
rightly summed up in littles. Every able seaman, every callow apprentice
taken out of or forcibly detained from a merchant vessel was, _ipso
facto,_ a minute yet irretrievably substantial loss to commerce of one
kind or another. Trade, it is true, did not succumb in consequence.
Possessed of marvellous recuperative powers, she did not even languish
to any perceptible degree. Nevertheless, the detriment was there,
a steadily cumulative factor, and at the end of any given period of
pressing the commerce of the nation, emasculated by these continuous if
infinitesimal abstractions from its vitality, was substantially less in
bulk, substantially less in pounds sterling, than if it had been allowed
to run its course unhindered.
British in name, but Teutonic in its resentments, trade came to regard
these continual "pin-pricks" as an intolerable nuisance. It was not so
much the loss that aroused her anger as the constant irritation she
was subjected to. This she keenly resented, and the stream of her
resentment, joining forces with its confluents the demoralisation of
the Navy through pressing, the excessive cost of pressing and the
antagonising effects of pressing upon the nation at large, contributed
in no small degree to that final supersession of the press-gang which
was in essence, if not in name, the beginning of Free Trade.
To the people the impress was as an axe laid at the root of the tree.
There was here no question, as with trade, of the mere loss of hands
who could be replaced. Attacking the family in the person of its natural
supporter and protector, the octopus system of which the gangs were the
tentacles struck at the very foundations of domestic life and brought to
thousands of households a poverty as bitter and a grief as poignant as
death.
If the people were slow to anger under the infliction it was because, in
the first place, the gang had its advocates who, though they could not
extol its virtues, since it had none, were yet able, and that with no
small measure of success, to demonstrate to a people as insular in their
prejudices as in their habitat that, but for the invincible Navy which
the gang maintained for their protection, the hereditary enemy, the
detested French, would most surely come and compel them one and all to
subsist upon a diet of frogs. What could be seriously urged against the
gang in face of an argument such as that?
Patriotism, moreover, glowed with ardent flame. Fanned to twofold heat
by natural hatred of the foreigner and his insolent challenge of insular
superiority, it blinded the people to the truth that liberty of the
subject is in reality nothing more than freedom from oppression.
So, with the gang at their very doors, waiting to snatch away their
husbands, their fathers and their sons, they carolled "Rule Britannia"
and congratulated themselves on being a free people. The situation was
unparalleled in its sardonic humour; and, as if this were not enough,
the "Noodle of Newcastle," perceiving vacuously that something was still
wanting, supplied the bathetic touch by giving out that the king, God
bless him! could never prevail upon himself to break through the sacred
liberties of his people save on the most urgent occasions. [Footnote:
_Newcastle Papers_--Newcastle to Yorke, 27 Feb. 1749-50.]
The process of correcting the defective vision of the nation was as
gradual as the acquisition of the sea-power the nation had set as its
goal, and as painful. In both processes the gang participated largely.
To the fleet it acted as a rude feeder; to the people as a ruder
specialist. Wielding the cutlass as its instrument, it slowly and
painfully hewed away the scales from their eyes until it stood
visualised for what it really was--the most atrocious agent of
oppression the world has ever seen. For the operation the people should
have been grateful. The nature of the thing they had cherished so
blindly filled them with rage and incited them to violence.
Two events now occurred to seal the fate of the gang and render its
final supersession a mere matter of time rather than of debate or
uncertainty. The mutiny at the Nore brought the people face to face with
the appalling risks attendant on wholesale pressing, while the war with
America, incurred for the sole purpose of upholding the right to press,
taught them the lengths to which their rulers were still prepared to go
in order to enslave them. In the former case their sympathies, though
with the mutineers, were frozen at the fountain-head by fear of invasion
and that supposititious diet of frogs. In the latter, as in the ancient
quarrel between Admiralty and Trade, they went out to the party who not
only abstained from pressing but paid the higher wages.
While the average cost of 'listing a man "volunteerly" rarely exceeded
the modest sum of 30s., the expense entailed through recruiting him by
means of the press-gang ranged from 3s. 9d. per head in 1570 [Footnote:
_State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth_, vol. lxxiii. f. 38: Estimate of
Charge for Pressing 400 Mariners, 1570.] to 114 Pounds in 1756. Between
these extremes his cost fluctuated in the most extraordinary manner.
At Weymouth, in 1762, it was at least 100 Pounds; at Deal, in 1805, 32
Pounds odd; at Poole, in the same year, 80 Pounds. [Footnote: _London
Chronicle_, 16-18 March, 1762; _Admiralty Records_ 1. 581--Admiral
Berkeley, 14 Feb. and 5 Aug. 1805.] From 1756 the average steadily
declined until in 1795 it touched its eighteenth century minimum of
about 6 Pounds. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 579--Average based on
Admirals' Reports on Rendezvous, 1791-5.] A sharp upward tendency then
developed, and in the short space of eight years it soared again to 20
Pounds. It was at this figure that Nelson, perhaps the greatest naval
authority of his time, put it in 1803. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1.
580--Memorandum on the State of the Fleet, 1803.]
Up to this point we have considered only the prime cost of the pressed
man. A secondary factor must now be introduced, for when you had got
your man at an initial cost of 20 Pounds--a cost in itself out of all
proportion to his value--you could never be sure of keeping him. Nelson
calculated that during the war immediately preceding 1803 forty-two
thousand seamen deserted from the fleet. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_
1. 580--Memorandum on the State of the Fleet, 1803.] Assuming, with him,
that every man of this enormous total was either a pressed man or had
been procured at the cost of a pressed man, the loss entailed upon the
nation by their desertion represented an outlay of 840,000 Pounds for
raising them in the first instance, and, in the second, a further outlay
of 840,000 Pounds for replacing them.
In this estimate there is, however, a substantial error; for,
approaching the question from another point of view, let us suppose, as
we may safely do without overstraining the probabilities of the case,
that out of every three men pressed at least one ran from his rating.
Now the primary cost of pressing three men on the 20 Pound basis being
60 Pounds, it follows that in order to obtain their ultimate cost to the
country we must add to that sum the outlay incurred in pressing another
man in lieu of the one who ran. The total cost of the three men who
ultimately remain to the fleet consequently works out at 80 Pounds; the
cost of each at 26 Pounds, 13s. 4d. Hence Nelson's forty-two thousand
deserters entailed upon the nation an actual expenditure, not of
1,680,000 Pounds, but of nearly two and a quarter millions.
Another fact that emerges from a scrutiny of these remarkable figures is
this. Whenever the number of volunteer additions to the fleet increased,
the cost of pressing increased in like ratio; whenever the number of
volunteers declined, the pressed man became proportionally cheaper.
Periods in which the pressed man was scarce and dear thus synchronise
with periods when the volunteer was plentiful; but scarcity of
volunteers, reacting upon the gangs, and conducing to their greater
activity, brought in pressed men in greater numbers in proportion to
expenditure and so reduced the cost per head. In this logical though at
first sight bewildering interrelation of the laws of supply and demand,
we have in a nutshell the whole case for the cost of pressing as against
the gang. Taking one year with another the century through, the impress
service, on a moderate estimate, employed enough able-bodied men to man
a first-rate ship of the line, and absorbed at least enough money to
maintain her, while the average number of men raised, taking again one
year with another, rarely if ever exceeded the number of men engaged in
obtaining them. With tranquillity at length assured to the country, with
trade in a state of high prosperity, the shipping tonnage of the nation
rising by leaps and bounds and the fleet reduced to an inexigent peace
footing, why incur the ruinous expense of pressing the seaman when, as
was now the case, he could be had for the asking or the making?
For Peace brought in her train both change and opportunity. The frantic
dumping of all sorts and conditions of men into the fleet ceased.
Necessity no longer called for it. No enemy hovered in the offing, to be
perpetually outmanoeuvred or instantly engaged. Until that enemy could
renew its strength, or time should call another into being, the mastery
of the seas, the dear prize of a hundred years of strenuous struggle,
remained secure. Our ships, maintained nevertheless as efficient
fighting-machines, became schools of leisure wherein--a thing impossible
amid the perpetual storm and stress of war--the young blood of
the nation could be more gradually inured to the sea and tuned to
fighting-pitch. Science had not yet linked hands with warfare. Steam,
steel, the ironclad, the super-Dreadnought and the devastating cordite
gun were still in the womb of the future; but the keels of a newer
fleet were nevertheless already on the slips, and with the old order the
press-gang, now for ever obsolete, went the way of all things useless.
Its memory still survives. Those who despair of our military system, or
of our lack of it, talk of conscription. They alone forget. A people
who for a hundred years patiently endured conscription in its most cruel
form will never again suffer it to be lightly inflicted upon them.
APPENDIX
ADMIRAL YOUNG'S TORPEDO
DEAR NEPEAN,--I enclose a little project for destroying the Enemy's
Flatboats if they venture over to our Coast, which you may shew, if you
please, to your Sea Lords as coming from some anonymous correspondent.
If they can improve upon it so as to make it useful, I shall be glad
of it; and if they think it good for nothing, and throw it in the fire,
there is no harm done. As the conveying an Army must require a very
great number of Boats, which must be very near each other, if many such
vessels as I propose should get among them, they must necessarily commit
great havoc. I cannot ascertain whether the blocks or logs of wood would
be strong enough to throw the shot without bursting, or whether they
would not throw the shot though they should burst. I think they would
not burst, and so do some Officers of Artillery here; but that might
be ascertained by experiment at any time. This sort of Fire-vessel will
have the advantage of costing very little; and of being of no service to
the Enemy should it fall into their hands.
W. YOUNG. LEWES, 14 _Aug_. 1803.
[Illustration: Admiral Young's Torpedo. From the Original Drawing at
the Public Record Office.]
_Secret_
"The success of an attempt to land an Army on an Enemy's Coast, whose
Army is prepared to prevent it, will depend in a great degree on the
regularity of the order in which the Boats, or Vessels, are arranged,
that carry the Troops on Shore; everything therefore which contributes
to the breaking of that order will so far contribute to render success
more doubtful; especially if, in breaking the order, some of the Boats
or Vessels are destroyed. For this purpose Fireships well managed will
be found very useful; I should therefore think that, at all the King's
Ports, and at all places where the Enemy may be expected to attempt
a landing with Ships of War or other large Vessels, considerable
quantities of materials for fitting Fireships according to the latest
method should be kept ready to be put on board any small Vessels on the
Enemy's approach; but, as such Vessels would have little or no effect
on Gunboats or Flatboats, machines might be made for the purpose of
destroying them, by shot, and by explosion. The Shot should be large,
but as they will require to be thrown but a short distance, and will
have only thin-sided Vessels to penetrate, Machines strong enough to
resist the effort of the small quantity of Powder necessary to throw
them may probably be made of wood; either by making several chambers in
one thick Block, as No. 1, or one chamber at each end of a log as No.
2, which may be used either separately, or fastened together. The Vents
should communicate with each other by means of quick Match, which should
be very carefully covered to prevent its sustaining damage, or being
moved by things carried about. Such Machines, properly loaded, may be
kept in Fishing boats or other small vessels near the parts of the Coast
where the Enemy may be expected to land; or in secure places, ready to
be put on board when the Enemy are expected. The Chambers should be cut
horizontally, and the Machine should be so placed in the Vessel as to
have them about level with the surface of the water; under the Machine
should be placed a considerable quantity of Gunpowder; and over it,
large Stones, and bags of heavy shingle, and the whole may be covered
with fishing nets, or any articles that may happen to be on board.
Several fuses, or trains of Match, should communicate with the Machine,
and with the powder under it, so managed as to ensure those which
communicate with the Machine taking effect upon the others, that the
shot may be thrown before the Vessel is blown up. The Match, or Fuses,
should be carefully concealed to prevent their being seen if the Vessel
should be boarded.... If these Vessels are placed in the front of the
Enemy's Line, and not near the extremities of it, it would be scarcely
possible for them to avoid the effects of the explosion unless, from
some of them exploding too soon, the whole armament should stop. Every
Machine would probably sink the Boat on each side of it, and so do
considerable damage to others with the shot; and would kill and wound
many men by the explosion and the fall of the stones.... As the success
of these Vessels will depend entirely upon their not being suspected by
the Enemy, the utmost secrecy must be observed in preparing the
Machines and sending them to the places where they are to be kept. A few
confidential men only should be employed to make them, and they should
be so covered as to prevent any suspicion of their use, or of what they
contain."
INDEX
Adams, Capt.,
_Admiral Spry_ tender,
_Adventure_, H.M.S.,
Ages below eighteen and over fifty-five exempt,
Alcock, Henry, Mayor of Waterford,
Alms, Capt.,
_Amaranth_, H.M.S.,
Ambrose, Capt.,
Amherst, Capt,
_Amphitrite_, H.M.S.,
Andover, the press-gang at,
_Anglesea_, H.M.S.,
Anne, Queen, impresses foreign seamen,
arms of press-gang under,
drummers and fifers pressed for navy in her reign,
sailors unwilling to serve,
Anson, Admiral Lord,
Anthony, John, pressed with two protections on him,
Appledore, press-gang at, 72,
Apprentices, exempt from impressment only in some circumstances, in
North-country pressed because their indentures bore Scotch 14s. stamp
instead of English 15s.,
Archer, Capt,
Arms of the press-gang,
_Assurance_, H.M.S.,
Aston, Capt,
Atkinson, Lieut.,
Ayscough, Capt.,
Baily, James, a ferryman, pressed for his inactivity,
Baird, Capt,
Balchen, Capt.,
Ball, Capt.,
Banyan days,
Bargemen impressed in thousands,
Barker, Capt., regulating officer at Bristol, midshipman.
Barking, the press-gang at,
Barnicle, William,
Barnsley, Lieut.,
Barrington, Capt.,
Bath, Bristol gang's fruitless attempt at,
Bawdsey,
_Beaufort_, East Indiaman,
Beecher, Capt,
Bennett, Capt,
Bertie, Capt,
Bethell, Capt, paid damages for wrongfully impressing,
Bettesworth, John, claims privilege of granting private protections to
Ryde and Portsmouth ferrymen,
Biggen, Charles,
Billingsley, Capt.,
Bingham, William,
Birchall, Lieut.,
_Bird-in-hand_, H.M.S.,
Birmingham, sham gangs at,
_Black Book_ of the Admiralty,
Blackstone, Sir W.,
Blackwater, men working turf boats on, not exempt,
_Blanche_, H.M.S.,
Blear-eyed Moll,
_Blonde_, H.M.S.,
Boats for the press-gang,
Boat steerers on whalers exempt from impressment,
Boatswains, conditions of exemption,
_Bonetta_ sloop,
Boscawen, Capt.,
Boston, Mass.,
Bounty system, the,
Bowen, Capt.,
Box, Lieut,
Boys, Capt.,
Brace, Lieut.,
Bradley, Lieut,
Brawn, Capt.,
Breedon, Lieut.,
Brenton, Capt. Jahleel, afterwards Vice-Admiral,
Brenton, E. P., _Naval History_,
Brenton, Lieut,
Brereton, Capt.,
Brett, Capt, 110,
Bridges a favourite haunt of the press-gang,
Brighton, the press-gang at,
Bristol, the press-gang at,
Bristol jail as press-room,
_Bristol_, H.M.S.,
_Britannia_ trading vessel,
three of the crew shot in resisting the
press-gang, the ship captured and taken to port,
the affair not within the coroner's purview, the bodies
buried at sea, court-martial acquits officers,
Brixham, the press-gang at,
Broadfoot case, the,
Broadstairs fishermen, the press-gang at, Bromley, Capt. Sir Robert,
Bullard, Richard, a fiddler persuaded to go to Woolwich to play and for
payment was handed to the gang,
_Bull-Dog_ sloop,
Burchett, Josiah, _Observations on the Navy_,
Burrows, Sam,
Butler, Capt.,
Byron, Lord,
Calahan, a gangsman, killed in attempting an arrest,
Cambridge bargemen, press-gang among,
Campbell, Admiral,
Cape Breton,
Caradine, Samuel,
Carey, Rev. Lucius,
Carmarthen, Admiral the Marquis of,
Carolina,
Carpenters, conditions of exemption, on warships on coast of Scotland
could be replaced by shipwrights pressed from the yards,
Carrying the ship up,
Cartel ships,
Castle, William, an alien, impressed on his honeymoon,
Castleford, the press-gang at,
Cawsand safe from the press-gang,
Cecil, William, Lord Burleigh,
_Centurion_, H.M.S., Anson's flagship, whose crew on their return had
life-protection from the press,
Chaplains,
Charles II.,
Chatham, crimpage at,
_Chatham_, H.M.S.,
Chester, the press-gang at
_Chevrette_ corvette,
Clapp, Midshipman,
Clark, George,
Clephen, James,
_Clincher_ gun-brig,
Cockburn, Bailie, of Leith,
Cogbourne's electuary,
Coke, Sir E.,
Collingwood, Admiral Lord, Lieut,
Colvill, Admiral Lord,
Colville, Lieut.,
Convoys,
Conyear, John,
Cooper, Josh,
Cork, crimpage at, the press-gang at,
Comet bomb ship,
Cornwall, the press-gang in,
Coversack, safe from the press-gang,
Coventry, Mr. Commissioner,
Coventry, sham gangs at,
Cowes, press-gang at,
Crabb, Henry,
Crews depleted by the press-gang,
Crick, William,
Crimps, as sham gangsmen,
Cromer, the suspicions of the inhabitants,
bring the press-gang, to take a noted Russian,
Crown Colonies, desertions in,
Croydon, the press-gang around,
Cruickshank, John, chaplain,
Culverhouse, Capt.,
Customs, Board of,
Dansays, Capt.,
Danton, Midshipman,
Darby, Capt.,
Dartmouth, H.M.S.,
Dartmouth, press-gang at,
Davidson, Samuel, of Newcastle, applies for life protection
"DD," discharged dead, in muster books against names of persons
deceased,
Deal, press-gang at,
cutters,
Death of sailor in resisting impress, "accidental",
Debusk, John, shot by the press-gang, on the Britannia,
Dent, Capt.,
Deptford, the press-gang at,
Desertion from the Navy,
Devonshire, H.M.S.,
Dipping the flag,
Director, H.M.S.,
Discipline in the Navy,
Disinfecting a ship,
Dispatch sloop,
Dolan, Edward,
Dominion and Laws of the Sea., See Justice, A.,
Dorsetshire, H.M.S.,
Douglas, Capt. Andrew,
Dover, press-gang at,
Downs, crimpage in the,
press-gang in,
Doyle, Lieut,
Dreadnought, H.M.S.,
Drummers pressed for the Navy,
Dryden, Michael, illegally pressed,
Dryden's sister,
Dublin, sham gangs at, the press-gang at,
Duke, H.M.S.,
Duke of Vandome, H.M.S.,
Duncan case, the,
Dundas, Henry,
Dundonald, Lord, Autobiography,
Dunkirk, H.M.S.,
Eccentricity leads to impressment,
Eddystone lighthouse, building delayed through impressment of workmen,
builders of the third, protected, keepers at, put inward-bound,
ships' crews ashore,
Edinburgh, press-gang at,
Edmund and Mary Collier,
Edward III. on the Navy,
Elizabeth, Queen,
Elizabeth ketch,
Ely bargemen, press-gang among,
Emergency crews of men unfit for pressing supplied to merchant-men by
the crimps,
Emergency men working on their own account, places of muster for,
English Eclogues. See Southey, R.,
Evading the press-gang. See under Press-gang, How it was evaded.,
Evans, Richard, keeper of Gloucester Castle,
Exemption from impressment,
not a right, of foreigners, negroes not included,
of landsmen only theoretical,
property no qualification for exemption,
of harvesters,
of gentlemen, judged by appearances,
below 18 and over 55 years,
of apprentices dependent on circumstances,
of merchant seamen dependent on circumstances,
of masters, mates, boatswains, and carpenters dependent on
circumstances,
of some of crew of whalers,
of Thames wherrymen by quota system,
of Tyne keelman by the same,
of Severn and Wye trow-men by 10% levy,
did not extend to turf boats on Shannon and Blackwater,
special for four on each fishing vessel, and later for all engaged
in taking, curing, and selling fish,
of Worthing fishermen for a levy,
of Scottish and Manx fishermen, on similar terms,
worthless without a document of protection,
Exeter, the press-gang at,
_Falmouth_, H.M.S.,
Falmouth, press-gang at,
Faversham, the press-gang at,
_Ferme_, H.M.S.,
Ferries, a favourite haunt of the press-gang,
_Feversham_, H.M.S.,
Fifers pressed for the Navy,
Fire on ship board,
Fisheries, carefully fostered,
three fish days made compulsory, became a great nursery for seamen,
few exemptions granted, at first special concessions only to the
whale and cod fisheries,
later only such number as the warrant specified might be taken, and
these the Justices chose; in 1801 no person employed in taking,
curing, or selling fish could be impressed,
with their best men impressed, only small smacks could be worked,
a quota system preferred by the fishermen of some ports,
in Cornwall, the men turned tinners in the off-season,
Flags, flying without authority, omission to dip,
Fleet, Liberty of,
Folkstone market-boats,
Folkstone, press-gang at,
Forcible entry by the press-gang illegal,
Foreigners impressed, theoretically exempt, married to English wives considered naturalised,
in emergency crews,
Frederick the Great,
Freeholders at one time exempt from impressment,
_Fubbs_, H.M.S.,
Gage, Capt.,
_Galloper_, tender to the _Dreadnought_,
_Ganges_, H.M.S.,
Garth, Dr.,
Gaydon, Lieut.,
Gentlemen exempt from the impress, but judged by appearance and manner,
Gibbs, Capt.,
_Glory_, H.M.S.,
Gloucester, the press-gang at,
Gloucester Castle used as press-room, the keeper's magic palm,
Godalming, the press-gang at,
Golden, John, Lord Mayor's bargeman, wrongfully impressed,
Good, James, midshipman,
Goodave, Midshipman,
Gooding, Richard,
Gosport, the press-gang at,
Gravesend, the press-gang at,
Gray, John,
Great Yarmouth, press-gang at,
Greenock, crimpage at, press-gang at, Trades Guild,
Greenock ferries, the press-gang at,
Greenwich Hospital,
Grimsby, the press-gang at,
Habeas Corpus, writs of, as means of arresting, and so freeing, pressed
men for debts not owing,
Half-pay officers, their projects and inventions,
Hamoaze, the, an entrepôt for pressed men,
Harpooners exempt from impressment,
Harrison, Lieut.,
Hart, Alexander,
_Harwich_, H.M.S.,
Haverfordwest, press-gang at,
Hawke, Admiral Sir Edward,
_Hawke_, H.M.S.,
Haygarth, Lieut.,
Health and illness,
_Hector_, H.M.S.,
Herbert, Emanuel,
_Hind_ armed sloop,
_Historical Relation of State Affairs_. See Lutterell, N.,
Hogarth's "Stage Coach,"
Hook, Joseph,
_Hope_ tender,
Hotten, J. C., _List of Persons of Quality, etc., who went from England
to the American Plantations_,
Hull, press-gang at,
Humber, the press-gang on,
Hurst Castle, the press-gang at,
Ilfracombe, the press-gang at,
Impressment. See Pressed labour.,
Informers,
Inland waterways and the gang at one time without the jurisdiction of
the admirals,
Innes, Capt,
Ipswich, the press-gang at,
_Isis_, H.M.S.,
Isle of Man fishermen,
Jackson, Daniel, pressed from the Chester Volunteers,
Jamaica,
_Jason_, H.M.S.,
Jervis, John, Earl of St. Vincent,
Jews, pressed on account of bandy legs,
_John and Elizabeth_ pink,
John, King, impressment under,
Johnson, Rebecca Anne,
Jones, Paul,
Justice, A., _Dominion and Laws of the Sea_,
Keith, A., parson of the Fleet, _Observations on the Act for Preventing
Clandestine Marriages_,
Kilkenny, the press-gang at,
King's Lynn, press-gang at,
Kingston, William, case of,
_King William_, Indiaman,
_Lady Shore_, the,
Landsmen exempt only in theory,
Latham, Capt.,
Law officers' opinions on pressing,
Leave, stoppage of,
Leeds, the press-gang at,
Leith, crimpage at, press-gang at,
_Lennox_, H.M.S.,
Letting, John, pressed with two protections on him,
Lewis, Edward, chaplain,
Libraries, ships',
_Lichfield_, H.M.S.,
Licorne, H.M.S.,
Limehouse Hole, the press-gang at,
Lindsay, Admiral the Earl of, _Instructions_,
Linesmen on whalers exempt from impressment,
Liskeard, the press-gang at,
_List of Persons of Quality, etc., who went from England to the American
Plantations_. See Hotten, J. C.,
_Litchfield_, H.M.S.,
Littlehampton, the press-gang at,
Liverpool, crimpage at, press-gang at,
Lodden Bridge, the press-gang at,
London, the press-gang in,
Londonderry, the press-gang at,
Longcroft, Capt,
_Loo_, H.M.S.,
Love, Henry, gets life protection as promised by Pitt and Dundas,
Lowestoft, the press-gang at,
Lulworth,
Lundy Island, safe from the press-gang,
but not to the sailors' liking,
crews marooned on,
Lutterell, N., _Historical Relation of State Affairs_, Capt. Hon. Jas.,
Lymington, the press-gang at,
M'Bride, Admiral,
M'Cleverty, Capt.,
M'Donald, Alexander, impressed under the age of twelve, Charles,
M'Gugan's wife,
M'Kenzie, Lieut.,
M'Quarry, Lachlan,
Magna Carta, its provisions contrary to impressment,
Mansfield, Lord,
Margate, the press-gang at,
_Maria_ brig,
Marines,
Marooned crews on Lundy Island,
_Martin_ galley,
_Mary_ smuggler,
Masters, conditions of exemption,
Mastery of the sea, a necessity for England,
Mates, conditions of exemption,
Medway, press-gang on,
_Medway_, H.M.S.,
Men in lieu,
Merchant seamen, conditions of exemption, unprotected when sleeping
ashore, the most valuable asset to the Navy,
Merchant service, hard conditions of crews,
_Mercury_, H.M.S.,
Messenger, George,
Mike, James, hanged for desertion,
Moll Flanders,
_Monarch_, H.M.S.,
_Monmouth_, H.M.S.,
_Monumenta Juridica_,
Morals in the Navy, improved by Jervis, Nelson, and Collingwood,
Moriarty, Capt,
_Mortar_ sloop,
Mostyn, Admiral,
_Mediator_ tender,
Mitchell, Admiral Sir D.,
Montagu, Admiral,
Mousehole, safe from the press-gang,
Moverty, Thomas, pressed, not having protection on him,
Nancy of Deptford,
_Naseby_, H.M.S.,
_Nassau_, H.M.S.,
_Naval History_. See Brenton, E. P.,
Navy, the growth of, in 18th century, natural sources of supply of
crews, hard conditions of service in,
discipline in,
provisions in,
comforts in,
Negroes not exempt from impressment,
Nelson, Admiral Lord,
_Nemesis_, H.M.S.,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, press-gang at, grand protection enjoyed by,
New England,
Newgate compared with the press-room,
Newhaven, the press-gang at,
Newland, safe from the press-gang,
Newquay, safe from the press-gang,
Nore, the press-gang at the, the mutiny at, an entrepôt for pressed-men,
_Norfolk_, Indiaman,
Norris, John,
North Forland, press-gang at,
_Nymph_, H.M.S.,
Oakley, Lieut.,
Oaks, Lieut.,
O'Brien, Lieut.,
_Observations on Corporeal Punishment, Impressment, etc._ See Penrose,
Admiral Sir V. C.,
_Observations on the Act for Preventing Clandestine Marriages._ See
Keith, A.,
_Observations on the Navy._ See Burchett, J.,
Okehampton, the press-gang at,
Onions, Thomas,
_Orford_, H.M.S.,
Orkney fishermen,
Osborne, Admiral,
Osmer, Lieut.,
_Otter_ sloop,
Oyster vessels,
_Pallas_, H.M.S.,
Parker, Richard, president of the mutineers at the Nore,
Parkgate, a resort of seamen,
Paying off discharged entire crews,
Paying the shot,
Pay of sailors, deferred,
Pembroke, Earl of, Lord High Admiral,
Penrose, Admiral Sir V. C., _Observations on Corporeal Punishment,
Impressment, etc._,
Pepys, S.,
Peter the Great, Czar of Russia,
Petitions of seamen of the Fleet and others,
_Phoenix_, H.M.S.,
Pill, a favourite haunt of sailors, and shunned by gangsmen,
Pilots,
Pitt, William,
Plymouth, the press-gang at,
Polpero, safe from the press-gang,
Poole, press-gang at, mayor refuses to back press-warrants,
Popham, Admiral Sir Home, his scheme for coast defence,
Portland Bill, press-gang off,
Portland Island,
Portsmouth, desertions at, the press-gang at,
Post-chaise, sailors in,
Press-boats sunk at sea,
Pressed labour (see also Press-gang), antiquity of, for civil occupations,
for warfare,
means of enforcing,
contrary to the spirit of Magna Carta,
penalties for resistance,
derivation of the term,
the classes from which drawn,
exemptions from,
necessity of, in English Navy,
its crippling effect on trade,
Press-gang, the why it was a necessity for the Navy,
its services not needed by some captains,
what it was,
the official and the popular views,
the class of men it was composed of,
its quarters, landsmen joining the land force not to be pressed
for sea service,
ship-gangs entirely seamen, varying numbers in gang,
the officers,
the shore service the grave of promotion,
general character of officers ashore,
duties of the Regulating Captain,
pay and road money, etc.,
perquisites, peculation, and bribery in the service,
sham-gangs,
the rendezvous,
boat's arms,
press warrant,
whom the gang might take,
primarily those who used the sea,
later on trade suffers from the gang,
exemption granted as an indulgence,
the foreigner first exempted,
but not if he had an English wife, and was soon assumed to have
one,
negroes not exempt, landsmen theoretically only,
harvesters were exempt if holding a certificate,
gentlemen exempt if dressed as such,
only those proved to be between eighteen and fifty-five,
the position of apprentices was uncertain,
to press merchant seamen was resented by trade,
masters, mates, boatswains, and carpenters were exempt,
colliers were exempt up to a certain proportion,
ship protections did not count on shore,
mate was not entitled to liberty unless registered at the
rendezvous,
harpooners were protected out of season on land or on colliers,
the press-gang preyed upon its fellows,
watermen, bargemen, and canal boat-dwellers were considered to use
the see,
Thames watermen and some others exempt if certain quota of men
supplied,
large numbers pressed from Ireland,
fishermen indifferently protected, but fisheries fostered,
all protected persons bound to carry their protection on them,
an error in protection invalidated it,
protections often disregarded,
special protections,
its activities afloat,
the merchant seamen the principal quest,
the chain of sea-gangs,
the outer rings, frigates pressing for their own crews and armed
sloops as tenders to ships of the line, and the vessels employed
by regulating captains at the large ports,
the inner ring of boat-gangs in harbour or on rivers;
their methods.,
methods of pressing at sea,
complications arising from pressing at sea,
their varied success.,
and the right to search foreign vessels for English seamen,
and convoys,
and privateers,
and smugglers,
smuggling by,
and ships in quarantine,
and transports,
and cartel ships,
and pilots,
how it was evaded,
in the ship, with her or from her,
or a combination,
hiding on board from,
evasions assisted by the skipper,
and men in lieu and foreigners in emergency crews,
pilots and fisherman taken by, when acting as emergency men,
evaded by desertion from the ship,
evaded by hiding on land and changing quarters,
Cornwall dangerous for,
safe retreats from,
empowered to take Severn and Wye trow-men,
unsuccessful efforts of,
evaded by borrowed, forged, and American protections and by
disguises,
what it did ashore,
the sailor betrayed by marked characteristics;
sailors outnumbered on shore by the gang,
its object the pressing of sailors who escaped the seagangs,
its London rendezvous and taverns used.
the inland distribution of,
the class of places selected for operations of,
the land-gangs necessarily ambulatory,
its resting and refreshment places chosen for purposes of capture,
the methods adopted,
a hot press at Brighton,
a ruse at Portsmouth,
how the sailors' liking for drink was turned to account,
the amount of violence used,
outside assistance to,
rivalry between gangs,
assisted by mayors and county magistrates,
assisted by the military,
townsmen who sided with the sailors against,
brutal behaviour of, at Poole,
resisted at Deal and Dover,
forcible entry by, illegal,
magistrates consign vagabonds and disorderly persons to,
how it was resisted,
various weapons used against,
gangs-men killed by sailors resisting them,
sailors killed by gangsmen,
by armed bands of seamen,
by the populace in attempting to impress,
pressed-men recaptured from,
tenders attacked,
rendezvous attacked,
press-boats attacked and sunk,
resistance when the press-gang had come abroad,
the hardship of impressment on arrival from long voyage,
the only means of resistance,
a sailor's death in such case "accidental," casual, unavoidable,
or disagreeable,
a case in point,
at play,
humorous reason given for impressing a person,
inculcating manners by means of the press,
the respect due to naval officers,
the outsider liable to be pressed for breach of naval etiquette,
rudeness to the press-gang treated the same way,
damages from officers for wrongful impressment, failure to dip the
flag, or flying an unauthorised flag, might lead to pressing
from that crew,
unseamanlike management of a ship laid the crew open to pressing,
pipers and fiddlers, etc., impressed,
ridiculous reasons given for impressing,
unsuspecting passenger in a smuggler declared owner of contraband
and pressed,
tattoo marks and bandy legs lead to pressing,
any eccentricity sufficient to ensure the attention of the
press-gang,
used by trustees to keep heirs from their money, and by parents to
rid them of incorrigible sons,
used for purposes of retaliation,
used by strikers to get rid of a "blackleg."
used by stern parent to part his daughter and her lover,
a drunken cleric's revenge by means of,
by pressing a sailor, causes his late bedfellow to be hanged as
his murderer,
and women,
of women and sailors in general,
lack of sentiment in gangsmen,
women impressed by,
women masquerading as men to go to sea,
women in the gang,
the hardship brought on women by the gang,
fostered vice and bred paupers,
women who released sailors from the press-gang,
the devotion of Richard Parker's wife,
In the clutch of,
the press-room, what it was; strongly built and small as it might
be, could hold any number,
Bristol gaol and Gloucester Castle used as press-rooms,
inadequate precautions for retaining pressed men on the road,
regulations for rendezvous,
victualling in the press-room,
regulating or examining for fitness for service,
fabricated ailments and defects,
dispatching pressed men to the fleet,
tenders hired for transport of pressed men,
comfort and health of pressed men on tenders,
the victualling of pressed men on tenders,
prevention of escape,
an attempt to escape-with the Tasker tender escapes from,
The Union tender cut out from the Tyne by the pressed men,
various excitements aboard
a final examination,
petitions,
substitutes,
How the gang went out,
causes of withdrawal of press-gang,
the increasingly bad quality of the product,
the spirit of restlessness and mutiny engendered,
the injury to trade,
only continued so long by the apathy of the people,
the cost of impressing,
Press-Gang, or Love in Low Life, The,
Press warrants, forged,
Presting, the original term and its meaning,
Prest money,
Price, Capt,
Prince George guardship at Portsmouth,
Princess Augusta, a letter of marque,
Princess Augusta tender,
Princess Louisa, H.M.S,
Privateers, loss of seamen by, pressing from,
recapture of pressed crew of,
Prize money,
Profane abuse of crews by officers,
Protections, for masters, mates, boatswains, and carpenters, worthless,
if the holder were ashore, bound to be always carried,
slightest error in description invalidated,
were often disregarded,
special,
for men in lieu,
for crews of convoys and privateers expired on arrival in home waters,
lent, bought, and exchanged,
American,
Provisions in the Navy,
Quarantine,
Queensferry, the press-gang at,
Quota men,
"R" for "run" in ships' books to denote deserter,
Raleigh, Sir Walter,
Ramsgate, the press-gang at,
Reading, the press-gang at,
Registration of seamen,
Regulating, i.e. examination of pressed-men for fitness, ailments and
defects fabricated or assumed,
Regulating captains, character of a,
Repulse, H.M.S.,
Rendezvous, attacked, regulations of,
Rescue of pressed men from the gang,
Reunion, H.M.S.,
Rhode Island,
Rice,
Richard II,
Richards, John, midshipman,
Richardson, Lieut,
Right of search,
Roberts, Capt. John,
Rochester, the press-gang at,
Rodney, Admiral Lord,
Roebuck, H.M.S.,
Romsey, the press-gang at,
Routh, Capt,
_Royal Sovereign_, H.M.S.,
_Ruby_ gunship,
Rudsdale, Lieut.,
Rum,
_Rupert_, H.M.S.,
Russia, impressment in,
Russian Navy,
Ryde, the Lord of the Manor, claimed the privilege of private
protections for his ferrymen to Portsmouth and Gosport, the press-gang
at,
_Rye_, H.M.S.,
Rye, the press-gang at,
Sailor, the word disfavoured by Navy Board, a creature of
contradictions,
St. Ives, safe from the press-gang,
St. Lawrence River, deserters in,
St. Vincent, Earl of. See Jervis, J,
Salisbury, the press-gang at,
Sanders, Joseph,
_Sandwich_, H.M.S., flag-ship at the Nore,
Sax, Lieut,
_Scipio_, H.M.S.,
Scott, John, pressed when his protection was lying in his coat beside
him,
Scottish fishermen,
_Seahorse_, H.M.S.,
"Serving out slops,"
Severn trow-men, exempted from impress by 10% levy, Court of Exchequer
rules the reverse,
Seymour, Lieut.,
Sham gangs,
_Shandois_ sloop,
_Shannon_, H.M.S.,
Shannon, men working turf boats on, not exempt,
_Shark_, sloop,
"She" applied to a ship, a recent use,
Sheerness, crimpage at,
Shields, press-gang at,
Ships, impressment of,
Shipwrights in Scotch yards could be pressed as carpenters on warships,
Shirley, Governor,
Shoreham, the press-gang at,
_Shrewsbury_, H.M.S.,
Shrewsbury, sham gangs at,
Sloper, Major-General,
Smeaton, John,
Smugglers, crew of, pressed, unsuspecting passenger declared owner and
pressed,
_Solebay_, H.M.S.,
Southampton, the press-gang at,
Southey, Robt, _English Eclogues_,
_Southsea Castle_, H.M.S.,
Spithead, crimpage at, an entrepôt for pressed men,
_Spy_ sloop of war,
_Squirrel_, H.M.S.,
_Stag_, H.M.S.,
_Stag_ privateer,
Stangate Creek, the fray at,
Stephens, George, impressed at thirteen,
Stephenson, George,
Stepney Fields, press-gang at,
Stillwell, John,
Stourbridge, the press-gang at,
Strike-me-blind. See Rice,
Sturdy, Ralph, shot by the pressgang on the _Britannia_,
Sunderland, press-gang at,
Surgeons,
Swansea,
Tailors pressed on account of bandy legs,
Talbot, Mary Anne,
_Tasker_ tender,
Tassell, William, a protected mate, pressed ashore,
Taunton, Denny-Bowl quarry, near--three girls as sham gang, the
press-gang at,
Taylor, Lieut,
Taylor, William,
Teede, John, undone by tattoo marks,
Tenders, attacked, hired for transport of pressed men,
the health and comfort of pressed men on,
their victualling,
attempts to escape from and with,
Thames, press-gang on the, wherrymen exempted by levy of one in five,
_Thetis_, H.M.S.,
Thomson, Lieut,
Thurlow, Lord,
Ticket men. See Men in lieu,
Tobacco,
Trading classes the greatest sufferers from impressment, not without
resentment, various trades gradually exempted,
Tramps. See Vagabonds,
Transports,
Travelling, cost of,
_Trial and Life of Richard Parker_,
Trim, William,
Trinity House,
_Triton_ brig,
_Triton_, Indiaman,
Turning over of crews,
Tyne keelman exempt from impress by levy--the men supplied being
obtained by them by bounties,
_Union_ tender,
_Utrecht_, H.M.S.,
Vagabonds handed over to the press-gang,
_Vanguard_, H.M.S.,
Vernon, Admiral,
Victualling in the press-room,
Virginia,
Wages due to sailors to date of impressment,
Walbeoff, Capt,
Ward, Ned, _Wooden World Dissected_,
Waterford, press-gang at,
Watermen's language,
Watson, Lieut,
Watts, John, punished with 170 lashes,
Weapons used against the press-gang,
Weir, Alexander,
Wellington, Duke of,
Whalers, some of crew of, exempt from impressment,
Whitby, the press-gang at,
White, John, pressed at Bristol ninety yards from his vessel,
Whitefoot, James, impressed at Bristol,
Whitworth, Charles, Envoy to Russia,
"Widows' men."
Williams, John,
_Willing Traveller_ smuggler,
Wilson, John, shot by the press-gang on the _Britannia_,
_Winchelsea_, H.M.S.,
Winstanley, London butcher, served as pressed man 16 years,
_Wolf_ armed sloop,
Women and the Press-gang, See also under Press-gang, "The Press-gang and
Women."
_Wooden World Dissected_. See Ward, Ned,
Wool, illegal export of,
Worth, Capt,
Worthing fishermen,
Wye trow-men exempted from impress by 10% levy,
Court of Exchequer rules the reverse,
Yarmouth Roads, the press-gang in,
"Yellow Admirals."
Yorke, Sol. Gen,
Young, Admiral, his torpedo,