-------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | Total |
| | Seamen | | | additional |
| | voted for | | | number |
| Year. | the navy | Increase. | 'Waste.' | required. |
|-------------------------------------------------------|
| | /38,000\ | | | |
| 1803 | \77,600/ | 39,600 | -- | 39,600 |
| 1804 | 78,000 | 400 | 3,492 | 3,892 |
| | | |(for nine | |
| | | | months) | |
| 1805 | 90,000 | 12,000 | 4,680 | 16,680 |
| 1806 | 91,000 | 1,000 | 5,400 | 6,400 |
| 1807 | 98,600 | 7,600 | 5,460 | 13,060 |
| 1808 | 98,600 | -- | 5,460 | 5,460 |
| 1809 | 98,600 | -- | 5,460 | 5,460 |
| 1810 | 113,600 | 15,000 | 5,460 | 20,460 |
| 1811 | 113,600 | -- | 6,816 | 6,816 |
| 1812 | 113,600 | -- | 6,816 | 6,816 |
| 1813 | 108,600 | Reduction | -- | -- |
| | /86,000\ | | | |
| 1814 | \74,000/ | Do. | -- | -- |
-------------------------------------------------------
(No 'waste' is allowed for when there has been a reduction.)
It is a reasonable presumption that, except perhaps on a single
occasion, the merchant service did not furnish the men required--not
from any want of patriotism or of public spirit, but simply because
it was impossible. Even as regards the single exception the evidence
is not uncontested; and by itself, though undoubtedly strong, it
is not convincing, in view of the well-grounded presumptions the
other way. The question then that naturally arises is--If the navy
did not fill up its complements from the merchant service, how
did it fill them up? The answer is easy. Our naval complements
were filled up largely with boys, largely with landsmen, largely
with fishermen, whose numbers permitted this without inconvenience
to their trade in general, and, to a small extent, with merchant
seamen. It may be suggested that the men wanted by the navy could
have been passed on to it from our merchant vessels, which could
then complete their own crews with boys, landsmen, and fishermen.
It was the age in which Dr. Price was a great authority on public
finance, the age of Mr. Pitt's sinking fund, when borrowed money
was repaid with further borrowings; so that a corresponding
roundabout method for manning the navy may have had attractions
for some people. A conclusive reason why it was not adopted is
that its adoption would have been possible only at the cost of
disorganising such a great industrial undertaking as our maritime
trade. That this disorganisation did not arise is proved by the
fact that our merchant service flourished and expanded.
It is widely supposed that, wherever the men wanted for the navy
may have come from, they were forced into it by the system of
'impressment.' The popular idea of a man-of-war's 'lower deck'
of a century ago is that it was inhabited by a ship's company
which had been captured by the press-gang and was restrained
from revolting by the presence of a detachment of marines. The
prevalence of the belief that seamen were 'raised'--'recruited' is
not a naval term--for the navy by forcible means can be accounted
for without difficulty. The supposed ubiquity of the press-gang
and its violent procedure added much picturesque detail, and even
romance, to stories of naval life. Stories connected with it,
if authentic, though rare, would, indeed, make a deep impression
on the public; and what was really the exception would be taken
for the rule. There is no evidence to show that even from the
middle of the seventeenth century any considerable number of men
was raised by forcible impressment. I am not acquainted with a
single story of the press-gang which, even when much embellished,
professes to narrate the seizure of more than an insignificant body.
The allusions to forcible impressment made by naval historians
are, with few exceptions, complaints of the utter inefficiency
of the plan. In Mr. David, Hannay's excellent 'Short History of
the Royal Navy' will be found more than one illustration of its
inefficient working in the seventeenth century. Confirmation,
if confirmation is needed, can be adduced on the high authority
of Mr. M. Oppenheim. We wanted tens of thousands, and forcible
impressment was giving us half-dozens, or, at the best, scores.
Even of those it provided, but a small proportion was really
forced to serve. Mr. Oppenheim tells us of an Act of Parliament
(17 Charles I) legalising forcible impressment, which seems to
have been passed to satisfy the sailors. If anyone should think
this absurd, he may be referred to the remarkable expression of
opinion by some of the older seamen of Sunderland and Shields
when the Russian war broke out in 1854. The married sailors, they
said, naturally waited for the impressment, for 'we know that
has always been and always will be preceded by the proclamation
of bounty.'
The most fruitful source of error as to the procedure of the
press-gang has been a deficient knowledge of etymology. The word
has, properly, no relation to the use of force, and has no
etymological connection with 'press' and its compounds, 'compress,'
'depress,' 'express,' 'oppress,' &c. 'Prest money is so-called
from the French word _prest_--that is, readie money, for that
it bindeth all those that have received it to be ready at all
times appointed.' Professor Laughton tells us that 'A prest or
imprest was an earnest or advance paid on account. A prest man
was really a man who received the prest of 12d., as a soldier
when enlisted.' Writers, and some in an age when precision in
spelling is thought important, have frequently spelled _prest_
pressed, and _imprest_ impressed. The natural result has been
that the thousands who had received 'prest money' were classed
as 'pressed' into the service by force.