The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore

l the force of a Writ of Quo Warranto requiring every able-bodied male adult to show by what right he remained

whose noxious branches overspread practically every section of the community. Hence the press-gang, the embodiment of this pretension, eventually threw aside ostence and took its pick of all who came its way, let their occupation or position be what

een above 3000 men, or at most 4000; and now having occasion for 30,000, the remaining 26,000 must be found out of the Trade of the Nation." Naturally. Where a nation of shopkeepers was concerned it could hardly have been otherwise. They who go down to the sea in ships and do business i

had enough. You have taken my butcher, my baker, my candlestick-maker, nor have you spared that worthy youth, the 'prentice who was to have wed my daughter. My coachman, the driver of my gilded chariot, goes in fear of you, and as for my sedan-chair man, he is no more found. My colliers, draymen, watermen, the carpenters who build my ships and the mariners who sail them, the ablest of these my necessary helpers sling their hammock

ect born abroad was legally pressable, it laid it down as a logical sequence that no man, whatever his vocation or station in life, was lawfully exempt; that exemption was in consequence an official indulgence and not a right; and that apart from such indulgence every man, unless idiotic, blind, lame, maimed or otherwise physically unfit, was not only liable to be pressed, but could be legally pressed for the king's servic

persistent demands and ever-growing power of Trade-they spread themselves over the entire century of struggle for the mastery of the sea, from which they were a reaction, and, touching the lives of the common people in a hundred and one i

HE PRESS-GANG SE

rge II. cap. 17.] To deprive him of his right in this respect was to invite unpleasant diplomatic complications, of which England had already too many on her hands. Trade, too, looked upon the foreigner as her perquisite, and Trade must be indulged. Moreover, he fostered mutiny in the fleet, where he was prone to "fly in the face" of authority and to refuse to work, much less fight, for an alien people. If, however, he served on board British merchant ships for two years, or if he married in England, he at once lost caste, since he then became a natur

o be of alien birth were thenceforth only liberated "if unfit for service." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 2733-Capt. Young, 11 March 1756, endorsement, and numerous instances.] For this untoward change the foreigner could blame none but himself. When taxed with having an English wife, he could seldom or never be induced to admit the soft impeac

cords 1. 482-Admiral Lord Colvill, 29 Oct. 1762.] Many blacks, picked up in the West Indies or on the American coast "without hurting commerce," were to be found on board our ships of war, where, when not incapacitated by climatic

otect him. As early as 1705 old Justice, in his treatise on sea law, deplores bitterly the "barbarous custom of pressing promiscuously landsmen and seamen," and declares that the gang, in its purblind zeal, "hurried away tradesmen from their houses, 'prentices and journeymen from their masters' shops, and even housekeepers (householders) too." By 1744 the practice had become confirmed. In that year

support of his parents," who, although he had "never seen a ship in his life," was yet pressed whilst "passing to follow his business," which knew him no more; and of Winstanley, the London butcher, who served for upwards of sixteen years as a pressed man. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1501-Capt. Bligh, 16 May 1781. Admiralty Records 1. 1531-Duchess of Gordon,

ter and churchwardens of his parish, this migratory farm-hand, provided always he were not a sailor masquerading in that disguise, could traverse the length and breadth of the land to all intents and purposes a free man. To him, as well as to the grower of corn who depended so largely upon his

e as good as the blood he boasted, and he wore them with an aplomb suggestive of position and influence, the gentleman was safe; but let his pretensions to gentility lie more in the past than in the suit on his back, and woe betide him! In spite o

n this instance a simple regulation did the trick. Every man or boy who claimed the benefit of the age-limit when pressed, was required to prove his claim ere he could obtain his discharge. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 7. 300-Law Officers' Opinions, 1778-83, No. 43: "

city of appearance gave the lie to their assertions. George Stephens, son of a clerk in the Transport Office, suffered impressment when barely thirteen; and the son of a corporal in Lord Elkinton's regiment, one Alexander M'Donald, was listed in the s

have just seen, had little if any existence in fact. Apprentices pressed after the three years' exemption had expired were never given up, nor could their masters successfully claim them in law. They dropped like ripe fruit into the lap of Admiralty. On the other hand, apprentices pressed within the three years' exemption period were generally discharged, for if they were not, they could be freed by a writ of Habeas Corpus, or else the masters could maintain an action for damages against the Admiralty. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 7. 300-Law Officers' Opi

in emergency. To take wholesale such men as these, while it would enormously enhance the effectiveness of His Majesty's ships of war, must inevitably cripple sea-borne trade. It was therefore necessary, for the well-being of both services, to discover the golden mean. According to statute law [Footnote: 13 Georg

s affidavit, coupled with a succinct description of the deponent, constituted the holder's "protection" and shielded him, or was supposed to shield him, from molestation by the gang. Masters and mates of colliers, and of vessels laid up for the winter, came under thi

were essential to her safe and efficient working. How many were really required for this purpose was, however, a moot point on which ship-masters and naval offic

employed in that trade was entitled to carry one exempt able-bodied man for each hundred units of her registered tonnage, provided

ward consequences; but south of the Tweed this mode of collecting "chips" was viewed with disfavour. There, although ship-carpenters, sailmakers and men employed in rope-walks were by a stretch of the official imagination reckoned as persons using the sea, and although they were generally acknowledged to be no less indispensable to the complete economy

ashore to "look after his master's sheep" was pressed because the naval officer who met and questioned him "imagined sheep to have no affinity with a ship!" [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 2381-Capt. John Roberts, 11 July 1746. Capt. Roberts was a very downright individual, and years before the characteristic had got him into hot water. The occasion was when, in 1712, an Admiralty letter, addressed to him at Harwich and containing imp

as the rule that when William Tassell, mate of the Elizabeth ketch, was caught drinking in a Lynn alehouse one night at ten o'clock, after having obtained "leave to run about the town" u

the master setting forth his business," without grave risk of waking to find himself in the bilboes. The Mayor of Poole once refused to "back" press-warrants for local use unless protected men belonging to trading vessels of the port

ip in the grey of the morning. Now and then, by a run of luck, he made his offing in safety; but more frequently

tection from the impress which no Admiralty regulation, however sweeping, could invalidate or override. Safeguarded by this document, they were at liberty to live and work ashore, or to sail in the coal trade, until such time as they should be required to proceed on another whaling voyage. I

d that the departmental machinery for victualling and arming the fleet was like to be undone. With the growth of pressing the imposition was carried to absurd lengths. The crews of the impress tenders, engaged in conveying pressed men to the fleet, could not "proceed down" without falling victims to the very service

us class of persons who lived exclusively on neither land nor water, but habitually used both in the pursuit of their various callings. These were

ncient "Guardians of the Sea" whose powers were so clearly limited by the Ricardian statute, gradually extended the old-time jurisdiction until, for the purposes of the impress, it included all waterways, whether "nigh the sea" or inland, natural or artificial, whereon it was possible for craft to navigate. All persons working upon or habitually using such waterways were regarded as "using the sea,"

hid themselves" at the time of the making of such levies, were liable to be imprisoned for two years and "banished any more to row for a year and a day." [Footnote: 2 & 3 Philip and Mary, cap. 16.] The exemption he otherwise enjoyed appears to have conduced not a little to the waterman's proverbial joviality. As a youth he spent his leisure in "dancing and carolling," thus earning the familiar sobriquet of "the jolly young waterman." Eve

many cases reluctantly adopted, it was only because it entailed the lesser of two evils. The basis of such levies varied from one man in ten to one

the keels" meant. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 7. 299-Law Officers' Opinions, 1752-77, No. 70.] There were' few in the fleet who could have enlightened him of their own experience. The keelmen kept their ranks as far as possible intact. In this they were materially aided by the M

ered this proportion excessive, and Capt. Barker, at that time regulating the press at Bristol, was ordered to negotiate terms. He proposed a contribution of trowmen on the basis of one in every ten, coupling the suggestion with a thinly veiled threat that if it were not complied with he would set his gangs to work and take

ime largely escaped the attentions of the gang. In that year, however, an arrangement was entered into, under duress of the usual threat, to the effect that they should contribute one ma

easons of physical unfitness rather than to any acknowledged right to labour unmolested. Ireland's contribution to the fleet, apart from the notoriously disaffected, was of too much consequence to be played with; for the Irishman w

cupied a place entirely their own. They were c

] The enactment had no religious significance whatever; but in order to avoid any suspicion of Popish tendencies it was deemed advisable, by those responsible for the measure, to saddle it with a rider to the effect that all persons teaching, preaching or proclaiming the eating of fish, as enjoined by the Act, to be of "necessitee for the saving of the soule of man," should be punished as "spreaders of fause newes." The true significance of the measure lay in this. The abolition of Romish fast-days had resulted, since the Reformation, in an enormous fal

n and a feeder of the fleet as unrivalled for the excellence of its material as it was inexhaustible in its resources. Its prosperity was in fact its curse. Few exemptions were granted it. Adventurers after whale and cod had special concessions, suited to the peculiar conditions of their calling; but with t

was at that time called, was obliged to carry his warrant to the Justices inhabiting the place or places where it was proposed that the fishermen should be pressed, and of these Justices any two were empowered to "choose out such nomber of hable men" as

one landsman for each vessel. [Footnote: 2 George n. cap. 15.] In 1801, however, a sweeping change was inaugurated. A statute of that date provided that no person engaged in the taking, curing or selling of fish should be impress

as "to pick oysters and mussels at low water" were accou

s, and therefore they must not Be taken into the service unless there is a pressing occasion, and then they will be all forced thereinto." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1.2377-Capt. Robinson, 4 Feb. 1708-9, and endorsement.] Captain Boscawen, writing from the Nore in 1745, supplies the antithesis. He had been instructed to procure half a dozen fishing smacks,

rse from driving a bargain of this description. It saved much distress, much bad blood, much good money. In this way Worthing fishermen bought exemption in 1780. The fishery of that town was then in its infancy, the people engaged in it "ver

mind, he gradually developed the habit of withholding his stipulated quota. The unexpected arrival in his midst of an armed smack, followed by a spell of vigorou

ilies thus left destitute by common subscription. Buss fishermen, who followed the migratory herring; from fishing-ground to fishing-ground, were in another category. Their contribution, when on the Scottish coast, figured out at a man per buss, but as they were for some inscrutable reason called upon to pay similar tribute on other parts o

er craft, it was held that heaving at the capstan for a matter of only six or seven weeks in the year could never convert raw lads into useful seamen, even though they continued that healthful for

will therefore take these lads, who are admittedly of no service to you save for hauling in your nets or getting your anchors, and will make of the

waterman, or the worker in keel or trow. In his main vocation he "used the sea," and that was enough. For the use of t

against the press, every person exempt from that infliction, whether by statute law or Admiralty indulgence, was required to have in his

gangs. Some protections were issued for a limited period and lapsed when that period expired; others were of perpetual "force," unless invalidated by some irregular acton the part of the holder. No protection was good unless it bore a minute description of the person to whom it applied, and all protections had to be carried on the person and produced upon demand. Thomas Moverty was pressed out o

the bearer into a naval seaman. North-country apprentices, whose indentures bore a 14s. stamp in accordance with Scottish law, were pressed because that document did not bear a 15s. stamp according to English law. A seaman was in on

he name, date, place or other essential particular showed signs of "coaxing," that is, of having been "on purpose rubbed out" or altered; if a man's description did not figure in his protection, or if it figured on the back instead of in the margin, or in the margin instead of on the back; if his face wore a ruddy rather than a pale look, if his hair w

with more or less difficulty and delay, when the facts of the case were laid before the naval authorities; and in general it may be said, that although the Lords Commissioners were only too ready to wink at any colourable excuse whereby another physical unit might be added to the fleet, they nevertheless laid it down as a rule, inviolable at least on paper, "never to press any man from protections," since it brought "great trouble and clamour upon them." [F

han ordinarily stringent measures were adopted for the holding-up and examining of all protected persons, or of as many of them as could be got at by the gangs, to the end that all false or f

other a jolly Jack-tar on whose bundle may be read the word "Centurion." Now the Centurion was Anson's flag-ship, and in this print Hogarth has incidentally recorded the fact th

s of the press-gang for the rest of his life. But the Lords Commissioners refused to admit the plea "unless he was in a position not inferior to that of chief mate." On the other hand, Henry Love of Hastings, who had merely served in a single Dutch

mpany whom he desired to bring to London as witnesses in a suit then pending against him; but the building of the three earlier Eddystone lighthouses was allowed to be seriously

e lighthouse painted on her sail. Other great constructors, as well as rich mercantile firms, bought protection at a price. They supplied a stipulated number of men for the fleet, and found the arr

e pertaining to that Manor and confirmed by royal Letters Patent, in 1790 protected some twenty seafaring men to work his "Antient Ferry or Passage for the Wafting of Passengers to and from Ride, Portsmouth and Gosport, in a smack of about 14 to