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.



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 entrepot 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 entrepot 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 entrepot 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,

THE END