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 The Press-Gang 
 
 AFLOAT AND ASHORE 
 
 n 
 
 Sv-f' 
 
 J. R.. HUTCHINSON
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 \ 
 
 THE PRESS-GANG
 
 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 AFLOAT AND ASHORE 
 
 BY 
 
 J. R HUTCHINSON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 E. P. DUTTON & CO, 
 
 1914

 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. How THE Press-Gang came in 
 II. Why the Gang was necessary 
 
 III. What the Press-Gang was . 
 IV. Whom the Gang might take 
 V, What the Gang did Afloat 
 VI. Evading the Gang 
 
 VII. What the Gang did Ashore 
 VIII. At Grips with the Gang 
 IX. The Gang at Play 
 X. Women and the Press-Gang 
 XI. In the Clutch of the Gang 
 
 XII. How the Gang went out 
 
 Appendix : Admiral Young's Torpedo 
 Index 
 
 FAOB 
 
 I 
 
 54 
 
 77 
 
 106 
 
 143 
 
 172 
 202 
 
 233 
 
 257 
 280 
 
 3" 
 
 331 
 335
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 An Unwelcome Visit from the Press Gang Frontispiece 
 
 VAClVa PAOB 
 
 Manning the Navy ...... 56 
 
 Reproduced by kind permission from a rare print in the collection of 
 Mr. A. M. Broadlby. 
 
 The Press-Gang seizing a Victim .... 80 
 
 Seizing a Waterman on Tower Hill on the Morning 
 
 OF his Wedding Day . . . . .116 
 
 Jack in the Bilboes . . . . . .130 
 
 From the Painting by Morland. 
 
 One of the Rarest of Press-Gang Records . .188 
 
 a play>bill announcing' the suspension of the Gang's operations on 
 " Play Nights," in the collection of Mr. A. M. Broadlby, by 
 whose kind permission it is reproduced. 
 
 Sailors Carousing ...... 236 
 
 From the Mezzotint after J. Ibbbtson. 
 
 Anne Mills who served on board the Maidstose in 1740 258 
 Mary Anne Talbot . . .266 
 
 Mary Anne Talbot dressed as a Sailor . . . 278 
 
 The Press Gang, or English Liberty Displayed . 306 
 
 Admiral Young's Torpedo ..... 332 
 
 Reproduced from the Original Drawing at the PubKc Record OfHce.
 
 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 HOW THE PRESS-GANG CAME IN 
 
 The practice of pressing men that is to say, of 
 taking by intimidation or force those who will not 
 volunteer would seem to have been world-wide in its 
 adoption. 
 
 Wherever man desired to have a thing done, and 
 was powerful enough to insure the doing of it, there 
 he attained his end by the simple expedient of com- 
 pelling others to do for him what he, unaided, could 
 not do for himself. 
 
 The individual, provided he did not conspire in 
 sufficient numbers to impede or defeat the end in 
 view, counted only as a food-consuming atom in the 
 human mass which was set to work out the purpose 
 of the master mind and hand. His face value in the 
 problem was that of a living wage. If he sought to 
 enhance his value by opposing the master hand, the 
 master hand seized him and wrung his withers. 
 
 So long as the compelling power confined the 
 doing of the things it desired done to works of con- 
 struction, it met with little opposition in its designs, 
 experienced little difficulty in coercing the labour
 
 2 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 necessary for piling its walls, excavating its tanks, 
 raising its pyramids and castles, or for levelling its 
 roads and building its ships and cities. These were 
 the commonplace achievements of peace, at which 
 even the coerced might toil unafraid ; for apart from 
 the normal incidence of death, such works entailed 
 little danger to the lives of the multitudes who wrought 
 upon them. Men could in consequence be procured 
 for them by the exercise of the minimum of coercion 
 by, that is to say, the mere threat of it. 
 
 When peace went to the wall and the pressed 
 man was called upon to go to battle, the case assumed 
 another aspect, an acuter phase. Given a state of 
 war, the danger to life and limb, the incidence of 
 death, at once jumped enormously, and in proportion 
 as these disquieting factors in the pressed man's lot 
 mounted up, just in that proportion did his opposition 
 to the power that sought to take him become the 
 more determined, strenuous, and undisguised. 
 
 Particularly was this true of warlike operations 
 upon the sea, for to the extraordinary and terrible 
 risks of war were here added the ordinary but ever- 
 present dangers of wind and wave and storm, sufficient 
 in themselves to appal the unacccustomed and to 
 antagonise the unwilling. In face of these superlative 
 risks the difficulty of procuring men was accentuated 
 a thousand-fold, and with it both the nature and the 
 degree of the coercive force necessary to be exercised 
 for their procuration. 
 
 In these circumstances the Ruling Power had no 
 option but to resort to more exigent means of attaining 
 its end. In times of peace, working through myriad 
 hands, it had constructed a thousand monuments of
 
 HOW THE PRESS-GANG CAME IN 3 
 
 ornamental or utilitarian industry. These, with the 
 commonweal they represented, were now threatened 
 and must be protected at all costs. What more 
 reasonable than to demand of those who had built, 
 or of their successors in the perpetual inheritance of 
 toil, that they should protect what they had reared. 
 Hitherto, in most cases, the men required to meet 
 the national need had submitted at a threat. They 
 had to live, and coercive toil meant at least a living 
 wage. Now, made rebellious by a fearful looking 
 forward to the risks they were called upon to incur, 
 they had to be met by more effective measures. 
 Faced by this emergency, Power did not mince 
 matters. It laid violent hands upon the unwilling 
 subject and forced him, nolens volens, to sail its ships, 
 to man its guns, and to fight its battles by sea as he 
 already, under less overt compulsion, did its bidding 
 by land. 
 
 It is with this phase of pressing pressing open, 
 violent and unashamed that we purpose here to deal, 
 and more particularly with pressing as it applies to 
 the sea and sailors, to the Navy and the defence of an 
 Island Kingdom. 
 
 At what time the pressing of men for the sea 
 service of the Crown was first resorted to in these 
 islands it is impossible to determine. There is 
 evidence, however, that the practice was not only 
 in vogue, but firmly established as an adjunct of 
 power, as early as the days of the Saxon kings. It 
 was, in fact, coeval with feudalism, of which it may 
 be described as a side-issue incidental to a maritime 
 situation ; for though it is impossible to point to any 
 species of fee, as understood of the tenure of land,
 
 4 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 under which the holder was liable to render service at 
 sea, yet it must not be forgotten that the great ports 
 of the kingdom, and more especially the Cinque Ports, 
 were from time immemorial bound to find ships for 
 national purposes, whenever called upon to do so, in 
 return for the peculiar rights and privileges conferred 
 upon them by the Crown. The supply of ships 
 necessarily involved the supply of men to sail and 
 fight them, and in this supply, or, rather, in the mode 
 of obtaining it, we have undoubtedly the origin of the 
 later impress system. 
 
 With the reign of John the practice springs into 
 sudden prominence. The incessant activities of that 
 uneasy king led to almost incessant pressing, and at 
 certain crises in his reign commission after commis- 
 sion is directed, in feverish succession, to the sheriffs 
 of counties and the bailiffs of seaports throughout the 
 kingdom, straitly enjoining them to arrest and stay all 
 ships within their respective jurisdictions, and with the 
 ships the mariners who sail them.^ No exception was 
 taken to these edicts. Long usage rendered the royal 
 lien indefeasible.* 
 
 ^ By a plausible euphemism they were said to be "hired." As a 
 matter of fact, both ships and men were retained during the royal 
 pleasure at rates fixed by custom. 
 
 ' In more modem times the pressing of ships, though still put 
 forward as a prerogative of the Crown, was confined in the main to un- 
 foreseen exigencies of transport. On the fall of Louisburg in 1760, 
 vessels were pressed at that port in order to carry the prisoners of war 
 to France {Ad.* i. 1491 Capt. Byron, 17 June 1760) ; and in 1764, again, 
 we find Capt. Brereton, of the Falmouth^ forcibly impressing the East 
 India ship Revenge for the purpose of transporting to Fort St. George, 
 in British India, the company, numbering some four hundred and twenty- 
 one souls, of the Siam, then recently condemned at Manilla as unsea- 
 worthy Ad. I. 1498 Letters of Capt. Brereton, 1764. 
 
 Ad. , in the footnotes, signifies Admiralty Records,
 
 HOW THE PRESS-GANG CAME IN 5 
 
 In the carrying out of the royal commands there 
 was consequently, at this stage in the development of 
 pressing, little if any resort to direct coercion. From 
 the very nature of the case the principle of coercion 
 was there, but it was there only in the bud. The 
 king's right to hale whom he would into his service 
 being practically undisputed, a threat of reprisals in 
 the event of disobedience answered all purposes, and 
 even this threat was as yet more often implied than 
 openly expressed. King John was perhaps the first 
 to clothe it in words. Requisitioning the services of 
 the mariners of Wales, a notoriously disloyal body, he 
 gave the warrant, issued in 1208, a severely minatory 
 turn. " Know ye for certain," it ran, " that if ye act 
 contrary to this, we will cause you and the masters of 
 your vessels to be hanged, and all your goods to be 
 seized for our use." 
 
 At this point in the gradual subjection of the 
 seaman to the needs of the nation, defensive or the 
 contrary, we are confronted by an event as remarkable 
 in its nature as it is epoch-making in its consequences. 
 Magna Charta was sealed on the 15th of June 1215, 
 and within a year of that date, on, namely, the 14th 
 of April then next ensuing. King John issued his 
 commission to the barons of twenty-two seaports, 
 requiring them, in terms admitting of neither mis- 
 construction nor compromise, to arrest all ships, and 
 to assemble those ships, together with their companies, 
 in the River of Thames before a certain day.^ This 
 wholesale embargo upon the shipping and seamen of 
 the nation, imposed as it was immediately after the 
 ensealing of Magna Charta, raises a question of great 
 
 ^ Hardy, Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum^ 1833.
 
 6 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 constitutional interest. In what sense, and to what 
 extent, was the Charter of English Liberties intended 
 to apply to the seafaring man ? 
 
 Essentially a tyrant and a ruthless promise -breaker, 
 John's natural cruelty would in itself sufficiently 
 account for the dire penalties threatened under the 
 warrant of 1208 ; but neither his tyranny, his faithless- 
 ness of character, nor his very human irritation at the 
 concessions wrung from him by his barons, can explain 
 to our satisfaction why, having granted a charter 
 affirming and safeguarding the liberties of, ostensibly, 
 every class of his people, he should immediately inflict 
 upon one of those classes, and that, too, the one least 
 of all concerned in his historic dispute, the pains of a 
 most rigorous impressment. The only rational ex- 
 planation of his conduct is, that in thus acting he was 
 contravening no convention, doing violence to no 
 covenant, but was, on the contrary, merely exercising, 
 in accordance with time-honoured usage, an already 
 well-recognised, clearly defined and firmly seated 
 prerogative which the great charter he had so recently 
 put his hand to was in no sense intended to limit 
 or annul. 
 
 This view of the case is confirmed by subsequent 
 events. Press warrants, identical in every respect 
 save one with the historic warrant of 12 16, continued 
 to emanate from the Crown long after King John 
 had gone to his account, and, what is more to the 
 point, to emanate unchallenged. Stubbs himself, our 
 greatest constitutional authority, repeatedly admits as 
 much. Every crisis in the destinies of the Island 
 Kingdom and they were many and frequent pro- 
 duced its batch of these procuratory documents, every
 
 HOW THE PRESS-GANG CAME IN 7 
 
 batch its quota of pressed men. The inference is 
 plain. The mariner was the bondsman of the sea, 
 and to him the Nullus liber homo capiattir clause of 
 the Great Charter was never intended to apply. In 
 his case a dead-letter from the first, it so remained 
 throughout the entire chapter of his vicissitudes. 
 
 The chief point wherein the warrants of later times 
 differed from those of King John was this : As time 
 went on the penalties they imposed on those who 
 resisted the press became less and less severe. The 
 death penalty fell into speedy disuse, if, indeed, it was 
 ever inflicted at all. Imprisonment for a term of from 
 one to two years, with forfeiture of goods, was held to 
 meet all the exigencies of the case. Gradually even 
 this modified practice underwent amelioration, until at 
 length it dawned upon the official intelligence that a 
 seaman who was free to respond to the summons of 
 the boatswain's whistle constituted an infinitely more 
 valuable physical asset than one who cursed his king 
 and his Maker in irons. All punishment of the 
 condign order, for contempt or resistance of the press, 
 now went by the board, and in its stead the seaman 
 was merely admonished in paternal fashion, as in a 
 Proclamation of 1623, to take the king's shilling 
 "dutifully and reverently" when it was tendered 
 to him. 
 
 In its apparent guilelessness the admonition was 
 nevertheless woefully deceptive. Like the subdued 
 beat of drum by which, some five years later, the 
 seamen of London were lured to Tower Hill, there to 
 be seized and thrown bodily into the waiting fleet, it 
 masked under its mild exterior the old threat of 
 coercion in a new form. The ancient pains and
 
 8 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 penalties were indeed no more ; but for the back of 
 the sailor who was so ill-advised as to defy the press 
 there was another rod in pickle. He could now be 
 taken forcibly. 
 
 For side by side with the negative change involved 
 in the abolition of the old punishments, there had been 
 in progress, throughout the intervening centuries, a 
 positive development of far worse omen for the hap- 
 less sailor-man. The root-principle of direct coercion, 
 necessarily inherent in any system that seeks to foist 
 an arbitrary and obnoxious status upon any consider- 
 able body of men, was slowly but surely bursting into 
 bud. The years that had seen the unprested seaman 
 freed from the dread of the yardarm and the horrors 
 of the forepeak, had bred a new terror for him. 
 Centuries of usage had strengthened the arm of that 
 hated personage the Press-Master, and the compul- 
 sion which had once skulked under cover of a threat 
 now threw off its disguise and stalked the seafaring 
 man for what it really was Force, open and un- 
 ashamed. The dernier ressort of former days was 
 now the first resort. The seafaring man who refused 
 the king's service when " admonished " thereto had 
 short shrift. He was "first knocked down, and then 
 bade to stand in the king's name." Such, literally 
 and without undue exaggeration, was the later system 
 which, reaching the climax of its insolent pretensions 
 to justifiable violence in the eighteenth century, for 
 upwards of a hundred years bestrode the neck of the 
 unfortunate sailor like some monstrous Old Man of 
 the Sea. 
 
 Outbursts of violent pressing before the dawn of 
 the eighteenth century, though spasmodic and on the
 
 HOW THE PRESS-GANG CAME IN 9 
 
 whole infrequent, were not entirely unknown. Times 
 of national stress were peculiarly productive of them. 
 Thus when, in 1545, there was reason to fear a 
 French invasion, pressing of the most violent and 
 unprecedented character was openly resorted to in 
 order to man the fleet. The class who suffered most 
 severely on that occasion were the fisher folk of 
 Devon, "the most part" of whom were "taken as 
 marryners to serve the king." ^ 
 
 During the Civil Wars of the next century both 
 parties to the strife issued press warrants which were 
 enforced with the utmost rigour. The Restoration saw 
 a marked recrudescence of similar measures. How 
 great was the need of men at that time, and how 
 exigent the means employed to procure them, may be 
 gathered from the fact, cited by Pepys, that in 1666 
 the fleet lay idle for a whole fortnight " without any 
 demand for a farthing worth of anything, but only to 
 get men." The genial diarist was deeply moved by 
 the scenes of violence that followed. They were, he 
 roundly declares, "a shame to think of." 
 
 The origin of the term " pressing," with its cognates 
 *' to press" and "pressed," is not less remarkable than 
 the genesis of the violence it so aptly describes. 
 Originally the man who was required for the king's 
 service at sea, like his twin brother the soldier, was 
 not "pressed" in the sense in which we now use 
 the term. He was merely subjected to a process 
 called "presting." To "prest" a man meant to 
 enlist him by means of what was technically known 
 
 ^ State Papers, Henry vill. Lord Russell to the Privy Council, 
 22 Aug. 1545. Bourne, who cites the incident in his Tudor Seamen.^ 
 misses the essential point that the fishermen were forcibly pressed.
 
 10 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 as " prest " money " prest " being the English 
 equivalent of the obsolete F'rench prest, now prH, 
 meaning "ready." In the recruiter's vocabulary, 
 therefore, " prest " money stood for what is nowa- 
 days, in both services, commonly termed the " king's 
 shilling," and the man who, either voluntarily or under 
 duress, accepted or received that shilling at the 
 recruiter's hands, was said to be "prested " or "prest." 
 In other words, having taken the king's ready money, 
 he was thenceforth, during the king's pleasure, " ready " 
 for the king's service. 
 
 By the transfer of the prest shilling from the hand 
 of the recruiter to the pouch of the seaman a subtle 
 contract, as between the latter and his sovereign, was 
 supposed to be set up, than which no more solemn or 
 binding pact could exist save between a man and his 
 Maker. One of the parties to the contract was more 
 often than not, it is true, a strongly dissenting party ; 
 but although under the common law of the land this 
 circumstance would have rendered any similar con- 
 tract null and void, in this amazing transaction between 
 the king and his "prest" subject it was held to be 
 of no vitiating force. From the moment the king's 
 shilling, by whatever means, found its way into the 
 sailor's possession, from that moment he was the 
 king's man, bound in heavy penalties to toe the line of 
 duty, and, should circumstances demand it, to fight 
 the king's enemies to the death, be that fate either 
 theirs or his. 
 
 By some strange irony of circumstance there 
 happened to be in the English language a word 
 " pressed " which tallied almost exactly in pronuncia- 
 tion with the old French ^Nord prest, so long employed,
 
 HOW THE PRESS-GANG CAME IN 11 
 
 as we have seen, to differentiate from his fellows 
 the man who, by the devious means we have here 
 described, was made "ready" for the sea service. 
 " Press " means to constrain, to urge with force 
 definitions precisely connoting the development and 
 manner of violent enlistment. Hence, as the change 
 from covert to overt violence grew in strength, 
 "pressing," in the mouths of the people at large, 
 came to be synonymous with that most obnoxious, 
 oppressive and fear-inspiring system of recruiting 
 which, in the course of time, took the place of its 
 milder and more humane antecedent, " presting." 
 The "prest" man disappeared,^ and in his stead there 
 came upon the scene his later substitute the " pressed " 
 man, " forced," as Pepys so graphically describes his 
 condition, "against all law to be gone." An odder 
 coincidence than this gradual substitution of " pressed " 
 {or prest, or one more grimly appropriate in its applica- 
 tion, it would surely be impossible to discover in the 
 whose history of nomenclature. 
 
 With the growth of the power and violence of the 
 impress there was gradually inaugurated another 
 change, which perhaps played a larger part than any 
 other feature of the system in making it finally 
 obnoxious to the nation at large finally, because, 
 as we shall see, the nation long endured its exactions 
 with pathetic submission and lamentable indifference. 
 The incidence of pressing was no longer confined, 
 as in its earlier stages, to the overflow of the populace 
 
 ^ The Law Officers of the Crown retained him, on paper, until the 
 close of the eighteenth century an example in which they were followed 
 by the Admiralty. To admit his disappearance would have been to 
 knock the bottom out of their case.
 
 12 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 upon the country's rivers, and bays, and seas. 
 Gradually, as naval needs grew in volume and urgency, 
 the press net was cast wider and wider, until at 
 length, during the great century of struggle, when 
 the system was almost constantly working at its 
 highest pressure and greatest efficiency, practically 
 every class of the population of these islands was 
 subjected to its merciless inroads, if not decimated by 
 its indiscriminate exactions. 
 
 On the very threshold of the century we stumble 
 upon an episode curiously indicative of the set of the 
 tide. Czar Peter of Russia had been recently in 
 England, acquiring a knowledge of English customs 
 which, on his return home, he immediately began to 
 put in practice. His navy, such as it was, was 
 wretchedly manned.^ Russian serfs made bad sailors 
 and worse seamen. In the English ships thronging 
 the quays at Archangel there was, however, plenty of 
 good stuff men who could use the sea without being 
 sick, men capable of carrying a ship to her destination 
 without piling her up on the rocks or seeking nightly 
 shelter under the land. He accordingly pressed every 
 ninth man out of those ships. 
 
 When news of this high - handed proceeding 
 
 * The navy got together by Czar Peter had all but disappeared by 
 the time Catherine ii. came to the throne. " Ichabod" was written over 
 the doors of the Russian Admiralty. Their ships of war were few in 
 number, unseaworthy, ill-found, ill-manned. Two thousand able-bodied 
 seamen could with difficulty be got together in an emergency. The 
 nominal fighting strength of the fleet stood high, but that strength in 
 reality consisted of men " one half of whom had never sailed out of the 
 Gulf of Finland, whilst the other half had never sailed anywhere at all.'' 
 When the fleet was ordered to sea, the Admiralty " put soldiers on 
 board, and by calling them sailors persuaded themselves that they really 
 were so." State Papers^ Russia, vol. Ixxvii. Macartney, Nov. 1^27, 
 1766.
 
 HOW THE PRESS-GANG CAME IN 13 
 
 reached England, it roused the Queen and her 
 advisers to indignation. Winter though it was, they 
 lost no time in dispatching Charles Whitworth, a 
 rising diplomat of the suavest type, as " Envoy 
 Extraordinary to our Good (but naughty) Brother the 
 Czar of Muscovy," with instructions to demand the 
 release, immediate and unconditional, of the pressed 
 men. Whitworth found the Czar at Moscow. The 
 Autocrat of All the Russias listened affably enough 
 to what he had to say, but refused his demand in 
 terms that left scant room for doubt as to his sincerity 
 of purpose, and none for protracted "conversations." 
 "Every Prince," he declared for sole answer, "can 
 take what he likes out of his own havens."^ The 
 position thus taken up was unassailable. Centuries 
 of usage hedged the prerogative in, and Queen Anne 
 herself, in the few years she had been on the throne, 
 had not only exercised it with a free hand, but had 
 laid that hand without scruple upon many a foreign 
 seaman. 
 
 The lengths to which the system had gone by the 
 end of the third quarter of the century is thrown into 
 vivid relief by two incidents, one of which occurred in 
 1726, the other fifty years later. 
 
 In the former year one William Kingston, pressed 
 in the Downs a man who hailed from Lyme Regis 
 and habitually "used the sea" was, notwithstanding 
 that fact, discharged by express Admiralty order 
 because he was a " substantial man and had a landed 
 estate." 2 
 
 * Ad. 1. 1436 Capt J. Anderson's letters and enclosures ; State 
 Papers, Russia, vol. iv. Whitworth to Secretary Harley. 
 
 2 Ad. I. 1473 Capt Charles Browne, 25 March 1726, and 
 endorsement.
 
 14 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 The incident of 1776, known as the Duncan case, 
 occurred, or rather began, at North Shields. Lieu- 
 tenant Oaks, captain of the press-gang in that town, 
 one day met in the streets a man who, unfortunately 
 for his future, " had the appearance of a seaman." 
 He accordingly pressed him ; whereupon the man, 
 whose name was Duncan, produced the title-deeds of 
 certain house property in London, down Wapping 
 way, worth some six pounds per annum, and claimed 
 his discharge on the ground that as a freeholder and 
 a voter he was immune from the press. The lieutenant 
 laughed the suggestion to scorn, and Duncan was 
 shipped south to the fleet. 
 
 The matter did not end there. Duncan's friends 
 espoused his cause and took energetic steps for his 
 release. Threatened with an action at law, and averse 
 from incurring either unnecessary risks or opprobrium 
 where pressed men were concerned, the Admiralty 
 referred the case to Mr. Attorney-General (afterwards 
 Lord) Thurlow forliis opinion. 
 
 The point of law Thurlow was called upon to 
 resolve was, " Whether being a freeholder is an 
 exception from being pressed ; " and as Duncan was 
 represented in counsel's instructions on what ground, 
 other than his "appearance," is not clear to be a man 
 who habitually used the sea, it is hardly matter for 
 surprise that the great jurist's opinion, biassed as it 
 obviously was by that alleged fact, should have been 
 altogether inimical to the pressed man and favourable 
 to the Admiralty. 
 
 ** I see no reason," he writes, in his crabbed hand 
 and nervous diction, " why men using the sea, and 
 being otherwise fit objects to be impressed into His
 
 HOW THE PRESS-GANG CAME IN 15 
 
 Majesty's service, should be exempted only because 
 they are Freeholders. Nor did I ever read or hear 
 of such an exemption. Therefore, unless some use or 
 practice, which I am ignorant of, gives occasion to 
 this doubt, I see no reason for a Mariner being 
 discharged, seriously, because he is a Freeholder. 
 It's a qualification easily attained : a single house 
 at Wapping would ship a first-rate man-of-war. If 
 a Freeholder is exempt, eo no7nine, it will be impossible 
 to go on with the pressing service.^ There is no 
 knowing a Freeholder by sight : and if claiming that 
 character, or even showing deeds is sufficient, few 
 Sailors will be without it."^ 
 
 Backed by this opinion, so nicely in keeping with 
 its own inclinations, the Admiralty kept the man. 
 Its views, like its practice, had undergone an antipodal 
 change since the Kingston incident of fifty years 
 before. And possession, commonly reputed to be 
 nine points of the law, more than made up for the 
 lack of that element in Mr. Attorney-General's 
 sophistical reasoning. 
 
 In this respect Thurlow was in good company, 
 for although Coke, who lived before violent pressing 
 became the rule, had given it as his opinion that the 
 king could not lawfully press men to serve him in his 
 wars, the legal luminaries who came after him, 
 and more particularly those of the eighteenth century, 
 differed from him almost to a man. Blackstone, 
 
 ^ It would have been equally impossible to go on with the naval 
 service had the fleet contained many freeholders like John Barnes. 
 Granted leave of absence from his ship, the Neptune, early in May, " in 
 order to give his vote in the city," he " return'd not till the 8th of 
 August." Ad. I. 2653 Capt. Whorwood, 23 Aug. 1741. 
 
 * Ad. 7. 299 Law Officers' Opinions, i7S(>-77, No. 64.
 
 16 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 whilst admitting that no statute expressly legalised 
 pressing, reminded the nation with a leer, we 
 might almost say that many statutes strongly implied, 
 and hence so he put it amply justified it. In thus 
 begging the question he had in mind the so-called 
 Statutes of Exemption which, in protecting from 
 impressment certain persons or classes of persons, 
 proceeded on the assumption, so dear to the Sea 
 Lords, that the Crown possessed the right to press all. 
 This also was the view, taken by Yorke, Solicitor- 
 General in 1757. "I take the prerogative," he 
 declares, "to be most clearly legal." ^ 
 
 Another group of lawyers took similar, though 
 less exalted ground. Of these the most eminent was 
 that "great oracle of law," Lord Mansfield. "The 
 power of pressing," he contends, " is founded upon 
 immemorial usage allowed for ages. If not, it can 
 have no ground to stand upon. The practice is 
 deduced from that trite maxim of the Constitutional 
 Law of England, that private mischief had better 
 be submitted to than that public detriment should 
 ensue." 
 
 The sea-lawyer had yet to be heard. With him 
 "private mischief" counted for much, the usage of 
 past ages for very little. He lived and suffered in 
 the present. Of common law he knew nothing, but 
 he possessed a fine appreciation of common justice, 
 and this forced from him an indictment of the system 
 that held him in thrall as scathing in its truth, its 
 simplicity and its logic as it is spontaneous and 
 untutored in its diction. 
 
 " You confidently tell us," said he, dipping his 
 
 * Ad. 7. 298 Law Officers' Opinions, 1733-56, No. 102.
 
 HOW THE PRESS-GANG CAME IN 17 
 
 pen in the gall of bitterness, "that our King is 
 a father to us and our officers friends. They are so, 
 we must confess, in some respects, for Indeed they 
 use us like Children in Whiping us into Obedience. 
 As for English Tars to be the Legitimate Sons of 
 Liberty, it is an Old Cry which we have Experienced 
 and Knows it to be False. God knows, the Con- 
 stitution is admirable well Callculated for the Safety 
 and Happiness of His Majesty's Subjects who live 
 by Employments on Shore ; but alass, we are not 
 Considered as Subjects of the same Sovereign, unless 
 it be to Drag us by Force from our Families to Fight 
 the Battles of a Country which Refuses us Protection." ^ 
 Such, in rough outline, was the Impress System 
 of the eighteenth century. In its inception, its 
 development, and more especially in its extraordinary 
 culmination, it perhaps constitutes the greatest 
 anomaly, as it undoubtedly constitutes the grossest 
 imposition, any free people ever submitted to. 
 Although unlawful in the sense of having no founda- 
 tion in law, and oppressive and unjust in that it yearly 
 enslaved, under the most noxious conditions, thousands 
 against their will, it was nevertheless for more than 
 a hundred years tolerated and fostered as the readiest, 
 speediest and most effective means humanly devisable 
 for the manning of a fleet whose toll upon a free 
 people, in the same period of time, swelled to more 
 than thrice its original bulk. Standing as a bulwark 
 against aggression and conquest, it ground under its 
 heel the very people it protected, and made them 
 slaves in order to keep them free. Masquerading 
 as a protector, it dragged the wage-earner from his 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 5125 Petitions of the Seamen of the Fleet, 1797. 
 
 2
 
 18 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 home and cast his sta *ving family upon the doubtful 
 mercies of the parish. And as if this were not 
 enough, whilst justifying its existence on the score 
 of public benefit it played havoc with the fisheries, 
 clipped the wings of the merchant service, and sucked 
 the life-blood out of trade. 
 
 It was on the rising tide of such egregious con- 
 tradictions as these that the press-gang came in ; for 
 the press-gang was at once the embodiment and the 
 active exponent of all that was anomalous or bad in 
 the Impress System.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY 
 
 The root of the necessity that seized the British 
 sailor and made of him what he in time became, 
 the most abject creature and the most efficient 
 fighting unit the world has ever produced, lay in 
 the fact that he was island-born. 
 
 In that island a great and vigorous people had 
 sprung into being a people great in their ambi- 
 tions, commerce and dominion ; vigorous in holding 
 what they had won against the assaults, meditated 
 or actual, of those who envied their greatness and 
 coveted their possessions. Of this island people, as 
 of their world-wide interests, the "chiefest defence" 
 was a "good fleet at sea."^ 
 
 The Peace of Utrecht, marking though it did 
 the close of the protracted war of the Spanish 
 Succession, brought to the Island Kingdom not 
 peace, but a sword ; for although its Navy was 
 now as unrivalled as its commerce and empire, the 
 supreme struggle for existence, under the guise of 
 the mastery of the sea, was only just begun. De- 
 cade after decade, as that struggle waxed and waned 
 
 ^ This famous phrase is used, perhaps for the first time, by Josiah 
 Burchett, sometime Secretary to the AdmiraUy, in his Observations on 
 the Navy, 1700. 
 
 9
 
 20 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 but went remorselessly on, the Navy grew in ships, 
 the ships in tonnage and weight of metal, and with 
 their growth the demand for men, imperative as the 
 very existence of the nation, mounted ever higher 
 and higher. In 1756 fifty thousand sufficed for the 
 nation's needs. By 1780 the number had reached 
 ninety-two thousand ; and with 1802 it touched high- 
 water mark in the unprecedented total of one 
 hundred and twenty-nine thousand men in actual 
 sea pay.^ 
 
 Beset by this enormous and steadily growing 
 demand, the Admiralty, the defensive proxy of the 
 nation, had perforce to face the question as to 
 where and how the men were to be obtained. 
 
 The source of supply was never at any time in 
 doubt. Here, ready to hand, were some hundreds 
 of thousands of persons using the sea, or following 
 vocations merging into the sea in the capacity of 
 colliers, bargemen, boatmen, longshoremen, fisher- 
 men and deep-sea sailors or merchantmen, who 
 constituted the natural Naval Reserve of an Island 
 Kingdom a reserve ample, if judiciously drawn 
 upon, to meet, and more than meet, the Navy's 
 every need. 
 
 The question of means was one more complicated, 
 more delicate, and hence incomparably more difficult 
 of solution. To draw largely upon these seafaring 
 classes, numerous and fit though they were, meant 
 detriment to trade, and if the Navy was the fist, 
 trade was the backbone of the nation. The suffer- 
 
 * Ad. 7. 567 Navy Progress, 1 756-1 805. These figures are below 
 rather than above the mark, since the official returns on which they 
 are based are admittedly deficient.
 
 WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY 21 
 
 ings of trade, moreover, reacted unpleasantly upon 
 those in power at Whitehall. Methods of procura- 
 tion must therefore be devised of a nature such as 
 to insure that neither trade nor Admiralty should 
 suffer that they should, in fact, enjoy what the 
 unfortunate sailor never knew, some reasonable 
 measure of ease. 
 
 In its efforts to extricate itself and trade from 
 the complex difficulties of the situation, Admiralty 
 had at its back what an eighteenth century Beresford 
 would doubtless have regarded as the finest talent 
 of the service. Neither the unemployed admiral 
 nor the half-pay captain had at that time, in his 
 enforced retirement at Bath or Cheltenham, taken 
 seriously to parliamenteering, company promoting, 
 or the concocting of pedigrees as a substitute for 
 walking the quarter-deck. His occupation was 
 indeed gone, but in its stead there had come to 
 him what he had rarely enjoyed whilst on the active 
 service list opportunity. Carried away by the 
 stimulus of so unprecedented a situation as that 
 afforded by the chance to make himself heard, he 
 rushed into print with projects and suggestions which 
 would have revolutionised the naval policy and 
 defence of the country at a stroke had they been 
 carried into effect. Or he devoted his leisure to 
 the invention of signal codes, semaphore systems, 
 embryo torpedoes, gun carriages, and what is more 
 to our point methods ostensibly calculated to man 
 the fleet in the easiest, least oppressive and most 
 expeditious manner possible for a free people. 
 Armed with these schemes, he bombarded the Ad- 
 miralty with all the pertinacity he had shown in
 
 22 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 his quarter-deck days in applying for leave or 
 seeking promotion. Many, perhaps most, of the 
 inventions which it was thus sought to father upon 
 the Sea Lords, were happily never more heard of; 
 but here and there one, commending itself by its 
 seeming practicability, was selected for trial and 
 duly put to the test. 
 
 Fair to look upon while still in the air, these 
 fruits of leisured superannuation proved deceptively 
 unsound when plucked by the hand of experiment. 
 Registration, first adopted in 1696, held out un- 
 deniable advantages to the seaman. Under its 
 provisions he drew a yearly allowance when not 
 required at sea, and extra prize-money when on 
 active service. Yet the bait did not tempt him, 
 and the system was soon discarded as useless and 
 inoperative. Bounty, defined by some sentimentalist 
 as a "bribe to Neptune," for a while made a stronger 
 appeal ; but, ranging as it did from five to almost 
 any number of pounds under one hundred per head, 
 it proved a bribe indeed, and by putting an irresist- 
 ible premium on desertion threatened to decimate 
 the very ships it was intended to man. In 1795 
 what was commonly known as the Quota Scheme 
 superseded it. This was a plan of Pitt's devising, 
 under which each county contributed to the fleet 
 according to its population, the quota varying from 
 one thousand and eighty-one men for Yorkshire to 
 twenty-three for Rutland, whilst a minor Act levied 
 special toll on seaports, London leading the way with 
 five thousand seven hundred and four men. Like 
 its predecessor Bounty, however, this mode of re- 
 cruiting drained the Navy in order to feed it. Both
 
 WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY 23 
 
 systems, moreover, possessed another and more 
 serious defect. When their initial enthusiasm had 
 cooled, the counties, perhaps from force of habit as 
 component parts of a country whose backbone was 
 trade, bought in the cheapest market. Hence the 
 Quota Man, consisting as he generally did of the 
 offscourings of the merchant service, was seldom 
 or never worth the money paid for him. An old 
 man-o'-war's-man, picking up a miserable specimen 
 of this class of recruit by the slack of his ragged 
 breeches, remarked to his grinning messmates as 
 he dangled the disreputable object before their 
 eyes: "'Ere's a lubber as cost a guinea a pound!" 
 He was not far out in his estimate. 
 
 As in the case of the good old method of re- 
 cruiting by beat of drum and the lure of the king's 
 shilling, system after system thus failed to draw into 
 its net, however speciously that net was spread, 
 either the class or the number of men whose services 
 it was desired to requisition. And whilst these 
 futilities were working out their own condemnation 
 the stormcloud of necessity grew bigger and bigger 
 on the national horizon. Let trade suffer as it 
 might, there was nothing for it but to discard all 
 new-fangled notions and to revert to the system 
 which the usage of ages had sanctioned. The 
 return was imperative. Failing what Junius stigma- 
 tised as the "spur of the Press," the right men in 
 the right numbers were not to be procured. The 
 wisdom of the nation was at fault. It could find 
 no other way. 
 
 There were, moreover, other reasons why the 
 press-gang was to the Navy an indispensable ap-
 
 24 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 pendage reasons perhaps of little moment singly, 
 but of tremendous weight in the scale of naval 
 necessity when lumped together and taken in the 
 aggregate. 
 
 Of these the most prominent was that fatal flaw 
 in naval administration which Nelson was in the 
 habit of anathematising as the " Infernal System." 
 Due partly to lack of foresight and false economy 
 at Whitehall, partly to the character of the sailor 
 himself, it resolved itself into this, that whenever a 
 ship was paid off and put out of commission, all on 
 board of her, excepting only her captain and her 
 lieutenants, ceased to be officially connected with 
 the Navy. Now, as ships were for various reasons 
 constantly going out of commission, and as the 
 paying off of a first- second- or third-rate automati- 
 cally discharged from their country's employ a body 
 of men many hundreds in number, the "lowering" 
 effects of such a system, working year in, year out, 
 upon a fleet always in chronic difficulties for men, 
 may be more readily imagined than described. 
 
 To a certain limited extent the loss to the service 
 was minimised by a process called "turning over"; 
 that is to say, the company of a ship paying off was 
 turned over bodily, or as nearly intact as it was 
 possible to preserve it, to another ship which at the 
 moment chanced to be ready, or making ready, for 
 sea. Or it might be that the commander of a ship 
 paying off, transferred to another ship fitting out, 
 carried the best men of his late command, com- 
 monly known as "old standers," along with him. 
 
 Unfortunately, the occasion of fitting out did not 
 always coincide with the occasion of paying off; and
 
 WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY 25 
 
 although turnovers were frequently made by Ad- 
 miralty order, there were serious obstacles in the 
 way of their becoming general. Once the men were 
 paid off, the Admiralty had no further hold upon 
 them. By a stretch of authority they might, it is 
 true, be confined to quarters or on board a guard- 
 ship ; but if in these circumstances they rose in a 
 body and got ashore, they could neither be retaken 
 nor punished as deserters, but to use the good old 
 service term had to be "rose" again by means of the 
 press-gang. Turnovers, accordingly, depended mainly 
 upon two closely related circumstances : the good- 
 will of the men, and the popularity of commanders. 
 A captain who was notorious for his use of the lash 
 or the irons, or who was reputed unlucky, rarely if 
 ever got a turnover except by the adoption of the 
 most stringent measures. One who, on the other 
 hand, treated his men with common humanity, who 
 bested the enemy in fair fight and sent rich prizes 
 into port, never wanted for " followers," and rarely, 
 if ever, had recourse to the gang.^ Under such men 
 
 ^ In his Autobiography Lord Dundonald asserts that he was only 
 once obliged to resort to pressing a statement so remarkable, con- 
 sidering the times he lived in, as to call for explanation. The occasion 
 was when, returning from a year's " exile in a tub," a converted collier 
 that " sailed like a hay-stack," he fitted out the Pallas at Portsmouth 
 and could obtain no volunteers. Setting his gangs to work, he got 
 together a scratch crew of the wretchedest description ; yet so mar- 
 vellous were the personality and disciplinary ability of the man, that 
 with only this unpromising material ready to his hand he intercepted 
 the Spanish trade off Cape Finisterre and captured four successive 
 prizes of very great value. The Pallas returned to Portsmouth with 
 "three large golden candlesticks, each about five feet high, placed 
 upon the mast-heads," and from that time onward Dundonald's reputa- 
 tion as a "lucky" commander was made. He never again had occasion 
 to invoke the aid of the gang.
 
 26 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 the seaman would gladly serve "even in a dung 
 barge. "^ Unhappily for the service, such commanders 
 were comparatively few, and in their absence the 
 Infernal System drained the Navy of its best blood 
 and accentuated a hundred-fold the already over- 
 whelming need for the impress. 
 
 The old-time sailor,* again, was essentially a 
 creature of contradictions. Notorious for a " swear- 
 ing rogue," who punctuated his strange sea-lingo with 
 horrid oaths and appalling blasphemies, he made the 
 responses required by the services of his Church with 
 all the superstitious awe and tender piety of a child. 
 Inconspicuous for his thrift or " forehandedness," it 
 was nevertheless a common circumstance with him 
 to have hundreds of pounds, in pay and prize-money, 
 to his credit at his bankers, the Navy Pay-Office ; 
 and though during a voyage he earned his money as 
 hardly as a horse, and was as poor as a church mouse, 
 yet the moment he stepped ashore he made it fly by 
 the handful and squandered it, as the saying went, 
 like an ass. When he was sober, which was seldom 
 enough provided he could obtain drink, he possessed 
 scarcely a rag to his back ; but when he was drunk 
 he was himself the first to acknowledge that he had 
 "too many cloths in the wind." According to his 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 2733 Capt. Young, 28 Sept. 1776. 
 
 The use of the word " sailor " was long regarded with disfavour 
 by the Navy Board, who saw in it only a colourless substitute for the 
 good old terms " seaman " and " mariner." Capt. Bertie, of the Ruby 
 gunship, once reported the pressing of a "sailor," Thomas Letting by 
 name, out of a collier in Yarmouth Roads, and was called upon by 
 My Lords to define the new-fangled term. This he did with admirable 
 circumlocution. " As for explaining the word ' sailor,' " said he, " I can 
 doe it no otherwise than (by) letting of you know that Thomas Letting 
 is a Sailor." .<4</. i. 1468 Capt. Bertie, 6 May 1706.
 
 WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY 27 
 
 own showing, his wishes in life were limited to 
 three: "An island of tobacco, a river of rum, and 
 more rum ; " but according to those who knew him 
 better than he knew himself, he would at any time 
 sacrifice all three, together with everything else he 
 possessed, for the gratification of a fourth and un- 
 confessed desire, the dearest wish of his life, woman. 
 Ward's description of him, slightly paraphrased, fits 
 him to a hair : "A salt-water vagabond, who is never 
 at home but when he is at sea, and never contented 
 but when he is ashore ; never at ease until he has 
 drawn his pay, and never satisfied until he has spent 
 it ; and when his pocket is empty he is just as much 
 respected as a father-in-law is when he has beggared 
 himself to give a good portion with his daughter."^ 
 With all this he was brave beyond belief on the deck 
 of a ship, timid to the point of cowardice on the back 
 of a horse ; and although he fought to a victorious 
 finish many of his country's most desperate fights, 
 and did more than any other man of his time to make 
 her the great nation she became, yet his roving life 
 robbed him of his patriotism and made it necessary 
 to wring from him by violent means the allegiance 
 he shirked. It was at this point that he came in 
 contact with what he hated most in life, yet dearly 
 loved to dodge the press-gang. 
 
 That such a creature of contradictions should be 
 averse from serving the country he loved is perhaps 
 the most consistent trait in his character ; for here at 
 least the sailor had substantial grounds for his in- 
 consistency. 
 
 For one thing, his aversion to naval service was 
 
 ^ Ward, Wooden World Dissected^ 1744.
 
 28 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 as old as the Navy itself, having grown with its 
 growth. We have seen in what manner King John 
 was obliged to admonish the sailor in order to induce 
 him to take his prest-money ; and Edward in., re- 
 ferring to his attitute in the fourteenth century, is said to 
 have summed up the situation in the pregnant words : 
 " There is navy enough in England, were there only 
 the will." Raleigh, recalling with bitterness of soul 
 those glorious Elizabethan days when no adventurer 
 ever dreamt of pressing, scoffed at the seamen of 
 King James's time as degenerates who went on board 
 a man-of-war " with as great a grudging as if it were 
 to be slaves in the galleys." A hundred years did 
 not improve matters. The sailors of Queen Anne 
 entered her ships like men "dragged to execution."^ 
 In the merchant service, where the sailor received 
 his initiation into the art and mystery of the sea, life 
 during the period under review, and indeed for long 
 after, was hard enough in all conscience. Systematic 
 and unspeakably inhuman brutality made the merchant 
 seaman's lot a daily inferno. Traders sailing out of 
 Liverpool, Bristol and a score of other British ports 
 depended almost entirely for their crews upon drugged 
 rum, so evil was their reputation in this respect 
 amongst seafaring men. In the East India Company's 
 ships, even, the conditions were little short of unen- 
 durable. Men had rather be hanged than sail to the 
 Indies in them.^ 
 
 Of all these bitternesses the sailor tasted freely. 
 
 * Justice, Dominion and Laws of the Sea, 1705, Appendix on 
 Pressing. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1463, 1472 Letters of Captains Bouler and Billingsley, 
 and numerous instances.
 
 WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY 29 
 
 Cosmopolite that he was, he wandered far a-sea and 
 incurred the blows and curses of many masters, happy 
 if, amid his manifold tribulations, he could still call his 
 soul his own. Just here, indeed, was where the shoe 
 of naval service pinched him most sorely ; for though 
 upon the whole life on board a man-of-war was not 
 many shades worse than life aboard a trader, it yet 
 introduced into his already sadly circumscribed vista 
 of happiness the additional element of absolute loss of 
 free-will, and the additional dangers of being shot as 
 an enemy or hanged as a deserter. These additional 
 things, the littles that yet meant so much, bred in him 
 a hatred of the service so implacable that nothing less 
 drastic than the warrant and the hanger could cope 
 with or subdue it. Eradicated it never was. 
 
 The keynote to the sailor's treatment in the Navy 
 may be said to have been profane abuse. Officers of 
 all ranks kept the Recording Angel fearfully busy. 
 With scarcely an exception they were men of blunt 
 speech and rough tongue who never hesitated to call 
 a spade a spade, and the ordinary seaman something 
 many degrees worse. These were technicalities of the 
 service which had neither use nor meaning elsewhere. 
 But to the navigation of the ship, to daily routine and 
 the maintenance of that exact discipline on which the 
 Navy prided itself, they were as essential as is milk' to 
 the making of cheese. Nothing could be done without 
 them. Decent language was thrown away upon a set 
 of fellows who had been bred in that very shambles of 
 language, the merchant marine. To them " 'twas just 
 all the same as High Dutch." They neither understood 
 it nor appreciated its force. But a volley of thumping 
 oaths, bellowed at them from the brazen throat of a
 
 30 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 speaking-trumpet, and freely interlarded with adjec- 
 tives expressive of the foulness of their persons, and 
 the ultimate state and destination of their eyes and 
 limbs, saved the situation and sometimes the ship. 
 Officers addicted to this necessary flow of language 
 were sensible of only one restraint. Visiting parties 
 caused them embarrassment, and when this was the 
 case they fell back upon the tactics of the commander 
 who, unable to express himself with his usual fluency 
 because of the presence of ladies on the quarter- 
 deck, hailed the foreyard-arm in some such terms as 
 these : " Foreyard-arm there ! God bless you ! God 
 bless you 1 God bless you ! Vou know what I 
 mean ! " 
 
 Hard words break no bones, and to quarter-deck 
 language, as such, the sailor entertained no rooted 
 objection. What he did object to, and object to with 
 all the dogged insistence of his nature, was the fact 
 that this habitual flow of profane scurrility was only 
 the prelude to what, with grim pleasantry, he was ac- 
 customed to describe as "serving out slops." Any- 
 thing intended to cover his back was "slops" to the 
 sailor, and the punishments meted out to him covered 
 him like a garment. 
 
 The old code of naval laws, the Monumenta 
 Juridica or Black Book of the Admiralty, contained 
 many curious disciplinary methods, not a few of which 
 too long survived the age they originated in. If, for 
 instance, one sailor robbed another and was found 
 guilty of the crime, boiling pitch was poured over his 
 head and he was powdered with feathers "to mark 
 him," after which he was marooned on the first island 
 the ship fell in with. Seamen guilty of undressing
 
 WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY 31 
 
 themselves while at sea were ducked three times from 
 the yard-arm a more humane use of that spar than 
 converting it into a gallows. On this code were based 
 Admiral the Earl of Lindsay's " Instructions " of 1695. 
 These included ducking, keel-hauling, fasting, flogging, 
 weighting until the " heart or back be ready to break," 
 and "gogging" or scraping the tongue with hoop-iron 
 for obscene or profane swearing ; for although the 
 "gentlemen of the quarter-deck" might swear to their 
 heart's content, that form of recreation was strictly 
 taboo in other parts of the ship. Here we have the 
 origin of the brutal discipline of the next century, 
 summed up in the Consolidation Act of George 11.^ 
 an Act wherein ten out of thirty-six articles awarded 
 capital punishment without option, and twelve death 
 or minor penalties. 
 
 Of the latter, the one most commonly in use was 
 flogging at the gangway or jears. This duty fell to 
 the lot of the boatswain's mate.^ The instrument 
 employed was the cat-o'-nine-tails, the regulation dose 
 twelve lashes ; but since the actual number was left to 
 the captain's discretion or malice, as the case might 
 be, it not infrequently ran into three figures. Thus 
 John Watts, able seaman on board H.M.S. Harwich, 
 Capt. Andrew Douglas commander, in 1704 received 
 one hundred and seventy lashes for striking a ship- 
 mate in self-defence, his captain meanwhile standing 
 by and exhorting the boatswain's mate to " Swinge 
 the Dog, for hee has a Tough Hide" and 
 
 ^ 22 George ii. c. 33. 
 
 * "As it is the Custom of the Army to punish with the Drums, so it 
 is the known Practice of the Navy to punish with the Boatswain's Mate." 
 Ad. I. 1482 Capt. (afterwards Admiral) Boscawen, 25 Feb. 17/^6-7.
 
 32 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 that, too, with a cat waxed to make it bite the 
 harder.^ 
 
 It was just this unearned increment of blows this 
 dash of bitter added to the regulation cup that made 
 Jack's gorge rise. He was not the sort of chap, it 
 must be confessed, to be ruled with a feather. " An 
 impudent rascal " at the best of times, he often 
 "deserved a great deal and had but little."^ But 
 unmerited punishment, too often devilishly devised, 
 maliciously inflicted and inhumanly carried out, broke 
 the back of his sense of justice, already sadly over- 
 strained, and inspired him with a mortal hatred of all 
 things naval. 
 
 For the slightest offence he was " drubbed at the 
 gears"; for serious offences, from ship to ship. If, 
 when reefing topsails on a dark night or in the teeth 
 of a sudden squall, he did not handle the canvas with 
 all the celerity desired by the officer of the watch, he 
 and his fellow yardsmen were flogged en bloc. He 
 was made to run the gauntlet, often with the blood 
 gushing from nose and ears as the result of a 
 previous dose of the cat, until he fell to the deck 
 comatose and at the point of death.^ Logs of wood 
 were bound to his legs as shackles, and whatever the 
 nature of his offence, he invariably began his expiation 
 of it, the preliminary canter, so to speak, in irons. If 
 he had a lame leg or a bad foot, he was "started" 
 with a rope's-end as a "slacker." If he happened to 
 be the last to tumble up when his watch was called, 
 
 1 Ad. I. 5265 Courts-Martial, 1704-5. 
 ' Ad. I. 1472 Capt. Balchen, 26 Jan 1716-7. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 1466 Complaint of y'' Abuse of a Sayler in the Litchfield, 
 1704. In this case the man actually died.
 
 WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY 33 
 
 the rattan^ raised weals on his back or drew blood 
 from his head ; and, as if to add insult to injury, for 
 any of these, and a hundred and one other offences, he 
 was liable to be black-listed and to lose his allowance 
 of grog. 
 
 Some things, too, were reckoned sins aboard ship 
 which, unhappily for the sailor, could not well be 
 avoided. Laughing, or even permitting the features 
 to relax in a smile in the official presence, was such a 
 sin. " He beats us for laughing," declare the company 
 of the Solebay, in a complaint against their commander, 
 " more like Doggs than Men." ^ One of the Nymph's 
 company, in or about the year 1797, received three 
 dozen for what was officially termed "Silent Con- 
 tempt" "which was nothing more than this, that 
 when flogged by the boatswain's mate the man 
 smiled."^ This was the "Unpardonable Crime" of 
 the service. 
 
 Contrariwise, a man was beaten if he sulked. And 
 as a rule the sailor was sulky enough. Works of 
 supererogation, such as polishing everything polish- 
 able the shot for the guns, in extreme cases, not 
 even excepted until it shone like the tropical sun at 
 noonday, left him little leisure or inclination for mirth. 
 "Very pretty to look at," said Wellington, when con- 
 fronted with these glaring evidences of hyper-discipline, 
 " but there is one thing wanting. I have not seen a 
 bright face in the ship." 
 
 A painful tale of discipline run mad, or nearly so, 
 is unfolded by that fascinating series of sailor-records, 
 
 ^ Carried at one time by both commissioned and warrant officers. 
 2 Ad. I. 1435 Capt. Aldred, 29 Feb. 1703-4. 
 Ad. I. 5125 Petitions, 1793-7. 
 
 3
 
 34 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 the Admiralty Petitions. Many of them, it must in 
 justice be owned, bear unqualified testimony to the 
 kindness and humanity of officers ; but in the great 
 majority of cases the evidence they adduce is over- 
 whelmingly to the contrary. And if their language is 
 sometimes bombastic, if their style is almost uniformly 
 illiterate, if they are the productions of a band of 
 mutinous dogs standing out for rights which they 
 never possessed and deserving of a halter rather than 
 a hearing, these are circumstances that do not in the 
 least detract from the veracity of the allegations they 
 advance. The sailor appealed to his king, or to the 
 Admiralty, "the same as a child to its father"; and 
 no one who peruses the story of his wrongs, as 
 set forth in these documents, can doubt for a 
 moment that he speaks the truth with all a child's 
 simplicity. 
 
 The seamen of the Reunion open the tale of 
 oppression and ill-usage. " Our Captain oblidges us 
 to Wash our Linnen twice a week in Salt Water and 
 to put 2 Shirts on every Week, and if they do not 
 look as Clean as if they were washed in Fresh Water, 
 he stops the person's Grog which has the misfortune 
 ^ to displease him ; and if our Hair is not Tyd to please 
 ^im, he orders it to be Cutt Off." On the Amphitrite 
 "flogging is their portion." The men of the 
 Winchelsea '* wold sooner be Shot at like a Targaite 
 than to Remain." The treatment systematically 
 meted out to the Shannons crew is more than the 
 heart "can Cleaverly Bear" enough, in short, to 
 make them "rise and Steer the Ship into an Enemies 
 Port." The seamen of the Glory are made wretched 
 by " beating, blacking, tarring, putting our heads in
 
 WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY 35 
 
 Bags," and by being forced to " drink half a Gallon of 
 Salt Water " for the most trivial breaches of discipline 
 or decorum. On the Blanch^ if they get wet and 
 hang or spread their clothes to dry, the captain "thros 
 them overboard." The Nassau's company find it 
 impossible to put the abuse they receive on paper. It 
 is "above Humanity." Though put on board to fight 
 for king and country, they are used worse than dogs. 
 They have no encouragement to " face the Enemy 
 with a chearful Heart." Besides being kept "more 
 like Convicts than free-born Britons," the Nymph's 
 company have an unspeakable grievance. "When 
 Engaged with the Enemy off Brest, March the 9th, 
 1797, they even Beat us at our Quarters, though on 
 the Verge of Eternity." ^ 
 
 On the principle advanced by Rochefoucault, that 
 there is something not displeasing to us in the mis- 
 fortunes of our friends, the sailor doubtless derived 
 a sort of negative satisfaction from the fact that he 
 was not the only one on shipboard liable to the pains 
 and penalties of irascibility, brutality and excessive 
 disciplinary zeal. Particularly was this true of his 
 special friend the " sky-pilot" or chaplain, that super- 
 person who perhaps most often fell a victim to 
 quarter-deck ebullitions. Notably there is on record 
 the case of one John Cruickshank, chaplain of 
 H.M.S. Assurance, who was clapped in irons, court- 
 martialled and dismissed the service merely because 
 he happened to take what no sailor could ever 
 condemn him for a drop too much, and whilst in 
 that condition insisted on preaching to the ship's 
 company when they were on the very point of going 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 5125 Petitions, 1793-7.
 
 36 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 into action.^ There is also that other case of the 
 "saucy Surgeon of the Seahorse^' who incurred his 
 captain's dire displeasure all on account of candles, of 
 which necessary articles he, having his wife on board, 
 thought himself entitled to a more liberal share than 
 was consistent with strict naval economy ; and who 
 was, moreover, so " troblesome about his Provisions, 
 that if he did not always Chuse out of y* best in y* 
 whole Ship," he straightway got his back up and 
 " threatened to Murder the Steward."^ Such inter- 
 ludes as these would assuredly have proved highly 
 diverting to the foremast-man had it not been for the 
 cat and that savage litter of minor punishments await- 
 ing the man who smiled. 
 
 In the matter of provisions, there can be little 
 doubt that the sailor shared to the full the desire 
 evinced by the surgeon of the Seahorse to take blood- 
 vengeance upon someone on account of them. His 
 " belly-timber," as old Misson so aptly if indelicately 
 describes it, was mostly worm-eaten or rotten, his 
 drink indescribably nasty. 
 
 Charles ii. is said to have made his breakfast off 
 ship's diet the morning he left the Naseby, and to 
 have pronounced it good ; and Nelson in 1803 declared 
 it "could not possibly be improved upon."' Such, 
 however, was not the opinion of the chaplain of the 
 Dar?noutk, for after dining with his captain on an 
 occasion which deserves to become historic, he swore 
 that "although he liked that Sort of Living very well, 
 
 ^ Ad. I. $26$ Courts-Martial, 1704-5. His zeal was unusual. Most 
 naval chaplains thought " of nothing more than making His Majesty's 
 ships sinecures." 
 
 * Ad. I. 1470 Capt. Blowers, 3 Jan. 1710-11. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 580 Memorandum on the State of the Fleet, 1803.
 
 WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY 37 
 
 as for the King's Allowance there was but a Sheat of 
 Browne Paper between it and Hell."^ Which of 
 these opinions came nearest to the truth, the sequel 
 will serve to show. 
 
 On the face of it the sailor's dietary was not so 
 bad. A ship's stores, in 17 19, included ostensibly such 
 items as bread, wine, beef, pork, peas, oatmeal, butter, 
 cheese, water and beer, and if Jack had but had his 
 fair share of these commodities, and had it in decent 
 condition, he would have had little reason to grumble 
 about the king's allowance. Unhappily for him, the 
 humanities of diet were little studied by the Victualling 
 Board. 
 
 Taking the beef, the staple article of consumption 
 on shipboard, cooking caused it to shrink as much as 
 45 per cent., thus reducing the sailor's allowance by 
 nearly one-half.^ The residuum was often "mere 
 carrion," totally unfit for human consumption. " Junk," 
 the sailor contemptuously called it, likening it, in 
 point of texture, digestibility and nutritive properties, 
 to the product of picked oakum, which it in many 
 respects strongly resembled. The pork, though it lost 
 less in the cooking, was rancid, putrid stuff, repellent 
 in odour and colour particulars in which it found 
 close competitors in the butter and cheese, which had 
 often to be thrown overboard because they "stunk 
 the ship."^ The peas "would not break." Boiled for 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1464 Misdemenors Comited by Mr EdW* Lewis, Chapling 
 on Board H. M. Shipp Uartm, i Oct. 1702. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1495 Capt. Barrington, 23 Dec. 1770. 
 
 ' To disinfect a ship after she had been fouled by putrid rations or 
 disease, burning sulphur and vinegar were commonly employed. Their 
 use was preferable to the means adopted by the carpenter of the 
 Feversham, who in order to "sweeten ship" once "tum'd on the cock in 
 the hould" and through forgetfulness "left it running for eighteen
 
 88 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 eight hours on end, they came through the ordeal 
 " almost as hard as shott." Only the biscuit, apart 
 from the butter and cheese, possessed the quality of 
 softness. Damp, sea-water, mildew and weevil con- 
 verted "hard" into "soft tack" and added another 
 horror to the sailor's mess. The water he washed 
 these varied abominations down with was frequently 
 "stuff that beasts would cough at." His beer was no 
 better. It would not keep, and was in consequence 
 both " stinking and sour." ^ Although the contractor 
 was obliged to make oath that he had used both malt 
 and hops in the brewing, it often consisted of nothing 
 more stimulating than " water coloured and bittered," 
 and sometimes the "stingy dog of a brewer" even 
 went so far as to omit the "wormwood." 
 
 Such a dietary as this made a meal only an un- 
 avoidable part of the day's punishment and inspired 
 the sailor with profound loathing. " Good Eating is an 
 infallible Antidote against murmuring, as many a Big- 
 Belly Place-Man can instance," he says in one of his 
 petitions. Poor fellow ! his opportunities of putting it 
 to the test were few enough. On Mondays, Wednes- 
 days and Fridays, the so-called Banyan days of the 
 service, when his hateful ration of meat was withheld 
 and in its stead he regaled himself on plum-duff the 
 "plums," according to an old regulation, "not worse 
 than Malaga " he had a taste of it. Hence the 
 banyan day, though in reality a fast-day, became in- 
 delibly associated in his simple mind and vocabulary 
 
 howers," thereby not only endangering the vessel's safety, but inci- 
 dentally spoiling twenty-one barrels of powder in the magazine. Ad. 
 I. 2653 Capt. Watson, 18 April 1741. 
 
 ^ According to Raleigh, old oil and fish casks were used for the 
 storing of ship's beer in Elizabeth's reign.
 
 WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY 39 
 
 with occasions of feasting and plenty, and so remains 
 to this day. 
 
 If the sailor's only delicacy was duff, his only 
 comforts were rum and tobacco, and to explore some 
 unknown island, and discover therein a goodly river of 
 the famous Jamaica spirit, flowing deep and fragrant 
 between towering mountains of " pig tail," is commonly 
 reputed to have been the cherished wish of his heart. 
 With tobacco the Navy Board did not provide him, 
 nor afford dishonest pursers opportunity to "make 
 dead men chew," ^ until 1798; but rum they allowed 
 him at a comparatively early date. When sickness 
 prevailed on board, when beer ran short or had to be 
 turned over the side to preserve a sweet ship, rum or 
 wine was issued, and although the Admiralty at first 
 looked askance at the innovation, and at times left 
 commanders of ships to foot the bill for spirits thus 
 served out, the practice made gradual headway, until 
 at length it ousted beer altogether and received the 
 stamp of official approval. Half a pint, dealt out each 
 morning and evening in equal portions, was the 
 regular allowance a quantity often doubled were the 
 weather unusually severe or the men engaged in the 
 arduous duty of watering ship. At first the ration of 
 rum was served neat and appreciated accordingly ; 
 but about 1740 the practice of adding water was 
 introduced. This was Admiral Vernon's doing. 
 Vernon was best known to his men as "Old Grog," 
 a nickname originating in a famous grogram coat he 
 
 * Said of pursers who manipulated the Muster Books, which it was 
 part of their duty to keep, in such a way as to make it appear that men 
 " discharged dead " had drawn a larger quantity of tobacco than was 
 actually the case, the difference in value of course going into their own 
 pockets.
 
 40 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 affected in dirty weather ; and as the rum and water 
 now served out to them was little to their liking, they 
 marked their disapproval of the mixture, as well as of 
 the man who invented it, by dubbing it "grog." The 
 sailor was not without his sense of humour. 
 
 The worst feature of rum, from the sailor's point 
 of view, worse by far than dilution, was the fact that 
 it could be so easily stopped. Here his partiality for 
 the spirit told heavily against him. His grog was 
 stopped because he liked it, rather than because he 
 deserved to lose it. The malice of the thing did not 
 make for a contented ship. 
 
 The life of the man-o'-war's-man, according to 
 Lord Nelson, was on an average "finished at forty- 
 five years." ^ Bad food and strenuous labour under 
 exceptionally trying conditions sapped his vitals, made 
 him prematurely old, and exposed him to a host of 
 ills peculiar to his vocation. He " fell down daily," 
 to employ the old formula, in spotted or putrid fevers. 
 He was racked by agues, distorted by rheumatic 
 pains, ruptured or double-ruptured by the strain of 
 pulling, hauling and lifting heavy weights. He ate 
 no meal without incurring the pangs of acute 
 indigestion, to which he was fearfully subject. He 
 was liable to a "prodigious inflammation of the head, 
 nose and eyes," occasioned by exposure. Scurvy, 
 his most inveterate and merciless enemy, "beat up" 
 for him on every voyage and dragged his brine-sodden 
 body down to a lingering death. Or, did he escape 
 these dangers and a watery grave, protracted disease 
 sooner or later rendered him helpless, or a brush with 
 the enemy disabled him for ever from earning his bread. 
 ^ Ad. I 580 Memorandum on the State of the Fleet, 1803.
 
 WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY 41 
 
 His surgeons were, as a rule, a sorry lot. Not 
 only were they deficient in numbers, they commonly 
 lacked both professional training and skill. Their 
 methods were consequently of the crudest description, 
 and long continued so. The approved treatment for 
 rupture, to which the sailor was painfully liable, was 
 to hang the patient up by the heels until the prolapsus 
 was reduced. Pepys relates how he met a seaman 
 returning from fighting the Dutch with his eye-socket 
 "stopped with oakum," and as late at least as the 
 Battle of Trafalgar it was customary, in amputations, 
 to treat the bleeding stump with boiling pitch as a 
 cauterant. In his general attitude towards the sick 
 and wounded the old-time naval surgeon was not un- 
 like Garth, Queen Anne's famous physician. At the 
 Kit Cat Club he one day sat so long over his wine 
 that Steele ventured to remind him of his patients. 
 " No matter," said Garth. *' Nine have such bad con- 
 stitutions that no physician can save them, and the 
 other six such good ones that all the physicans in the 
 world could not kill them." 
 
 Many were the devices resorted to in order to 
 keep the man-o'-war's-man healthy and fit. As early 
 as 1602 a magic electuary, invented by one "Doctor 
 Cogbourne, famous for fluxes," was by direction of 
 the Navy Commissioners supplied for his use in the 
 West Indies.^ By Admiral Vernon and his com- 
 manders he was dosed freely with "Elixir of Vitriol," 
 which they not only "reckoned the best general 
 medicine next to rhubarb," but pinned their faith to 
 as a sovereign specific for scurvy and fevers.^ Lime- 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1464 Capt. Barker, 14 Oct. 1702. 
 * Ad. I. 161 Admiral Vernon, 31 Oct. 1741.
 
 42 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 juice, known as a valuable anti-scorbutic as early 
 as the days of Drake and Raleigh, was not added to 
 his rations till 1 795. He did not find it very palatable. 
 The secret of fortifying it was unknown, and oil had 
 to be floated on its surface to make it keep. Sour- 
 crout was much more to his taste as a preventive of 
 scurvy, and in 1777, at the request of Admiral 
 Montagu, then Governor and Commander-in-Chief 
 over the Island of Newfoundland, the Admiralty 
 caused to be sent out, for the use of the squadron on 
 that station, where vegetables were unprocurable, 
 a sufficient quantity of that succulent preparation to 
 supply twelve hundred men for a period of two 
 months.^ 
 
 Rice the sailor detested. Of all species of "soft 
 tack" it was least to his liking. He nicknamed it 
 " strike-me-blind," being firmly convinced that its 
 continued use would rob him of his eyesight. Tea 
 was not added to his dietary till 1824, but as early as 
 1795 he could regale himself on cocoa. For the rest, 
 sugar, essence of malt, essence of spruce, mustard, 
 cloves, opium and "Jesuits'" or Peruvian bark were 
 considered essential to his well-being on shipboard. 
 He was further allowed a barber one to every 
 hundred men without whose attentions it was found 
 impossible to keep him "clean and healthy." 
 
 With books he was for many years "very 
 scantily supplied." It was not till 181 2, indeed, that 
 the Admiralty, shocked by the discovery that he had 
 practically nothing to elevate his mind but daily 
 association with the quarter-deck, began to pour into 
 the fleet copious supplies of literature for his use. 
 
 * Ad. I. 471 Admiral Montagu, 28 Feb. 1777, and endorsement.
 
 WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY 43 
 
 Thereafter the sailor could beguile his leisure with 
 such books as the Old Chaplains Farewell LetteVy 
 Wilson's Maxims, The Whole Duty of Man, Seeker's 
 Duties of the Sick, and, lest returning health should 
 dissipate the piety begotten of his ailments, Gibson's 
 Advice after Sickness. Thousands of pounds were 
 spent upon this improving literature, which was dis- 
 tributed to the fleet in strict accordance with the amount 
 of storage room available at the various dockyards.^ 
 
 A fundamental principle of man-o'-war routine was 
 that the sailor formed no part of it for hospital 
 purposes. Hence sickness was not encouraged. If 
 the sailor-patient did not recover within a reason- 
 able time, he was "put on shore sick," sometimes to 
 the great terror of the populace, who, were he supposed 
 to be afflicted with an infectious disease, fled from 
 him "as if he had the plague."^ On shore he was 
 treated for thirty days at his country's charges. If 
 incurable, or permanently disabled, he was then turned 
 adrift and left to shift for himself. A clean record 
 and a sufficiently serious wound entitled him to 
 a small pension or admission to Greenwich Hospital, 
 an institution which had religiously docked his small 
 pay of sixpence a month throughout his entire service. 
 Failing these, there remained for him only the streets 
 and the beggar's role. 
 
 His pay was far from princely. From 3d. a 
 day in the reign of King John it rose by grudging 
 increments to 20s. a month in 1626, and 24s. in 
 1797. Years sometimes elapsed before he touched 
 
 ^ Ad. Accountant-General, Misc. (Various), No io6 Accounts of 
 the Rev. Archdeacon Owen, Chaplain-General to the Fleet, 1 8 12-7. 
 2 Ad. I. 2732 Capt. Young, 24 June 1740.
 
 44 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 a penny of his earnings, except in the form of " slop " 
 clothing and tobacco. Amongst the instances of 
 deferred wages in which the Admiralty records abound, 
 there may be cited the case of the Dreadnought, 
 whose men in 1 7 1 1 had four years' pay due ; and 
 of the Dmikirk, to whose company, in the year 
 following, six and a half years' was owing.^ And at 
 the time of the Nore Mutiny it was authoritatively 
 stated that there were ships then in the fleet which 
 had not been paid off for eight, ten, twelve and in 
 one instance even fifteen years. " Keep the pay, 
 keep the man," was the policy of the century a sadly 
 mistaken policy, as we shall presently see. 
 
 In another important article of contentment the 
 sailor was hardly better off. The system of deferred 
 pay amounted practically to a stoppage of all leave 
 for the period, however protracted, during which the 
 pay was withheld. Thus the Monmouth's men had 
 in 1706 been in the ship "almost six years, and had 
 never had the opportunity of seeing their families but 
 once."^ In Boscawen's ship, the Dreadnought, there 
 were in 1744 two hundred and fifty men who "had 
 not set 'foot on shore near two year." Admiral 
 Penrose once paid off in a seventy-four at Plymouth, 
 many of whose crew had " never set foot on l^nd for 
 six or seven years " ; ' and Brenton, in his Naval 
 History, instances the case of a ship whose company, 
 after having been eleven years in the East Indies, on 
 returning to England were drafted straightway into 
 
 * Ad. I. 1470 Capt. Bennett, 8 March 1710-11. Ad. i. 1471 
 Capt. Butler, 19 March, 1711-12. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1468 Capt. Baker, 3 Nov. 1706. 
 
 * Penrose (Sir V. C, Vice-Admiral of the Blue), Observations on 
 Corporeal Punishtnent, Impressment, etc., 1824.
 
 WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY 45 
 
 another ship and sent back to that quarter of the 
 globe without so much as an hour's leave ashore. 
 
 What was true of pay and leave was also true 
 of prize-money. The sailor was systematically kept 
 out of it, and hence out of the means of enjoyment 
 and carousal it afforded him, for inconscionable periods. 
 From a moral point of view the check was hardly 
 to his detriment. But the Navy was not a school 
 of morals, and withholding the sailor's hard-earned 
 prize-money over an indefinite term of years neither 
 made for a contented heart nor enhanced his love for 
 a service that first absorbed him against his will, and 
 then, having got him in its clutches, imposed upon 
 and bested him at every turn. 
 
 Athough the prime object in withholding his pay 
 was to prevent his running from his ship, so far from 
 compassing that desirable end it had exactly the 
 contrary effect. Both the preventive and the disease 
 were of long standing. With De Ruyter in the 
 Thames in 1667, menacing London and the kingdom, 
 the seamen of the fleet flocked to town in hundreds, 
 clamouring for their wages, whilst their wives besieged 
 the Navy Office in Seething Lane, shrieking: "This 
 is what comes of not paying our husbands ! " 
 
 Essentially a creature of contradictions, the sailor 
 rarely, if he could avoid it, steered the course laid 
 down for him, and in nothing perhaps was this 
 idiosyncrasy so glaringly apparent as in his behaviour 
 as his country's creditor. He ** would get to London 
 if he could." ^ " An unaccountable humour" impelled 
 him " to quit His Majesty's service without leave." ^ 
 
 ^ Aii. I. 2732 Capt. Young, 12 Dec. 1742. 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 480 Shirley, Governor of Massachusetts, 12 Sept. 1746-
 
 46 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 Once the whim seized him, no ties of deferred pay or 
 prize-money had power to hold him back. The one 
 he could obtain on conditions ; the other he could 
 dispose of at a discount which, though ruinously 
 heavy, still left him enough to frolic on. 
 
 The weapon of deferred pay was thus a two-edged 
 one. If it hurt the sailor, it also cut the fingers of 
 those who employed it against him. So exigent 
 were the needs of the service, he could " run " with 
 impunity. For if he ran whilst his pay was in arrears, 
 he did so with the full knowledge that, barring 
 untimely recapture by the press-gang, he would 
 receive a free pardon, together with payment of all 
 dues, on the sole condition, which he never kept if he 
 could help it, of returning to his ship when his money 
 was gone. He therefore deserted for two reasons : 
 First, to obtain his pay ; second, to spend it. 
 
 The penalty for desertion, under a well-known 
 statute of George i.,^ was death by hanging. As time 
 went on, however, discipline in this respect suffered 
 a grave relapse, and fear of the halter no longer served 
 to check the continual exodus from the fleet. If the 
 runaway sailor were taken, * it would only be a whip- 
 ping bout." So he openly boasted.* The " bout," 
 it is true, at times ran to six, or even seven hundred 
 lashes the latter being the heaviest dose of the cat 
 ever administered in the British navy ; * but even 
 this terrible ordeal had no power to hold the sailor to 
 his duty, and although Admiral Lord St. Vincent, 
 better known in his day as "hanging Jervis," did his 
 
 * 13 George l., art 7. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1479 Capt. Boscawen, 26 April 1743. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 482 Admiral Lord Colvill, 12 Nov. 1765.
 
 WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY 47 
 
 utmost to revive the ancient custom of stretching the 
 sailor's neck, the trend of the times was against him, 
 and within twenty-five years of the reaffirming of 
 the penalty, in the 22nd year of George 11., hanging 
 for desertion had become practically obsolete. 
 
 In the declining days of the practice a grim game 
 at life and death was played upon the deck of a king's 
 ship lying in the River St. Lawrence. The year was 
 1760. Quebec had only recently fallen before the 
 British onslaught. A few days before that event, at 
 a juncture when every man in the squadron was 
 counted upon to play his part in the coming struggle, 
 and to play it well, three seamen, James Mike, 
 Thomas Wilkinson and William M'Millard by name, 
 deserted from the Vanguard. Retaken some months 
 later, they were brought to trial ; but as men were 
 not easy to replace in that latitude, the court, whilst 
 sentencing all three to suffer the extreme penalty of 
 the law, added to their verdict a rider to the effect 
 that it would be good policy to spare two of them. 
 Admiral Lord Colvill, then Commander-in-Chief, 
 issued his orders accordingly, and at eleven o'clock 
 on the morning of the 12th of July the condemned 
 men, preceded to the scaffold by two chaplains, were 
 led to the Vanguard' s forecastle, where they drew lots 
 to determine which of them should die. The fatal lot 
 fell to James Mike, who, in presence of the assembled 
 boats of the squadron, was immediately " turned off " 
 at the foreyard-arm.^ 
 
 Encouraged in this grim fashion, desertion assumed 
 alarming proportions. Nelson estimated that when- 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 482 Admiral Lord Colvill, lo July 1760; Captains' Logs, 
 1026 Log of H, M.S. Vanguard,
 
 48 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 ever a large convoy of merchant ships assembled at 
 Portsmouth, at least a thousand men deserted from 
 the fleet.^ This was a * liberty they would take," do 
 what you could to prevent it. 
 
 Of those who thus deserted fully one-third, accord- 
 ing to the same high authority, never saw the fleet 
 again. " From loss of clothes, drinking and other 
 debaucheries" they were "lost by death to the 
 country." Some few of the remainder, after drinking 
 His Majesty's health in a final bowl, voluntarily 
 returned on board and " prayed for a fair wind " ; but 
 the majority held aloof, taking their chances and their 
 pleasures in sailorly fashion until, their last stiver gone, 
 they fell an easy prey to the press-gang or the crimp. 
 
 While the crimp was to the merchant service what 
 the press-gang was to the Navy, a kind of universal 
 provider, there was in his method of preying upon the 
 sailor a radical difference. Like his French compeer, 
 the recruiting sergeant of the Pont Neuf in the days 
 of Louis the Well-Beloved, wherever sailors congre- 
 gated the crimp might be heard rattling his money- 
 bags and crying: "Who wants any? Who wants 
 any ? " Where the press-gang used the hanger or the 
 cudgel, the crimp employed dollars. The circumstance 
 gave him a decided "pull " in the contest for men, for 
 the dollars he offered, whether in the way of pay or 
 bounty, were invariably fortified with rum. The two 
 formed a contraption no sailor could resist. " Money 
 and liquor held out to a seaman," said Nelson, " are 
 too much for him." 
 
 In law the offence of enticing seamen to desert 
 His Majesty's service, like desertion itself, was punish- 
 
 * Ad. I. 580 Memorandum on the State of the Fleet, 1803.
 
 WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY 49 
 
 able with death ; ^ but in fact the penalty was either 
 commuted to imprisonment, or the offender was dealt 
 with summarily, without invoking the law. Crimps 
 who were caught red-handed had short shrift. Two of 
 the fraternity, named respectively Henry Nathan and 
 Sampson Samuel, were once taken in the Downs. 
 " Send Nathan and Samuel," ran the Admiralty 
 order in their case, " to Plymouth by the first con- 
 veyance. Admiral Young is to order them on board 
 a ship going on foreign service as soon as possible." 
 Another time an officer, boarding a boat filled with 
 men as it was making for an Indiaman at Gravesend, 
 found in her six crimps, all of whom suffered the 
 same fate.* 
 
 Men seduced by means of crimpage bounty were 
 said to be " silver cooped," and the art of silver coop- 
 ing was not only practised at home, it was world-wide. 
 In whatever waters a British man-o'-war cast anchor, 
 there the crimp appeared, plying his crafty trade. 
 His assiduity paid a high compliment to the sterling 
 qualities of the British seaman, but for the Navy it 
 spelt wholesale depletion. 
 
 In home ports he was everywhere in evidence. 
 No ship of war could lie in Leith Roads but she lost 
 a good part of her crew through his seductions. 
 "M'Kirdy & M'Lean, petty-fogging writers," were 
 the chief crimps at Greenock. Sheerness crimps 
 gave " great advance money." Liverpool was infested 
 with them, all the leading merchant shippers at Bristol, 
 London and other great ports having " agents " there, 
 
 ^ 22 George n. cap. 33. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 1542 Capt. Bazeley, 7 Feb. 1808. Ad. i. 1513 Capt. 
 Bowater, 12 June 1796. 
 4
 
 50 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 who offered the man-o'-war's-man tempting bounties 
 and substantial wages to induce him to desert his 
 ship. A specially active agent of Bristol shipowners 
 was one Vernon Ley, who plied his trade chiefly at 
 Exeter and Plymouth, whence he was known to send 
 to Bristol, in the space of six months, as many as 
 seventy or eighty men, whom he provided with post- 
 chaises for the journey and /^S per man as bounty. 
 James White, a publican who kept the " Pail of Barm " 
 at Bedminster, made a close second in his activity and 
 success. Spithead had its regular contingent of crimps, 
 and many an East India ship sailing from that famous 
 anchorage was " entirely manned " by their efforts, of 
 course at the expense of the ships of war lying there. 
 At Chatham, crimpage bounty varied from fifteen to 
 twenty guineas per head ; and at Cork, a favourite 
 recruiting ground for both merchantmen and privateers, 
 the same sum could be had any day, with high wages 
 to boot. 
 
 In the Crown Colonies a similar state of things 
 prevailed. Queen's ships visiting Jamaica in or about 
 the year 17 16 lost so heavily they scarce dared venture 
 the return voyage to England, their men having 
 "gone a- wrecking " in the Gulf of Florida, where one 
 armed sloop was reputed to have recovered Spanish 
 treasure to the value of a hundred thousand dollars.* 
 Time did not lessen desertion in the island, though 
 it wrought a change in the cause. When Admiral 
 Vernon was Commander-in-Chief there in the forties, 
 he lost five hundred men within a comparatively short 
 time "seduced out," to use his own words, "through 
 the temptations of high wages and thirty gallons of 
 
 * Ad. I. 1471 Capt. Balchen, 13 May 1716.
 
 WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY 51 
 
 rum, and conveyed drunk on board from the punch- 
 houses where they are seduced."^ 
 
 At Louisberg, in the Island of Cape Breton, the 
 North American Squadron in 1746 lost so many men 
 through the seductions practised by New England 
 skippers frequenting that port, that Townsend, the 
 admiral in command, indited a strongly worded protest 
 to Shirley, then Governor of Massachusetts ; but the 
 latter, though deploring the **vile behaviour" of the 
 skippers in question, could do nothing to put a stop 
 to it.^ As a matter of fact he did not try. 
 
 On the coast of Carolina many of the English 
 merchantmen in 1743 paid from seventeen to twenty 
 guineas for the run home, and in addition " as many 
 pounds of Sugar, Gallons of Rum and pounds of 
 Tobacco as pounds in Money." ^ 
 
 The lust for privateering had much to answer for 
 in this respect. So possessed were the Virginians by 
 the desire to get rich at the expense of their enemies 
 that they quite "forgot their allegiance to the King." 
 By the offer of inordinately high wages and rich 
 prizes they did their utmost to seduce carpenters, 
 gunners, sailmakers and able seamen from His 
 Majesty's ships.^ Any ship forced to winter at Rhode 
 Island, again, always counted upon losing enough men 
 to " disable her from putting to sea " when the spring 
 came. Here, too, the privateering spirit was to 
 
 * Ad. I. 233 Admiral Vernon, 5 Sept. 1742. A rare recruiting 
 sheet of 1780, which has for its headpiece a volunteer shouting : " Rum 
 for nothing !" describes Jamaica as "that delightful Island, abounding 
 in Rum, Sugar and Spanish Dollars, where there is delicious living and 
 plenty of Grogg and Punch." 
 
 2 Ad. I. 480 Townsend, 17 Aug. ; Shirley, 12 Sept. 1746. 
 
 3 Ad. I 1479 Capt. Bladwell, i July 1743 
 
 * Ad. I. 1480 Capt. Lord Alexander Banff, 21 Oct. 1744.
 
 52 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 blame, Rhode Island being notorious for its enterprise 
 in that form of piracy. Another impenitent sinner in 
 her inroads upon the companies of king's ships was 
 Boston, where " a sett of people made it their 
 Business" to entice them away.^ No ship could 
 clean, refit, victual or winter there without " the loss 
 of all her men." Capt. Young, of the Jason, was in 
 1753 left there with never a soul on board except 
 'officers and servants, widows' men, the quarter-deck 
 gentlemen and those called idlers." The rest had 
 been seduced at 2^0 per head.^ 
 
 So it went on. Day in, day out, at home and 
 abroad, this ceaseless drain of men, linking hands in 
 the decimation of the fleet with those able adjutants 
 Disease and Death, accentuated progressively and 
 enormously the naval needs of the country. For the 
 apprehension and return of deserters from ships in 
 home ports a drag-net system of rewards and conduct- 
 money sprang into being ; but this the sailor to some 
 extent contrived to elude. He "stuck a cockade in 
 his hat " and made shift to pass for a soldier on leave ; 
 or he laid furtive hands on a horse and set up for an 
 equestrian traveller. In the neighbourhood of all 
 great seaport towns, as on all main roads leading to 
 that paradise and ultimate goal of the deserter, the 
 metropolis, horse-stealing by sailors "on the run" 
 prevailed to an alarming extent ; and although there 
 was a time when the law strung him up for the crime 
 of borrowing horses to help him on his way, as it had 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1440 Capt. Askew, 27 Aug. 1748. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 2732 Capt Young, 6 Oct. 1753. The "widows' men" 
 here humorously alluded to would not add much to the effectiveness of 
 the depleted company. They were imaginary sailors, borne on the 
 ship's books for pay and prize-money which went to Greenwich Hospital.
 
 WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY 53 
 
 once hanged him for deserting, the naval needs of the 
 country eventually changed all that and brought him 
 a permanent reprieve. Thenceforth, instead of send- 
 ing the happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care felon to the 
 gallows, they turned him over to the press-gang and 
 so re-consigned him, penniless and protesting, to the 
 duty he detested.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 WHAT THE PRESS-GANG WAS 
 
 From the standpoint of a systematic supply of men 
 to the fleet, the press-gang was a legitimate means 
 to an imperative end. This was the official view. 
 In how different a light the people came to regard 
 the petty man-trap of power, we shall presently see. 
 
 Designed as it was for the taking up of able- 
 bodied adults, the main idea in the formation of 
 the gang was strength and efficiency. It was ac- 
 cordingly composed of the stoutest men procurable, 
 dare-devil fellows capable of giving a good account 
 of themselves in fight, or of carrying off their un- 
 willing prey against long odds. Brute strength 
 combined with animal courage being thus the first 
 requisite of the ganger, it followed not perhaps as 
 a matter of course so much as a matter of fact 
 that his other qualities were seldom such as to 
 endear him to the people. Wilkes denounced him 
 for a "lawless ruffian," and one of the newspapers 
 of his time describes him, with commendable candour 
 and undeniable truth, as a "profligate and abandoned 
 wretch, perpetually lounging about the streets and 
 incessantly vomiting out oaths and horrid curses."* 
 
 The getting of a gang together presented little 
 
 ^ London Chronicle, i6 March 1762. 
 54
 
 WHAT THE PRESS-GANG WAS 55 
 
 difficulty. The first business of the officer charged 
 with its formation was to find suitable quarters, rent 
 not to exceed twenty shillings a week, inclusive of 
 fire and candle. Here he hung out a flag as the sign 
 of authority and a bait for volunteers. As a rule, 
 they were easily procurable. All the roughs of the 
 town were at his disposal, and when these did not 
 yield material enough recourse was had to beat of 
 drum, that instrument, together with the man who 
 thumped it, being either hired at half-a-crown a day 
 or " loaned " from the nearest barracks. Selected 
 members of the crowd thus assembled were then 
 plied with drink " to invite them to enter " an 
 invitation they seldom refused. 
 
 It goes without saying that gangs raised in this 
 manner were of an exceedingly mixed character. On 
 the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief, sea- 
 faring men of course had first preference, but 
 landsmen were by no means excluded. The gang 
 operating at Godalming in 1782 may be cited as 
 typical of the average inland gang. It consisted 
 of three farmers, one weaver, one bricklayer, one 
 labourer, and two others whose regular occupations 
 are not divulged. They were probably sailors.^ 
 
 Landsmen entered on the express understanding 
 that they should not be pressed when the gang broke 
 up. Sailor gangsmen, on the contrary, enjoyed no 
 such immunity. The most they could hope for, when 
 their arduous duties came to an end, was permission 
 to "choose their ship." The concession was no mean 
 one. By choosing his ship discreetly the gangs- 
 man avoided encounters with men he had pressed, 
 ' Ad. I. 1502 Capt. Boston, Report on Rendezvous, 1782.
 
 56 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 thus preserving his head unbroken and his skin 
 intact. 
 
 Ship-gangs, unlike those operating on land, were 
 composed entirely of seamen. For dash, courage 
 and efficiency, they had no equal and few rivals. 
 
 Apart from the officers commanding it, the 
 number of men that went to the making of a gang 
 varied from two to twenty or more according to the 
 urgency of the occasion that called it into being and 
 the importance or ill-repute of the centre selected 
 as the scene of its operations. For Edinburgh and 
 Leith twenty-one men, directed by a captain, two 
 lieutenants and four midshipmen, were considered 
 none too many. Greenock kept the same number 
 of officers and twenty men fully employed, for here 
 there was much visiting of ships on the water, a fast 
 cutter being retained for that purpose. The Liver- 
 pool gang numbered eighteen men, directed by seven 
 officers and backed by a flotilla of three tenders, each 
 under the command of a special lieutenant. Towns 
 such as Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Great Yarmouth, 
 Cowes and Haverfordwest also had gangs of at 
 least twenty men each, with boats as required ; and 
 Deal, Dover and Folkstone five gangs between 
 them, totalling fifty men and fifteen officers, and 
 employing as many boats as gangs for pressing in 
 the Downs. 
 
 In the case of ship-gangs, operating directly from 
 a ship of war in harbour or at sea, the officers in 
 charge were as a matter of course selected from the 
 available ward- or gun-room contingent. Few, if 
 any, of the naval men whose names at one time or 
 another spring into prominence during the century,
 
 WHAT THE PRESS GANG WAS 57 
 
 escaped this unpleasant but necessary duty in their 
 younger days. But on shore an altogether different 
 order of things prevailed. 
 
 The impress service ashore was essentially the 
 grave of promotion. Whether through age, fault, 
 misfortune or lack of influence in high places, the 
 officers who directed it were generally disappointed 
 men, service derelicts whose chances of ever sporting 
 a second "swab," or of again commanding a ship, 
 had practically vanished. Naval men afloat spoke 
 of them with good - natured contempt as " Yellow 
 Admirals," the fictitious rank denoting a kind of 
 service quarantine that knew no pratique. 
 
 Like the salt junk of the foremast - man, the 
 Yellow Admiral got fearfully " out of character " 
 through over-keeping. With the service he lost all 
 touch save in one degrading particular. His pay 
 was better than his reputation, but his position was 
 isolated, his duties and his actions subject to little 
 official supervision. With opportunity came peculiar 
 temptations to bribery and peculation, and to these 
 he often succumbed. The absence of congenial 
 society frequently weighed heavy upon him and 
 drove him to immoderate drinking. Had he lived 
 a generation or so later the average impress officer 
 ashore could have echoed with perfect truth, and 
 almost nightly iteration, the crapulous sentiment in 
 which Byron is said to have toasted his hosts when 
 dining on board H.M.S. Hector at Malta: 
 
 "Glorious Hector, son of Priam, 
 Was ever mortal drunk as I am ! " ^ 
 
 ^ The authenticity of the anecdote, notwithstanding the fact that 
 it was long current in naval circles, is more than doubtful. When
 
 58 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 A lieutenant attached to the gang at Chester is 
 responsible for a piece of descriptive writing, of a 
 biographical nature, which perhaps depicts the im- 
 press officer of the century at his worst. Addressing 
 a brother lieutenant at Waterford, to which station 
 his superior was on the point of being transferred, 
 ' I think but right," says he, " to give you a 
 character of Capt. P., who is to be your Regulating 
 Captain. I have been with him six months here, 
 and if it had not been that he is leaving the place, 
 I should have wrote to the Board of Admiralty to 
 have been removed from under his command. At 
 first you'll think him a Fine old Fellow, but if it's 
 possible he will make you Quarrel with all your 
 Acquaintance. Be very Careful not to Introduce 
 him to any Family that you have a regard for, for 
 although he is near Seventy Years of Age, he is 
 the greatest Debauchee you ever met with a Man 
 of No Religion, a Man who is Capable of any 
 Meanness, Arbitrary and Tyrannicall in his Disposi- 
 tion. This City has been several times just on the 
 point of writing against him to the Board of Ad- 
 miralty. He has a wife, and Children grown up 
 to Man's Estate. The Woman he brings over with 
 him is Bird the Builder's Daughter. To Conclude, 
 there is not a House in Chester that he can go into 
 but his own and the Rendezvous, after having been 
 Six Months in one of the agreeablest Cities in 
 England." ^ 
 
 Bryon visited Malta in 1808 the Hector was doing duty at Plymouth 
 as a prison-ship, and naval records disclose no other ship of that 
 name till 1864. 
 
 * Ad, I. 1500 Lieut. Shuckford, 7 March 1780.
 
 WHAT THE PRESS-GANG WAS 59 
 
 Ignorant of the fact that his reputation had thus 
 preceded him, Capt. P. found himself assailed, on 
 his arrival at Waterford, by a "most Infamous 
 Epitaph," emanating none knew whence, nor cared. 
 This circumstance, accentuated by certain indis- 
 cretions of which the hectoring old officer was 
 guilty shortly after his arrival, aroused strong hos- 
 tility against him. A mob of fishwives, attacking 
 his house at Passage, smashed the windows and 
 were with difficulty restrained from levelling the 
 place with the ground. His junior officers conspired 
 against him. Piqued by the loss of certain per- 
 quisites which the newcomer remorselessly swept 
 away, they denounced him to the Admiralty, who 
 ordered an inquiry into his conduct. After a hearing 
 of ten days it went heavily against him, practically 
 every charge being proved. He was immediately 
 superseded and never again employed a sad ending 
 to a career of forty years under such men as Anson, 
 Boscawen, Hawke and Vernon.^ Yet such was the 
 ultimate fate of many an impress officer. A stronger 
 light focussed him ashore, and habits, proclivities and 
 weaknesses that escaped censure at sea, were here 
 projected odiously upon the sensitive retina of public 
 opinion. 
 
 Of the younger men who drifted into the shore 
 service there were some, it need scarcely be said, 
 who for obvious reasons escaped, or, rather, did not 
 succumb to the common odium. A notable example 
 of this type of officer was Capt. Jahleel Brenton, who 
 for some years commanded the gangs at Leith and 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1500 Capt. Bennett, 13 Nov. 1780, and enclosures con- 
 stituting the inquiry.
 
 60 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 Greenock. Though a man of blunt sensibilities and 
 speech, he possessed qualities which carried him out 
 of the stagnant back-water of pressing into the swim 
 of service afloat, where he eventually secured a 
 baronetcy and the rank of Vice- Admiral. Singularly 
 enough, he was American-born. 
 
 The senior officer in charge of a gang, commonly 
 known as the Regulating Captain, might in rank be 
 either captain or lieutenant. It was his duty to hire, 
 but not to "keep" the official headquarters of the 
 gang, to organise that body, to direct its operations, 
 to account for all moneys expended and men pressed, 
 and to " regulate " or inspect the latter and certify 
 them fit for service or otherwise. In this last-named 
 duty a surgeon often assisted him, usually a local 
 practitioner, who received a shilling a head for his 
 pains. One or more lieutenants, each of whom had 
 one or more midshipmen at his beck and call, served 
 under the Regulating Captain. They "kept" the 
 headquarters and led the gang, or contingents of the 
 gang, on pressing forays, thus coming in for much 
 of the hard work, and many of the harder knocks, 
 that unpopular body was liable to. Sometimes, as 
 in the case of Dover, Deal and Folkestone, several 
 gangs were grouped under a single regulating officer. 
 
 The pay of the Regulating Captain was \ 
 a day, with an additional 5s. subsistence money. 
 Lieutenants received their usual service pay, and 
 for subsistence 3s. 6d. In special cases grants were 
 made for coach-hire^ and such purposes as "enter- 
 
 ^ Capt. William Bennett's bill for the double journey between 
 Waterford and Cork, on the occasion of the inquiry into the conduct 
 of the Regulating Officer at the former place, over which he presided.
 
 WHAT THE PRESS GANG WAS 61 
 
 tainments to the Mayor and Corporation, the 
 Magistrates and the Officers of the Regulars and 
 the Mihtia, by way of return for their civiHties and 
 for their assistance in carrying on the impress." The 
 grant to the Newcastle officers, under this head, in 
 1763 amounted to upwards of ^93/ 
 
 " Road-money" was generally allowed at the rate 
 of 3d. a mile for officers and id. a mile for gangers 
 when on the press ; but as a matter of fact these 
 modest figures were often largely exceeded to the 
 no small emolument of the regulating officer. Lieut. 
 Gaydon, commanding at Ilfracombe, in 1795 debited 
 the Navy Board with a sum of ;^i48 for 1776 miles 
 of travel; Capt. Gibbs, of Swansea, with igo for 
 1 56 1 miles ; and Capt. Longcroft, of Haverfordwest, 
 with ;^524 for 8388 miles a charge characterised 
 by Admiral M 'Bride, who that year reported upon 
 the working of the impress, as "immense."^ He 
 might well have used a stronger term. 
 
 An item which it was at one time permissible to 
 charge, possesses a special interest. This was a bonus 
 of IS. a head on all men pressed a bonus that was in 
 reality nothing more than the historic prest shilling 
 of other days, now no longer paid to pressed men, 
 
 amounted to forty-three guineas a sum he considered "as moderate 
 as any gentleman's could have been, laying aside the wearing of my 
 uniform every day," Half the amount went in chaise and horse hire, 
 " there being," we are told, " no chaises upon the road as in England," 
 and " only one to be had at Cork, all the rest being gone to Dublin 
 with the Lawyers and the Players, the Sessions being just ended and 
 the Play House broke up" {Ad. i. 1503 Capt. Bennett, 24 March 
 1782). Nelson's bill for posting from Burnham, Norfolk, to London 
 and back, 260 miles, in the year 1789, amounted to jig, 5s. 2d. (Ad. 
 Victualling Dept., Miscellanea, No. 26). 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1493 Capt. Bover, 6 March 1763, and endorsement. 
 
 * Ad. I. 579 Admiral M'Bride, 19 March 1795,
 
 62 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 diverted into the pockets of those who did the 
 pressing. The practice, however, was short-lived. 
 Tending as it did to fill the ships with unserviceable 
 men, it was speedily discontinued and the historic 
 shilling made over to the certifying surgeon. 
 
 The shore midshipman could boast but little 
 affinity with his namesake of the quarter-deck. John 
 Richards, midshipman of the Godalming gang, had 
 never in his life set foot on board a man-of-war or 
 been to sea. His age was forty. The case of 
 James Good, of Hull, is even more remarkable. He 
 had served as "Midshipman of the Impress" for 
 thirty years out of sixty-three.^ The pay of these 
 elderly youths at no time exceeded a guinea a week. 
 
 The gangsman was more variously, if not more 
 generously remunerated. At Deal, in 1743, he had 
 IS. per day for his boat, and "found himself," or, 
 in the alternative, " ten shillings for every good 
 seaman procured, in full for his trouble and the hire 
 of the boat." At Dover, in 1776, he received 2s. 6d. 
 a day ; at Godalming, six years later, los. 6d. a 
 week ; and at Exeter, during the American War of 
 Independence, when the demand for seamen was 
 phenomenal, 14s. a week, 5s. for every man pressed, 
 and clothing and shoes " when he deserved it." Pay 
 and allowances were thus far from uniform. Both 
 depended largely upon the scarcity or abundance of 
 suitable gangsmen, the demand for seamen, and the 
 astuteness of the officer organising the gang. Some 
 gangs not on regular wages received as much as 
 " twenty shillings for each man impressed, and six- 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1455 Capt. Acklom, 6 Oct. 1814. Ad. 1. 1502 Capt 
 Boston, Report on Rendezvous, 1782.
 
 WHAT THE PRESS-GANG WAS 63 
 
 pence a mile for as many miles as they could make 
 it appear each man had travelled, not exceeding 
 twenty, besides (a noteworthy addition) the twelve- 
 pence press-money " ; but if a man pressed under 
 these conditions were found to be unserviceable after 
 his appearance on shipboard, all money considerations 
 for his capture were either withheld or recalled. On 
 the whole, considering the arduous and disagreeable 
 nature of the gangsman's calling, the Navy Board can- 
 not be accused of dealing any too generously by him. 
 
 " If ever you intend to man the fleet without being 
 cheated by the captains and pursers," Charles ii. is 
 credited with having once said to his council, "you 
 may go to bed." What in this sense was true of 
 the service afloat was certainly not less true of that 
 loosely organised and laxly supervised naval depart- 
 ment, the impress ashore. Considering the repute 
 of the officers engaged in it, and the opportunities 
 they enjoyed for peculation and the taking of bribes 
 considering, above all, the extreme difficulty of 
 keeping a watchful eye upon officers scattered through- 
 out the length and breadth of the land, the wonder is, 
 not that irregularities crept in, but that they should 
 have been, upon the whole, so few and so venial. 
 
 To allow the gangsmen to go fishing for sea-fish 
 or dredging for oysters, as was commonly done when 
 there was little prospect of a catch on land, was no 
 more heinous than the custom prevailing to every- 
 body's knowledge at King's Lynn in Norfolk, where 
 the gang had no need to go a-fishing because, regu- 
 larly as the cobbles came in, the midshipman attached 
 to the gang appeared on the quay and had the 
 "insolence to demand Three of the Best Fysh for
 
 64 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 the Regulating Captain, the Lieutenant and himself."* 
 And if, again, rating a gangsman in choicest quarter- 
 deck language were no serious offence, why should 
 not the Regulating Captain rate his son as midship- 
 man, even though " not proper to be employed as 
 such." And similarly, granting it to be right to 
 earn half a sovereign by pressing a man contrary 
 to law, where was the wrong in "clearing him of 
 the impress " for the same amount, as was commonly 
 done by the middies at Sunderland and Shields.* 
 These were works of supererogation rather than sins 
 against the service, and little official notice was taken 
 of them unless, as in the case of Liverpool, they were 
 carried to such lengths as to create a public scandal.^ 
 There were, as a matter of course, some officers 
 in the service who went far beyond the limits of such 
 venial irregularities and, like Falstaff, " misused the 
 king's press damnably." Though according to the 
 terms of their warrant they were " to take care not 
 to demand or receive any money, gratuity, reward, 
 or any other consideration whatsoever for the sparing, 
 exchanging or discharging any person or persons 
 impressed or to be impressed," the taking of "gratifi- 
 cations" for these express purposes prevailed to a 
 notorious extent. The difficulty was to fasten the 
 offence upon the offenders. " Bailed men," as they 
 were called, did not "peach." Their immunity from 
 the press was too dearly bought to admit of their 
 indulging personal animus against the officer who 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1546 Petition of the Owners of the Fishing Cobbles of 
 Lynn, 3 March 1809. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 1557 Capt. Bell, 27 June 1806, enclosure. 
 Ad. 1. 579 Admiral Child, 30 Jan, i8co.
 
 WHAT THE PRESS GANG WAS 65 
 
 had taken their money. It was only through some 
 tangle of circumstance over which the delinquent 
 had no control that the truth leaked out. Such a 
 case was that of the officer in command of the Mary 
 tender at Sunderland, a lieutenant of over thirty 
 years' standing. Having pressed one Michael 
 Dryden, a master's mate whom he ought never to 
 have pressed at all, he so far "forgot" himself as 
 to accept a bribe of ;^I5 for the man's release, and 
 then, "having that day been dining with a party of 
 military officers," forgot to release the man. The 
 double lapse of memory proved his ruin. Repre- 
 sentations were made to the Admiralty, and the 
 unfortunately constituted lieutenant was "broke" and 
 black-listed.^ 
 
 Another species of fraud upon which the Ad- 
 miralty was equally severe, was that long practised 
 with impunity by a certain regulating officer at Poole. 
 Not only did he habitually put back the dates on 
 which men were pressed, thus "bearing" them for 
 subsistence money they never received, he made it 
 a further practice to enter on his books the names 
 of fictitious pressed men who opportunely " escaped " 
 after adding their quota to his dishonest perquisites. 
 So general was misappropriation of funds by means 
 of this ingenious fraud that detection was deservedly 
 visited with instant dismissal.^ 
 
 Though to the gangsman all things were reputedly 
 lawful, some things were by no means expedient. 
 He could with impunity deprive almost any able- 
 bodied adult of his freedom, and he could sometimes, 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 2740 Lieut. Atkinson, 24 June 1798, and endorsement. 
 ' Ad. I, 1526 Capt. Boyle, 2 Oct. 1 801, and endorsement. 
 
 5
 
 66 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 with equal impunity, add to his scanty earnings by 
 restoring that freedom for a consideration in coin of 
 the realm ; but when, like Josh Cooper, sometime 
 gangsman at Hull, he extended his prerogative to 
 the occupants of hen-roosts, he was apt to find 
 himself at cross-purposes with the law as interpreted 
 by the sitting magistrates. 
 
 Amongst less questionable perquisites accruing 
 to the gangsman two only need be mentioned here. 
 One was the "straggling-money" paid to him for 
 the apprehension of deserters 20s. for every deserter 
 taken, with "conduct" money to boot; the other, the 
 anker of brandy designedly thrown overboard by 
 smugglers when chased by a gang engaged in 
 pressing afloat. Occasionally the brandy checked 
 the pursuit; but more often it gave an added zest 
 to the chase and so hastened the capture of the 
 fugitive donors. 
 
 To the unscrupulous outsider the opportunities 
 for illicit gain afforded by the service made an 
 irresistible appeal. Sham gangs and make-believe 
 press-masters abounded, thriving exceedingly upon 
 the fears and credulity of the people until capture 
 put a term to their activities and sent them to the 
 pillory, the prison or the fleet they pretended to 
 cater for. 
 
 Their mode of operation seldom varied. They 
 pressed a man, and then took money for "dis- 
 charging " him ; or they threatened to press and 
 were bought off. One Philpot was in 1709 fined 
 ten nobles and sentenced to the pillory for this fraud. 
 He had many imitators, amongst them John Love, 
 who posed as a midshipman, and William Moore,
 
 WHAT THE PRESS GANG WAS 67 
 
 his gangsman, both of whom were eventually brought 
 to justice and turned over to His Majesty's ships. 
 
 The role adopted by these last-named pretenders 
 was a favourite one with men engaged in crimping 
 for the merchant service. Shrewsbury in 1780 
 received a visit from one of these individuals "a 
 Person named Hopkins, who appeared in a Lieutenant's 
 Uniform and committed many fraudulant Actions and 
 Scandalous Abuses in raising Men," as he said, "for 
 the Navy." Two months later another impostor of 
 the same type appeared at Birmingham, where he 
 scattered broadcast a leaflet, headed with the royal 
 arms and couched in the following seductive terms : 
 " Eleven Pounds for every Able Seaman, Five 
 Pounds for every ordinary Seaman, and Three 
 Pounds for every Able-bodied Landsman, exclusive 
 of a compleat set of Sea Clothing, given by the 
 Marine Society. All Good Seamen, and other 
 hearty young Fellows of Spirit, that are willing to 
 serve on board any of His Majesty's Vessels or 
 Ships of War, Let them with Chearfulness repair to 
 the Sailors' Head Rendezvous in this Town, where 
 a proper Officer attends, who will give them every 
 encouragement they can desire. Now my Jolly Lads 
 is the time to fill your Pockets with Dollars, Double 
 Doubloons & Luidores. Conduct Money allowed, 
 Chest and Bedding sent Carriage Free." Soon after, 
 the two united forces at Coventry, whither Capt. 
 Beecher desired to "send a party to take them," but 
 to this request the Admiralty turned a deaf ear. In 
 their opinion the game was not worth the candle.^ 
 
 Ex-midshipman Rookhad, who when dismissed 
 ^ Ad. I. 1500 Letters of Capt. Beecher, 1780.
 
 68 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 the service took to boarding vessels in the Thames 
 and extorting money and Hquor from the masters 
 as a consideration for not pressing their men, did not 
 escape so lightly. Him the Admiralty prosecuted.^ 
 
 It was in companies, however, that the sham 
 ganger most frequently took the road, for num- 
 bers not only enhanced his chances of obtaining 
 money, they materially diminished the risk of capture. 
 One such gang was composed of "eighteen desperate 
 villians," who were nevertheless taken. Another, a 
 "parcel of fellows armed with cutlasses like a press- 
 gang," appeared at Dublin in 1743, where they boldly 
 entered public-houses on pretence of looking for 
 sailors, and there extorted money and drink. What 
 became of them we are not told ; but in the case 
 of the pretended gang whose victim, after handing 
 over two guineas as the price of his release, was 
 pressed by a regularly constituted gang, we learn 
 the gratifying sequel. The real gang gave chase to 
 the sham gang and pressed every man of them. 
 
 According to the " Humble Petition of Grace 
 Blackmore of Stratford le Bow, widow," on Friday 
 the 29th of May, in an unknown year of Queen 
 Anne's reign, " there came to Bow ffaire severall 
 pretended pressmasters, endeavouring to impress." 
 A tumult ensued. Murder was freely "cryed out," 
 apparently with good reason, for in the meMe peti- 
 tioner's husband, then constable of Bow, was "wounded 
 soe that he shortly after dyed."* 
 
 There were occasions when the sham gang 
 
 ' Ad. 7. 298 Law Officers' Opinions, 1733-56, No. 12. Process 
 was by information in the Court of King's Bench, for a misdemeanour. 
 ' State Papers Domestic, Anne, xxxvi. No. 17.
 
 WHAT THE PRESS GANG WAS 69 
 
 operated under cover of a real press-warrant, and 
 for this the Admiralty was directly to blame. It 
 had become customary at the Navy Office to send 
 out warrants, whether to commanders of ships or 
 to Regulating Captains, in blank, the person to whom 
 the warrant was directed filling in the name for 
 himself. Such warrants were frequently stolen and 
 put to irregular uses, and of this a remarkable instance 
 occurred in 1755. 
 
 In that year one Nicholas Cooke, having by some 
 means obtained possession of such a warrant, "filled 
 up the blank thereof by directing it to himself, by 
 the name and description of Lieutenant Nicholas 
 Cooke, tho' in truth not a Lieutenant nor an Officer 
 in His Majesty's Navy," hired a vessel the Provi- 
 dence snow of Dublin and in her cruised the coasts 
 of Ireland, pressing men. After thus raising as many 
 as he could carry, he shaped his course for Liverpool, 
 no doubt intending, on his arrival at that port, to sell 
 his unsuspecting victims to the merchant ships in the 
 Mersey at so much a head. Through bad seamanship, 
 however, the vessel was run aground at Seacombe, 
 opposite to Liverpool, and Capt. Darby, of H.M.S. 
 Seahorse, perceiving her plight, and thinking to render 
 assistance in return for perhaps a man or two, took 
 boat and rowed across to her. To his astonishment 
 he found her full of Irishmen to the number of 
 seventy-three, whom he immediately pressed and 
 removed to his own ship. The circumstance of the 
 false warrant now came to light, and with it another, 
 of worse omen for the mock lieutenant. In the hold 
 a quantity of undeclared spirits was discovered, and 
 this fact afforded the Admiralty a handle they were
 
 70 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 not slow to avail themselves of. They put the Excise 
 Officers on the scent, and Cooke was prosecuted for 
 smuggling.^ 
 
 The most successful sham gang ever organised 
 was perhaps that said to have been got together by 
 a trio of mischievous Somerset girls. The scene of 
 the exploit was the Denny- Bowl quarry, near Taunton. 
 The quarrymen there were a hard-bitten set and great 
 braggarts, openly boasting that no gang dare attack 
 them, and threatening, in the event of so unlikely a 
 contingency, to knock the gangsmen on the head and 
 bury them in the rubbish of the pit. There happened 
 to be in the neighbouring town " three merry maids," 
 who heard of this tall talk and secretly determined to 
 put the vaunted courage of the quarrymen to the test. 
 They accordingly dressed themselves in men's clothing, 
 stuck cockades in their hats, and with hangers under 
 their arms stealthily approached the pit. Sixty men 
 were at work there ; but no sooner did they catch 
 sight of the supposed gang than they one and all 
 threw down their tools and ran for their lives. 
 
 Officially known as the Rendezvous, a French 
 term long associated with English recruiting, the 
 headquarters of the gang were more familiarly, and 
 for brevity's sake, called the " rondy." Publicans 
 were partial to having the rondy on their premises 
 because of the trade it brought them. Hence it was 
 usually an alehouse, frequently one of the shadiest 
 description, situated in the lowest slum of the town ; 
 but on occasions, as when the gang was of uncommon 
 strength and the number of pressed men dealt with 
 proportionately large, a private house or other suit- 
 * Ad. 7. 298 Law OflScers' Opinions, 1733-56, No. loi.
 
 WHAT THE PRESS-GANG WAS 71 
 
 able building was taken for the exclusive use of the 
 service. It was distinguished by a flag a Jack 
 displayed upon a pole. The cost of the two was 
 27s., and in theory they were supposed to last a year ; 
 but in towns where the populace evinced their love 
 for the press by hewing down the pole and tearing 
 the flag in ribbons, these emblems of national liberty 
 had frequently to be renewed. At King's Lynn as 
 much as ;^i3 was spent upon them in four years 
 an outlay regarded by the Navy Board with absolute 
 dismay. It would have been not less dismayed, 
 perhaps, could it have seen the bunting displayed by 
 rendezvous whose surroundings were friendly. There 
 the same old Jack did duty year after year until, 
 grimy and bedraggled, it more resembled the black 
 flag than anything else that flew, wanting only the 
 skull and cross-bones to make it a fitting emblem of 
 authorised piracy. 
 
 The rondy was hardly a spot to which one would 
 have resorted for a rest-cure. When not engaged 
 in pressing, the gangsmen were a roistering, drinking 
 crew, under lax control and never averse from a row, 
 either amongst themselves or with outsiders. Some- 
 times the commanding officer made the place his 
 residence, and when this was the case some sort of 
 order prevailed. The floors were regularly swept, 
 the beds made, the frowsy "general" gratified by 
 a weekly "tip" on pay-day. But when, on the other 
 hand, the gangsmen who did not " find themselves " 
 occupied the rondy to the exclusion of the officer, 
 eating and sleeping there, tramping in and out at all 
 hours of the day and night, dragging pressed men 
 in to be " regulated " and locked up, and diverting
 
 72 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 such infrequent intervals of leisure as they enjoyed 
 by pastimes in which fear of the "gent overhead" 
 played no part when this was the case the rondy 
 became a veritable bear-garden, a place of unspeak- 
 able confusion wherein papers and pistols, boots 
 and blankets, cutlasses, hats, beer-pots and staves 
 cumbered the floors, the lockers and the beds with 
 a medley of articles torn, rusty, mud-stained, dirt- 
 begrimed and unkept. 
 
 Amongst accessories essential to the efficient 
 activity of gangs stationed at coast or river towns 
 the boat had first place. Sometimes both sail and 
 row-boats were employed. Luggers of the old type, 
 fast boats carrying a great press of sail, served best 
 for overhauling ships ; but on inland waterways, 
 such as the Thames, the Humber or the Tyne, a 
 " sort of wherry, constructed for rowing fast," was 
 the favourite vehicle of pursuit. The rate of hire 
 varied from is. a day to two or more guineas a 
 week, according to the size and class of boat. At 
 Cork it was " five shillings Irish " per day. 
 
 Accessories of a less indispensable nature, 
 occasionally allowed, were, at Dartmouth and a few 
 other places, cockades for the gangsmen's hats, 
 supplied at a cost of is. each ; at Tower Hill a 
 messenger, pay 20s. a week ; and at Appledore an 
 umbrella for use in rainy weather, price 12s. 6d. 
 
 The arms of the gang comprised, first, a press- 
 warrant, and, second, such weapons as were necessary 
 to enforce it. 
 
 In the literature of the eighteenth century the 
 warrant is inseparably associated with the short, 
 incurvated service sword commonly known as the
 
 WHAT THE PRESS-GANG WAS 73 
 
 cutlass or hanger ; but in the press-gang prints of 
 the period the gangsmen are generally armed with 
 stout clubs answering to Smollett's "good oak plant." 
 Apart from this artistic evidence, however, there is 
 no valid reason for believing that the bludgeon ever 
 came into general use as the ganger's weapon. As 
 early as the reign of Anne he went armed with the 
 " Queen's broad cutlash," and for most gangs, certainly 
 for all called upon to operate in rough neighbourhoods, 
 the hanger remained the stock weapon throughout 
 the century. In expeditions involving special risk or 
 danger, the musket and the pistol supplemented what 
 must have been in itself no mean weapon. 
 
 As we have already seen, the earliest recorded 
 press-warrants emanated from the king in person, 
 whilst later ones were issued by the king in council 
 and endorsed by the naval authorities. As the need 
 of men became more and more imperative, however, 
 this mode of issue was found to be too cumbersome 
 and inexpeditious. Hence, by the time the eighteenth 
 century came in, with its tremendously enhanced 
 demands on behalf of the Navy, the royal prerogative 
 in respect to warrants had been virtually delegated 
 to the Admiralty, who issued them on their own 
 initiative, though ostensibly in pursuance of His 
 Majesty's Orders in Council. 
 
 An Admiralty warrant empowered the person to 
 whom it was directed to "impress" as many "sea- 
 men " as possibly he could procure, giving to each 
 man so impressed is. "for prest money." He was 
 to impress none but such as " were strong bodies and 
 capable to serve the king " ; and, having so impressed 
 such persons, he was to deliver them up to the officer
 
 74 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 regulating the nearest rendezvous. All civil authori- 
 ties were to be "aiding and assisting" to him in the 
 discharge of this duty. 
 
 Now this document, the stereotyped press- warrant 
 of the century, here concisely summarised in its own 
 phraseology, was not at all what it purported to be. 
 It was in fact a warrant out of time, an official 
 anachronism, a red-tape survival of that bygone 
 period when pressing still meant "presting" and 
 force went no further than a threat. For men were 
 now no longer "prested." They were pressed, and 
 that, too, in the most drastic sense of the term. The 
 king's shilling no longer changed hands. Even in 
 Pepys' time men were pressed " without money," and 
 in none of the accounts of expenses incurred in press- 
 ing during the century which followed, excepting only 
 a very few of the earlier ones, can any such item 
 as the king's shilling or prest-money be discovered. 
 Its abolition was a logical sequence of the change 
 from presting to pressing. 
 
 The seaman, moreover, so far from being the sole 
 quarry of the warrant-holder, now sought concealment 
 amongst a people almost without exception equally 
 liable with himself to the capture he endeavoured to 
 elude. Retained merely as a matter of form, and 
 totally out of keeping with altered conditions, the 
 warrant was in effect obsolete save as an instrument 
 authorising one man to deprive another of his liberty 
 in the king's name. Even the standard of "able 
 bodies and capable " had deteriorated to such an 
 extent that the officers of the fleet were kept nearly 
 as busy weeding out and rejecting men as were 
 the officers of the impress in taking them.
 
 WHAT THE PRESS GANG WAS 75 
 
 Still, the warrant served. Stripped of its obsolete 
 injunctions, it read : " Go ye out into the highways 
 and hedges, and water-ways, and compel them to 
 come in " enough, surely, for any officer imbued with 
 zeal for His Majesty's service. 
 
 Though according to the strict letter of the law 
 as defined by various decisions of the courts a 
 press-warrant was legally executable only by the 
 officer to whom it was addressed, in practice the 
 limitation was very widely departed from, if not 
 altogether ignored ; for just as a constable or sheriff 
 may call upon bystanders to assist him in the execu- 
 tion of his offiice, so the holder of a press-warrant, 
 though legally unable to delegate his authority by 
 other means, could call upon others to aid him in 
 the execution of his duty. Naturally, the gangsmen 
 being at hand, and being at hand for that very purpose, 
 he gave them first preference. Hence, the gangs- 
 man pressed on the strength of a warrant which in 
 reality gave him no power to press. 
 
 While the law relating to the intensive force of 
 warrants was thus deliberately set at naught, an 
 extraordinary punctiliousness for legal formality was 
 displayed in another direction. According to tradi- 
 tion and custom no warrant was valid until it had 
 received the sanction of the civil power. Solicitor- 
 General Yorke could find no statutory authority for 
 such procedure.^ He accordingly pronounced it to be 
 non-essential to the validity of warrants. Neverthe- 
 less, save in cases where the civil power refused its 
 endorsement, it was universally adhered to. What 
 was bad law was notoriously good policy, for a 
 
 ^ Ad. 7. 298 Law Officers' Opinions, 1733-56, No. 102.
 
 76 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 disaffected mayor, or an unfriendly Justice of the 
 Peace, had it in his power to make the path of the 
 impress officer a thorny one indeed. " Make unto 
 yourselves friends," was therefore one of the first 
 injunctions laid upon officers whose duties unavoid- 
 ably made them many enemies.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 WHOM THE GANG MIGHT TAKE 
 
 In theory an authority for the taking of seafaring 
 men only, the press-warrant was in practice invested 
 with all the force of a Writ of Quo Warranto requir- 
 ing every able-bodied male adult to show by what 
 right he remained at large. The difference between 
 the theory and the practice of pressing was conse- 
 quently as wide as the poles. 
 
 While the primary and ostensible objective of the 
 impress remained always what it had been from the 
 outset, the seaman who had few if any land-ties 
 except those of blood or sex, from this root principle 
 there sprang up a very Upas tree of pretension, whose 
 noxious branches overspread practically every section 
 of the community. Hence the press-gang, the em- 
 bodiment of this pretension, eventually threw aside 
 ostence and took its pick of all who came its way, let 
 their occupation or position be what it might. It 
 was no duty of the gangsman to employ his 
 hanger in splitting hairs. " First catch your man," 
 was for him the greatest of all the command- 
 ments. Discrimination was for his masters. The 
 weeding out could be done when the pressing was 
 over. 
 
 The classes hardest hit by this lamentable want 
 
 77
 
 78 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 of discrimination were the classes engaged in trade, 
 "Mr. Coventry," wrote Pepys some four years after 
 the Restoration, " showed how the medium of the 
 men the King hath one year with another employed 
 in his navy since his coming, hath not been 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 in great 
 waters, returning laden with the spoils of the com- 
 mercial world, have perforce to render tribute unto 
 Caesar ; but Mr. Commissioner Coventry little 
 guessed, when he enunciated his corollary with such 
 nice precision, to what it was destined to lead in the 
 next hundred years or so. 
 
 Under the merciless exactions of the press-gang 
 Trade did not, however, prove the submissive thing 
 that was wont to stand at its doors and cry : ' Will 
 you buy ? will you buy ? " or to bow prospective 
 customers into its rich emporiums with unctuous 
 rubbing of hands and sauve words. Trade knew its 
 power and determined to use it. " Look you ! my 
 Lords Commissioners," cried Trade, truculently cock- 
 ing its hat in the face of Admiralty, " I have 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
 
 WHOM THE GANG MIGHT TAKE 79 
 
 the mariners who sail them, the ablest of these my 
 necessary helpers sling their hammocks in your fleet. 
 You have crippled the printing of my Bible and 
 the brewing of my Beer, and I can bear no more. 
 Protect me from my arch-enemy the foreigner if you 
 must and will, but not, my Lords Commissioners, by 
 such monstrous personal methods as these." "Your 
 servant ! " said Admiralty, obsequious before the only 
 power it feared "your servant to command!" and 
 straightway set about finding a remedy for the evils 
 Trade complained of. 
 
 Now, to attain this end, so desirable if Trade 
 were to be placated, it was necessary to define with 
 precision either whom the gang might take, or whom 
 it might not take ; and here Admiralty, though 
 notoriously a body without a brain, achieved a stroke 
 of genius, for it brought down both birds with a 
 single stone. Postulating first of all the old lex sine 
 lege fiction that every native-born Briton and every 
 British male subject born abroad was legally press- 
 able, 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 service at sea.^ Having thus cleared 
 the ground root and branch. Admiralty magnani- 
 mously proceeded to frame a category of persons 
 whom, as an act of grace and a concession to Trade, 
 
 ^ Ad. 7. 300 Law Officers' Opinions, 1778-83, No. 26 ; and Ad. I. 
 581 Admiral Berkeley, 14 Feb. 1805, well express the official view.
 
 80 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 it was willing to protect from assault and capture by 
 its emissary the press-gang. 
 
 These exemptions from the wholesale incidence 
 of the impress were not granted all at once. 
 Embodied from time to time in Acts of Parliament 
 and so-called acts of official grace slowly and 
 painfully wrung from a reluctant Admiralty by the 
 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 intimate points and 
 interests, culminated at length in the abolition of that 
 most odious system of oppression from which they 
 had sprung, and in a charter of liberties before which 
 the famous charter of King John sinks into insig- 
 nificance. 
 
 As a matter of policy the foreigner had first place 
 in the list of exemptions. He could volunteer if he 
 chose,^ but he must not be pressed.* 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 
 
 * Strenuous efforts were made in 170910 induce the "Poor Palatines" 
 seven thousand of them encamped at Blackheath, and two thousand 
 in Sir John Parson's brewhouse at Camberwell to enter for the navy. 
 But the "thing was New to them to go aboard a Man of Warr," so they 
 declined the invitation, "having the Notion of being sent to Carolina." 
 Ad. I. 1437 Letters of Capt. Aston. 
 
 * 13 George ii. cap. 17.
 
 Tin; rRl'..-i.--GA.\G SEIZING A \'lCTlM.
 
 WHOM THE GANG MIGHT TAKE 81 
 
 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 naturalised British subject and was liable to have 
 even his honeymoon curtailed by a visit from the 
 press-gang. Such, in fact, was the fate of one 
 William Castle of Bristol in 1806. Pressed there in 
 that year on his return from the West Indies, he was 
 discharged as a person of alien birth ; but having 
 immediately afterwards committed the indiscretion of 
 taking a Bristol woman to wife, he was again pressed, 
 this time within three weeks of his wedding-day, and 
 kept by express order of Admiralty.^ 
 
 For some years after the passing of the Act 
 exempting the foreigner, his rights appear to have 
 been generally, though by no means universally 
 respected. " Discharge him if not married or settled 
 in England," was the usual order when he chanced 
 to be taken by the gang. With the turn of the 
 century, however, a reaction set in. Pressed men 
 claiming to be of alien birth were thenceforth only 
 liberated "if unfit for service."^ 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 im- 
 peachment. Consequently, whenever he was taken 
 by the gang he was assumed, in the absence of proof 
 to the contrary, to have committed the fatal act of 
 naturalisation.^ Alien seamen in distress through 
 
 * Ad. I. 1537 Capt. Barker, 23 July 1&06. 
 
 * Ad. I. 2733 Capt. Young, 11 March 1756, endorsement, and 
 numerous instances. 
 
 Ad. I. 581 Admiral Phillip, 26 Feb. 1805. 
 6
 
 82 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 shipwreck or other accidental causes, formed a humane 
 exception to this unwritten law. 
 
 The negro was never reckoned an alien. Looked 
 upon as a proprietary subject of the Crown, and 
 having no one in particular to speak up for or defend 
 him, he " shared the same fate as the free-born white 
 man."^ Many blacks, picked up in the West Indies 
 or on the American coast " without hurting com- 
 merce," were to be found on board our ships of war, 
 where, when not incapacitated by climatic conditions, 
 they made active, alert seamen and "generally 
 imagined themselves free."* Their point of view, 
 poor fellows, was doubtless a strictly comparative one. 
 
 Theoretically exempt by virtue of his calling, 
 whatever that might be, the landsman was in reality 
 scarcely less marked down by the gang than his 
 unfortunate brother the seafaring man ; for notwith- 
 standing all its professions to the contrary. Admiralty 
 could not afford to ignore the potentialities of the 
 reserve the landsman represented. Hence no occu- 
 pation, no property qualification, could or did protect 
 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 Capt. 
 Innes, of His Majesty's armed sloop the Hind, 
 applied to the Lords Commissioners for "Twenty 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 482 Admiral Lord Colvill, 29 Oct. 1762. 
 * Ad. I. 585 Admiral Donnelly, 22 Feb. 1815.
 
 WHOM THE GANG MIGHT TAKE 83 
 
 Landsmen from Twenty to Twenty-five years of 
 Age." The Admiralty order, " Let the Regulating 
 Captains send them as he desires," ^ leaves no room 
 for doubt as to the class of men provided. They 
 were pressed men, not volunteers. 
 
 Nor is this a solitary instance of a practice that 
 was rapidly growing to large proportions. Many a 
 landsman, in the years that followed, shared the fate 
 of the Irish "country farmer" who went into Water- 
 ford to sell his corn, and was there pressed and sent 
 on board the tender; of James Whitefoot, the Bristol 
 glover, "a timid, unformed young man, the comfort 
 and 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.^ Wilkes' historic barber would have entered 
 upon the same enforced career had not that astute 
 Alderman discovered, to the astonishment of the 
 nation at large, that a warrant which authorised the 
 pressing of seamen did not necessarily authorise the 
 pressing of a city tonsor. 
 
 Amongst landsmen the harvester, as a worker 
 of vital utility to the country, enjoyed a degree 
 of exemption accorded to few. Impress officers had 
 particular instructions concerning him. They were 
 to delete him from the category of those who might 
 be taken. Armed with a certificate from the minister 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1983 Capt. Innes, 3 May 1744, and endorsement. 
 
 " Ad. I. 1501 Capt. Bligh, 16 May 1781. Ad. i. 1531 Duchess of 
 Gordon, 14 Feb. 1804. Ad. i. 584 Humble Petition of Betsey Win- 
 stanley, 2 Sept. 1 8 14.
 
 84 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 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 aid 
 in getting his crop, the concession proved an inestim- 
 able boon. There were violations of the harvester's 
 status, it is true ; ^ but these were too infrequent to 
 affect seriously the industry he represented. 
 
 So far as the press was concerned, the harvester 
 was better off than the gentleman, for while the 
 former could dress as he pleased, the latter was often 
 obliged to dress as he could, and in this lay an 
 element of danger. So long as his clothes were 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 of his protesta- 
 tions the gang took him, and he was lucky indeed if, 
 like the gentleman who narrates his experience in the 
 Review for the loth of February 1706, he was able 
 to convince his captors that he was foreign born by 
 "talking Latin and Greek." 
 
 To the people at large, whether landsmen or sea- 
 farers, the Act exempting from the press every male 
 under eighteen and over fifty-five years of age would 
 have brought a sorely needed relief had not Admiralty 
 been a past-master in the subtile art of outwitting the 
 law. In this instance a simple regulation did the 
 trick. Every man or boy who claimed the benefit of 
 
 * Ad. I. 5125 Memorial of Sir William Oglander, Bart., July 1796.
 
 WHOM THE GANG MIGHT TAKE 85 
 
 the age-limit when pressed, was required to prove 
 his claim ere he could obtain his discharge.^ The 
 impossibility of any general compliance with such a 
 demand on the part of persons often as ignorant of 
 birth certificates as they were of the sea, practically 
 wiped the exemption off the slate. 
 
 In the eyes of the Regulating Captain no man 
 was older than he looked, no lad as young as he 
 avowed. Hence thousands of pressed men over 
 fifty-five, who did not look the age they could not 
 prove, figured on the books of the fleet with boys 
 whose precocity 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 same manner while still "under the age of 
 twelve."^ The gang did not pause by the way to 
 discuss such questions. 
 
 Apprentices fell into a double category those 
 bound to the sea, those apprenticed on land. Nomi- 
 nally, the sea apprentice was protected from the 
 impress for a term of three years from the date of his 
 indentures, provided he had not used the sea before ; * 
 while the land apprentice enjoyed immunity under 
 the minimum age-limit of eighteen years. The 
 proviso in the first case, however, left open a loop- 
 hole the impress officer was never slow to take 
 advantage of; and the minimum age-limit, as we 
 
 ^ Ad. 7. 300 Law Officers' Opinions, 1778-83, No. 43: "It is 
 incumbent on those who claim to be exempted to prove the facts." 
 
 'Ad. I. 583 Vice-Admiral Hunter, 10 May 1813. Ad. i. 1503 
 Capt. Butchart, 22 Jan. 1782, and enclosure. 
 
 ' 2 & 3 Anne, cap. 6, re-affirmed 13 George li. cap. 17.
 
 86 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 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.* 
 'Prentices who "eloped" or ran away from their 
 masters, and then entered voluntarily, could not be 
 reclaimed by any known process at law if they were 
 over eighteen years of age. On the whole, the 
 position of the apprentice, whether by land or sea, 
 was highly anomalous and uncertain. Often taken 
 by the gang in the hurry of visiting a ship, or in 
 the scurry of a hot press on shore, he was in effect 
 the shuttlecock of the service, to-day singing merrily 
 at his capstan or bench, to-morrow bewailing his 
 hard fate on board a man-o'-war. 
 
 When it came to the exemption of seamen. Ad- 
 miralty found itself on the horns of a dilemma. Both 
 the Navy and the merchant service depended in a very 
 large degree upon the seaman who knew the ropes 
 who could take his turn at the wheel, scud aloft without 
 going through the lubber-hole, and act promptly and 
 sailorly in emergency. To take wholesale such men as 
 these, while it would enormously enhance the effective- 
 ness of His Majesty's ships ofwar,must inevitably cripple 
 sea-borne trade. It was therefore necessary, for the 
 well-being of both services, to discover the golden mean. 
 
 * Ad. 7. 300 Law Officers' Opinions, 1778-83, No. 25.
 
 WHOM THE GANG MIGHT TAKE 87 
 
 According to statute law ^ every person using the 
 sea, of what age soever he might be, was exempt from 
 the impress for two years from the time of his first 
 making the venture. The concession did not greatly 
 improve the situation from a trade point of view. It 
 merely touched the fringe of the problem, and Trade 
 was insistent. 
 
 A further concession was accordingly made. All 
 masters, mates, boatswains and carpenters of vessels of 
 fifty tons and upwards were exempted from the impress 
 on condition of their going before a Justice of the Peace 
 and making oath to their several qualifications. This 
 affidavit, coupled with a succinct description of the 
 deponent, constituted the holder's '* protection" and 
 shielded him, or was supposed to shield him, from mol- 
 estation by the gang. Masters and mates of colliers, 
 and of vessels laid up for the winter, came under this 
 head ; but masters or mates of vessels detected in 
 running dutiable goods, or caught harbouring deserters 
 from the fleet, could be summarily dealt with notwith- 
 standing their protections. The same fate befell the 
 mate or apprentice who was lent by one ship to another. 
 
 In addition to the executive of the vessel, as 
 defined in the foregoing paragraph, it was of course 
 necessary to extend protection to as many of her 
 "hands" as 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 officers rarely saw eye to eye ; and 
 since the arbiter in all such disputes was the "quarter- 
 deck gentlemen," the decision seldom if ever went in 
 favour of the master. 
 
 * 13 George ii. cap. 17.
 
 88 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 The importance of the coal trade won for colliers 
 an early concession, which left no room for differences 
 of opinion. Every vessel employed in that trade was 
 entitled to carry one exempt able-bodied man for each 
 hundred units of her registered tonnage, provided it 
 did not exceed three hundred. The penalty for 
 pressing such men was ;^io for each man taken.* 
 
 On the coasts of Scotland commanders of war- 
 ships whose carpenters had run or broken their leave, 
 and who perhaps were left, like Capt. Gage of the 
 Otter sloop, "without so much as a Gimblett on 
 board,"' might press shipwrights from the yards on 
 shore to fill the vacancy, and suffer no untoward 
 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 of a 
 ship than the able-bodied seaman, legal questions of 
 an extremely embarrassing nature nevertheless 
 cropped up when the scene of their activities under- 
 went too sudden and violent a change. The pressing 
 of such artificers consequently met with little official 
 encouragement.' 
 
 Where the Admiralty scored, in the matter of 
 ship protections, and scored heavily, was when the 
 protected person went ashore. For when on shore 
 the protected master, mate, boatswain, carpenter, 
 
 * 2 & 3 Anne, cap. 6. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 1829 Capt. Gage, 29 Sept. 1742. 
 
 ' Ad. 7. 3CX) Law Officers' Opinions, 1778-83, No. 2.
 
 WHOM THE GANG MIGHT TAKE 89 
 
 apprentice or seaman no longer enjoyed protection 
 unless he was there "on ship's duty." The rule was 
 most rigorously, not to say arbitrarily, enforced. Thus 
 at Plymouth, in the year 1746, a seaman who pro- 
 tested in broken English that he had come 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!"i 
 
 Any mate who failed to register his name at the 
 rendezvous, as soon as his ship arrived in port, did 
 so at his peril. Without that formality he was " not 
 entitled to liberty." So strict was 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 " until eight only, he was immediately 
 pressed and kept, the Admiralty refusing to declare 
 the act irregular.^ 
 
 In many ports it was customary for sailors to sleep 
 ashore while their ships lay at the quay or at moor- 
 ings. The proceeding was highly dangerous. No 
 sailor ever courted sleep in such circumstances, even 
 though armed with a "line from the master setting 
 
 "^ Ad. I. 2381 Capt. John Roberts, ii 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 17 12, an Admiralty 
 letter, addressed to him at Harwich and containing important instruc- 
 tions, by some mischance went astray and Roberts accused the Clerk of 
 the Check of having appropriated it. The latter called him a liar, 
 whereupon Roberts "gave him a slap in the face and bid him learn 
 more manners." For this exhibition of temper he was superseded and 
 kept on the half-pay list for some six years. Ad. i. 147 1 Capt. Brand, 
 8 March 1711-12. Ad. i. 2378, section 11, Admiralty note. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1546 Capt. Bowyer, 25 July 1809, and enclosure.
 
 90 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 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 were granted the privilege of lodging ashore. 
 "Certainly not!" retorted the Admiralty. "We 
 cannot grant Poole an indulgence that other towns do 
 not enjoy'' * 
 
 In spite of the risk involved, the sailor slept ashore 
 and if he survived the night tried to steal back to 
 his ship in the grey of the morning. Now and then, 
 by a run of luck, he made his offing in safety ; but 
 more frequently he met the fate of John White of 
 Bristol, who was taken by the gang when only "about 
 ninety yards from his vessel." 
 
 The only exceptions to this stringent rule were 
 certain classes of men engaged in the Greenland 
 and South Seas whale fisheries. Skilled harpooners, 
 linesmen and boat-steerers, on their return from a 
 whaling cruise, could obtain from any Collector of 
 Customs, for sufficient bond put in, a protection 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. If, however, they took service on board any 
 vessel other than a collier, they forfeited their protec- 
 tions and could be "legally detained."* 
 
 In one ironic respect the gang strongly resembled 
 
 * Ad. I. 2485 Capt. Scott, 4 Jan. 1780, and endorsement. 
 
 13 (]eor','e li. cap. 28. Ad. i. 2732 Capt. Young, 14 March 1756. 
 Ad. 7. 3CX3 Law Officers' Opinions, 1778-83, No. 42.
 
 WHOM THE GANG MIGHT TAKE 91 
 
 a boomerang. So thoroughly and impartially did it 
 do its work that it recoiled upon those who used it. 
 The evil was one of long standing. Pepys complained 
 of it bitterly in his day, asserting that owing to its 
 prevalence letters could neither be received nor sent, 
 and 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 they were employed in.^ To check 
 this egregious robbing of Peter to pay Paul, both the 
 Navy Board and the Government were obliged to 
 " protect " their own sea-going hirelings, and even 
 then the protections were not always effective. 
 
 Between the extremes represented by the lands- 
 man who enjoyed nominal exemption and the 
 seaman who enjoyed none, there existed a middle or 
 amphibious class of persons who lived exclusively on 
 neither land nor water, but habitually used both in 
 the pursuit of their various callings. These were the 
 wherry or watermen, the lightermen, bargemen, 
 keelmen, trowmen and canal-boat dwellers frequent- 
 ing mainly the inland waterways of the country. 
 
 In the reign of Richard ii. the jurisdiction of 
 Admirals was defined as extending, in a certain 
 particular, to the "main stream of great rivers nigh 
 the sea. "^ Had the. same line of demarcation been 
 observed in the pressing of those whose occupations 
 lay upon rivers, there would have been little cause for 
 
 "^ Ad. I. i486 Capt. Uaird, 27 Feb. 1755, and numerous instances. 
 * 15 Richard II. cap. 2.
 
 92 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 outcry or complaint. But the Admiralty, the suc- 
 cessors of the ancient " 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," and later warrants expressly authorised the 
 gangs to take as many of them as they should be able, 
 not excepting even the ferryman. The extension 
 was one of tremendous consequence, since it swept 
 into the Navy thousands of men who, like the Ely 
 and Cambridge bargemen, were "hardy, strong 
 fellows, who never failed to make good seamen."^ 
 
 Amongst these denizens of the country's water- 
 ways the position of the Thames wherryman was 
 peculiar in that from very early times he had been 
 exempt from the ordinary incidence of the press on 
 condition of his periodically supplying from his own 
 numbers a certain quota of able-bodied men for the 
 use of the fleet. The rule applied to all watermen 
 using the river between Gravesend and Windsor, 
 and members of the fraternity who " withdrew and 
 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."* 
 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 
 
 Ad. I. i486 Capt. Baird, 29 April 1755. 
 ' 2 & 3 Philip and Mary, cap. 16.
 
 WHOM THE GANG MIGHT TAKE 93 
 
 and carolling," thus earning the familiar sobriquet of 
 "the jolly young waterman." Even so, his tenure of 
 happiness was anything but secure. With the naval 
 officer and the gang he was no favourite, and few 
 opportunities of dashing his happiness were allowed 
 to pass unimproved. In the person of John Golden, 
 however, they caught a Tartar. To the dismay of 
 the Admiralty and the officer responsible for pressing 
 him, he proved to be one of my Lord Mayor's 
 bargemen.^ 
 
 Apart from the watermen of the Thames, the 
 purchase of immunity from the press by periodic 
 levies met with little favour, and though the levy was 
 in 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 in five a 
 percentage which the Admiralty considered a " matter 
 of no distress " ; and the penalty for refusing to 
 entertain them was wholesale pressing. 
 
 The Tyne keelmen, while ostensibly consenting 
 to buy immunity on this basis, seldom levied the quota 
 upon themselves. By offering bounties they drew 
 the price of their freedom to work in the keels from 
 outside sources. Lord Thurlow confessed that he 
 did not know what " working in the keels " meant.^ 
 There were few in the fleet who could have enlight- 
 ened him of their own experience. The keelmen 
 kept their ranks as far as possible intact. In this 
 they were materially aided by the Mayor and 
 Corporation of Newcastle, who held a " Grand Pro- 
 tection " of the Admiralty, and in return for this 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 2733 Capt. Young, 7 March 1756. 
 
 ' Ad. 7. 299 Law Officers' Opinions, 1752-77, No. 70.
 
 94 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 exceptional mark of their Lordships' favour did all 
 they could to further the pressing of persons less 
 essential to the trade of the town and river than were 
 their own keelmen. 
 
 On the rivers Severn and Wye there was plying 
 in 1806 a flotilla of ninety-eight trows, ranging in 
 capacity from sixty to one hundred and thirty tons, 
 and employing five hundred and eighty-eight men, of 
 whom practically all enjoyed exemption from the 
 press. It being a time of exceptional stress for 
 men, the Admiralty considered this proportion ex- 
 cessive, 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 all 
 he could get. The Association of Severn Traders, 
 finding themselves thus placed between the devil 
 and the deep sea, agreed to the proposal with a 
 reluctance they in vain endeavoured to hide under 
 ardent protestations of loyalty.^ 
 
 In the three hundred "flats " engaged in carrying 
 salt, coals and other commodities between Nantwich 
 and Liverpool there were employed, in 1795, some nine 
 hundred men who had up to that time 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 man in six, or at the least one man in nine, in return 
 for exemption to be granted to the remainder." 
 
 ' Ad. I. 1537 Capt. Barker, 24 April and 9 May 1806, and enclosure. 
 * Ad. I. 578 Admiral Pringle, Report on Rendezvous, 2 April 1795.
 
 WHOM THE GANG MIGHT TAKE 95 
 
 Turf-boats plying on the Blackwater and the 
 Shannon seem to have enjoyed no special conces- 
 sions. The men working them were pressed when- 
 ever they could be laid hold of, and if they were not 
 always kept, their discharge was due to reasons 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 was essentially a good-natured soul, and 
 when his native indolence and slowness of movement 
 had been duly corrected by a judicious use of the 
 rattan and the rope's-end, his services were highly 
 esteemed in His Majesty's ships of war. 
 
 In the category of exemptions the fisheries 
 occupied a place entirely their own. They were 
 carefully fostered, but indifferently protected. 
 
 Previous to the year 1729 the most important 
 concession granted to those engaged in the taking of 
 fish was the establishing of two extra " Fishe Dayes " 
 in the week. The provision was embodied in a 
 statute of 1563, whereby the people were required, 
 under a penalty of ;^3 for each omission, " or els 
 three monethes close Imprisonment without Baile or 
 Maineprise," to eat fish, to the total exclusion of 
 meat, on Fridays and Saturdays, and to content 
 themselves with "one dish of flesh to three dishes 
 of fish " on Wednesdays.^ 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 
 ^ 5 Elizabeth, cap. 5.
 
 96 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 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 falling off in the consumption offish, and this 
 decrease had in turn played havoc with the fisheries. 
 Now the fisheries were in reality the national incubator 
 for seamen, and Cecil, Elizabeth's astute Secretary of 
 State, perceiving in their decadence a grave menace 
 to the manning of prospective fleets, determined, for 
 that reason if for no other, to reanimate the dying 
 industry. The Act in question was the practical 
 outcome of his deliberations.^ 
 
 An enactment which combined so happily the 
 interests of the fisher classes with those of national 
 defence could not but be productive of far-reaching 
 consequences. The fishing industry not only throve 
 exceedingly because of it, it in time became, as Cecil 
 clearly foresaw it would become, a nursery for seamen 
 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 these 
 exceptions craft of every description employed in the 
 taking or the carrying of fish, for a very protracted 
 period enjoyed only such exemptions as were grudg- 
 ingly extended to sea-going craft in general. The 
 
 ^ State Papers Domestic^ Elizabeth, vol. xxvii. Nos. 71 and 72, 
 comprising Cecil's original memoranda.
 
 WHOM THE GANG MIGHT TAKE 97 
 
 source of supply represented by the leviathan industry 
 was too valuable to be lightly restricted. 
 
 On the other hand, it was too important to be 
 lightly depleted. Therefore under Cecil's Act estab- 
 lishing extra " Fishe Dayes," no fisherman "using 
 or haunting the sea " could be pressed off-hand to 
 serve in the Queen's Navy. The "taker," as the 
 press-master 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 the warrant specified. In this way 
 originated the " backing " or endorsing of warrants 
 by the civil power. At first obligatory only as 
 regards the pressing of fishermen, it came to be 
 regarded in time as an essential preliminary to all 
 pressing done on land. 
 
 No further provision of a special nature would 
 appear to have been made for the protecting of fisher 
 folk from the press until the year 1729, when an 
 exemption was granted which covered the master, 
 one apprentice, one seaman and one landsman for 
 each vessel.^ 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 impressed.^ The exemption came too 
 late to prove substantially beneficial to an industry 
 which had suffered incalculable injury from the then 
 recent wars. The press-gang was already nearing 
 its last days. 
 
 Prior to the Act of 1801 persons whose sole 
 * 2 George ii. cap. 15, 2 ^i George in. cap. 21, 
 
 7
 
 ^ 
 
 98 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 occupation was " to pick oysters and mussels at low 
 water" were accounted fishermen and habitually 
 pressed as " using the sea." 
 
 The position of the smaller fry of fishermen is 
 thrown into vivid relief by an official communique of 
 1709 as opposed to an incident of later date. " These 
 poor people," runs the note, which was addressed to 
 a naval commander who had pressed a fisherman out 
 of a boat of less than three tons, " have been always 
 protected for the support of their indigent families, 
 and therefore they must not be taken into the service 
 unless there is a pressing occasion, and then they will 
 be all forced thereinto r ^ Captain Boscawen, writing 
 from the Nore in 1745, supplies the antithesis. He 
 had been instructed to procure half a dozen fishing 
 smacks, each of not less than sixty tons burden, for 
 transport purposes. None were to be had. " The 
 reason the fishermen give for not employing vessels 
 of that size," he states, in explanation of the fact, "is 
 that all the young men are pressed, and that the old 
 men and boys are not able to work them."* 
 
 Conditions such as these in time taught the fisher- 
 man wisdom, and he awoke to the fact that exemption 
 for a consideration, as in the case of workers on rivers 
 and canals, was preferable to paying through the nose. 
 The Admiralty was never averse 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 " very poor and needy." They em- 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 2377 Capt. Robinson, 4 Feb. 1708-9, and endorsement. 
 ' Ad. I. 1481 Capt. Boscawen, 23 Dec. 1745.
 
 WHOM THE GANG MIGHT TAKE 99 
 
 ployed only sixteen boats. Yet they found it 
 cheaper to contribute five men to the Navy, at a cost 
 of 40 in bounties, than to entertain the gang/ 
 
 The Orkney fisherman bought his freedom, both 
 on his fishing-grounds and when carrying his catch 
 to market, on similar terms ; but being a person of 
 frugal turn of mind, he gradually developed the 
 habit of withholding his stipulated quota. The un- 
 expected arrival in his midst of an armed smack, 
 followed by a spell of vigorous pressing, taught him that 
 to be penny-wise is sometimes to be pound-foolish.^ 
 
 On the Scottish coasts fishermen and ferrymen 
 the latter a numerous class on that deeply indented 
 seaboard offered up one man in every five or six on 
 the altar of protection, The sacrifice distressed them 
 less than indiscriminate pressing. A prosperous 
 people, they chose out those of their number who 
 could best be spared, supporting the families thus 
 left destitute by common subscription. Buss fisher- 
 men, 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 of the coast, they cannot be said 
 to have escaped any too lightly. Neither did the 
 four hundred fishing-boats composing the Isle of Man 
 fleet. Their crews were obliged to surrender one 
 man in every seven.^ 
 
 * Ad. I. 1446 Capt. Alms, 2 Jan. 1780. 
 
 * Ad. I. 2740 Lieut. Abbs, 11 May 1798, and Admiralty note. 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 579 Admiral Pringle, Report on Rendezvous, 2 April 1795 5 
 Admiral Philip, Report on Rendezvous, i Aug. 1801.
 
 100 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 Opinions as to the value of material drawn from 
 these sources differed widely. The buss fisherman 
 was on all hands acknowledged to be a seasoned 
 sailor ; but when it came to those employed in smaller 
 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 form of exercise all 
 their lives. This was the view entertained by the 
 masters of fishing-smacks smarting from loss of 
 " hands." ^ 
 
 Admiralty saw things in quite another light. 
 " What you admit," said their Lordships, expressing 
 the counter-view, "it is our business to prevent. We 
 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 them what 
 you, on your own showing, can never make able 
 seamen." The argument, backed as it was by the 
 strong arm of the press-gang, was unanswerable. 
 
 The fact that the fisherman passed much of his 
 time on shore did not free him from the press any 
 more than it freed 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 the sea 
 was the rule and standard by which every man's 
 liability to the press was supposed to be measured 
 and determined. 
 
 Except in the case of masters, mates and ap- 
 prentices to the sea, whose affidavits or indentures 
 constituted their respective safeguards against the 
 press, every person exempt from that infliction, 
 
 * Ad. I. 1497 Thomas Hurry, master, 3 March 1777.
 
 WHOM THE GANG MIGHT TAKE 101 
 
 whether by statute law or Admiralty indulgence, was 
 required to have in his possession an official voucher 
 setting forth the fact and ground of his exemption. 
 This document was ironically termed his " pro- 
 tection." 
 
 Admiralty protections were issued under the hand 
 of the Lord High Admiral; ordinary protections, by 
 departments and persons who possessed either dele- 
 gated or vested powers of issue. Thus each Trinity 
 House protected its own pilots ; the Customs protected 
 whale fishermen and apprentices to the sea ; impress 
 officers protected seamen temporarily lent to ships 
 in lieu of men taken out of them by the 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 of a wherry in the Thames 
 owing to his having changed his clothes and left his 
 protection at home ; and John Scott of Mistley, in 
 Suffolk, was taken whilst working in his shirtsleeves, 
 though his protection lay in the pocket of his jacket, 
 only a few yards away.^ 
 
 The most trifling irregularity in the protection 
 itself, or the slightest discrepancy between the personal 
 appearance of the bearer and the written description 
 of him, was enough to convert the protection into so 
 much waste paper and the bearer into a naval seaman. 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1479 Capt. Bridges, ii August 1743. Ad. i. 1531 Capt. 
 Ballard, 15 March 1804, and enclosure.
 
 102 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 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 sea- 
 man was in one instance described in his protec- 
 tion as "smooth-faced," that is, beardless. The 
 impress officer scrutinised him closely. " Aha! " said 
 he, "you are not smooth-faced. You are pock- 
 marked " ; and he pressed the poor fellow for that 
 reason. 
 
 To be over-protected was as bad as having no 
 protection at all. Thomas Letting, a collier's man, 
 and John Anthony of the merchant ship Providence^ 
 learnt this fact to their cost when they were taken out 
 of their respective ships for having each two pro- 
 tections. In short, the slightest pretext served. If 
 a protection had but a few more days to run ; if the 
 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 were red when it ought to 
 have been brown, if he proved to be " tall and remark- 
 able thin " when he should have been middle-sized 
 and thick-set in any of these, as in a hundred and 
 one similar cases, the bearer of the protection paid 
 the penalty for what the impress officer regarded as 
 a "hoodwinking attempt" to cheat the King's service 
 of an eligible man. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact that the impress officer 
 regarded every pressable man as a person who made
 
 WHOM THE GANG MIGHT TAKE 103 
 
 it his chief business in life to defraud the Navy of his 
 services on the "miserable plea of a protection," it by 
 no means followed that his zeal in pressing him on 
 that account had in every case the countenance or 
 met with the unqualified approval of the Admiralty. 
 Thousands of men and boys taken in this irresponsible 
 fashion obtained their discharge, though 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, inviol- 
 able at least on paper, "never to press any man 
 from protections," since it brought " great trouble and 
 clamour upon them."^ To assert that the rule was 
 generally obeyed would be to turn the truth into a lie. 
 On the contrary, it was almost universally disregarded. 
 Both officers and gangs traversed it on every possible 
 occasion, leaving the justice or mjustice of the act to 
 the arbitrament of the higher tribunal. Zeal for the 
 service was no crime, and to release a man was always 
 so much easier than to catch him. 
 
 " Pressing from protections," as the phrase ran in 
 the service, did not therefore mean that the Admiralty 
 over- rode its own protections at pleasure. It merely 
 signified that on occasion more than 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 fraudulent vouchers might be weeded 
 out and the dishonest bearers of them consigned to 
 
 ^ Ad. 3. 50 Admiralty Minutes, 26 Feb. 1744-5.
 
 104 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 another place. And yet there were times when 
 "pressing from protections" had its plenary signi- 
 ficance too. 
 
 Lovers of prints who are familiar with Hogarth's 
 "Stage Coach ; or, a Country Inn Yard," date 1747, 
 will readily recall the two "outsides" the one a 
 down-in-the-mouth soldier, the 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 
 that her crew, on their return from that famous 
 voyage round the world, were awarded life-protections 
 from the press. ^ 
 
 The life-protection was an indulgence extended 
 to few. Samuel Davidson of Newcastle, sailor, aged 
 fifty, who had " served for nine years during the late 
 wars," in 1 777 made bold to plead that fact as a reason 
 why he should be freed from the attentions 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 expedition, but 
 had the promise of Pitt and Dundas that both he and 
 those who volunteered with him should never be 
 pressed, was immediately discharged when that 
 calamity befell him.^ 
 
 The granting of extraordinary protections was 
 thus something entirely erratic and not to be counted 
 upon. Captain Balchen in 1708 had special pro- 
 tections for ten of his ship's company whom he 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1440 Capt Anson, 24 July 1744. 
 * Ad. I. 1449 Capt. Columbine, 21 July 1800.
 
 WHOM THE GANG MIGHT TAKE 105 
 
 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 impeded by the pressing of the unprotected 
 workmen when on shore at Plymouth, and the keepers 
 of the first erection of that name were once carried 
 off bag and baggage by the gang. 
 
 Smeaton, who built the third Eddystone, protected 
 his men by means of silver badges, and his store- 
 boat enjoyed similar immunity presumably with the 
 consent of Admiralty by reason of a picture of the 
 lighthouse painted on her sail. Other great con- 
 structors, as well as rich mercantile firms, bought 
 protection at a price. They supplied a stipulated 
 number of men for the fleet, and found the arrange- 
 ment a highly convenient one for ridding themselves 
 of those who were useless to them or had incurred their 
 displeasure.^ 
 
 Private protections, of which great numbers saw 
 the light, were in no case worth the paper they were 
 written on. Joseph Bettesworth of Ryde, Isle of 
 Wight, Attorney-at-Law and Lord of the Manor of 
 Ashey and Ryde, by virtue of an ancient privilege 
 pertaining to that Manor and confirmed by royal 
 Letters Patent, in 1790 protected some twenty sea- 
 faring men to work his " Antient Ferry or Passage 
 for the Wafting of Passengers to and from Ride, Ports- 
 mouth and Gosport, in a smack of about 14 tons, and 
 a wherry." The regulating captain at the last-named 
 place asked what he should do about it. " Press every 
 man as soon as possible," replied their Lordships.^ 
 
 * Ad. I. 583 Admiral Thorn borough, 30 Nov. 1813. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1506 Capt. John Bligh, June 1790, and enclosure.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 
 
 " A MAN we want, and a man we must have," was 
 the naval cry of the century.^ 
 
 Nowhere was the cry so loud or so insistent as on 
 the sea, where every ship of war added to its volume. 
 In times of peace, when the demand for men was 
 gauged by those every-day factors, sickness, death 
 and desertion, it dwindled, if it did not altogether 
 die away ; but given a war-cloud on the near horizon 
 and the cry for men swelled, as many-voiced as there 
 were keels in the fleet, to a sudden clamour of for- 
 midable proportions a clamour that only the most 
 strenuous and unremitting exertions could in any 
 measure appease. 
 
 Every navy is argus-eyed, and in crises such as 
 these, when the very existence of the nation was 
 perhaps at stake, it was first and principally towards 
 the crews of the country's merchant ships that the 
 eyes of the Navy were directed ; for, shipboard life 
 and shipboard duty being largely identical in both 
 services, no elaborate training was required to con- 
 vert the merchant sailor into a first-rate man-o'-war's- 
 man. The ships of both services were sailing ships. 
 Both, as a rule, went armed. Hence, not only was 
 
 * Ad. I. 1 53 1 Deposition of John Swinburn, 28 July 1804. 
 
 106
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 107 
 
 the merchant sailor an able seaman, he was also 
 trained in the handling of great guns, and in the use 
 of the cutlass, the musket and the boarding-pike. In 
 a word, he was that most valuable of all assets to a 
 people seeking to dominate the sea a man-o'-war's- 
 man ready-made, needing only to be called in in 
 order to become immediately effective. 
 
 The problem was how to catch him how to take 
 him fresh and vigorous from his deep-sea voyaging 
 how to enroll him in the King's Navy ere he got ashore 
 with a pocketful of money and relaxed his hardened 
 muscles in the uncontrolled debauchery he was so 
 partial to after long abstention. 
 
 A device of the simplest yet of the most elaborate 
 description met the difficulty. It was based upon the 
 fact that to take the sailor afloat was a much easier 
 piece of strategy than to ferret him out of his hiding- 
 places after he got ashore. The impress trap was 
 therefore set in such a way as to catch him before he 
 reached the land. 
 
 With infinite ingenuity and foresight sea-gangs 
 were picketed from harbour to harbour, from head- 
 land to headland, until they formed an almost un- 
 broken chain around the coasts and guarded the 
 sailor's every point of accustomed approach from 
 overseas. This was the outer cordon of the system, 
 the beginning of the gauntlet the returning sailor had 
 to run, and he was a smart seaman indeed who could 
 successfully negotiate the uncharted rocks and shoals 
 with which the coast was everywhere strewn in his 
 despite. 
 
 The composition of this chain of sea-gangs was 
 mixed to a degree, yet singularly homogeneous.
 
 108 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 First of all, on its extreme outer confines, perhaps 
 as far down Channel as the Scillies, or as far north 
 as the thirteen-mile stretch of sea running between 
 the Mull of Kintyre and the Irish coast, where the 
 trade for Liverpool, Whitehaven, Dublin and the 
 Clyde commonly came in, the homing sailor would 
 suddenly descry, bearing down upon him under press 
 of sail, the trim figure of one of His Majesty's fri- 
 gates, or the clean, swift lines of an armed sloop. 
 The meeting was no chance one. Both the frigate and 
 the sloop were there by design, the former cruising to 
 complete her own complement, the latter to complete 
 that of some ship-of-the-line at Plymouth, Spithead or 
 the Nore, to which she stood in the relation of tender. 
 
 Tenders were vessels taken into the king's service 
 "at the time of Impressing Seamen." Hired at 
 certain rates per month, they continued in the service 
 as long as they were required, often most unwillingly, 
 and were principally employed in obtaining men for 
 the king's ships or in matters relative thereto. In 
 burden they varied from thirty or forty to one 
 hundred tons,^ the smaller craft hugging the coast 
 and dropping in from port to port, the larger cruising 
 far beyond shore limits. For deep-sea or trade-route 
 cruising the smaller craft were of little use. No ship 
 of force would bring-to for them. 
 
 While press-warrants were supplied regularly to 
 every warship, no matter what her rating, the supply 
 of tenders was less general and much more erratic. 
 It was only when occasion demanded it, and then 
 
 * This was the maximum tonnage for which the Navy Board paid, 
 but when trade was slack larger vessels could be had, and were as a 
 matter of fact frequently employed, at the nominal tonnage rate.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 109 
 
 only to ships of the first, second and third rate, that 
 tenders were assigned for the purpose of bringing 
 their crews up to full strength. The urgency of the 
 occasion, the men to be " rose," the diplomacy of the 
 commander determined the number. A tender to 
 each ship was the rule, but however parsimonious the 
 Navy Board might be on such occasions, a carefully 
 worded appeal to its prejudices seldom failed to pro- 
 duce a second, or even a third attendant vessel. 
 Boscawen once had recourse to this ingenious ruse 
 in order to obtain tender number two. The Navy 
 Board detested straggling seamen, so he suggested 
 that, with several tenders lying idle in the Thames, 
 his men might be far more profitably employed than 
 in straggling about town. " Most reprehensible 
 practice ! " assented the Board, and placed a second 
 vessel at his disposal without more ado. Lieut. 
 Upton was immediately put in charge of her and 
 ordered seawards. He returned within a week with 
 twenty-seven men, pressed out of merchantmen in 
 Margate Roads.^ 
 
 The tender assigned to Boscawen on this occasion 
 was the Galloper, an American-built vessel, "rigged 
 in the manner the West Indians do their sloops." 
 Her armament consisted of six 9-pounders and 
 threescore small-arms, but as a sea-boat she belied 
 her name, for she was hopelessly sluggish under sail, 
 and the great depth of her waist, and her consequent 
 liability to ship seas in rough weather, rendered her 
 "very improper" for cruising in the Channel. 
 
 For her company she had a master, a mate and 
 six hands supplied by the owners, in addition to 
 ^ Ad. I. 1478 Letters of Capt. Boscawen, July and August 1743.
 
 110 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 thirty-four seamen temporarily drafted into her from 
 Boscawen's ship, the Dreadnought. It was the duty 
 of the former to work the vessel, of the latter to do 
 the pressing ; but these duties were largely inter- 
 changeable. All were under the command of the 
 lieutenant, who with forty-two men at his beck and 
 call could organise, on a pinch, five gangs of formid- 
 able strength and yet leave sufficient hands, given 
 fair weather, to mind the tender in their temporary 
 absence. Tender's men were generally the flower of 
 a ship's company, old hands of tried fidelity, equal to 
 any emergency and reputedly proof against bribery, 
 rum and petticoats. Yet the temptation to give duty 
 the slip and enjoy the pleasures of town for a season 
 sometimes proved too strong, even for them, and we 
 read of one boat's-crew of eight, who, overcome in 
 this way, were discovered after many days in a 
 French prison. Instead of going pressing in the 
 Downs, they had gone to Boulogne. 
 
 On the commanders of His Majesty's ships the 
 onus of raising men fell with intolerable insistence. 
 Nelson's greatest pleasure in his promotion to 
 Admiral's rank is said to have been derived from the 
 fact that with it there came a blessed cessation to the 
 scurvy business of pressing ; and there were in the 
 service few captains, whether before or after Nelson's 
 day, who could not echo with hearty approval the 
 sentiment of Capt. Brett of the Roebuck, when he 
 said : " I can solemnly declare that the getting and 
 taking care of my men has given me more trouble 
 and uneasiness than all the rest of my duty."^ 
 
 Commanders of smaller and less effective ships 
 Ad. I. 1478 Capt. Brett, 27 Oct 1742.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 111 
 
 found themselves on the horns of a cruel dilemma did 
 they dare to ask for tenders. Beg and pray as they 
 would, these were rarely allowed them save as a 
 special indulgence or a crying necessity. To most 
 applications from this source the Admiralty opposed 
 a front well calculated "to encourage the others." 
 " If he has not men enough to proceed on service," 
 ran its dictum, " their Lordships will lay up the ship." ^ 
 Faced with the summary loss of his command, their 
 Lordships' high displeasure, and consequent inactivity 
 and half-pay for an indefinite period, the captain 
 whose complement was short, and who could obtain 
 neither men nor tender from the constituted authority, 
 had no option but to put to sea with such hands as 
 he already bore and there beat up for others. This, 
 with their Lordships' gracious permission, he accord- 
 ingly did, thus adding another unit to the fleet of 
 armed vessels already prowling the Narrow Seas on 
 a similar errand. It can be readily imagined that 
 such commanders were not out for pleasure. 
 
 To the great and incessantly active flotilla got to- 
 gether in this way, the regulating captains on shore 
 contributed a further large contingent. Every seaport 
 of consequence had its rendezvous, every seaport 
 rendezvous its amphibious gang or gangs who ranged 
 the adjacent coast for many leagues in swift bottoms 
 whose character and mission often remained wholly 
 unsuspected until some skilful manoeuvre laid them 
 aboard their intended victim and brought the gang 
 swarming over her decks, armed to the teeth and 
 resolute to press her crew. 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1471 Capt. Boyle, i March 1715-6, endorsement, and 
 numerous instances.
 
 112 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 We have now three classes of vessels, of varying 
 build, rig, tonnage and armament, engaged in a 
 common endeavour to intercept and take the homing 
 sailor. Let us next see how they were disposed 
 upon the coast. 
 
 Tenders from Greenwich and Blackwall ransacked 
 the Thames below bridge as far as Blackstakes in 
 the river Medway, the Nore and the Swin channel. 
 Tenders from Margate, Ramsgate, Deal and Dover 
 watched the lower Thames estuary, swept the Downs, 
 and kept a sharp lookout along the coasts of Kent 
 and Sussex, of Essex and of Norfolk. To these 
 tenders from Lynn dipped their colours off Wells-on- 
 Sea or Cromer, whence they bore away for the mouth 
 of H umber, where Hull tenders took up the running 
 till met by those belonging to Sunderland, Newcastle- 
 upon-Tyne and Shields, which in turn joined up the 
 cordon with others hailing from Leith and the Firth 
 of Forth. Northward of the Forth, away to the 
 extreme Orkneys, and all down the west coast of 
 Scotland through the two Minches and amongst the 
 Hebrides, specially armed sloops from Leith and 
 Greenock made periodic cruises. Greenock tenders, 
 again, united with tenders from Belfast and White- 
 haven in a lurking watch for ships making home ports 
 by way of the North Channel ; or circled the Isle of 
 Man, ran thence across to Morecambe Bay, and so 
 down the Lancashire coast the length of Formby 
 Head, where the Mersey tenders, alert for the 
 Jamaica trade, relieved them of their vigil. Dublin 
 tenders guarded St. George's Channel, aided by 
 others from Mil ford Haven and Haverfordwest. 
 Bristol tenders cruised the channel of that name,
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 113 
 
 keeping a sharp eye on Lundy Island and the 
 Holmes, where shipmasters were wont to play them 
 tricks if they were not watchful. Falmouth and Ply- 
 mouth tenders guarded the coast from Land's End 
 to Portland Bill, Portsmouth tenders from Portland 
 Bill to Beachy Head, and Folkestone and Dover 
 tenders from Beachy Head to the North Foreland, 
 thus completing the encircling chain. Nor was 
 Ireland forgotten in the general sea-rummage. As a 
 converging point for the great overseas trade-routes 
 it was of prime importance, and tenders hailing from 
 Belfast, Dublin, Waterford, Cork and Limerick, or 
 making those places their chief ports of call, exercised 
 unceasing vigilance over all the coast. 
 
 In this general scouring of the coastal waters of 
 the kingdom certain points were of necessity subjected 
 to a much closer surveillance than others. Particularly 
 was this true of the sea routes followed by the East 
 and West India, and the Baltic, Virginia, Newfound- 
 land, Dutch and Greenland trades, where these con- 
 verged upon such centres of world-commerce as 
 London, Poole, Bristol, Liverpool and the great 
 northern entrepots on the Forth and Clyde, the 
 H umber and the Tyne. A tender stationed off 
 Poole, when a Newfoundland fish-convoy was ex- 
 pected in, never failed to reap a rich harvest. At 
 Highlake, near the mouth of the Mersey, many a 
 fine haul was made from the sugar and rum-laden 
 Jamaica ships, the privateers and slavers from which 
 Liverpool drew her wealth. Early in the century 
 sloops of war had orders "to cruise between Beechy 
 and the Downs to Impress men out of homeward- 
 bound Merchant Ships," and in 1755 Rodney's lieu- 
 8
 
 114 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 tenants found the Channel "full of tenders." Except 
 in times of profound peace few and brief in the 
 century under review it was rarely or never in any 
 other state. An ocean highway so congested with 
 the winged vehicles of commerce could not escape the 
 constant vigilance of those whose business it was to 
 waylay the inward-bound sailor. 
 
 A favourite station in the Channel was "at y' west 
 end of y* Isle of Wight, near Hurst Castle," where 
 the watchful tender, having under her eye all ships 
 coming from the westward, as well as all passing 
 through the Needles, could press at pleasure by the 
 simple expedient of sending gangs aboard of them. 
 At certain times of the year such ports as Grimsby, 
 Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Brixham came in for 
 similar attention. When the fleets were due back 
 from the " Great Fishery " on the Dogger Banks, 
 tenders cruising off those ports netted more men than 
 they could find room for ; and so heavy was the 
 tribute paid in this way by the fishermen of the last- 
 named port in 1805, that "not a single man was to 
 be found in Brixham liable to the impress." Every 
 unprotected man, out of a total of ninety-six fishing- 
 smacks then belonging to the place, had been snapped 
 up by the tenders and ships of war cruising off the 
 bay or further up-Channel.^ 
 
 The double cordon composed of ships and tenders 
 on the cruise by no means exhausted the resources 
 called into play for the intercepting of the sailor afloat. 
 Still nearer the land was a third or innermost line 
 composed of boat-gangs operating, like so many of 
 
 * Ad. I. 581 Admiral Berkeley, Report on Rendezvous, 15 Sept. 
 1805.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 115 
 
 the tenders, from rendezvous on shore, or from ships 
 of war lying in dock or riding at anchor. Less con- 
 tinuous than the outer cordon, it was not less effective, 
 and many a sailor who by strategy or good luck had 
 all but won through, struck his flag to the gang when 
 perhaps only the cast of a line separated him from 
 shore and liberty. 
 
 It was across the entrance to harbours and navig- 
 able estuaries that this innermost line was most 
 frequently and most successfully drawn. Pill, the 
 pilot station for the port of Bristol, threw out such a 
 line to the further bank of Avon and thereby caught 
 many an able seaman who had evaded the tenders 
 below King Road. On Southampton Water it was 
 generally so impassable that few men who could in 
 the slightest degree be considered liable to the press 
 escaped its toils.^ Dublin Bay knew it well. A 
 press "on float" there, carried out silently and swiftly 
 in the grey of a September morning, 1801, whilst the 
 mists still hung thick over the water, resulted in the 
 seizure of seventy-four seamen who had eluded the 
 press-smacks cruising without the bay ; but of this 
 number two proving to be protected apprentices, the 
 Lord Mayor sent the Water Bailiff of the city, "with 
 a detachment of the army," and took them by force 
 out of the hands of the gang.^ On the Thames, not- 
 withstanding the ceaseless activity of the outer 
 cordons, the innermost line of capture yielded enor- 
 mously. The night of October the 28th, 1776, saw 
 three hundred and ninety-nine men, the greater part 
 
 * Ad. I. 581 Admiral Berkeley, Report on Rendezvous, 5 Aug. 
 1805. 
 
 Ad. I. 1526 Capt. Brabazon, 16 Sept. 1801.
 
 116 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 of them good seamen, pressed by the boats of a single 
 ship the Princess Augusta, Captain Sir Richard 
 Bickerton commander, then fitting out at Woolwich.^ 
 Such a raid was very properly termed a "hot press." 
 
 The amazing feature of this exploit is, that it 
 should have been possible at all, in view of what was 
 going on in the Thames estuary below a line drawn 
 across the river's mouth from Foulness to Sheerness- 
 reach. Seawards of this line lay the two most famous 
 anchorages in the world, where ships foregathered 
 from every quarter of the navigable globe. Than the 
 Nore and the Downs no finer recruiting-ground could 
 anywhere be found, and here the shore-gangs afloat, 
 and the boat-gangs from ships of war, were for ever 
 on the alert. No ship, whether inward or outward 
 bound, could pass the Nore without being visited. 
 Nothing went by unsearched.^ The wonder is that 
 any unprotected sailor ever found his way to 
 London. 
 
 Between the Nore and the North Foreland the 
 conditions were equally rigorous. Through all the 
 channels leading to the sea, channels affording 
 anchorage to innumerable ships of every conceivable 
 rig and tonnage, the gangs roamed at will, exacting 
 toll of everything that carried canvas. Even the 
 smaller craft left high and dry upon the flats, or 
 awaiting the tide in some sand-girt pool, did not 
 escape their hawk-like vigilance. 
 
 In the Downs these conditions reached their 
 climax, for thither, in never-ending procession, came 
 the larger ships which were so fruitful of good hauls. 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1497 Capt. Bickerton, 29 Oct. 1776. 
 Ad. I. 2733 Capt. Young, 7 March 1756.
 
 SkIZINO a WaTKKMAN on TOWKR IIlI.l. ON THE 
 MORNINC. OK HIS WeDUING DaY.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 117 
 
 With the wind at north, or between north and east, 
 few ships came in and little could be done. But when 
 the wind veered and came piping out of the west or 
 sou'-west, in they came in such numbers that the 
 gangs, however numerous they might be, had all their 
 work cut out to board them. A special tender, swift 
 and exceedingly well-found, was accordingly stationed 
 here, whose duty it was to be " very watchful that no 
 vessel passed without a visit from the impress boats." ^ 
 In such work as this man-o'-war boats were of little 
 use. Just as they could not negotiate Deal beach 
 without danger of being reduced to matchwood, so 
 they could not live in the choppy sea kicked up in the 
 Downs by a westerly gale. Folkstone market boats 
 and Deal cutters had to be requisitioned for pressing 
 in those waters. Their seaworthiness and speed 
 made the Downs the crux of inward-bound ships, 
 whose only means of escaping their attentions was 
 to incur another danger by "going back of the 
 Goodwins." 
 
 The procedure of boat-gangs pressing in harbour 
 or on rivers seldom varied, unless it were by accident. 
 As a rule, night was the time selected, for to catch 
 the sailor asleep conduced greatly to the success 
 and safety of the venture. The hour chosen was 
 consequently either close upon midnight, some little 
 time after he had turned in, or in the early morning 
 before he turned out. The darker the night and the 
 dirtier the weather the better. Surprise, swiftly and 
 silently carried out, was half the battle. 
 
 A case in point is the attempt made by Lieut. 
 
 * Ad. I. 2733 Orders of Vice- Admiral Buckle to Capt. Yates, 29 
 April 1778.
 
 118 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 Rudsdale, of H.M.S. Licome, "to impress all men 
 (without exception) from the ships and vessels lying 
 at Cheek Point above Passage of Waterford," in the 
 year '79. Putting-off in the pinnace with a picked 
 crew at eleven o'clock on a dark and tempestuous 
 October night, he had scarcely left the ship astern ere 
 he overtook a boatload of men, how many he could 
 not well discern in the darkness, pulling in the direc- 
 tion he himself was bound. Fearful lest they should 
 suspect the nature of his errand and alarm the ships at 
 Passage, he ran alongside of them and pressed the 
 entire number, sending the boat adrift. Putting back, 
 he set his capture on board the Licorne and once 
 more turned the nose of the pinnace towards Passage. 
 There, dropping noiselessly aboard the Triton brig, 
 he caught the hands asleep, pressed as many of them 
 as he had room for, and with them returned to the 
 ship. Meanwhile, the master of the Triton armed 
 what hands he had left and met Rudsdale's second 
 attempt to board him with a formidable array of 
 handspikes, hatchets and crowbars. A fusillade of 
 bottles and billets of wood further evinced his deter- 
 mination to protect the brig against all comers, and 
 lest there should be any doubt on that point he swore 
 roundly that he would be the death of every man in 
 the pinnace if they did not immediately sheer off and 
 leave him in peace. This the lieutenant wisely did. 
 No further surprises were possible that night, for by 
 this time the alarm had spread, the pinnace was half- 
 full of missiles, and one of his men lay in the bottom 
 of her severely wounded.^ As it was, he had a very 
 fair night's work to his credit. Between the occupants 
 
 * Ad. I. 471 Deposition of Lieut Rudsdale, 24 Oct. 1779.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 119 
 
 of the boat and those of the brig he had obtained close 
 upon a score of men. 
 
 The expedients resorted to by commanders of 
 ships of war temporarily in port and short of their 
 tale of men are vividly depicted in a report made to 
 the Admiralty in 171 1. "Three days ago, very 
 privately," writes Capt. Billingsley, whose ship, the 
 Vanguard, was then lying at Blackstakes, " I Sent 
 two fishing Smacks with a Lieutenant and some Men, 
 with orders to proceede along the Essex Coast, and 
 downe as far as the Wallet, to the Naze, with direc- 
 tions to take all the men out of Oyster Vessels and 
 others that were not Exempted. The project suc- 
 ceeded, and they are return'd with fourteen men, all fit, 
 and but one has ever been in the Service. The coast 
 was Alarm'd, and the country people came downe and 
 fir'd from the Shore upon the Smacks, and no doubt 
 but they doe still take 'em to be privateers." ^ 
 
 Pressing at sea differed materially in many of its 
 aspects from pressing on the more sheltered waters of 
 rivers and harbours. Carried out as a rule in the 
 broad light of day, it was for that very reason accom- 
 panied with a more open and determined display of 
 force than those quieter ventures which depended so 
 largely for their success upon the element of surprise. 
 Situated as we are in these latter days, when anyone 
 who chooses may drive his craft from Land's End to 
 John o' Groats without hindrance, it is difficult to 
 conceive that there was ever a time when the whole 
 extent of the coastal waters of the kingdom, as ranged 
 by the impress tender, was under rigorous martial law. 
 Yet such was unquestionably the case. Throughout 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1470 Capt. Billingsley, 5 May 171 1.
 
 120 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 the eighteenth century the flag was everywhere in 
 armed evidence in those waters, and no sailing master 
 of the time could make even so much as a day's run 
 with any certainty that the peremptory summons: 
 " Bring to ! I'm coming aboard of you," would not be 
 bawled at him from the mouth of a gun. 
 
 The retention of the command of a tender depended 
 entirely upon her success in procuring men. As a 
 rule, she was out for no other purpose, and this being 
 so, it is not to be supposed that the officer in charge 
 of her would do otherwise than employ the means 
 ordained for that end. Accordingly, as soon as a sail 
 was sighted by the tender's lookout man, a gun was 
 loaded, shotted with roundshot, and run out ready for 
 the moment when the vessel should come within 
 range. 
 
 The first intimation the intended victim had of the 
 fate in store for her was the shriek of the roundshot 
 athwart her bows. This was the signal, universally 
 known as such, for her to back her topsails and await 
 the coming of the gang, already tumbling in ordered 
 haste into the armed boat prepared for them under 
 the tender's quarter. And yet it was not always easy 
 for the sprat to catch the whale. A variety of factors 
 entered into the problem and made for failure as often 
 as for success. Sometimes the tender's powder was 
 bad so bad that in spite of an extra pound or so 
 added to the charge, the shot could not be got to 
 carry as far as a common musket ball.^ When this 
 was the case her commander suffered a double morti- 
 fication. His shot, the symbol of authority and 
 coercion, took the water far short of its destined goal, 
 
 * Ad. I. 2485 Capt. Shirley, 5 Nov. 1780, and numerous instances.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 121 
 
 whilst the vessel it was intended to check and in- 
 timidate surged by amid the derisive cat-calls and 
 laughter of her crew. 
 
 Even with the powder beyond reproach, ships did 
 not always obey the summons, peremptory though it 
 was. One pretended not to hear it, or to misunder- 
 stand it, or to believe it was meant for some other 
 craft, and so held stolidly on her course, vouchsafing 
 no sign till a second shot, fired point-blank, but at a 
 safe elevation, hurtled across her decks and brought 
 her to her senses. Another, perhaps some well-armed 
 Levantine trader or tall Indiaman whose crew had 
 little mind to strike their colours submissively at the 
 behest of a midget press-smack, would pipe to quarters 
 and put up a stiff fight for liberty and the dear delights 
 of London town a fight from which the tender, 
 supposing her to have accepted the gage of battle, 
 rarely came off victor. Or the challenged ship, 
 believing herself to be the faster craft of the two, 
 clapped on all sail, caught an opportune "slatch of 
 wind," and showed her pursuer a clean pair of heels, 
 the tender's guns meanwhile barking away at her 
 until she passed out of range. These were incidents 
 in the chapter of pressing afloat which every tender's 
 commander was familiar with. Back of them all lay 
 a substantial fact, and on that he relied for his supply 
 of men. There was somehow a magic in the boom of 
 a naval gun that had its due effect upon most ship- 
 masters. They brought-to, however reluctantly, and 
 awaited the pleasure of the gang. But the sailor had 
 still to be reckoned with. 
 
 In order to invest the business of taking the sailor 
 with some semblance of legality, it was necessary that
 
 122 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 the commander of the tender, in whose name the 
 press-warrant was made out, or one of his two mid- 
 shipmen, each of whom usually held a similar warrant, 
 should conduct the proceedings in person ; and the 
 first duty of this officer, on setting foot upon the deck 
 of the vessel held up in the manner just described, 
 was to order her entire company to be mustered 
 for his inspection. If the master proved civil, this 
 preliminary passed off quickly and with no more con- 
 fusion than was incidental to a general and hasty 
 rummaging of sea-chests and lockers in search of 
 those magic protections on which hung the immediate 
 destiny of every man in the ship, excepting only the 
 skipper, his mate and that privileged person, the 
 boatswain. The muster effected, the officer next 
 subjected each protection to the closest possible 
 scrutiny, for none who knew the innate trickery of 
 seamen would ever "take their words for it."^ Men 
 who had no protections, men whose papers bore 
 evident traces of " coaxing " or falsification, men 
 whose appearance and persons failed to tally exactly 
 with the description there written down these were 
 set apart from their more fortunate messmates, to be 
 dealt with presently. To their ranks were added 
 others whose protections had either expired or were 
 on the point of expiry, as well as skulkers who sought 
 to evade His Majesty's press by stowing themselves 
 away between or below decks, and who had been by 
 this time more or less thoroughly routed out by 
 members of the gang armed with hangers. The two 
 contingents now lined up, and their total was checked 
 by reference to the ship's articles, the officer never 
 
 * Ad. I. 1482 Capt. Boscawen, 20 March 1745-6.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 123 
 
 omitting to make affectionate inquiries after men 
 marked down as " run," " drowned," or " discharged " ; 
 for none knew better than he, if an old hand at the 
 game, how often the " run " man ran no further afield 
 than some secure hiding-place overlooked by his 
 gangers, or how miraculously the "drowned" bobbed 
 up once more to the surface of things when the gang 
 had ceased from troubling. If the ship happened to 
 be an inward-bound, and to possess a general pro- 
 tection exempting her from the press only for the 
 voyage then just ending, that fact greatly simplified 
 and abbreviated the proceedings, for then her whole 
 company was looked upon as the ganger's lawful prey. 
 In the case of an outward-bound ship, the gang- 
 officer's duty was confined to seeing that she carried 
 no more hands than her protection and tonnage per- 
 mitted her to carry. All others were pressed. Cowed 
 by armed authority, or wounded and bleeding in a lost 
 cause as hereafter to be related, the men were hustled 
 into the boat with " no more violence than was 
 necessary for securing them."^ Their chests and 
 bedding followed, making a full boat ; and so, having 
 cleared the ship of all her pressable hands, the gang 
 prepared to return to the tender. But first there was 
 a last stroke of business to be done. The gunner 
 must have his bit. 
 
 Up to this point, beyond producing the ship's 
 papers for inspection and gruffly answering such 
 questions as were put to him, the master of the vessel 
 had taken little part in what was going on. His turn 
 now came. By virtue of his position he could not be 
 pressed, but there existed a very ancient naval usage 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1437 Capt. Aldred, 12 June 1708.
 
 124 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 according to which he could be, and was, required to 
 pay for the powder and shot expended in inducing him 
 to receive the gang on board. In law the exaction was 
 indefensible. Litigation often followed it, and as the 
 century grew old the practice for that reason fell into 
 gradual desuetude, a circumstance almost universally 
 deplored by naval commanders of the old school,^ 
 who were ever sticklers for respect to the flag; but 
 during the first five or six decades of the century 
 the shipmaster who had to be fired upon rarely 
 escaped paying the shot. The money accruing from 
 his compliance with the demand, 6s. 8d., went to the 
 gunner, whose perquisite it was, and as several shots 
 were frequently necessary to reduce a crew to becom- 
 ing submissiveness, the gunners must have done very 
 well out of it. Refusal to "pay the shot" could be 
 visited upon the skipper only indirectly. Another 
 man or two were taken out of him by way of reprisals, 
 and the press-boat shoved off to return a second, or 
 even a third time, if the pressed men numbered more 
 than she could stow. 
 
 From this summary mode of depriving a ship of a 
 part or the whole of her crew two serious complica- 
 tions arose, the first of which had to do with the 
 wages of the men pressed, the second with what was 
 technically called "carrying the ship up," that is to 
 say, sailing her to her destination. 
 
 According to the law of the land, the sailor who 
 was pressed out of a ship was entitled to his wages in 
 full till the day he was pressed, and not only was 
 every shipmaster bound to provide such men with 
 
 ' Ad. I. 1511 Capt. Bowen, 13 Oct. 1795, ^"d Admiralty endorse- 
 ment.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 125 
 
 tickets good for the sums severally due to them, 
 tickets drawn upon the owners and payable upon 
 demand, but it was the duty of every impress officer 
 to see that such tickets were duly made out and 
 delivered to the men. Refusal to comply with the 
 law in this respect led to legal proceedings, in which, 
 except in the case of foreign ships, the Admiralty 
 invariably won. Eminently fair to the sailor, the 
 provision was desperately hard on masters and 
 owners, for they, after having shipped their crews for 
 the run or voyage, now found themselves left either 
 with insufficient hands to carry the ship up, or with 
 no hands at all. As a concession to the necessity 
 of the moment a gang was sometimes put on board a 
 ship for the avowed purpose of pressing her hands 
 when she arrived in port ; but such concessions were 
 not always possible,^ and common equity demanded 
 that in their absence ample provision should be made 
 for the safety of vessels suddenly disabled by the 
 gang. This the Admiralty undertook to do, and 
 hence there grew up that appendage to the impress 
 afloat generally known as " men in lieu " or " ticket 
 men." 
 
 The vocation of the better type "man in lieu " was 
 
 ^ Nor were they always effective, as witness the following : 
 "Tuesday the 15th, the Shandois sloop from Holland came by this place 
 (the Nore). J put 15 men on b^ her to secure her Compy till their 
 Protection was expired. Soon after came from Sheerness the Master 
 Attendant's boat to assist me on that service. I immediately sent her 
 away with more Men and Armes for the better Securing of the Sloop's 
 Company, but that night, in Longreach, the Vessel being near the Shore, 
 and almost Calme, they hoisted the boat out to tow the Sloop about, and 
 all the Sloop's men, being 18, got into her and Run ashore, bidding 
 defiance to my people's fireing." Ad. i. 1473 Capt, Bouler, H.M.S. 
 Argyle, 18 Feb. 1725-6.
 
 126 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 a vicarious sort of employment, entailing any but 
 disagreeable consequences upon him who followed it. 
 At every point on the coast where a gang was 
 stationed, and at many where they were not, great 
 numbers of these men were retained for service afloat 
 whenever required. The three ports of Dover, Deal 
 and Folkestone alone at one time boasted no less than 
 four hundred and fifty of them, and when a hot press 
 was in full swing in the Downs even this number was 
 found insufficient to meet the demand. Mostly fisher- 
 men, Sea-Fencibles and others of a quasi-seafaring 
 type, they enjoyed complete exemption from the im- 
 press as a consideration for " going in pressed men's 
 rooms," received a shilling, and in some cases eighteen- 
 pence a day while so employed, and had a penny a 
 mile road-money for their return to the place of their 
 abode, where they were free, in the intervals between 
 carrying ships up, to follow any longshore occupation 
 they found agreeable, save only smuggling. The 
 enjoyment of these privileges, and particularly the 
 privilege of exemption from the press, made them, as 
 a class, notorious for their independence and insolence 
 characteristics which still survive in not a few of 
 their descendants. Tenders going a-pressing often 
 bore a score or two of these privileged individuals as 
 supers, who were drafted into ships, as the crews were 
 taken out, to assist the master, mate and few remain- 
 ing hands, were any of the latter left, in carrying them 
 up. Or, if no supers of this class were borne by the 
 tender, she "loaned" the master a sufficient number 
 of her own company, duly protected by tickets from 
 the commanding officer, and invariably the most un- 
 serviceable people on board, to work the ship into the
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 127 
 
 nearest port where regular *'men in lieu " could be 
 obtained. 
 
 Had all "men in lieu" conformed to the standard 
 of the better class substitute of that name, the system 
 would have been laudable in the extreme and trade 
 would have suffered little inconvenience from the 
 depredations of the gangs ; but there was in the 
 system a flaw that generally reduced the aid lent to 
 ships to something little better than a mere travesty 
 of assistance. That flaw lay in the fact that 
 Admiralty^ never gave as good as it took. Clearly, 
 it could not. True, it supplied substitutes to go in 
 "pressed men's rooms," but to call them ''men in 
 lieu" was a gross abuse of language. In reality the 
 substitutes supplied were in the great majority of 
 cases mere scum in lieu, the unpressable residuum of 
 the population, consisting of men too old or lads too 
 young to appeal to the cupidity of the gangs, poor 
 creatures whom the regulating captains had refused, 
 useless on land and worse than useless at sea. 
 
 In the general character of the persons sent in 
 pressed men's rooms Admiralty thus had Trade on 
 the hip, and Trade suffered much in consequence. 
 More than one rich merchantman, rusty from long 
 voyaging, strewed the coast with her cargo and 
 timbers because all the able seamen had been taken 
 out of her, and none better than old men and boys 
 could be found to sail her. Few seaport towns were 
 as wise as Sunderland, where they had a Society of 
 Shipowners for mutual insurance against the risks 
 arising from the pressing of their men.^ Elsewhere 
 masters, owners and underwriters groaned under the 
 ^ Ad. I. 1 541 Capt. Bligh, 8 Jan. 1807, enclosure.
 
 128 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 galling imposition ; but the wrecker rejoiced exceed- 
 ingly, thanking the gangs whose ceaseless activities 
 rendered such an outrageous state of things possible. 
 
 Whichever of these two classes the ticket man 
 belonged to, he was an incorrigible deserter. 
 " Thirteen out of the fifteen men in lieu that I sent 
 up in' the Beaufort East-Indiaman," writes the dis- 
 gusted commander of the Coitiet bombship, from the 
 Downs, " have never returned. As they are not 
 worth inquiring for, I have made them run."^ Such 
 instances might be multiplied indefinitely. Once the 
 ticket man had drawn his money for the trip, there 
 was no such thing as holding him. The temptation 
 to spend his earnings in town proved too strong, and 
 he went on the spree with great consistency and 
 enjoyment till his money was gone and his protection 
 worthless, when the inevitable overtook him. The 
 ubiquitous gang deprived him of his only remaining 
 possession, his worthless liberty, and sent him to the 
 fleet, a ragged but shameless derelict, as a punish- 
 ment for his breach of privilege. 
 
 The protecting ticket carried by the man in lieu 
 dated from 1702, when it appears to have been first 
 instituted ; ^ but even when the bearer was no 
 deserter in fact or intention, it had little power to 
 protect him. No ticket man could count upon re- 
 maining unmolested by the gangs except the undoubted 
 foreigner and the marine, both of whom were much 
 used as men in lieu. The former escaped because his 
 
 * Ad. I. 1478 Capt. Burvill, 4 Sept. 1742. A man-o'-war's-man was 
 "made run" when he failed to return to his ship after a reasonable 
 absence and an R was written over against his name on the ship's books. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1433 Capt. Anderson, 5 April 1702.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 129 
 
 alien tongue provided him with a natural protection ; 
 the latter because he was reputedly useless on ship- 
 board. In the person of the marine, indeed, the 
 man in lieu achieved the climax of ineptitude. 
 
 It was an ironical rule of the service that 
 persons refusing to act as men in lieu should suffer 
 the very fate they stood in so much danger of in the 
 event of their consenting. Broadstairs fishermen 
 in 1803 objected to serving in that capacity, though 
 tendered the exceptional wage of 27s. for the 
 run to London. "If not compelled to go in that 
 way," they alleged, " they could make their own terms 
 with shipmasters and have as many guineas as 
 they were now offered shillings." Orders to press 
 them for their contumacy were immediately sent 
 down.^ 
 
 By the year 1 8 1 1 the halcyon days of the man 
 in lieu were at an end. As a class he was then 
 practically extinct. Inveterate and long-continued 
 pressing had drained the merchant service of all 
 able-bodied British seamen except those who were 
 absolutely essential to its existence. These were 
 fully protected, and when their number fell short of 
 the requirements of the service the deficiency was 
 supplied by foreigners and apprentices similarly 
 exempt. So few pressable men were to be found 
 in any one ship that it was no longer considered 
 necessary to send ticket men in their stead when they 
 were taken out, and as a matter of fact less than 
 a dozen such men were that year put on board ships 
 passing the Downs.^ Pressing itself was in its decline, 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1450 Capt. Carter, i6 Aug. 1803. 
 * Ad. I. 1453 Capt. Anderson, 31 Aug. 181 1. 
 
 9
 
 130 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 and as for the vocation of the man in lieu, it had gone 
 never to return. 
 
 Ships and tenders out for men met with varied 
 fortunes. In the winter season the length of the 
 nights, the tempestuous weather and the cold told 
 heavily against success, as did at all times that factor 
 in the problem which one old sea-dog so picturesquely 
 describes as " the room there is for missing you." 
 Capt. Barker, of the Thetis, in 1748 made a haul of 
 thirty men off the Old- Head of Kinsale, but lost his 
 barge in doing so, " it blowed so hard." Byng, of 
 the Sutherland, grumbled atrociously because in the 
 course of his run up-Channel in '42 he was able to 
 press "no more than seventeen." Anson, looking 
 quite casually into Falmouth on his way down-Channel, 
 found there in '46 the Betsey tender, then just recently 
 condemned, and took out of her every man she 
 possessed at the cost of a mere hour's work, ignorant 
 of the fact that when pressing eight of those men 
 the commander of the Betsey had been "eight hours 
 about it." It was all a game of chance, and when 
 you played it the only thing you could count upon 
 was the certainty of having both the sailor and the 
 elements dead against you. 
 
 But if the " room there is for missing you," con- 
 spiring with other unfavourable conditions, rendered 
 pressing afloat an uncertain and vexatious business, 
 the chances of making a haul were on the other hand 
 augmented by every ship that entered or left the 
 Narrow Seas, not even excepting the foreigner. The 
 foreign sailor could not be pressed unless, as we have 
 seen, he had naturalised himself by marrying an 
 English wife, but the foreign ship was fair game for
 
 -
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 131 
 
 every hunter of British seamen. An ancient assump- 
 tion of right made it so. 
 
 From the British point of view the " Right of 
 Search " was an eminently reasonable thing. Here 
 was an island people to whose keeping Heaven had 
 by special dispensation committed the dominion of 
 the seas. To defend that dominion they needed 
 every seaman they possessed or could produce. They 
 could spare none to other nations ; and when their 
 sailors, who enjoyed no rights under their own flag, 
 had the temerity to seek refuge under another, there 
 was nothing for it but to fire on that flag if necessary, 
 and to take the refugee by armed force from under 
 its protection. This in effect constituted the time- 
 honoured " Right of Search," and none were so 
 reluctant to forego the prerogative, or so keen to 
 enforce it, as those naval officers who saw in it a 
 certain prospect of adding to their ships' companies. 
 The right of search was always good for another 
 man or two. 
 
 It was often good for a great many more, for the 
 foreign skipper was at the best an arrant man-stealing 
 rogue. If a Yankee, he hated the British because he 
 had beaten them ; if a Frenchman or a Hollander, 
 because they had beaten him. His animus was all 
 against the British Navy, his sympathies all in favour 
 of the British sailor, in whom he recognised as good, 
 if not a better seaman than himself. He accordingly 
 enticed him with the greatest pertinacity and hid him 
 away with the greatest cunning. 
 
 Every impress officer worth his salt was fully alive 
 to these facts, and on all the coast no ship was so 
 thoroughly ransacked as the ship whose skipper
 
 132 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 affected a bland ignorance of the English tongue or 
 called Heaven to witness the blamelessness of his 
 conduct with many gesticulations and strange oaths. 
 Lieut. Oakley, regulating officer at Deal, once boarded 
 an outward-bound Dutch East-Indiaman in the Downs. 
 The master strenuously denied having any English 
 sailors on board, but the lieutenant, being suspicious, 
 sent his men below with instructions to leave no part 
 of the ship unsearched. They speedily routed out 
 three, " who discovered that there were in all thirteen 
 on board, most of them good and able seamen."* 
 The case is a typical one. 
 
 Another source of joy and profit to the gangs 
 afloat were the great annual convoys from overseas. 
 For safety's sake merchantmen in times of hostilities 
 sailed in fleets, protected by ships of war, and when 
 a fleet of this description was due back from Jamaica, 
 Newfoundland or the Baltic, that part of the coast 
 where it might be expected to make its land-fall 
 literally swarmed with tenders, all on the qui vive 
 for human plunder. They were seldom disappointed. 
 The Admiralty protections under which the ships had 
 put to sea in the first instance expired with the home 
 voyage, leaving the crews at the mercy of the gangs. 
 If, that is to say, the commanders of the convoying 
 men-o'-war had not forestalled them, or the ships' 
 companies were not composed, as in one case we read 
 of, of men who were all "either sick or Dutchmen." 
 
 The privateer had to be approached more warily 
 than the merchantman, since the number of men and 
 the weight of metal she carried made her an ugly 
 customer to deal with. She was in consequence 
 
 * Ad. I. 3363 Lieut Oakley, 8 Dec. 1743.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 133 
 
 notorious for being the sauciest craft afloat, and 
 though "sauce" was to the naval officer what a red 
 rag is to a bull, there were few in the service who did 
 not think twice before attempting to violate the armed 
 sanctity of the privateer. At the same time the hands 
 who crowded her deck were the flower of British 
 seamen, and in this fact lay a tremendous incentive 
 to dare all risks and press her men. Her commission 
 or letter of marque of course protected her, but when 
 she was inward-bound that circumstance carried no 
 weight. 
 
 Against such an adversary the tender stood little 
 chance. When she hailed the privateer, the latter 
 laughed at her, threatening to sink her out of hand, 
 or, if ordered to bring to, answered with all the 
 insolent contempt of the Spanish grandee : '* Manana ! " 
 Accident sometimes stood the tender in better stead, 
 where the pressing of privateer's-men was concerned, 
 than all the guns she carried. Capt. Adams, cruising 
 for men in the Bristol Channel, one day fell in with 
 the Princess Augusta^ a letter of marque whose crew 
 had risen upon their officers and tried to take the 
 ship. After hard fighting the mutiny was quelled 
 and the mutineers confined to quarters, in which 
 condition Adams found them. The whole batch, 
 twenty-nine in number, was handed over to him, 
 ' though 'twas only with great threats " that he could 
 induce them to submit, "they all swearing to die to 
 a man rather than surrender." ^ 
 
 A year or two prior to this event this same ship, 
 the Princess Augusta, had a remarkable adventure 
 whilst sailing under the merchant flag of England. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1440 Capt. Adams, 28 June 1745.
 
 134 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 On the homeward run from Barbadoes, some fifty 
 leagues to the westward of the Scillies, she fell in 
 with a Spanish privateer, who at once engaged and 
 would undoubtedly have taken her but for an extra- 
 ordinary occurrence. Just as the trader's assailants 
 were on the point of boarding her the Spaniard 
 blew up, strewing the sea with his wreckage, but 
 leaving the merchantman providentially unharmed. 
 Capt. Dansays, of H.M.S. the Fubbs yacht, who 
 happened to be out for men at the time in the chops 
 of the Channel, brought the news to England. 
 Meeting with the trader a few days after her 
 miraculous escape, he had boarded her and pressed 
 nine of her crew.^ 
 
 From the smuggling vessels infesting the coasts 
 the sea-going gangs drew sure returns and rich booty. 
 In the south and east of England people who were 
 "in the know" could always buy tobacco, wines and 
 silks for a mere song ; and in Cumberland, in the 
 coast towns there, and inland too, the very beggars 
 are said to have regaled themselves on tea at sixpence 
 or a shilling the pound. These commodities, as well 
 as others dealt in by runners of contrabrand, were 
 worth far more on the water than on land, and none 
 was so keenly alive to the fact as the gangsman who 
 prowled the coast. Animated by the prospect of 
 double booty, he was by all odds the best "preventive 
 man " the country ever had. 
 
 There was a certainty, too, about the pressing of 
 a smuggler that was wanting in other cases. The 
 sailor taken out of a merchant ship, or the fisherman 
 out of a smack, might at the eleventh hour spring 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1439 Capt. Ambrose, 7 Feb. 1741-2.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 135 
 
 upon you a protection good for his discharge. Not 
 so the smuggler. There was in his case no room for 
 the unexpected. No form of protection could save 
 him from the consequences of his trade. Once caught, 
 his fate was a foregone conclusion, for he carried with 
 him evidence enough to make him a pressed man 
 twenty times over. Hence the gangsman and the 
 naval officer loved the smuggler and lost no opportunity 
 of showing their affection. 
 
 " Strong Breezes and Cloudy," records the officer 
 in command of H.M.S. Stag, a twenty-eight gun 
 frigate, in his log. " Having made the Signal for 
 Two Strange Sail in the West, proceeded on under 
 Courses & Double Reef't Topsails. At i sett the 
 Jibb and Driver, at 3 boarded a Smugling Cutter, 
 but having papers proving she was from Guernsey, 
 and being out limits, pressed one Man and let her go." ^ 
 
 " Friday last," says the captain of the Spy sloop of 
 war, " I sail'd out of Yarmouth Roads with a Fleet 
 of Colliers in order to press Men, & in my way fell 
 in with Two Dutch Built Scoots sail'd by Englishmen, 
 bound for Holland, one belonging to Hull, call'd the 
 Mary, the other to Lyn, call'd the Willing Traveller. 
 I search'd 'em and took out of the former ^64 14, and 
 out of the latter ^30 o 6, all English Money, which 
 I've deliver'd to the Collector of Custome at Yarmouth. 
 I likewise Imprest out of the Two Vessells seven men." ^ 
 
 "In the execution of my orders for pressing," 
 reports Capt. Young, from on board the Bonetta sloop 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 2734 Log of H.M.S. Stag, Capt. Yorke commander, 
 5 Oct. 1794. 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1438 Capt. Arnold, 29 May 1727. The exporting of coin 
 was illegal.
 
 136 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 under his command, ' I lately met with two Smuglers, 
 & landing my boats into a Rocky Bay where they 
 were running of Goods, the Weather came on so 
 Violent I had my pinnace Stove so much as to be 
 rendered unservisable. They threw overboard all 
 their Brandy, Tea and Tobacco, of which last wee 
 recover'd about 14 Baggs and put it to the Custom 
 house. In Endeavouring to bring one of them to Sail, 
 my Boatswain, who is a very Brisk and Deserving Man, 
 had his arm broke, so that tho' wee got no more of 
 their Cargo, it has broke their Voyage and Trade this 
 bout." ' 
 
 On the 13th of December 1703, George Messenger, 
 boatswain of the JVo// armed sloop, whilst pressing 
 on the Humber descried a " keel " lying high and dry 
 apart from the other shipping in the river, where it 
 was then low water. Boarding her with the intention 
 of pressing her men, he found her deserted save for the 
 master, and thinking that some of the hands might be 
 in hiding below where the master assured him he 
 would find nothing but ballast he " did order one of 
 his Boat's crew to goe down in the Hold and see 
 what was therein " ; who presently returned and 
 reported "a quantity of wool conceal'd under some 
 Coales a foot thik." The exportation of wool being 
 at that time forbidden under heavy penalties, the 
 vessel was seized and the master pressed a course 
 frequently adopted in such circumstances, and uni- 
 formly approved.^ 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 2732 Capt. Young, 6 April 1739. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 1465 Deposition of George Messenger, 20 Dec. 1703. 
 Owling, ooling or wooling, as the exportation of wool contrary to law 
 was variously termed, was a felony punishable, according to an enact- 
 ment of Edward iii,, with " forfeiture of life and member." So serious
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 137 
 
 While the gangs afloat in this way lent their aid 
 in the suppression of smuggling, they themselves were 
 sometimes subjected to disagreeable espionage on the 
 part of those whose duty it was to keep a special 
 lookout for runners of contraband goods. An amus- 
 ing instance of this once occurred in the Downs. The 
 commanding officer of H.M.S. Orford, discovering 
 his complement to be short, sent one of his lieutenants, 
 Richardson by name, in quest of men to make up the 
 deficiency. In the course of his visits from ship to 
 ship there somehow found their way into the lieu- 
 tenant's boat a fifteen-gallon keg of rum and ten 
 bottles of white wine. Between seven and eight 
 o'clock in the evening he boarded an Indiaman and 
 went below with the master. Scarcely had he done 
 so, however, when an uproar alongside brought him 
 hurriedly on deck to find his boat full of strange 
 faces. A Customs cutter, in some unaccountable way 
 getting wind of what was in the boat, had unexpectedly 
 "clapt them aboard," collared the man-o'-war's-men 
 for a set of rascally smugglers, and confiscated the 
 unexplainable rum and wine, becoming so fuddled on 
 the latter, which they lost no time in consigning to 
 bond, that one of their number fell into the sea and 
 was with difficulty fished out by Richardson's disgusted 
 gangsmen.^ 
 
 was the offence considered that in 1 565 a further enactment was form- 
 ulated against it. Thereafter any person convicted of exporting a live 
 ram, lamb or sheep, was not only liable to forfeit all his goods, but to 
 suffer imprisonment for a year, and at the end of the year " in some open 
 market town, in the fulness of the market on the market day, to have his 
 right hand cut off and nailed up in the openest place of such market." 
 The first of these Acts remained in nominal force till 1863. 
 ^ Ad. I. 1473 Capt. Brown, 30 July 1727, and enclosures.
 
 138 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 The only inward-bound ship the gangsmen were 
 forbidden to press from was the " sick ship " or vessel 
 undergoing quarantine because of the presence, or the 
 suspected presence, on board of her of some "catch- 
 ing" disease, and more particularly of that terrible 
 scourge the plague. Dread of the plague in those 
 days rode the country like a nightmare, and just as 
 the earliest quarantine precautions had their origin 
 in that fact, so those precautions were never more 
 rigorously enforced than in the case of ships trading 
 to countries known to be subject to plague or reported 
 to be in the grip of it. The Levantine trader suffered 
 most severely in this respect. In 1721 two vessels 
 from Cyprus, where plague was then prevalent, were 
 burned to the water's edge by order of the authorities, 
 and as late as 1800 two others from Morocco, sus- 
 pected of carrying the dread disease in the hides 
 composing their cargo, were scuttled and sent to the 
 bottom at the Nore. This was quarantine in excelsis. 
 Ordinary preventive measures went no further than 
 the withdrawal of "pratique," as communication with 
 the shore was called, for a period varying usually from 
 ten to sixty-five days, and during this period no gang 
 was allowed to board the ship. 
 
 The seamen belonging to such ships always got 
 ashore if they could ; for though the penalty for 
 deserting a ship in quarantine was death,^ it might 
 be death to remain, and the sailor was ever an 
 opportunist careless of consequences. So, for that 
 matter, was the gangsman. Knowing well that Jack 
 would make a break for it the first chance he got, he 
 hovered about the ship both day and night, alert for 
 
 * 26 George ii. cap. 6.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 139 
 
 every movement on board, watchful of every ripple on 
 the water, taunting the woebegone sailors with the 
 irksomeness of their captivity or the certainty of their 
 capture, and awaiting with what patience he could the 
 hour that should see pratique restored and the crew at 
 his mercy. Whether the ship had "catching" disease 
 on board or not might be an open question. There 
 was no mistaking its symptoms in the gangsman. 
 
 Stangate Creek, on the river Medway, was the 
 great quarantine station for the port of London, and 
 here, in the year 1744, was enacted one of the most 
 remarkable scenes ever witnessed in connection with 
 pressing afloat. The previous year had seen a re- 
 crudescence of plague in the Levant and consequent 
 panic in England, where extraordinary precautions 
 were adopted against possible infection. In December 
 of that year there lay in Stangate Creek a fleet of not 
 less than a dozen Levantine ships, in which were 
 cooped up, under the most exacting conditions imagin- 
 able, more than two hundred sailors. At Sheerness, 
 only a few miles distant, a number of ships of war, 
 amongst them Rodney's, were at the same time fitting 
 out and wanting men. The situation was thus charged 
 with possibilities. 
 
 It was estimated that in order to press the two 
 hundred sailors from the quarantine ships, when the 
 period of detention should come to an end, a force of 
 not less than one hundred and fifty men would be 
 required. These were accordingly got together from 
 the various ships of war and sent into the Creek on 
 board a tender belonging to the Royal Sovereign, 
 This was on the 15th of December, and quarantine 
 expired on the 22nd.
 
 140 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 The arrival of the tender threw the Creek into a 
 state of consternation bordering on panic, and that 
 very day a number of sailors broke bounds and fell a 
 prey to the gangs in attempting to steal ashore. 
 Seymour, the lieutenant in command of the tender, 
 did not improve matters by his idiotic and unofificer- 
 like behaviour. Every day be rowed up and down 
 the Creek, in and out amongst the ships, taunting the 
 men with what he would do unless they volunteered, 
 when the 22nd arrived, and he was free to work his 
 will upon them. He would have them all, he assured 
 them, if he had to "shoot them like small birds." 
 
 By the 22nd the sailors were in a state of " mutin- 
 ous insolence." When the tender's boats approached 
 the ships they were welcomed " with presented arms," 
 and obliged to sheer off in order to obtain " more 
 force," so menacing did the situation appear. Seeing 
 this, and either mistaking or guessing the import 
 of the move, the desperate seamen rushed the cabins, 
 secured all the arms and ammunition they could lay 
 hands on, hoisted out the ship's boats, and in these 
 reached the shore in safety ere the tender's men, by 
 this time out in strength, could prevent or come up 
 with them. The fugitives, to the number of a hundred 
 or more, made off into the country to the accompani- 
 ment, we are told, of "smart firing on both sides." 
 With this exchange of shots the curtain falls on the 
 " Fray at Stangate Creek." ^ In the engagement two 
 of the seamen were wounded, but all escaped the 
 snare of the fowler, and in that happy denouement 
 our sympathies are with them. 
 
 Returning transports paid immediate and heavy 
 
 * Ad. I, 1480 Capt. Berkeley, 30 Dec. 1744, and enclosure.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT 141 
 
 tribute to the gangs afloat. Out of a fleet of such 
 vessels arriving at the Nore in 1756 two hundred and 
 thirty men, "a parcel of as fine fellows as were ever 
 pressed," fell to the gangs. Not a man escaped from 
 any of the ships, and the boats were kept busy all next 
 day shifting chests and bedding and putting in ticket 
 men to navigate the depleted vessels to London/ A 
 similar press at the Cove of Cork, on the return of the 
 transports from America in '79, proved equally pro- 
 ductive. Hundreds of sailors were secured, to the 
 unspeakable grief of the local crimps, who were then 
 offering long prices in order to recruit Paul Jones, at 
 that time cruising off the Irish coast.* 
 
 The cartel ship was an object of peculiar solicitude 
 to the sea-going gangsman. In her, after weary 
 months passed in French, Spanish or Dutch prisons, 
 hundreds of able-bodied British seamen returned to 
 their native land in more or less prime condition for 
 His Majesty's Navy. The warmest welcome they 
 received was from the waiting gangsman. Often 
 they got no other. Few cartels had the extraordinary 
 luck of the ship of that description that crept into Rye 
 harbour one night in March 1800, and in bright moon- 
 light landed three hundred lusty sailor-men fresh 
 from French prisons, under the very nose of the 
 battery, the guard at the port head and the Clinker 
 gun-brig.^ 
 
 Of all the seafaring men the gangsman took, there 
 was perhaps none whom he pressed with greater relish 
 than the pilot. The every-day pilot of the old school 
 
 * Ad. I. 1487 Capt. Boys, 6, 7 and 8 July 1756. 
 2 Ad. I. 1499 Letters of Capt. Bennett, 1779. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1449 Capt. Aylmer, 9 March 1800.
 
 142 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 was a curious compound. When he knew his business, 
 which was only too seldom, he was frequently too 
 many sheets in the wind to embody his knowledge in 
 intelligent orders ; and when he happened to be sober 
 enough to issue intelligent orders, he not infrequently 
 showed his ignorance of what he was supposed to 
 know by issuing wrong ones. The upshot of these 
 contradictions was, that instead of piloting His 
 Majesty's ships in a becoming seamanly manner, he 
 was for ever running them aground. Fortunately for 
 the service, an error of this description incapacitated 
 him and made him fair game for the gangs, who lost 
 no time in transferring him to those foremast regions 
 where ship's grog was strictly limited and the captain's 
 quite unknown. William Cook, impressed upon an 
 occasion at Lynn, with unconscious humour styled 
 himself a landsman. He was really a pilot who had 
 qualified for that distinction by running vessels 
 ashore. 
 
 In the aggregate this unremitting and practically 
 unbroken surveillance of the coast was tremendously 
 effective. Like Van Tromp, the vessels and gangs 
 engaged in it rode the seas with a broom at their 
 masthead, sweeping into the service, not every man, 
 it is true, but enormous numbers of them. As for 
 their quality, " One man out of a merchant ship is 
 better than three the lieutenants get in town."^ This 
 was the general opinion early in the century ; but as 
 the century wore on the quality of the man pressed in 
 town steadily deteriorated, till at length the sailor 
 taken fresh from the sea was reckoned to be worth six 
 of him. 
 
 * Ad. I. 2379 Capt. Roberts, 27 June 1732.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 EVADING THE GANG 
 
 As we have just seen, it was when returning from 
 overseas that the British sailor ran the gravest risk 
 of summary conversion into Falstaffs famous com- 
 modity, "food for powder." 
 
 Outward bound, the ship's protection that 
 " sweet little cherub " which, contrary to all Dibdinic 
 precedent, lay down below had spread its kindly 
 aegis over him, and, generally speaking, saved him 
 harmless from the warrant and the hanger. But 
 now the run for which he has signed on is almost 
 finished, and as the Channel opens before him the 
 magic Admiralty paper ceases to be of "force" for 
 his protection. No sooner, therefore, does he make 
 his land-fall off the fair green hills or shimmering 
 cliffs than his troubles begin. He is now within the 
 outer zone of danger, and all about him hover those 
 dreaded sharks of the Narrow Seas, the rapacious 
 press-smacks, seeking whom they may devour. Con- 
 ning the compass-card of his chances as they bear 
 down upon him and send their shot whizzing across 
 his bows, the sailor, in his fixed resolve to evade the 
 gang at any cost, resorted first of all to the most 
 simple and sailorly expedient imaginable. He "let 
 go all " and made a run for it. That way lay the line 
 
 43
 
 144 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 of least resistance, and, with luck on his side, of 
 surest escape. 
 
 Three modes of flight were his to choose between 
 three modes involving as many nice distinctions, 
 plus a possible difference with the master. He could 
 run away in his ship, run away witk her, or as a last 
 resort he could sacrifice his slops, his bedding, his 
 pet monkey and the gaudy parrot that was just begin- 
 ning to swear, and run from her. Which should it 
 be."* It was all a toss-up. The chance of the 
 moment, instantly detected and as instantly acted 
 upon, determined his choice. 
 
 The sailor's flight in his ship depended mainly 
 upon her sailing qualities and the master's willingness 
 to risk being dismasted or hulled by the pursuer's 
 shot. Granted a capful of wind on his beam, a fleet 
 keel under foot, and a complacent skipper aft, the 
 flight direct was perhaps the means of escape the 
 sailor loved above all others. The spice of danger 
 it involved, the dash and frolic of the chase, the joy 
 of seeing his leaping "barky" draw slowly away from 
 her pursuer in the contest of speed, and of watching 
 the stretch of water lying between him and capture 
 surely widen out, were sensations dear to his heart. 
 
 Running away with his ship was a more serious 
 business, since the adoption of such a course meant 
 depriving the master of his command, and this again 
 meant mutiny. Happily, masters took a lenient view 
 of mutinies begotten of such conditions. Not in- 
 frequently, indeed, they were consenting parties, 
 winking at what they could not prevent, and assum- 
 ing the command again when the safety of ship and 
 crew was assured by successful flight, with never a
 
 EVADING THE GANG 145 
 
 hint of the irons, indictment or death decreed by law 
 as the mutineer's portion. 
 
 These modes of flight did not in every instance 
 follow the hard-and-fast lines here laid down. Under 
 stress of circumstance each was liable to become 
 merged in the other ; or both, perhaps, had to be 
 abandoned in favour of fresh tactics rendered 
 necessary by the accident or the exigency of the 
 moment. The Triton and Norfolk Indiamen, after 
 successfully running the gauntlet of the Channel 
 tenders, in the Downs fell in with the Falmouth man- 
 o'-war. The meeting was entirely accidental. Both 
 merchantmen were congratulating themselves on 
 having negotiated the Channel without the loss of a 
 man. The Triton had all furled except her fore 
 and mizen topsails, preparatory to coming to an 
 anchor ; but as the wind was strong southerly, with 
 a lee tide running, the FalmouthUs boats could not 
 forge ahead to board her before <"he set of the tide 
 carried her astern of the warship's guns, where- 
 upon her crew mutinied, threw shot into the man-o'- 
 war's boats, which had by this time drawn alongside, 
 and so, making sail with all possible speed, got clear 
 away. Meantime a shot had brought the Norfolk 
 to on the Falmouth! s starboard bow, where she was 
 immediately boarded. On her decks an ominous 
 state of things prevailed. Her crew would not assist 
 to clew up the sails, the anchor had been seized to 
 the chain-plates and could not be let go, and when 
 the gang from the Falmouth attempted to cut the 
 buoy ropes with which it was secured, the " crew 
 attacked them with hatchets and treenails, made sail 
 and obliged them to quit the ship." Being by that,
 
 146 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 time astern of the Falmouth's guns, they too made 
 their escape.^ 
 
 Never, perhaps, did the sailor adopt the expedient 
 of running away, ship and all, with so malicious a 
 goodwill or so bright a prospect of success, as 
 when sailing under convoy. In those days he seldom 
 ventured to " risk the run," even to Dutch ports and 
 back, without the protection of one or more ships of 
 war, and in this precaution there was danger as well 
 as safety ; for although the king's ships safeguarded 
 him against the enemy if hostilities were in progress, 
 as well as against the "little rogues" of privateers 
 infesting the coasts and the adjacent seas, no sooner 
 did the voyage near its end than the captains of the 
 convoying ships took out of him, by force if necessary, 
 as many men as they happened to require. This was 
 a quid pro quo of which the sailor could see neither 
 the force nor the fairness, and he therefore let slip 
 no opportunity of evading it. 
 
 " Their Lordships," writes a commander who had 
 been thus cheated, "need not be surprised that I 
 pressed so few men out of so large a Convoy, for the 
 Wind taking me Short before I got the length of 
 Leostaff (Lowestoft), the Pilot w** not take Charge 
 of the Shipp to turn her out over the Stamford in y' 
 Night, w*^ Oblig'd me to come to an Anchor in 
 Corton Road. This I did by Signal, but y' Convoy 
 took no Notice of it, and all of them Run away and 
 Left me, my Bottom being like a Rock for Rough- 
 ness, so that I could not Follow them."* 
 
 Supposing, however, that all these manoeuvres 
 
 1 Ad. I. 1485 Capt. Brett, 25 June 1755. 
 Ad. I. 2732 Letters of Capt. Young, 1742.
 
 EVADING THE GANG 147 
 
 failed him and the gang after a hot chase appeared 
 in force on deck, the game was not yet up so far as 
 the sailor was concerned. A ship, it is true, had 
 neither the length of the Great North Road nor yet 
 the depth of the Forest of Dean, but all the same 
 there was within the narrow compass of her timbers 
 many a lurking place wherein the artful sailor, by a 
 judicious exercise of forethought and tools, might 
 contrive to lie undetected until the gang had gone 
 over the side. 
 
 About five o'clock in the afternoon of the 25th 
 of June 1756, Capt. William Boys, from the quarter- 
 deck of his ship the Royal Sovereign, then riding at 
 anchor at the Nore, observed a snow on fire in the 
 five-fathom channel, a little below the Spoil Buoy. 
 He immediately sent his cutter to her assistance, but 
 in spite of all efforts to save her she ran aground 
 and burnt to the water's edge. Her cargo consisted 
 of wine, and the loss of the vessel was occasioned by 
 one of her crew, who was fearful of being pressed, 
 hiding himself in the hold with a lighted candle. He 
 was burnt with the ship.^ 
 
 Barring the lighted candle and the lamentable 
 
 * Ad. I. 1487 Capt. Boys, 26 June 1756. Oddly enough, a some- 
 what similar accident was indirectly the cause of Capt. Boys' entering 
 the Navy. In 1727, whilst the merchantman of which he was then mate 
 was on the voyage home from Jamaica, two mischievous imps of black 
 boys, inquisitive to know whether some liquor spilt on deck was rum 
 or water, applied a lighted candle to it. It proved to be rum, and when 
 the officers and crew, who were obliged to take to the boats in 
 consequence, were eventually picked up by a Newfoundland fishing 
 vessel, unspeakable sufferings had reduced their number from twenty- 
 three to seven, and these had only survived by feeding on the bodies 
 of their dead shipmates. In memory of that harrowing time Boys 
 adopted as his seal the device of a burning ship and the motto : 
 *' From Fire, Water and Famine by Providence Preserved."
 
 148 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 accident which followed its use, the means of evading 
 the gang resorted to in this instance was of a piece 
 with many adopted by the sailor. He contrived 
 cunning hiding-places in the cargo, where the gangs- 
 men systematically "pricked" for him with their 
 cutlasses when the nature of the vessel's lading 
 admitted of it, or he stowed himself away in seachests, 
 lockers and empty " harness" casks with an ingenuity 
 and thoroughness that often baffled the astutest 
 gangsman and the most protracted search. The 
 spare sails forward, the readily accessible hiding-hole 
 of the green-hand, afforded less secure concealment. 
 Pierre Flountinherre, routed out of hiding there, 
 endeavoured to save his face by declaring that he 
 had "left France on purpose to get on board an 
 English man-of-war." Frenchman though he was, 
 the gang obliged him.^ 
 
 In his endeavours to best the impress officers and 
 gangsmen the sailor found a willing backer in his 
 skipper, who systematically falsified the ship's articles 
 by writing "run," "drowned," "discharged" or 
 "dead" against the names of such men as he par- 
 ticularly desired to save harmless from the press. ^ 
 This done, the men were industriously coached in the 
 various parts they were to play at the critical moment. 
 In the skipper's stead, supposing him to be for some 
 reason unfit for naval service, some specially valuable 
 hand was dubbed master. Failing this substitution, 
 which was of course intended to save the man and 
 not the skipper, the ablest seaman in the ship figured 
 as mate, whilst others became putative boatswain or 
 
 * Ad. I. 1510 Capt. Baskerville, 5 Aug. 1795. 
 ' Ad. I. 1525 Capt. Berry, 31 March 1801.
 
 EVADING THE GANG 149 
 
 carpenter and apprentices privileged persons whom 
 no gang could lawfully take, but who, to render their 
 position doubly secure, were furnished with spurious 
 papers, of which every provident skipper kept a 
 supply at hand for use in emergencies. When all 
 hands were finally mustered to quarters, so to speak, 
 there remained on deck only a "master" who could 
 not navigate the ship, a "mate" unable to figure out 
 the day's run, a "carpenter" who did not know how 
 to handle an adze, and some make-believe apprentices 
 "bound" only to outwit the gang. And if in spite 
 of all these precautions an able seaman were pressed, 
 the real master immediately came forward and swore 
 he was the mate. 
 
 Such thoroughly organised preparedness as this, 
 however, was the exception rather than the rule, for 
 though often attempted, it rarely reached perfection 
 or stood the actual test. The sailor was too childlike 
 by nature to play the fraud successfully, and as for 
 the impress officer and the gangsman, neither was 
 easily gulled. Supposing the sailor, then, to have 
 nothing to hope for from deception or concealment, 
 and supposing, too, that it was he who had the rough 
 bottom beneath him and the fleet keel in pursuit, 
 how was he to outwit the gang and evade the pinch ? 
 Nothing remained for him but to heave duty by the 
 board and abandon his ship to the doubtful mercies 
 of wind and wave. He accordingly went over the 
 side with all the haste he could, appropriating the 
 boats in defiance of authority, and leaving only the 
 master and his mate, the protected carpenter and the 
 apprentices to work the ship. Many a trader from 
 overseas, summarily abandoned in this way, crawled
 
 150 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 into some outlying port, far from her destination, in 
 quest since a rigorous press often left no others 
 available of "old men and boys to carry her up." 
 There is even on record the case of a ship that passed 
 the Nore " without a man belonging to her but the 
 master, the passengers helping him to sail her." Her 
 people had "all got ashore by Harwich."^ 
 
 Few shipowners were so foolhardy as to incur the 
 risk of being thus hit in the pocket by the sailor's 
 well-known predilection for French leave when in 
 danger of the press. Nor were the masters, for they, 
 even when not part owners, had still an appreciable 
 stake in the safety of the ships they sailed. As 
 between masters, owners and men there consequently 
 sprang up a sort of triangular sympathy, having for 
 its base a common dread of the gangs, and for its 
 apex their circumvention. This apex necessarily 
 touched the coast at a point contiguous to the ocean 
 tracks of the respective trades in which the ships 
 sailed ; and here, in some spot far removed from the 
 regular haunts of the gangsman, an emergency crew 
 was mustered by those indefatigable purveyors, the 
 crimps, and held in readiness against the expected 
 arrival. 
 
 Composed of seafaring men too old, too feeble, 
 or too diseased to excite the cupidity of the most 
 zealous lieutenant who eked out his pay on impress 
 perquisites ; of lads but recently embarked on the 
 adventurous voyage of their teens ; of pilots willing, 
 for a consideration, to forego the pleasure of run- 
 ning ships aground ; of fishermen who evaded His 
 Majesty's press under colour of Sea-Fencible, Militia, 
 
 ^ A^. 1 1473 Capt. Bouler, 18 Feb. 1725-6.
 
 EVADING THE GANG 151 
 
 or Admiralty protections ; and of unpressable 
 foreigners whose wives bewailed them more or less 
 beyond the seas, this scratch crew the Preventive 
 Men of the merchant service here awaited the pre- 
 concerted signal which should apprise them that their 
 employer's ship was ready for a change of hands. 
 
 For safety's sake the transfer was generally 
 effected by night, when that course was possible ; but 
 the untimely appearance of a press-smack on the 
 scene not infrequently necessitated the shifting of the 
 crews in the broad light of day and the hottest of 
 haste. On shore all had been in readiness perhaps 
 for days. At the signal off dashed the deeply laden 
 boats to the frantic ship, the scratch crew scrambled 
 aboard, and the regular hands, thus released from 
 duty, tumbled pell-mell into the empty boats and 
 pulled for shore with a will mightily heartened by a 
 running fire of round-shot from the smack and of 
 musketry from her cutter, already out to intercept the 
 fugitives. Then it was : 
 
 " Cheerily, lads, cheerily ! there's a ganger hard to vvind'ard ; 
 
 Cheerily, lads, cheerily ! there's a ganger hard a-lee ; 
 Cheerily, lads, cheerily ! else 'tis farewell home and kindred, 
 
 And the bosun's mate a-raisin' hell in the King's Navee. 
 Cheerily, lads, cheerily ho I the warrant's out, the hanger's drawn ! 
 Cheerily, lads, so cheerilee ! we'll leave 'em an R in pawn ! " ^ 
 
 The place of muster of the emergency men thus 
 became in turn the landing-place of the fugitive crew. 
 Its whereabouts depended as a matter of course upon 
 
 ^ When Jack deserted his ship under other conditions than those 
 here described, an R was written against his name to denote that he had 
 " run." So, when he shirked an obligation, monetary or moral, by run- 
 ning away from it, he was said to " leave an R in pawn."
 
 162 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 the trade in which the ship sailed. The spot chosen 
 for the relief of the Holland, Baltic and Greenland 
 traders of the East Coast was generally some wild, 
 inaccessible part abutting directly on the German 
 Ocean or the North Sea. London skippers in those 
 trades favoured the neighbourhood of Great Yar- 
 mouth, where the maze of inland waterways constitu- 
 ting the Broads enabled the shifty sailor to lead the 
 gangs a merry game at hide and seek. King's 
 Lynners affected Skegness and the Norfolk lip of 
 the Wash. Of the men who sailed out of Hull not 
 one in ten could be picked up, on their return, by the 
 gangs haunting the H umber. They went ashore at 
 Dimlington on the coast of Holderness, or at the 
 Spurn. The homing sailors of Leith, as of the ports 
 on the upper reaches of the Firth of Forth, enjoyed 
 an immunity from the press scarcely less absolute 
 than that of the Orkney Islanders, who for upwards 
 of forty years contributed not a single man to the 
 Navy. Having on either hand an easily accessible 
 coast, inhabited by a people upon whose hospitality 
 the gangs were chary of intruding, and abounding 
 in lurking-places as secure as they were snug, the 
 Mother Firth held on to her sailor sons with a per- 
 tinacity and success that excited the envy of the 
 merchant seaman at large and drove impress officers 
 to despair. The towns and villages to the north of 
 the Firth were " full of men." On no part of the 
 north coast, indeed, from St. Abb's Head clear round 
 to Annan Water, was it an easy matter to circumvent 
 the canny Scot who went a-sailoring. He had a 
 trick of stopping short of his destination, when home- 
 ward bound, that proved as baffling to the gangs as
 
 EVADING THE GANG 153 
 
 it was in seeming contradiction to all the traditions of 
 a race who pride themselves on "getting there." ^ 
 
 In the case of outward-bound ships, the disposition 
 of the two crews was of course reversed. The scratch 
 crew carried the ship down to the stipulated point of 
 exchange, where they vacated her in favour of the 
 actual crew, who had been secretly conveyed to that 
 point by land.^ Whichever way the trick was worked, 
 it proved highly effective, for, except from the sea, no 
 gang durst venture near such points of debarkation 
 and departure without strong military support. 
 
 There still remained the emergency crew itself. 
 The most decrepit, crippled or youthful were of 
 course out of the question. But the foreigner and 
 our shifty friend the man in lieu were fair game. 
 Entering largely as they did into the make-up of 
 almost every scratch crew, they were pressed without 
 compunction whenever and wherever caught abusing 
 their privileges by playing the emergency man. To 
 keep such persons always and in all circumstances 
 was a point of honour with the Navy Board. It had 
 no other means of squaring accounts with the scratch 
 crew. 
 
 The emergency man who plied " on his own " 
 was more difficult to deal with. Keepers of the 
 Eddystone made a "great deal of money " by putting 
 inward-bound ships' crews ashore ; but when one of 
 their number, Matthew Dolon by name, was pressed 
 as a punishment for that offence, the Admiralty, 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 579 Admiral Pringle, Report on Rendezvous, 2 April 
 1795, and Captains' Letters, ^ajj/w. 
 
 2 Ad. I. 580 Admiral Lord Nelson, Memorandum on the State of 
 the Fleet, 1803.
 
 164 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 having the fear of outraged Trade before its eyes, 
 ordered his immediate discharge.* 
 
 The pilot, the fisherman and the longshoreman 
 were notorious offenders in this respect. Whenever 
 they saw a vessel bound in, they were in the habit 
 of putting off to her and of first inciting the crew to 
 escape and then hiring themselves at exorbitant rates 
 to work the vessel into port. On such mischievous 
 interlopers the gangsman had no mercy. He took 
 them whenever he could, confident that when their 
 respective cases were stated to the Board, that body 
 would " tumble " to the occasion. 
 
 Any attempt at estimating the number of seafar- 
 ing men who evaded the gangs and the call of the 
 State by means of the devices and subterfuges here 
 roughly sketched into the broad canvas of our picture 
 would prove a task as profitless as it is impossible of 
 accomplishment. One thing only is certain. The 
 number fluctuated greatly from time to time with the 
 activity or inactivity of the gangs. When the press 
 was lax, there arose no question as there existed no 
 need of escape ; when it was hot, it was evaded 
 systematically and with a degree of success extremely 
 gratifying to the sailor. Taking the sea-borne coal 
 trade of the port of London alone, it is estimated that 
 in the single month of September 1770, at a time 
 when an exceptionally severe press from protections 
 was in full swing, not less than three thousand collier 
 seamen got ashore between Yarmouth Roads and 
 Foulness Point. As the coal trade was only one of 
 many, and as the stretch of coast concerned comprised 
 but a few miles out of hundreds equally well if not 
 
 * Ad. I. 2732 Capt. Yeo, 25 July 1727.
 
 EVADING THE GANG 155 
 
 better adapted to the sailor's furtive habits, the total 
 of escapes must have been little short of enormous. 
 It could not have been otherwise. In this grand 
 battue of the sea it was clearly impossible to round- 
 up and capture every skittish son of Neptune. 
 
 On shore, as at sea, the sailor's course, when the 
 gang was on his track, followed the lines of least 
 resistance, only here he became a skulk as well as a 
 fugitive. It was not that he was a less stout-hearted 
 fellow than when at sea. He was merely the victim 
 of a type of land neurosis. Drink and his recent 
 escape from the gang got on his nerves and rendered 
 him singularly liable to panic. The faintest hint of 
 a press was enough to make his hair rise. At the 
 first alarm he scuttled into hiding in the towns, or 
 broke cover like a frightened hare. 
 
 The great press of 1755 affords many instances 
 of such panic flights. Abounding in "lurking holes" 
 where a man might lie perdue in comparative safety, 
 King's Lynn nevertheless emptied itself of seamen 
 in a few hours' time, and when the gang hurried to 
 Wells by water, intending to intercept the fugitives 
 there, the " idle fishermen on shore " sounded a fresh 
 alarm and again they stampeded, going off to the 
 eastward in great numbers and burying themselves in 
 the thickly wooded dells and hills of that bit of Devon 
 in Norfolk which lies between Clay-next-the-Sea and 
 Sheringham.^ 
 
 A similar exodus occurred at Ipswich. The day 
 
 the warrants came down, as for many days previous, 
 
 the ancient borough was full of seamen ; but no 
 
 sooner did it become known that the press was out 
 
 ^ Ad. I. i486 Capt. Baird, 29 March and 21 April 1755.
 
 166 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 than they vanished like the dew of the morning. 
 For weeks the face of but one sailor was seen in the 
 town, and he was only ferreted out, with the assist- 
 ance of a dozen constables, after prolonged and none 
 too legal search.^ 
 
 How effectually the sailor could hide when dread 
 of the press had him in its grip is strikingly illustrated 
 by the hot London press of 1740. On that occasion 
 the docks, the riverside slums and dens, the river 
 itself both above and below bridge, were scoured by 
 gangs who left no stratagem untried for unearthing 
 and taking the hidden sailor. When the rigour of 
 the press was past not a seaman, it is said, was to be 
 found at large in London ; yet within four-and-twenty 
 hours sixteen thousand emerged from their retreats.* 
 
 The secret of such effectual concealment lay in 
 the fact that the nature of his hiding-place mattered 
 little to the sailor so long as it was secure. Accus- 
 tomed to quarters of the most cramped description on 
 shipboard, he required little room for his stowing. 
 The roughest bed, the worst ventilated hole, the 
 most insanitary surroundings and conditions were all 
 one to him. He could thus hide himself away in 
 places and receptacles from which the average lands- 
 man would have turned in fear or disgust. In 
 quarry, clay-pit, cellar or well ; in holt, hill or cave ; 
 in chimney, hayloft or secret cell behind some old- 
 time oven ; in shady alehouse or malodorous slum 
 where a man's life was worth nothing unless he had 
 the smell of tar upon him, and not much then ; on 
 isolated farmsteads and eyots, or in towns too remote 
 
 ^ Ad. I. i486 Capt. Brand, 26 Feb. 1755. 
 * Griffiths, Impressment Fully Considered.
 
 EVADING THE GANG 157 
 
 or too hostile for the gangsman to penetrate some- 
 where, somehow and of some sort the sailor found 
 his lurking-place, and in it, by good providence, lay- 
 safe and snug throughout the hottest press. 
 
 Many of the seamen employed in the Newfound- 
 land trade of Poole, gaining the shore at Chapman's 
 Pool or Lulworth, whiled away their stolen leisure 
 either in the clay -pits of the Isle of Purbeck, where 
 they defied intrusion by posting armed sentries at 
 every point of access to their stronghold, or their 
 favourite haunt on Portland Island, which the 
 number and ill-repute of the labourers employed in 
 its stone quarries rendered well-nigh impregnable. 
 To search for, let alone to take the seamen frequent- 
 ing that natural fortress who of course "squared" 
 the hard-bitten quarrymen was more than any gang 
 durst undertake unless, as was seldom the case, it 
 consisted of some "very superior force." ^ 
 
 With the solitary exception of Falmouth town, 
 the Cornish coast was merely another Portland Neck 
 enormously extended. From Rame Head to the 
 Lizard and Land's End, and in a minor sense from 
 Land's End away to Bude Haven in the far nor'-east, 
 the entire littoral of this remote part of the kingdom 
 was forbidden ground whereon no gangsman's life 
 was worth a moment's purchase. The two hundred 
 seins and twice two hundred drift-boats belonging 
 to that coast employed at least six thousand fisher- 
 men, and of these the greater part, as soon as the 
 fishing season was at an end, either turned "tinners" 
 and went into the mines, where they were unassail- 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 581 Admiral Berkeley, Report on Rendezvous, 5 Aug. 
 1805.
 
 168 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 able/ or betook themselves to their strongholds at 
 Newquay, St. Ives, Newland, Mousehole, Coversack, 
 Polpero, Cawsand and other places where, in 
 common with smugglers, deserters from the king's 
 ships at Hamoaze, and an endless succession of 
 fugitive merchant seamen, they were as safe from in- 
 trusion or capture as they would have been on the 
 coast of Labrador. It was impossible either to hunt 
 them down or to take them on a coast so " completely 
 perforated." A thousand "stout, able young fellows" 
 could have been drawn from this source without being 
 missed ; but the gangs fought shy of the task, and 
 only when tbey carried vessels in distress into Fal- 
 mouth were the redoubtable sons of the coves ever 
 molested.* ^ 
 
 On the Bristol Channel side Lundy Island offered 
 unrivalled facilities for evasion, and many were the 
 crews marooned there by far-sighted skippers who 
 calculated on thus securing them against their return 
 from Bristol, outward bound. The gangs as a rule 
 gave this little Heligoland a wide berth, and when 
 carried thither against their will they had a discon- 
 certing habit of running away with the press-boat, 
 and of thus marooning their commanding officer, 
 that contributed not a little to the immunity the 
 island enjoyed.^ 
 
 The sailor's objection to Lundy was as strong as 
 the gangsman's. From his point of view it was no 
 ideal place to hide in, and the effect upon him of 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 581 Admiral Berkeley, Report on Rendezvous, 28 Sept. 
 1805. 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 579 Admiral M'Bride, 9 March 1795. Ad. i. 578 
 Petition of the Inhabitants of the Village of Coversack, 31 Jan. 1778. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 1439 Capt Aylmer, 22 Dec. 1743.
 
 EVADING THE GANG 159 
 
 ' enforced sojourn there was to make him sulky and 
 mutinous. Rather the shore with all its dangers 
 than an island that produced neither tobacco, rum, 
 nor women ! He therefore preferred sticking to his 
 ship, even though he thereby ran the risk of impress- 
 ment, until she arrived the length of the Holmes. 
 
 These islands are two in number, Steep Holme 
 and Flat Holme, and so closely can vessels approach 
 the latter, given favourable weather conditions, that 
 a stone may be cast on shore from the deck. The 
 business of landing and embarking was consequently 
 easy, and though the islands themselves were as 
 barren as Lundy of the three commodities the sailor 
 loved, he was nevertheless content to terminate his 
 voyage there for the following reasons. Under the 
 lee of one or other of the islands there was generally 
 to be found a boat-load of men who were willing, for 
 a suitable return in coin of the realm, to work the 
 ship into King Road, the anchorage of the port of 
 Bristol. The sailor was thus left free to gain the 
 shore in the neighbourhood of Uphill, Weston, or 
 Clevedon Bay, whence it was an easy tramp, not to 
 Bristol, of which he steered clear because of its gangs, 
 but to Bath, or, did he prefer a place nearer at hand, 
 to the little town of Pill, near Avon-mouth. 
 
 A favourite haunt of seafaring men, fishermen, 
 pilots and pilots' assistants, with a liberal sprinkling 
 of that class of female known in sailor lingo as 
 *' brutes," this lively little town was a place after 
 Jack's own heart. The gangsmen gave it a wide 
 berth. It offered an abundance of material for him 
 to work upon, but that material was a trifle too rough 
 even for his infastidious taste. The majority of the
 
 ^ 160 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 permanent indwellers of Pill, as well as the casual 
 ones, not only protected themselves from the press, 
 when such a course was necessary, by a ready use of 
 the fist and the club, but, when this means of exemp- 
 tion failed them, pleaded the special nature of their 
 calling with great plausibility and success. They 
 were "pilots' assistants," and as such they enjoyed 
 for many years the unqualified indulgence of the 
 naval authorities. The appellation they bore was 
 . nevertheless purely euphemistic. As a matter of fact 
 they were sailors' assistants who, under cover of an 
 ostensible vocation, made it their real business, at the 
 instigation and expense of Bristol shipowners, to 
 save crews harmless from the gangs by boarding 
 ships at the Holmes and working them from thence 
 into the roadstead or to the quays. They are said to 
 have been " very fine young men," and many a long- 
 ing look did the impress officers at Bristol cast their 
 way whilst struggling to swell their monthly returns. 
 So essentially necessary to the trade of the place 
 were they considered to be, however, that they were 
 allowed to checkmate the gangs, practically without 
 molestation or hindrance, till about the beginning 
 of the last century, when the Admiralty, suddenly 
 awaking to the unpatriotic nature of a practice that 
 so effectually deprived the Navy of its due, caused 
 them to be served with a notice to the effect that 
 " for the future all who navigated ships from the 
 Holmes should be pressed as belonging to those 
 ships." At this threat the Pill men jeered. Relying 
 on the length of pilotage water between King Road 
 and Bristol, they took a leaf from the sailor's log and 
 ran before the press-boats could reach the ships in
 
 EVADING THE GANG 161 
 
 which they were temporarily employed. For four 
 years this state of things continued. Then there was 
 struck at the practice a blow which not even the 
 Admiralty had foreseen. Tow-paths were constructed 
 along the river-bank, and the pilots' assistants, ousted 
 by horses, fell an easy prey to the gangs.^ 
 
 Bath had no gang, and was in consequence much 
 frequented by sailors of the better class. In 1803 
 taking that as a normal year the number within its 
 limits was estimated at three hundred enouo"h to 
 man a ship-of-the-line. The fact being duly reported 
 to the Admiralty, a lieutenant and gang were ordered 
 over from Bristol to do some pressing. The civic 
 authorities mayor, magistrates, constables and watch- 
 men fired with sudden zeal for the service, all came 
 forward "in the most handsome manner" with offers 
 of countenance and support. In the purlieus of the 
 town, however, the advent of the gang created panic. 
 The seamen went into prompt hiding, the mob turned 
 out in force, angry and threatening, resolved that no 
 gang should violate the sanctuary of a cathedral city. 
 Seeing how the wind set, the mayor and magistrates, 
 having begun by backing the warrant, continued 
 backing until they backed out of the affair altogether. 
 The zealous watchmen could not be found, the eager 
 constables ran away. Dismayed by these untimely 
 defections, the lieutenant hurriedly resolved " to drop 
 the business." So the gang marched back to Bristol 
 empty-handed, followed by the hearty execrations of 
 the rabble and the heartier good wishes of the mayor, 
 who assured them that as soon as he should be able 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 581 Admiral Berkeley, Report on Rendezvous, 14 April 
 1805. 
 
 II
 
 162 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 to clap the skulking seamen in jail "on suspicion of 
 various misdemeanours," he would send for them 
 again.^ We do not learn that he ever did. 
 
 To Bristol no unprotected sailor ever repaired of 
 his own free will, for early in the century of pressing 
 the chickens of the most notorious kidnapping city in 
 England began to come home to roost. The mantle 
 of the Bristol mayor whom Jeffreys tried for a "kid- 
 napping knave " fell upon a succession of regelating 
 captains whose doings put their civic prototype to 
 open shame, and more petitions and protests against 
 the lawlessness of the gangs emanated from Bristol 
 than from any other city in the kingdom. 
 
 The trowmen who navigated the Severn and the 
 Wye, belonging as they did mainly to extra-parochial 
 spots in the Forest of Dean, were exempt from the 
 Militia ballot and the Army of Reserve. On the 
 ground that they came under the protection of inland 
 navigation, they likewise considered themselves 
 exempt from the sea service, but this contention the 
 Court of Exchequer in 1798 completely overset by 
 deciding that the "passage of the River Severn 
 between Gloucester and Bristol is open sea." A 
 press-gang was immediately let loose upon the 
 numerous tribe frequenting it, whereupon the whole 
 body of newly created sailors deserted their trows 
 and fled to the Forest, where they remained in hiding 
 till the disappointed gang sought other and more 
 fruitful fields.* 
 
 Within Chester gates the sailor for many years 
 
 * Ad. I. 1528 Capt. Barker, 3 and 11 July 1803. 
 
 * Ad. I. 581 Admiral Berkeley, Report on Rendezvous, 14 April 
 1805.
 
 EVADING THE GANG 163 
 
 slept as securely as upon the high seas. No house- 
 holder would admit the gangsmen beneath his roof ; 
 and when at length they succeeded in gaining a foot- 
 hold within the city, all who were liable to the press 
 immediately deserted it "as they do every town 
 where there is a gang" and went " to reside at Park- 
 gate." Parkgate in this way became a resort of sea- 
 faring men without parallel in the kingdom a "nest" 
 whose hornet bands were long, and with good reason, 
 notorious for their ferocity and aggressiveness.^ An 
 attempt to establish a rendezvous here in 1804 proved 
 a failure. The seamen fled, no "business" could be 
 done, and officer and gang were soon withdrawn. 
 
 In comparison with the seething Deeside hamlet, 
 Liverpool was tameness itself. Now and then, as in 
 1745, the sailor element rose in arms, demanding 
 who was master ; but as a rule it suffered the gang, 
 if not gladly, at least with exemplary patience. 
 Homing seamen who desired to evade the press in 
 that city and they were many fled ashore from 
 their ships at Highlake, a spot so well adapted to 
 their purpose that it required "strict care to catch 
 them." From Highlake they made their way to 
 Parkgate, swelling still further the sailor population 
 of that far-famed nest of skulkers. 
 
 Cork was a minor Parkgate. A graphic account 
 of the conditions obtaining in that city has been left 
 to us by Capt. Bennett, of H.M.S. Lennox, who did 
 port duty there from May 1779 till March 1783, 
 " Many hundreds of the best Seamen in this 
 Province," he tells us, " resort in Bodys in Country 
 Villages round about here, where they are maintained 
 
 1 Ad. I. 1446 Capt. Ayscough, 17 Nov. 1780.
 
 164 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 by the Crimps, who dispose of them to Bristol, 
 Liverpool and other Privateers, who appoint what 
 part of the Coast to take them on Board. They go in 
 Bodys, even in the Town of Cork, and bid defiance to 
 the Press-gangs, and resort in houses armed, and laugh 
 at both civil and military Power. This they did at 
 Kinsale, where they threatened to pull the Jail down in 
 a garrison'd Town."^ These tactics rendered the costly 
 press-gangs all but useless. A hot press at Cork, 
 in 1796, yielded only sixteen men fit for the service. 
 
 Space fails us to tell of how, owing to a three 
 days' delay in the London post that brought the 
 warrants to Newhaven in the spring of '78, the 
 "alarm of soon pressing" spread like wildfire along 
 that coast and drove every vessel to sea ; of how 
 " three or four hundred young fellows " belonging to 
 Great Yarmouth and Gorleston, who had no families 
 and could well have been spared without hindrance 
 to the seafaring business of those towns, thought 
 otherwise and took a little trip of " thirty or forty 
 miles in the country to hide from the service " ; or 
 of how Capt. Routh, of the rendezvous at Leeds, 
 happened upon a great concourse of skulkers at 
 Castleford, whither they had been drawn by reasons 
 of safety and the alleged fact that 
 
 "Castleford woman must needs be fair, 
 Because they wash both in Calder and Aire," 
 
 and after two unsuccessful attempts at surprise, at 
 length took them with the aid of the military. These 
 were everyday incidents which were accepted as 
 matters of course and surprised nobody. Neverthe- 
 * Ad. I. 1502 Capt. Bennett, 12 and 26 April 1782.
 
 EVADING THE GANG 165 
 
 less the vagaries of the wayward children of the 
 Stater^who chose to run away and hide instead of 
 remaining to play the game, cost the naval authorities 
 many an anxious moment. They had to face both 
 evasion and invasion, and the prevalence of the one 
 did not help to repel the other. 
 
 His country's fear of invasion by the French 
 afforded the seafaring man the chance of the century. 
 Pitt's Quota Bill put good money in his pocket at 
 the expense of his liberty, but in Admiral Sir Home 
 Popham's great scheme for the defence of the coasts 
 against Boney and his flat-bottomed boats he scented 
 something far more to his advantage and taste. 
 
 From the day in 1796 when Capt. Moriarty, press- 
 gang-officer at Cork, reported the arrival of the 
 long-expected Brest fleet off the Irish coast,^ the 
 question how best to defend from sudden attack so 
 enormously extended and highly vulnerable a sea- 
 board as that of the United Kingdom, became one 
 of feverish moment. At least a hundred different 
 projects for compassing that desirable end at one 
 time or another claimed the attention of the Navy 
 Board.^ One of these was decidedly ingenious. It 
 aimed at destroying the French flotilla by means of 
 logs of wood bored hollow and charged with gun- 
 powder and ball. These were to be launched against 
 the invaders somewhat after the manner of the 
 modern torpedo, of which they were, in fact, the 
 primitive type and original.^ 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1621 Capt. Crosby, 30 Dec. 1796. 
 
 * Ad. I. 581 Admiral Knowles, 25 Jan. 1805. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 580 Rear-Admiral Young, 14 Aug. 1803, and secret 
 enclosure, as in the Appendix. The Admiral's " machine," as he termed 
 it, though embodying the true torpedo idea of an explosive device to be
 
 166 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 Meantime, however, the Admiralty had adopted 
 another plan Admiral Popham, already famous for 
 his improved code of signals, its originator. On 
 paper it possessed the merits of all Haldanic substi- 
 tutes for the real thing. It was patriotic, cheap, 
 simple as kissing your hand. All you had to do was 
 to take the fisherman, the longshoreman and other 
 stalwarts who lived " one foot in sea and one on 
 shore," enroll them in corps under the command (as 
 distinguished from the control) of naval officers, and 
 practise them (on Sundays, since it was a work of 
 strict necessity) in the use of the pike and the cannon, 
 and, hey presto ! the country was as safe from 
 invasion as if the meddlesome French had never 
 been. The expense would be trivial. Granting 
 that the French did not take alarm and incontinently 
 drop their hostile designs upon the tight little island, 
 there would be a small outlay for pay, a trifle of a 
 shilling a day on exercise days, but nothing more 
 except for martello towers. The boats it was proposed 
 to enroll and arm would cost nothing. Their patriotic 
 owners were to provide them free of charge. 
 
 Such was the Popham scheme on paper. On a 
 working basis it proved quite another thing. The 
 pikes provided were old ship-pikes, rotten and worth- 
 less. The only occasion on which they appear to 
 have served any good purpose was when, at Gerrans 
 and St. Mawes, the Fencibles joined the mob and 
 
 propelled against an enemy's ship, was not designed to be so propelled 
 on its own buoyancy, but by means of a fishing-boat, in which it lay 
 concealed. Had his inventive genius taken a bolder flight and given us 
 a more finished product in place of this crudity, the Whitehead 
 torpedo would have been anticipated, in something more than mere 
 principle, by upwards of half a century.
 
 EVADING THE GANG 167 
 
 terrified the farmers, who were ignorant of the actual 
 condition of the pikes, into selling their corn at 
 something less than famine prices.^ Guns hoary with 
 age, requisitioned from country churchyards and 
 village greens where they had rusted, some of them, 
 ever since the days of Drake and Raleigh, were 
 dragged forth and proudly grouped as "parks of 
 artillery."^ Signal stations could not be seen one 
 from the other, or, if visible, perpetrated signals no 
 one could read. The armed smacks were equally 
 unreliable. In Ireland they could not be "trusted 
 out of sight with a gun."^ In England they left the 
 guns behind them. The weight, the patriotic owners 
 discovered, seriously hampered the carrying capacity 
 and seaworthiness of their boats ; so to abate the 
 nuisance they hove the guns overboard on to the 
 beach, where they were speedily buried in sand or 
 shingle, while the appliances we**o carried off by those 
 who had other uses for them than their country's 
 defence. The vessels thus armed, moreover, were 
 always at sea, the men never at home. When it was 
 desired to practise them in the raising of the sluice- 
 gates which, in the event of invasion, were to convert 
 Romney Marsh into an inland sea, no efforts availed 
 to get together sufficient men for the purpose. 
 Immune from the press by reason of their newly 
 created status of Sea-Fencibles, they were all else- 
 where, following their time-honoured vocations of 
 fishing and smuggling with industry and gladness of 
 heart. As a means of repelling invasion the Popham 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 579 Capt. Spry, 14 April 1801. 
 ^ Ad. I. 1 5 13 Capt. Bradley, 21 Aug. 1796. 
 ' Ad. I. 1529 Capt. Bowen, 12 Oct. 1803.
 
 168 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 scheme was farcical and worthless ; as a means of 
 evading the press it was the finest thing ever 
 invented.^ The only benefits the country ever drew 
 from it, apart from this, were two. It provided the 
 Admiralty with an incomparable register of seafaring 
 men, and some modern artists with secluded summer 
 retreats. 
 
 It goes without saying that a document of such 
 vital consequence to the seafaring man as an 
 Admiralty protection did not escape the attention of 
 those who, from various motives, sought to aid and 
 abet the sailor in his evasion of the press. Protections 
 were freely lent and exchanged, bought and sold, 
 " coaxed," concocted and stolen. Skilful predecessors 
 of Jim the Penman imitated to the life the signatures 
 of Pembroke and Sandwich, Lord High Admirals, 
 and of the lesser fry who put the official hand to 
 those magic papers. "Great abuses" were "com- 
 mitted that way." Bogus protections could be 
 obtained at Sunderland for 8s. 6d., Stephenson and 
 Collins, the disreputable schoolmasters who made 
 a business of faking them, coining money by the 
 "infamous practice." In London "one Broucher, 
 living in St. Michael's Lane," supplied them to all 
 comers at ^3 apiece. Even the Navy Office was 
 not above suspicion in this respect, for in '98 a clerk 
 there, whose name does not transpire, was accused of 
 adding to his income by the sale of bogus protections 
 at a guinea a head.* 
 
 ' Ad. I. 581 Admiral Berkeley, Reports on Sea-Fencibles, 1805 ; 
 Admiral Lord Keith, Sentiments upon the Sea-Fencible System, 7 
 Jan. 1805, 
 
 ' Ad. I. 2740 Lieut. Abbs, 5 Oct. 1798.
 
 EVADING THE GANG 169 
 
 American protections were the Admiralty's pet 
 bugbear. For many years after the successful issue 
 of the War of Independence a bitter animosity 
 characterised the attitude of the British naval officer 
 towards the American sailor. Whenever he could be 
 laid hold of he was pressed, and no matter what 
 documents he produced in evidence of his American 
 birth and citizenship, those documents were almost 
 invariably pronounced false and fraudulent. 
 
 There were weighty reasons, however, for refusing 
 to accept the claim of the alleged American sailor 
 at its face value. No class of protection was so 
 generally forged, so extensively bought and sold, 
 as the American. Practically every British seaman 
 who made the run to an American port took the 
 precaution, during his sojourn in that land of liberty, 
 to provide himself with spurious papers against his 
 return to England, where he hoped, by means of 
 them, to checkmate the gang. The process of 
 obtaining such papers was simplicity itself. All the 
 sailor had to do, at, say. New York, was to apply 
 himself to one Riley, whose other name was Paddy. 
 The sum of three dollars having changed hands, 
 Riley and his client betook themselves to the retreat 
 of some shady Notary Public, where the Irishman 
 made ready oath that the British seaman was as much 
 American born as himself. The business was now as 
 good as done, for on the strength of this lying 
 affidavit any Collector of Customs on the Atlantic 
 coast would for a trifling fee grant the sailor a certifi- 
 cate of citizenship. Riley created American citizens 
 in this way at the rate, it is said, of a dozen a day,^ 
 
 * Ad. I. 1523 Deposition of Zacharias Pasco, 20 Jan. 1800.
 
 170 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 and as he was only one of many plying the same lucra- 
 tive trade, the effect of such wholesale creations upon 
 the impress service in England, had they been allowed 
 to pass unchallenged, may be readily conceived. 
 
 The fraud, worse luck for the service, was by no 
 means confined to America. Almost every home 
 seaport had its recognised purveyor of " false 
 American passes." At Liverpool a former clerk to 
 the Collector of Customs for Pembroke, Pilsbury by 
 name, grew rich on them, whilst at Greenock, Shields 
 and other north-country shipping centres they were 
 for many years readily procurable of one Walter 
 Gilly and his confederates, whose transactions in this 
 kind of paper drove the Navy Board to desperation. 
 They accordingly instructed Capt. Brown, gang- 
 officer at Greenock, to take Gilly at all hazards, but 
 the fabricator of passes fled the town ere the gang 
 could be put on his track.^ 
 
 Considering that every naval officer, from the 
 Lord High Admiral downwards, had these facts 
 and circumstances at his fingers' ends, it is hardly 
 surprising that protections having, or purporting to 
 have, an American origin, should have been viewed 
 with profound distrust distrust too often justified, 
 and more than justified, by the very nature of the 
 documents themselves. Thus a gentlemen of colour, 
 Cato Martin by name, when taken out of the Dolly 
 West-Indiaman at Bristol, had the assurance to 
 produce a white man's pass certifying his eyes, which 
 were undeniably yellow, to be a soft sky-blue, and his 
 hair, which was hopelessly black and woolly, to be of 
 that well-known hue most commonly associated with 
 
 Ad. I. 1549 Capt. Brown, 22 Aug. 1809.
 
 EVADING THE GANG 171 
 
 hair grown north of the Tweed. It was reserved, 
 however, for an able seaman bearing the distinguished 
 name of Oliver Cromwell to break all known records 
 in this respect. When pressed, he unblushingly 
 produced a pass dated in America the 29th of May 
 and vis^d by the American Consul in London on the 
 6th of June immediately following, thus conferring on 
 its bearer the unique distinction of having crossed the 
 Atlantic in eight days at a time when the voyage 
 occupied honester men nearly as many weeks. To 
 press such frauds was a public benefit. On the other 
 hand, one confesses to a certain sympathy with the 
 American sailor who was pressed because he "spoke 
 English very well."^ 
 
 Believing in the simplicity of his heart that others 
 were as gullible as himself, the fugitive sailor sought 
 habitually to hide his identity beneath some temporary 
 disguise of greater or less transparency. That of 
 farm labourer was perhaps his favourite choice. The 
 number of seamen so disguised, and employed on 
 farms within ten miles of the coast between Hull 
 and Whitby prior to the sailing of the Greenland and 
 Baltic ships in 1803, was estimated at more than a 
 thousand able-bodied men.^ Seamen using the New- 
 foundland trade of Dartmouth were "half-farmer, half- 
 sailor." When the call of the sea no longer lured them, 
 they returned to the land in an agricultural sense, re- 
 sorting in hundreds to the farmsteads in the Southams, 
 where they were far out of reach of the gangs.' 
 
 ^ Ad. I, 2734 Capt. Yorke, 8 March 1798. 
 
 * Ad. I. 580 Admiral Phillip, Report on Rendezvous, 25 April 1804. 
 2 Ad. \. 579 Admiral M'Bride, Report on Rendezvous, 28 Feb. 
 1795-
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID ASHORE 
 
 In his endeavours to escape the gang the sailor 
 resembled nothing so much as that hopelessly 
 impotent fugitive the flying-fish. For both the sea 
 swarmed with enemies bent on catching them. Both 
 sought to evade those enemies by flight, and both, 
 their ineffectual flight ended, returned to the sea 
 again whether they would or not. It was their fate, 
 a deep-sea kismet as unavoidable as death. 
 
 The ultimate destination of the sailor who by 
 strategy or accident succeeded in eluding the triple 
 line of sea-gangs so placed as to head him off from 
 the coast, was thus never in doubt. His longest 
 flights were those he made on land, for here the 
 broad horizon that stood the gangs in such good 
 stead at sea was measurably narrower, while hiding- 
 places abounded and were never far to seek. All 
 the same, in spite of these adventitious aids to self- 
 effacement, the predestined end of the seafaring man 
 sooner or later overtook him. The gang met him 
 at the turning of the ways and wiped him off the 
 face of the land. In the expressive words of a 
 naval officer who knew the conditions thoroughly 
 well, the sailor's chances of obtaining a good run 
 for his money " were not worth a chaw of tobacco."
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID ASHORE 173 
 
 For this inevitable finish to all the sailor's attempts 
 at flight on shore there existed in the main two 
 reasons. The first of these lay in the sailor himself, 
 making of him an unconscious aider and abettor in 
 his own capture. Just as love and a cough cannot 
 be hid, so there was no disguising the fact that the 
 sailor was a sailor. He was marked by character- 
 istics that infallibly betrayed him. His bandy legs 
 and rolling gait suggested irresistibly the way of a 
 ship at sea, and no "soaking" in alehouse or tavern 
 could eliminate the salt from the peculiar oaths that 
 were as natural to him as the breath of life. Assume 
 what disguise he would, he fell under suspicion at 
 sight, and he had only to open his mouth to turn 
 that suspicion into certainty. It needed no Sherlock 
 Holmes of a gangsman to divine what he was or 
 whence he came. 
 
 The second reason why the sailor could never 
 long escape the gangs was because the gangs were 
 numerically too many for him. It was no question 
 of a chance gang here and there. The country 
 swarmed with them. 
 
 Take the coast. Here every seaport of any 
 pretensions in the way of trade, together with every 
 spot between such ports known to be favoured or 
 habitually used by the homing sailor as a landing- 
 place, with certain exceptions already noted, either 
 had its own particular gang or was closely watched 
 by some gang stationed within easy access of the 
 spot. In this way the whole island was ringed 
 in by gangs on shore, just as it was similarly ringed 
 in by other gangs afloat. 
 
 " If their Lordships would give me authority to
 
 174 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 press here," says Lieut. Oakley, writing to the Sea 
 
 Lords from Deal in 1743, " I could frequently pick up 
 
 good seamen ashoar. I mean seamen who by some 
 
 'means escape being pre st by the men of war and tender s'' 
 
 In this modest request the lieutenant states the 
 whole case for the land-gang, at once demonstrating 
 its utility and defining its functions. Unconsciously 
 he does more. He echoes a cry that incessantly 
 assailed the ears of Admiralty : " The sailor has 
 escaped ! Send us warrants and give us gangs, and 
 we will catch him yet." 
 
 It was this call, the call of the fleet, that dominated 
 the situation and forced order out of chaos. The 
 men must be "rose," and only method could do it. 
 The demand was a heavy one to make upon the 
 most unsystematic system ever known, yet it survived 
 the ordeal. The coast was mapped out, warrants 
 were dispatched to this point and that, rendezvous 
 were opened, gangs formed. No effort or outlay 
 was spared to take the sailor the moment he got 
 ashore, or very soon after. 
 
 In this systematic setting of land-traps that vast 
 head- centre of the nation's overseas trade, the metro- 
 polis, naturally had first place. The streets, and 
 especially the waterside streets, were infested with 
 gangs. At times it was unsafe for any able-bodied 
 man to venture abroad unless he had on him an 
 undeniable protection or wore a dress that unmis- 
 takeably proclaimed the gentleman. The general 
 rendezvous was on Tower Hill ; but as ships com- 
 pleting their complement nearly always sent a gang 
 or two to London, minor rendezvous abounded. St. 
 Katherine's by the Tower was specially favoured by
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID ASHORE 175 
 
 them. The " Rotterdam Arms " and the " Two 
 Dutch Skippers," well-known taverns within that 
 precinct, were seldom without the bit of bunting 
 that proclaimed the headquarters of the gang. At 
 Westminster the "White Swan" in King's Street 
 usually bore a similar decoration, as did also the 
 "Ship" in Holborn. 
 
 A characteristic case of pressing by a gang using 
 the last-named house occurred in 1706. Ran- 
 sacking the town in quest of pressable subjects of 
 Her Majesty, they came one day to the " Cock and 
 Rummer " in Bow Street, where a big dinner was 
 in progress. Here nothing would suit their tooth 
 but mine host's apprentice, and as ill-luck would 
 have it the apprentice was cook to the establishment 
 and responsible for the dinner. Him they never- 
 theless seized and would have hurried away in spite 
 of his master's supplications, protests and offers of 
 free drinks, had it not been for the fact that a mob 
 collected and forcibly prevented them. Other gangs 
 hurrying to the assistance of their hard-pressed com- 
 rades to the number, it is said, of sixty men a 
 free fight ensued, in the course of which a burly 
 constable, armed with a formidable longstaff, was 
 singled out by the original gang, doubtless on account 
 of the prominent part he took in the fray, as a fitting 
 substitute for the apprentice. By dint of beating the 
 poor fellow till he was past resistance they at length 
 got him to the " Ship," where they were in the very 
 act of bundling him into a coach, with the intention 
 of carrying him to the waterside below bridge, and 
 of their putting him on board the press - smack, 
 when in the general confusion he somehow effected
 
 17 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 his escape.^ Such incidents were common enough 
 not only at that time but long after. 
 
 At Gravesend sailors came ashore in such 
 numbers from East India and other ships as to 
 keep a brace of gangs busy. Another found enough 
 to do at Broadstairs, whence a large number of 
 vessels sailed in the Iceland cod fishery and similar 
 industries. Faversham was a port and had its gang, 
 and from Margate right away to Portsmouth, and 
 from Portsmouth to Plymouth, nearly every town of 
 any size that offered ready hiding to the fugitive 
 sailor from the Channel was similarly favoured. 
 Brighton formed a notable exception, and this cir- 
 cumstance gave rise to an episode about which we 
 shall have more to say presently. 
 
 To record in these pages the local of all the gangs 
 that were stationed in this manner upon the seaboard 
 of the kingdom would be as undesirable as it is 
 foreign to the scope of this chapter. Enough to 
 repeat that the land, always the sailor's objective 
 in eluding the triple cordon of sea-borne gangs, 
 was ringed in and surrounded by a circle of land- 
 gangs in every respect identical with that described 
 as hedging the southern coast, and in its continuity 
 almost as unbroken as the shore itself. Both sea- 
 gangs and coast-gangs were amphibious, using either 
 land or sea at pleasure. 
 
 Inland the conditions were the same, yet materially 
 different. What was on the coast an encircling line 
 assumed here the form of a vast net, to which the 
 principal towns, the great cross-roads and the arterial 
 bridges of the country stood in the relation of reticular 
 
 ' "A Horrible Relation," Review, 17 March 1705-6.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID ASHORE 177 
 
 knots, while the constant " ranging " of the gangs, 
 now in this direction, now in that, supplied the 
 connecting filaments or threads. The gangs com- 
 posing this great inland net were not amphibious. 
 Their most desperate aquatic ventures were confined 
 to rivers and canals. Ability to do their twenty miles 
 a day on foot counted for more with them than a 
 knowledge of how to handle an oar or distinguish 
 the "cheeks" of a gaff from its "jaw." 
 
 Just as the sea-gangs in their raids upon the land 
 were the Danes and " creekmen " of their time, so 
 the land-gangsman was the true highwayman of 
 the century that begot him. He kept every strategic 
 point of every main thoroughfare, held all the bridges, 
 watched all the ferries, haunted all the fairs. No 
 place where likely men were to be found escaped his 
 calculating eye. 
 
 He was an inveterate early riser, and sailors 
 sauntering to the fair for want of better employ- 
 ment ran grave risks. In this way a large number 
 were taken on the road to Croydon fair one morning 
 in September 1743. For actual pressing the fair 
 itself was unsafe because of the great concourse 
 of people ; but it formed one of the best possible 
 hunting-grounds and was kept under close observa- 
 tion for that reason. Here the gangsman marked 
 his victim, whose steps he dogged into the country 
 when his business was done or his pleasure ended, 
 never for a moment losing sight of him until he 
 walked into the trap all ready set in some wayside 
 spinny or beneath some sheltering bridge. 
 
 Bridges were the inland gangsman's favourite 
 haunt. They not only afforded ready concealment, 
 12
 
 178 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 they had to be crossed. Thus Lodden Bridge, near 
 Reading, accounted one of the " likeliest places in 
 the country for straggling seamen," was seldom 
 without its gang. Nor was the great bridge at 
 Gloucester, since, as the first bridge over the Severn, 
 it drew to itself all the highroads and their users 
 from Wales and the north. To sailors making for 
 the south coast from those parts it was a point of 
 approach as dangerous as it was unavoidable. Great 
 numbers were taken here in consequence.^ 
 
 So of ferries. The passage boats at Queensferry 
 on the Firth of Forth, watched by gangs from 
 Inverkeithing, yielded almost as many men in the 
 course of a year as the costly rendezvous at Leith. 
 Greenock ferries proved scarcely less productive. 
 But there was here an exception. The ferry between 
 Glenfinart and Greenock plied only twice a week, 
 and as both occasions coincided with market - days 
 the boat was invariably crowded with women. Only 
 once did it yield a man. Peter Weir, the hand in 
 charge, one day overset the boat, drowning every 
 soul on board except himself. Thereupon the gang 
 pressed him, arguing that one who used the sea so 
 effectively could not fail to make a valuable addition 
 to the fleet. 
 
 Inland towns traversed by the great highroads 
 leading from north to south, or from east to west, 
 were much frequented by the gangs. Amongst these 
 Stourbridge perhaps ranked first. Situated midway 
 between the great ports of Liverpool and Bristol, 
 it easily and effectually commanded Birmingham, 
 
 * Ad. I. 581 Admiral Berkeley, Report on Rendezvous, 14 April 
 1805.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID ASHORE 179 
 
 Wolverhampton, Bridgnorth, Bewdley, Kidder- 
 minster and other populous towns, while it was too 
 small to afford secure hiding within itself. The 
 gangs operating from Stourbridge brought in an 
 endless procession of ragged and travel - stained 
 seamen.^ 
 
 From ports on the Bristol Channel to ports on 
 the English Channel, and the reverse, many seamen 
 crossed the country by stage-coach or wagon, and 
 to intercept them gangs were stationed at Okehamp- 
 ton, Liskeard and Exeter. Taunton and Salisbury 
 also, as "great thoroughfares to and from the west," 
 had each its gang, and a sufficient number of sailors 
 escaped the press at the latter place to justify the 
 presence of another at Romsey. Andover had a 
 gang as early as 1756, on the recommendation of 
 no less a man than Rodney. 
 
 Shore gangs were of necessity ambulatory. To 
 sit down before the rendezvous pipe in hand, and 
 expect the evasive sailor to come of his own accord 
 and beg the favour of being pressed, would have been 
 a futile waste of time and tobacco. The very essence 
 of the gangman's duty lay in the leg-work he did. 
 To that end he ate the king's victuals and wore the 
 king's shoe-leather. Consequently he was early afoot 
 and late to bed. Ten miles out and ten home made 
 up his daily constitutional, and if he saw fit to exceed 
 that distance he did not incur his captain's displeasure. 
 The gang at Reading, a strategic point of great im- 
 portance on the Bath and Bristol road, traversed all 
 the country round about within a radius of twenty 
 miles double the regulation distance. That at 
 ^ Ad. I. 1500 Letters of Capt. Beecher, 1780.
 
 lao THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 King's Lynn, another centre of unmeasured possi- 
 bilities, trudged as far afield as Boston, Ely, 
 Peterborough and Wells-on-Sea. And the Isle of 
 Wight gang, stationed at Cowes or Ryde, now and 
 then co-operated with a gang from Portsmouth or 
 Gosport and ranged the whole length and breadth 
 of the island, which was a noted nest of deserters 
 and skulkers. "Range," by the way, was a word 
 much favoured by the officers who led such expedi- 
 tions. Its use is happy. It suggests the object 
 well in view, the nicely calculated distance, the steady 
 aim that seldom missed its mark. The gang that 
 ' ranged " rarely returned empty-handed. 
 
 On these excursions the favourite resting-place 
 was some secluded nook overlooking the point of 
 crossing of two or more highroads ; the favourite 
 place of refreshment, some busy wayside alehouse. 
 Both were good to rest or refresh in, for at both 
 the chances of effecting a capture were far more 
 numerous than on the open road. 
 
 The object of the gang in taking the road was 
 not, however, so much what could be picked up by 
 chance in the course of a day's march, as the execu- 
 tion of some preconcerted design upon a particular 
 person or place. This brings us to the methods of 
 pressing commonly adopted, which may be roughly 
 summarised under the three heads of surprise, 
 violence and the hunt. Frequently all three were 
 combined ; but as in the case of gangs operating 
 on the waters of rivers or harbours, the essential 
 element in all pre-arranged raids, attacks and pre- 
 datory expeditions was the first-named element, 
 surprise. In this respect the gangsmen were genuine
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID ASHORE 181 
 
 " Peep-o'-Day Boys." The siege of Brighton is a 
 notable case in point. 
 
 The inhabitants of Brighton, better known in the 
 days of the press-gang as Brighthelmstone, consisted 
 largely of fisher-folk in respect to whom the Admiralty 
 had been guilty of one of its rare oversights. For gen- 
 erations no call was made upon them to serve the king 
 at sea. This accidental immunity in course of time 
 came to be regarded by the Brighton fisherman as his 
 birthright, and the misconception bred consequences. 
 For one thing, it made him intolerably saucy. He 
 boasted that no impress officer had power to take 
 him, and he backed up the boast by openly insulting, 
 and on more than one occasion violently assaulting 
 the king's uniform. With all this he was a hardy, 
 long-lived, lusty fellow, and as his numbers were 
 never thinned by that active corrector of an excessive 
 birth-rate, the press-gang, he speedily overstocked the 
 town. An energetic worker while his two great 
 harvests of herring and mackerel held out, he was 
 at other times indolent, lazy and careless of the 
 fact that his numerous progeny burdened the rates.^ 
 These unpleasing circumstances having been duly 
 reported to the Admiralty, their Lordships decided 
 that what the Brighton fisherman required to correct 
 his lax principles and stiffen his backbone was a good 
 hot press. They accordingly issued orders for an 
 early raid to be made upon that promising nursery 
 of man-o'-war's-men. 
 
 The orders, which were of course secret, bore 
 date the 3rd of July 1779, and were directed to 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 580 Admiral Berkeley, Report on Rendezvous, 31 Dec. 
 1804.
 
 182 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 Capt. Alms, who, as regulating officer at Shoreham, 
 was likewise in charge of the gang at Newhaven 
 under Lieut. Bradley, and of the gang at Little- 
 hampton under Lieut. Breedon. At Shoreham there 
 was also a tender, manned by an able crew. With 
 these three gangs and the tender's crew at his back, 
 Alms determined to lay siege to Brighton and teach 
 the fishermen there a lesson they should not soon 
 forget. But first, in order to render the success of 
 the project doubly sure, he enlisted the aid of Major- 
 General Sloper, Commandant at Lewes, who readily 
 consented to lend a company of soldiers to assist in 
 the execution of the design. 
 
 These preparations were some little time in the 
 making, and it was not until the Thursday immedi- 
 ately preceding the 24th of July that all was in 
 readiness. On the night of that day, by preconcerted 
 arrangement, the allied forces took the road for the 
 Littlehampton gang, a matter of some twenty miles 
 and at the first flush of dawn united on the outskirts 
 of the sleeping town, where the soldiers were without 
 loss of time so disposed as to cut off every avenue 
 of escape. This done, the gangs split up and by 
 devious ways, but with all expedition, concentrated 
 their strength upon the quay, expecting to find there 
 a large number of men making ready for the day's 
 fishing. To their intense chagrin the quay was 
 deserted. The night had been a tempestuous one, 
 with heavy rain, and though the unfortunate gangs- 
 men were soaked to the skin, the fishermen all lay 
 dry in bed. Hearing the wind and rain, not a man 
 turned out. 
 
 By this time the few people who were abroad on
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID ASHORE 183 
 
 necessary occasions had raised the alarm, and on 
 every hand were heard loud cries of " Press-gang ! " 
 and the hurried barricading of doors. For ten hours 
 ** every man kept himself locked up and bolted." 
 For ten hours Alms waited in vain upon the local 
 Justice of the Peace for power to break and enter the 
 fishermen's cottages. His repeated requests being 
 refused, he was at length " under the necessity of 
 quitting the town with only one man." So ended the 
 siege of Brighton ; but Bradley, on his way back to 
 Newhaven, fell in with a gang of smugglers, of whom 
 he pressed five. Brighton did not soon forget the 
 terrors of that rain-swept morning. For many a long 
 day her people were "very shy, and cautious of 
 appearing in public." The salutary effects of the 
 raid, however, did not extend to the fishermen it was 
 intended to benefit. They became more insolent than 
 ever, and a few years later marked their resentment 
 of the attempt to press them by administering a sound 
 thrashing to Mr. Midshipman Sealy, of the Shoreham 
 rendezvous, whom they one day caught unawares.^ 
 
 The surprise tactics of the gang of course varied 
 according to circumstances, and the form they took 
 was sometimes highly ingenious. A not uncommon 
 stratagem was the impersonation of a recruiting party 
 beating up for volunteers. With cockades in their 
 hats, drums rolling and fifes shrilling, the gangsmen, 
 who of course had their arms concealed, , marched 
 ostentatiously through the high-street of some sizable 
 country town and so into the market-place. Since 
 nobody had anything to fear from a harmless recruit- 
 ing party, people turned out in strength to see the 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1445-46 Letters of Capt. Alms.
 
 184 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 sight and listen to the music. When they had in this 
 way drawn as many as they could into the open, the 
 gangsmen suddenly threw off their disguise and seized 
 every pressable person they could lay hands on. 
 Market-day was ill-adapted to these tactics. 1 1 brought 
 too big a crowd together. 
 
 A similar ruse was once practised with great 
 success upon the inhabitants of Portsmouth by Capt 
 Bowen of the Dreadnought, in connection with a 
 general press which the Admiralty had secretly ordered 
 to be made in and about that town. Dockyard towns 
 were not as a rule considered good pressing-grounds 
 because of the drain of men set up by the ships of 
 war fitting out there ; but Bowen had certainly no 
 reason to subscribe to that opinion. Late on the 
 night of the 8th of March 1803, he landed a company 
 of marines at Gosport for the purpose, as it was 
 given out, of suppressing a mutiny at Fort Monckton. 
 The news spread rapidly, drawing crowds of people 
 from their homes in anticipation of an exciting 
 scrimmage. This gave Bowen the opportunity he 
 counted upon. When the throngs had crossed Haslar 
 Bridge he posted marines at the bridge-end, and as the 
 disappointed people came pouring back the "jollies " 
 pressed every man in the crowd. Five hundred are 
 said to have been taken on this occasion, but as the 
 nature of the service forbade discrimination at the 
 moment of pressing, nearly one-half were next day 
 discharged as unfit or exempt.^ 
 
 Sometimes, though not often, it was the gang that 
 was surprised. All hands would perhaps be snug in 
 bed after a long and trying day, when suddenly a 
 
 * Ad. I. 1057 Admiral Milbanke, 9 March 1803.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID ASHORE 185 
 
 thunderous knocking at the rendezvous door, and 
 stentorian cries of: "Turn out! turn out there!" 
 coupled with epithets here unproducible, would bring 
 every man of them into the street in the turn of a 
 handspike, half-dressed but fully armed and awake to 
 the fact that a party of belated seamen was coming 
 down the road. The sailors were perhaps more road- 
 weary than the gangsmen, and provided none of them 
 succeeded in slipping away in the darkness, or made 
 a successful resistance, in half-an-hour's time or less 
 the whole party would be safe under lock and key, 
 cursing luck for a scurvy trickster in delivering them 
 over to the gfang-. 
 
 The sailor's well-known partiality for drink was 
 constantly turned to account by the astute gangsman. 
 If a sailor himself, he laid aside his hanger or cudgel 
 and played the game of " What ho ! shipmate " at 
 the cost of a can or two of flip, gently guiding his 
 boon companion to the rendezvous when he had 
 got him sufficiently corned. Failing these tactics, he 
 adopted others equally effective. At Liverpool, where 
 the seafaring element was always a large one, it was 
 a common practice for the gangs to lie low for a time, 
 thus inducing the sailor to believe himself safe from 
 molestation. He immediately indulged in a desperate 
 drinking bout and so put himself entirely in their 
 power. Whether rolling about the town " very much 
 in liquor," or "snugly moored in Sot's Bay," he was 
 an easy victim. 
 
 Another ineradicable weakness that often landed 
 the sailor in the press-room was his propensity to 
 indulge In "swank." Two jolly tars, who were 
 fully protected and consequently believed themselves
 
 186 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 immune from the press, once bought a four-wheeled 
 post-chaise and hired a painter in Long Acre to 
 ornament it with anchors, masts, cannon and a variety 
 of other objects emblematic of the sea. In this ornate 
 vehicle they set out, behind six horses, with the 
 intention of posting down to Alnwick, where their 
 sweethearts lived. So impatient were they to get 
 over the road that they could not be prevailed upon, 
 at any of the numerous inns where they pulled up for 
 refreshment, to stop long enough to have the wheels 
 properly greased, crying out at the delay : " Avast 
 there ! she's had tar enough," and so on again. Just 
 as they were making a triumphal entry into Newcastle- 
 upon-Tyne the wheels took fire, and the chaise, satur- 
 ated with the liquor they had spilt in the course 
 of their mad drive, burst into flames fore and aft. 
 The sailors bellowed lustily for help, whereupon the 
 spectators ran to their assistance and by swamping 
 the ship with buckets of water succeeded in putting 
 out the fire. Now it happened that in the crowd 
 drawn together by such an unusual occurrence there 
 was an impress officer who was greatly shocked by 
 the exhibition. He considered that the sailors had 
 been guilty of unseemly behaviour, and on that 
 ground had them pressed. Notwithstanding their 
 protections they were kept. 
 
 In his efforts to swell the returns of pressed men 
 the gangsman was supposed we may even go so far 
 as to say enjoined to use no more violence than 
 was absolutely necessary to attain his end. The 
 question of force thus resolved itself into one of the 
 degree of resistance he encountered. Needless to 
 say, he did not always knock a man down before
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID ASHORE 187 
 
 bidding him stand in the king's name. Recourse to 
 measures so extreme was not always necessary. Every 
 sailor had not the pluck to fight, and even when he 
 had both the pluck and the good-will, hard drinking, 
 weary days of tramping, or long abstinence from food 
 had perhaps sapped his strength, leaving him in no 
 fit condition to hold his own in a scrap with the well- 
 fed gangsman. The latter consequently had it pretty 
 much his own way. A firm hand on the shoulder, or 
 at the most a short, sharp tussle, and the man was 
 his. But there were exceptions to this easy rule, as 
 we shall see in our next chapter. 
 
 Hunting the sailor was largely a matter of informa- 
 tion, and unfortunately for his chances of escape 
 informers were seldom wanting. Everywhere it was 
 a game at hide-and-seek. Constables had orders to 
 report him. Chapmen, drovers and soldiers, persons 
 who were much on the road, kept a bright lookout 
 for him. The crimp, habitually given to underhand 
 practices, turned informer when prices for seamen 
 ruled low in the service he usually catered for. His 
 mistress loved him as long as his money lasted ; when 
 he had no more to throw away upon her she perfidi- 
 ously betrayed him. And for all this there was a 
 reason as simple as casting up the number of shillings 
 in the pound. No matter how penniless the sailor 
 himself might be, he was always worth that sum at 
 the rendezvous. Twenty shillings was the reward paid 
 for information leading to his apprehension as a 
 straggler or a skulker, and it was largely on the strength 
 of such informations, and often under the personal 
 guidance of such detestable informers, that the gang 
 went a-hunting.
 
 188 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 Apart from greed of gain, the motive most 
 commonly underlying informations was either jealousy 
 or spite. Women were the greatest sinners in the 
 first respect. Let the sailorman concealed by a 
 woman only so much as look with favour upon 
 another, and his fate was sealed. She gave him away, 
 or, what was more profitable, sold him without regret. 
 There were as good fish in the sea as ever came out. 
 Perhaps better. 
 
 On the wings of spite and malice the escapades of 
 youth often came home to roost after many years. 
 Men who had run away to sea as lads, but had after- 
 wards married and settled down, were informed on 
 by evil-disposed persons who bore them some grudge, 
 and torn from their families as having used the sea. 
 Stephen Kemp, of Warbelton in Sussex, one of the 
 many who suffered this fate, had indeed used the sea, 
 but only for a single night on board a fishing-boat.^ 
 
 In face of these infamies it is good to read of how 
 they dealt with informers at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 
 There the role was one fraught with peculiar danger. 
 Rewards were paid by the Collector of Customs, and 
 when a Newcastle man went to the Customs- House 
 to claim the price of some sailor's betrayal, the people 
 set upon him and incontinently broke his head. One 
 notorious receiver of such rewards was *' nearly 
 murther'd." Thereafter informers had to be paid in 
 private places for fear of the mob, and so many 
 persons fell under suspicion of playing the dastardly 
 game that the regulating captain was besieged by 
 applicants for " certificates of innocency."* 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1445 Capt. Alms, 9 June 1777. 
 Ad. I. 1497 Letters of Capt. Bover, 1777.
 
 mr- \^: - 
 
 r, Li,* -luiuKcUfv. l-lu:<jii;.i-t Kii--. -ikI J.i-.. 
 
 iP*- ikvi/i'lcdgc ihck- ' Words ol Hoiioyr, th;ir iiV :^c-;ti!iai! 
 
 '" .whatever ihall bc^moldtcii h^ Uicii Pi;>r'(',V>n Pi;i\ 
 
 Nights, from the Hours oi Icui in ih.- ,\ir< .iioun !. 
 
 Sixths following Morning, nftci wliitli time the iiici 
 
 gciice ceafes. 
 
 1)1 riif" * 
 
 Members] of the Jerufalem Coffee-Houfe. 
 _ the THEATRE in North- Shields. 
 
 On MONDAY, November 24th, 1794. 
 Will b ptrformrd A ntw C O M K D Y. cjllrdllK: 
 
 , World in a Village: 
 
 TRIAL o/' FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 WnlUH h IhM iu/lj tdchralril AKlb'.r. \. 0'Ktt>. Esq.. mJ /rrfirritil fr,-.,.- ,.., 
 Si^bli Uf. Srafin il ibe Tbrjlrr Riyii:. a-.'cnl-C.jr.lgf, u-uh gtninil .l/fi^ialiiii. 
 
 loIWlxly. (an honed Millfr) Mr C A W I) K, r. I,. 
 
 Cingli", (Winc-incrcKam anj Bailwr) Mr 1' K I T C 11 A R I). 
 
 A-Hiut, ( oilimun Dtcwcr) Mr W A T T "^ r 
 
 Captiin Mullin.h.ick, (a St. Officer) Mr N K W ii O U N iX 
 
 0;.l Willow,, I Stcwird) Mr ' C O I. [. : K R. 
 
 Cipt-un \anUmlcn, (a D..tLl,;i!au) Mr W A K W \ C. ,.. 
 
 Kd.rd Bdlevuc, Mili t: A W n E I. I . 
 
 f William BcMcvuf. Mr \V 11 K F. I. R P. 
 
 Old Soldier, Mr II U G G 1 N >. 
 
 Cl.irks, (alonur.atr_A,!vc:'.f..Kt) Mr r;i;AIIA_\;, 
 
 touifa, ' Mis <; O I. I. i K K. . 
 
 Mr, Albut, .Mis N . V.' U () U N IX , . 
 
 Maria Willow-,. Mi- M L C, C, IN?. 
 
 Margery Jollyboy, Mrs U 11 K r'. 1. E l(. 
 
 Mu Ucilouc,'.'- I..rd; :. I)^<li^ .MiN , U " K. K K. K E. 
 
 End fjf Aa4tl., Mr N K\V li <; U M I> v.iiHinp a Comic Song, lalltd _ 
 
 I' Paddy Bull's yourney from Dublin to London, i 
 
 \ ' l.ndo! thcl'lay, MrrAWiJti.l, .. i;I lin,.. .1 Uin.icSor.s, cilcd T 
 
 lie Tippies of Ninety Four: I 
 
 ^ T/je Golden Days we now PoJ/efs, Sir. i, 
 
 p' lirt.,rt Ihc Farct, Mrs 111 C ti 1 N R (l.v IX-iirc) wiil Tin; -^ 
 
 ? '^ Yes Kind Sir and I'll Thank you too." ' ] 
 
 f InJolAit 2d..l"i'icKir.<-, Mr WHF.KLKR will It.g Afc .;>/*/, favoi.ri.c 1 
 
 ^ Hunting .Song, in Drd's and Clijr.ia7r. called ^ J 
 
 OLD TOWLER'. 
 
 :-, -hi ' w,iii.r.Hcd,A .a.-Vr.,-<.nA:', c, K,, ,:: ,! r,- y - i. 
 
 MIDNIGHT HOUR? J 
 
 Diamond Cut Diamonct.'^ 
 
 :..',-, Mr (J ;: .\H A VI. y 
 
 r,rnculir,.ii<-.r.mjn. .\:, N t^ VV 15 O C X i,. , : w^ 
 
 Nicl)ol,w, (tl-e i"'fr<uiiate \ airt) ,-,!t \v A T T ' ' i' ^^^ifin 
 
 One ok ihI'; R.vrest ok rRH.ss-GANc Records. 
 
 A play-bill announcing the susjiension of the Gang's operations on 
 
 " riay Nights"; in the collection of Mr. A. M. I^roadley, 
 
 by whose kind permission it is reproduced. 
 
 '/
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID ASHORE 189 
 
 Informations not infrequently took the form of 
 anonymous communications addressed by the same 
 hand to two different gangs at one and the same time, 
 and when this was the case, and both gangs sallied 
 forth in quest of the skulker, a collision was pretty sure 
 to follow. Sometimes the encounter resolved itself 
 into a running fight, in the course of which the poor 
 sailor, who formed the bone of contention, was pressed 
 and re-pressed several times over between his hiding- 
 place and one or other of the rendezvous. 
 
 Rivalry between gangs engaged in ordinary press- 
 ing led to many a stirring encounter and bloody 
 fracas. A gang sent out by H.M.S. Thetis was once 
 attacked, while prowling about the waterside slums 
 of Deptford, by "three or four different gangs, to the 
 number of thirty men." ^ There was a greater demand 
 for bandages than for sailors in Deptford during the 
 rest of the night. 
 
 The most extraordinary affair of this description 
 to be met with in the annals of pressing is perhaps 
 one that occurred early in the reign of Queen Anne. 
 Amongst the men-of-war then lying at Spithead were 
 the Dorsetshire, Capt. Butler commander, and the 
 Medway. Hearing that some sailors were in hiding 
 at a place a little distance beyond Gosport, Capt. 
 Butler dispatched his ist and 2nd lieutenants, in 
 charge of thirty of his best men, with instructions to 
 take them and bring them on board. It so happened 
 that a strong gang was at the same time on shore 
 from the Medway, presumably on the same errand, 
 and this party the Dorsetshires, returning to their 
 ship with the seamen they had taken, found posted in 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1502 Capt. Butcher, 29 Oct. 1782.
 
 190 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 the Gosport road for the avowed purpose of re-pressing 
 the pressed men. By a timely detour, however, they 
 reached the waterside " without any mischief done." 
 
 Meanwhile, a rumour had somehow reached the 
 ears of Capt. Butler to the effect that a fight was in 
 progress and his i st lieutenant killed. He immediately 
 took boat and hurried over to Gosport, where, to his 
 relief, he found his people all safe in their boats, but 
 on the Point, to use his own graphic words, " severall 
 hundred People, some with drawn Swords, some with 
 Spitts, others with Clubbs, Staves & Stretchers. 
 Some cry'd ' One & All ! ' others cry'd * Medways ! ' 
 and some again swearing, cursing & banning that they 
 would knock my People's Brains out. Off I went 
 with my Barge to the Longboat," continues the gallant 
 captain, " commanding them to weigh their grappling 
 & goe with me aboard. In the meantime off came 
 about twelve Boats full with the Medways men to lay 
 my Longboat aboard, who surrounded us with Swords, 
 Clubbs, Staves & divers Instruments, & nothing 
 would do but all our Brains must be Knock't out. 
 Finding how I defended the Longboat, they then 
 undertook to attack myselfe and people. One of 
 their Boats came upon the stern and made severall 
 Blows at my Coxwain, and if it had not been for the 
 Resolution I had taken to endure all these Abuses, 
 I had Kill'd all those men with my own Hand ; but 
 this Boat in particular stuck close to me with only six 
 men, and I kept a very good Eye upon her. All 
 this time we were rowing out of the Harbour with 
 these Boats about us as far as Portsmouth Point, my 
 Coxwain wounded, myselfe and People dangerously 
 assaulted with Stones which they brought from the
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID ASHORE 191 
 
 Beech & threw at us, and as their Boats drop'd off 
 I took my opportunity & seized y* Boat with the Six 
 Men that had so attack'd me, and have secured them 
 in Irons." With this the incident practically ended ; 
 for although the Medways retaliated by seizing and 
 carrying off the Dorsetshire' s coxwain and a crew who 
 ventured ashore next day with letters, the latter were 
 speedily released ; but for a week Capt. Butler 
 fiery old Trojan ! who could have slain a whole boat's- 
 crew with his own hand remained a close prisoner 
 on board his ship. " Should I but put my foot 
 ashoar," we hear him growl, "I am murther'd that 
 minute." ^ 
 
 With certain exceptions presently to be noted, 
 every man's hand was against the fugitive sailor, and 
 this being so it followed as a matter of course that in 
 his inveterate pursuit of him the gangsman found 
 more honourable allies than that nefarious person, the 
 man-selling informer. The class whom the sailor 
 himself, in his contempt of the good feeding he never 
 shared, nicknamed "big -bellied placemen" the 
 pompous mayors, the portly aldermen and the county 
 magistrate who knew a good horse or hound but 
 precious little law, were almost to a man the gangs- 
 man's coadjutors. Lavishly wined and dined at 
 Admiralty expense, they urbanely " backed " the 
 regulating captain's warrants, consistently winked at 
 his glaring infractions of law and order, and with the 
 most commendable loyalty imaginable did all in their 
 power to forward His Majesty's service. Even the 
 military, if rightly approached on their pinnacle of 
 lofty superiority, now and then condescended to lend 
 ^ Ad. I. 1467 Capt. Butler, i June 1705.
 
 192 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 the gangsman a hand. Did not Sloper, Major-General 
 and Commandant at Lewes, throw a whole company 
 into the siege of Brighton ? 
 
 These post-prandial concessions on the part of 
 bigwigs desirous of currying favour in high places on 
 the whole told heavily against the sorely harassed 
 object of the gangsman's quest, rendering it, amongst 
 other things, extremely unsafe for him to indulge in 
 those unconventional outbursts which, under happier 
 conditions, so uniformly marked his jovial moods. At 
 the playhouse, for example, he could not heave empty 
 bottles or similar tokens of appreciation upon the 
 stage without grave risk of incurring the fate that 
 overtook Steven David, Samuel Jenkins and Thomas 
 Williams, three sailors of Falmouth town who, merely 
 because they adopted so unusual a mode of applaud- 
 ing a favourite, were by magisterial order handed 
 over to Lieut. Box of H.M.S. Blonde, with a per- 
 emptory request that they should be transferred forth- 
 with to that floating stage where the only recognised 
 " turns " were those of the cat and the capstan.^ 
 
 Luckily for the sailor and those of other callings 
 who shared his liability to the press, the civil author- 
 ities did not range themselves on the gangsman's side 
 with complete unanimity. Local considerations of 
 trade, coupled with some faint conception of the 
 hideous injustice the seafaring classes groaned under, 
 and groaned in vain, here and there outweighed 
 patriotism and dinners. Little by little a cantankerous 
 spirit of opposition got abroad, and every now and 
 then, at this point or at that, some mayor or alderman, 
 obsessed by this spirit beyond his fellows and his 
 
 * Ad. I. 1537 Capt. Ballard, 13 Dec. 1806.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID ASHORE 193 
 
 time, seized such opportunities as office threw in his 
 way to mark his disapproval of the wrongs the sailor 
 suffered. Had this attitude been more general, or 
 more consistent in itself, the press-gang would not 
 have endured for a day. 
 
 The role of Richard Yea and Nay was, however, 
 the favourite one with urban authorities. Towns at 
 first not " inclinable to allow a pressing," afterwards 
 relented and took the gang to their bosom, or enter- 
 tained it gladly for a time, only to cast it out with 
 contumely. A lieutenant who was sent to Newcastle 
 to press in 1702 found "no manner of encouragement 
 there " ; yet seventy-five years later the Tyneside 
 city, thanks to the loyal co-operation of a long 
 succession of mayors and of such men as George 
 Stephenson, sometime Deputy-Master of the Trinity 
 House, had become one of the riskiest in the kingdom 
 for the seafaring man who was a stranger within her 
 gates. ^ 
 
 The attitude of Poole differed in some respects 
 from that of other towns. Her mayors and magistrates, 
 while they did not actually oppose the pressing of 
 seamen within the borough, would neither back the 
 warrants nor lend the gangs their countenance. The 
 reason advanced for this disloyal attitude was of the 
 absurdest nature. Poole held that in order to press 
 twenty men you were not at liberty to kill the twenty- 
 first. That, in fact, was what had happened on 
 board the Maria brig as she came into port there, 
 deeply laden with fish from the Banks, and the 
 corporation very foolishly never forgot the trivial 
 incident. 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1498 Capt. Bover, ii Aug. 1778. 
 13
 
 194 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 It did not, of course, follow that the Poole sailor 
 enjoyed freedom from the press. Far from it. What 
 he did enjoy was a reputation that, if not all his 
 own, was yet sufficiently so to be shared by few. 
 Bred in that roughest of all schools, the New- 
 foundland cod fishery, he was an exceptionally 
 tough nut to crack. 
 
 " If Poole were a fish pool 
 And the men of Poole fish, 
 There'd be a pool for the devil 
 And fish for his dish," 
 
 was how the old jibe ran, and in this estimate of the 
 Poole man's character the gangs fully concurred. 
 They knew him well and liked him little, so when 
 bent on pressing him they adopted no squeamish 
 measures, but very wisely " trusted to the strength of 
 their right arms for it." Some of their attempts to 
 take him make strange reading. 
 
 About eight o'clock on a certain winter's evening, 
 Regulating Captain Walbeoff, accompanied by Lieut. 
 Osmer, a midshipman and eight gangsmen, broke 
 into the house of William Trim, a seafaring native of 
 the place whom they knew to be at home and had 
 resolved to press. Alarmed by the forcing of the 
 door, and only too well aware of what it portended, 
 Trim made for the stairs, where, turning upon his 
 pursuers, he struck repeatedly and savagely at the 
 midshipman, who headed them, with a red-hot poker 
 which he had snatched out of the fire at the moment 
 of his flight. He was, however, quickly overpowered, 
 disarmed and dragged back into the lower room, 
 where his captors threw him violently to the floor and 
 with their hangers took effective measures to prevent
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID ASHORE 195 
 
 his escape or further opposition. His sister happened 
 to be in the house, and whilst this was going on the 
 lieutenant brutally assaulted her, presumably because 
 she wished to go to her brother's assistance. Mean- 
 while Trim's father, a man near seventy years of age, 
 who lived only a stone's-throw away, hearing the 
 uproar, and being told the gang had come for his son, 
 ran to the house with the intention, as he afterwards 
 declared, of persuading him to go quietly. Seeing 
 him stretched upon the floor, he stooped to lift him to 
 his feet, when one of the gang attacked him and 
 stabbed him in the back. He fell bleeding beside 
 the younger man, and was there beaten by a number 
 of the gangsmen whilst the remainder dragged his son 
 off to the press-room, whence he was in due course 
 dispatched to the fleet at Spithead. The date of this 
 brutal episode is 1804; the manner of it, "nothing 
 more than what usually happened on such occasions" 
 in the town of Poole. ^ 
 
 For this deplorable state of things Poole had none 
 but herself to thank. Had she, instead of merely 
 refusing to back the warrants, taken effective measures 
 to rid herself of the gang, that mischievous body 
 would have soon left her in peace. Rochester wore 
 the jewel of consistency in this respect. When Lieut. 
 Brenton pressed a youth there who "appeared to be 
 a seafaring man," but turned out to be an exempt city 
 apprentice, he was promptly arrested and deprived of 
 his sword, the mayor making no bones of telling him 
 that his warrant was " useless in Rochester." With 
 this broad hint he was discharged ; but the people 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 580 Admiral Phillip, Inquiry into the Conduct of the 
 Impress Officers at Poole, 13 Aug. 1804.
 
 196 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 proved less lenient than the mayor, for they set about 
 him and beat him unmercifully.^ 
 
 Save on a single occasion, already incidentally 
 referred to, civic Liverpool treated the gang with 
 uniform kindness. In 1745, at a time when the rebels 
 were reported to be within only four miles of the city, 
 the mayor refused to back warrants for the pressing 
 of sailors to protect the shipping in the river. His 
 reason was a cogent one. The captains of the South- 
 sea Castle, the Mercury and the Loo, three ships of 
 war then in the Mersey, had just recently " manned 
 their boats with marines and impressed from the 
 shore near fifty men," and the seafaring element of 
 the town, always a formidable one, was up in arms 
 because of it. This so intimidated the mayor that he 
 dared not sanction further raids "for fear of being 
 murder'd."* His dread of the armed sailor was not 
 shared by Henry Alcock, sometime mayor of Water- 
 ford. That gentleman " often headed the press- 
 gangs " in person.' 
 
 Deal objected to the press for reasons extending 
 back to the reign of King John. As a member of the 
 Cinque Ports that town had constantly supplied the 
 kings and queens of the realm, from the time of 
 Magna Charta downwards, with great numbers of able 
 and sufficient seamen who, according to the ancient 
 custom of the Five Ports, had been impressed and 
 raised by the mayor and magistrates of the town, 
 acting under orders from the Lord Warden, and not 
 
 ^ Ad. 7. 301 Law Officers' Opinions, 1784-92, No. 42 : Deposition 
 of Lieut. Brenton. 
 
 * Ad. I, 1440 Letters of Capt. Amherst, Dec. 1745. 
 ' Ad. I. 1500 Capt. Bennett, 13 Nov. 1780.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID ASHORE 197 
 
 by irresponsible gangs from without. It was to these, 
 and not to the press as such, that Deal objected. The 
 introduction of gangs in her opinion bred disorder. 
 Great disturbances, breaches of the peace, riots, 
 tumults and even bloodshed attended their steps and 
 made their presence in any peaceably disposed com- 
 munity highly undesirable. Within the memory of 
 living man even. Deal had obliged no less than four 
 hundred seamen to go on board the ships of the fleet, 
 and she desired no more of those strangers who 
 recently, incited by Admiral the Marquis of Car- 
 marthen, had gone a-pressing in her streets and 
 grievously wounded divers persons.^ 
 
 In this commonsense view of the case Deal was 
 ably supported by Dover, the premier Cinque Port. 
 Dover, it is true, so far as we know never embodied 
 her objections to the press in any humble petition to 
 the Queen's Majesty. She chose instead a directer 
 method, for when the lieutenant of the Devonshire 
 impressed six men belonging to a brigantine from 
 Carolina in her streets, and attempted to carry them 
 beyond the limits of the borough, "many people of 
 Dover, in company with the Mayor thereof, assembled 
 themselves together and would not permit the lieu- 
 tenant to bring them away." The action angered the 
 Lords Commissioners, who resolved to teach Dover a 
 lesson. Orders were accordingly sent down to Capt. 
 Dent, whose ship the Shrewsbury man-o'-war was 
 then in the Downs, directing him to send a gang 
 ashore and press the first six good seamen they should 
 meet with, taking care, however, since their Lordships 
 
 ^ State Papers Domestic^ Anne, xxxvi. No. 24 : Petition of the 
 Mayor, Jurats and Commonalty of the Free Town and Borough of Deal.
 
 198 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 did not wish to be too hard upon the town, that the 
 men so pressed were bachelors and not householders. 
 Lieut. O'Brien was entrusted with this delicate 
 punitive mission. He returned on board after a 
 campaign of only a few hours' duration, triumphantly 
 bearing with him the stipulated hostages for Dover's 
 future good behaviour "six very good seamen, 
 natives and inhabitants, and five of them bachelors."^ 
 The sixth was of course a householder, a circumstance 
 that made the town's punishment all the severer. 
 
 Its effects were less salutary than the Admiralty 
 had anticipated. True, both Dover and Deal there- 
 after withdrew their opposition to the press so far as 
 to admit the gang within their borders ; but they kept 
 a watchful eye upon its doings, and every now and 
 then the old spirit flamed out again at white heat, 
 consuming the bonds of some poor devil who, like 
 Alexander Hart, freeman of Dover, had been irregu- 
 larly taken. On this occasion the mayor, backed by 
 a posse of constables, himself broke open the press- 
 room door. A similar incident, occurring a little later 
 in the same year, so incensed Capt. Ball, who aptly 
 enough was at the time in command of the Nemesis, 
 that he roundly swore " to impress every seafaring 
 man in Dover and make them repent of their 
 impudence."* 
 
 Where the magistrate had it most in his power to 
 make or mar the fugitive sailor's chances was in 
 connection with the familiar fiction that the English- 
 man's house is his castle. To hide a sailor was to steal 
 
 * Ad. I, 1696 Capt. Dent, 24 Aug. 1743. 
 
 ' Ad. 7. 301 Law Officers' Opinions, 1784-92, No. 44 ; Ad. i. 1507 
 Capt. Ball, 15 April 1791.
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID ASHORE 199 
 
 the king's chattel penalty, ^5 forfeited to the parish ; 
 and if you were guilty of such a theft, or were with 
 good reason suspected of being guilty, you found 
 yourself in much the same case as the ordinary thief 
 or the receiver of stolen goods. A search warrant 
 could be sworn out before a magistrate, and your 
 house ransacked from cellar to garret. Without such 
 warrant, however, it could not be lawfully entered. In 
 the heat of pressing forcible entry was nevertheless 
 not unusual, and many an impress officer found him- 
 self involved in actions for trespass or damages in 
 consequence of his own indiscretion or the excessive 
 zeal of his gang. The defence set up by Lieut. Doyle, 
 of Dublin, that the " Panel of the Door was Broke by 
 Accident," would not go down in a court of law, how- 
 ever avidly it might be swallowed by the Board of 
 Admiralty. 
 
 More than this. The magistrate was by law 
 empowered to seize all straggling seamen and lands- 
 men and hand them over to the gangs for consign- 
 ment to the fleet. The vagabond, as the unfortunate 
 tramp of those days was commonly called, had thus a 
 bad time of it. For him all roads led to Spithead. 
 The same was true of persons who made themselves 
 a public nuisance in other ways. By express magis- 
 terial order many answering to that description 
 followed Francis Juniper of Cuckfield, "a very 
 drunken, troublesome fellow, without a coat to his 
 back," who was sent away lest he should become 
 "chargeable to the parish." The magistrate in this 
 way conferred a double benefit upon his country. He 
 defended it against itself whilst helping it to defend 
 itself against the French. Still, the latter benefit was
 
 200 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 not always above suspicion. The "ignorant zeal of 
 simple justices," we are told, often impelled them to 
 hand over to the gangs men whom " any old woman 
 could see with half an eye to be properer objects 
 of pity and charity than fit to serve His Majesty." 
 
 " Send your myrmidons," was a form of summons 
 familiar to every gang officer. As its tone implies, 
 its source was magisterial, and when the officer re- 
 ceived it he hastened with his gang to the Petty 
 Sessions, the Assizes or the prison, and there took 
 over, as an unearned increment of His Majesty's 
 fleet, the person of some misdemeanant willing to 
 exchange bridewell for the briny, or the manacled 
 body of some convicted felon who preferred to swing 
 in a hammock at sea rather than on the gallows 
 ashore. 
 
 A strangely assorted crew it was, this overflow of 
 the jails that clanked slowly seawards, marshalled by 
 the gang. Reprieves and commutations, if by no 
 means universal in a confirmed hanging age, were yet 
 common enough to invest it with an appalling same- 
 ness that was nevertheless an appalling variety. Able 
 seamen sentenced for horse-stealing or rioting, town 
 dwellers raided out of night-houses, impostors who 
 simulated fits or played the maimed soldier, fishermen 
 in the illicit brandy and tobacco line, gentlemen of 
 the road, makers of " flash " notes and false coin, 
 stealers of sheep, assaulters of women, pickpockets 
 and murderers in one unmitigated throng went the 
 way of the fleet and there sank their vices, their 
 roguery, their crimes and their identity in the number 
 of a mess. 
 
 Boys were in that flock of jail-birds too youths
 
 WHAT THE GANG DID ASHORE 201 
 
 barely in their teens, guilty of such heinous offences 
 as throwing stones at people who passed in boats upon 
 the river, or of "playing during divine service on 
 Sunday " and remaining impenitent and obdurate 
 when confronted with all the "terrific apparatus of 
 fetters, chains and dark cells" pertaining to a well- 
 equipped city jail.^ The turning over of such young 
 reprobates to the gang was one of the pleasing duties 
 of the magistrate. 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1534, 1545 Capt. Barker, i March 1805, 20 Aug. 1809, and 
 numerous instances.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 AT GRIPS WITH THE GANG 
 
 When all avenues of escape were cut off and the 
 sailor found himself face to face with the gang and 
 imminent capture, he either surrendered his liberty 
 at the word of command or staked it on the issue of 
 a fight. 
 
 His choice of the latter alternative was the pro- 
 verbial turning of the worm, but of a worm that was 
 no mean adversary. Fear of the gang, supposing 
 him to entertain any, was thrown to the winds. Fear 
 of the consequences the clink, or maybe the gallows 
 for a last land-fall which had restrained him in less 
 critical moments when he had both room to run and 
 opportunity, sat lightly on him now. In red realism 
 there flashed through his brain the example of some 
 doughty sailor, the hero of many an anchor-watch 
 and forecastle yarn, who had fought the gang to its 
 last man and yet come off victor. The swift vision 
 fired his blood and nerved his arm, and under its 
 obsession he stood up to his would-be captors with 
 all the dogged pluck for which he was famous when 
 facing the enemy at sea. 
 
 In contests of this description the weapon perhaps 
 counted for as much as the man who wielded it, and 
 as its nature depended largely upon circumstances
 
 AT GRIPS WITH THE GANG 203 
 
 and surroundings, the range of choice was generally 
 wide enough to please the most elective taste. Press- 
 ing consequently introduced the gangsman to some 
 strange weapons. 
 
 Trim, the Poole sailor whose capture is narrated 
 in the foregoing chapter, defended himself with a 
 red-hot poker. In what may be termed domestic 
 as opposed to public pressing, the use of this homely 
 utensil as an impromptu liberty-preserver was not at 
 all uncommon. Hot or cold, it proved a formidable 
 weapon in the hands of a determined man, more 
 especially when, as was at that time very commonly 
 the case, it belonged to the ponderous cobiron or 
 knobbed variety. 
 
 Another weapon of recognised utility, particularly 
 in the vicinity of docks, careening-stations and ship- 
 yards, was the humble tar-mop. Consisting of a 
 wooden handle some five or six feet in length, though 
 of no great diameter, terminating in a ball of spun- 
 yarn forming the actual mop, this implement, when 
 new, was comparatively harmless. No serious blow 
 could then be dealt with it ; but once it had been 
 used for " paying " a vessel's bottom and sides it 
 underwent a change that rendered it truly formidable. 
 The ball of ravellings forming the mop became then 
 thoroughly charged with tar or pitch and dried in 
 a rough mass scarcely less heavy than lead. In this 
 condition it was capable of inflicting a terrible blow, 
 and many were the tussels decided by it. A remark- 
 able instance of its effective use occurred at Ipswich 
 in 1703, when a gang from the Solebay, rowing up 
 the Orwell from Harwich, attempted to press the 
 men engaged in re-paying a collier. They were
 
 204 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 immediately "struck down with Pitch-Mopps, to the 
 great Peril of their Lives." ^ 
 
 The weapon to which the sailor was most partial, 
 however, was the familiar capstan-bar. In it, as in 
 its fellow the handspike, he found a whole armament. 
 Its availability, whether on shipboard or at the water- 
 side, its rough-and-ready nature, and above all its 
 heft and general capacity for dealing a knock-down 
 blow without inflicting necessarily fatal injuries, 
 adapted it exactly to the sailor's requirements, 
 defensive or the reverse. It was with a capstan-bar 
 that Paul Jones, when hard pressed by a gang on 
 board his ship at Liverpool, was reputed to have 
 stretched three of his assailants dead on deck. Every 
 sailor had heard of that glorious achievement and 
 applauded it, the killing perhaps grudgingly excepted. 
 
 So, too, did he applaud the hardihood of William 
 Bingham, that far-famed north-country sailor who, 
 adopting pistols as his weapon, negligently stuck a 
 brace of them in his belt and walked the streets of 
 Newcastle in open defiance of the gangs, none of 
 which durst lay a hand on him till the unlucky day 
 when, in a moment of criminal carelessness that could 
 never be forgiven, he left his weapons at home and 
 was haled to the press-room fighting, all too late, 
 like a fiend incarnate. 
 
 Not to enlarge on the endless variety of chance 
 weapons, there remained those good old-standers the 
 musket, the cutlass and the knife, each of which, in 
 the sailor's grasp, played its part in the rough-and- 
 tumble of pressing, and played it well. A case in 
 point, familiar to every seaman, was the last fight 
 ^ Ad. I. 1436 Capt. Aldred, 6 Jan. 1702-3.
 
 AT GRIPS WITH THE GANG 205 
 
 put up by that famous Plymouth sailor, Emanuel 
 Herbert, another fatalist who, like Bingham, believed 
 in having two strings to his bow. He accordingly 
 provided himself with both fuzee and hanger, and 
 with these comforting bed-fellows retired to rest in 
 an upper chamber of the public-house where he lodged, 
 easy in the knowledge that whatever happened the 
 door of his crib commanded the stairs. From this 
 stronghold the gang invited him to come down. He 
 returned the compliment by inviting them up, assur- 
 ing them that he had a warm welcome in store for 
 the first who should favour him with a visit. The 
 ambiguity of the invitation appears to have been 
 thrown away upon the gang, for "three of my 
 people," says the officer who led them, " rushed up, 
 and the gun missing fire, he immediately run one of 
 them through the body with the hanger " a mode of 
 welcoming his visitors which resulted in Herbert's 
 shifting his lodgings to Exeter jail, and in the 
 wounded man's speedy death. ^ 
 
 Here was a serious contingency indeed ; but what- 
 ever deterrent effect the fatal issue of this affair, as 
 of many similar ones, may have had upon the sailor's 
 use of lethal weapons when attacked by the gang, 
 that effect was largely, if not altogether, neutralised 
 by the upshot of the famous Broadfoot case, which, 
 occurring some sixteen years later, gave the scales 
 of justice a decided turn in the sailor's favour and 
 robbed the killing of a gangsman of its only terror, 
 the shadow of the gallows. The incident in question 
 opened in Bristol river, with the boarding of a merchant- 
 man by a tender's gang. As they came over the side 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1473 Capt. Brown, 4 July 1727.
 
 206 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 Broadfoot met them, blunderbuss in hand. Being 
 there to guard the ship, he bade them begone, and 
 upon their disregarding the order, and closing in upon 
 him with evident intent to take him, he clapped the 
 blunderbuss, which was heavily charged with swan- 
 shot, to his shoulder and let fly into the midst of them. 
 One of their number, Calahan by name, fell mortally 
 wounded, and Broadfoot was in due course indicted 
 for wilful murder.^ How he was found not guilty on 
 the ground that a warrant directed to the lieutenant 
 gave the gang no power to take him, and that he 
 was therefore justified in defending himself, was 
 well known to every sailor in the kingdom. No 
 jury thereafter ever found him guilty of a capital 
 felony if by chance he killed a gangsman in self- 
 defence. The worst he had to fear was a verdict 
 of manslaughter a circumstance that proved highly 
 inspiriting to him in his frequent scraps with the 
 gang. 
 
 There was another aspect of the case, however, 
 that came home to the sailor rather more intimately 
 than the risk of being called upon to " do time " 
 under conditions scarcely worse than those he habitu- 
 ally endured at sea. Suppose, instead of his killing 
 the gangsman, the gangsman killed him ? He re- 
 called a case he had heard much palaver about. An 
 able seaman, a perfect Tom Bowling of a fellow, 
 brought to at an alehouse in the Borough the old 
 "Bull's Head" it was having a mind to lie snug 
 for a while, 'tween voyages. However, one day, 
 being three sheets in the wind or thereabouts, he 
 risked a run and was made a prize of, worse luck, by 
 
 ' Westminster Journal, 30 April 1743.
 
 AT GRIPS WITH THE GANG 207 
 
 a press-gang that engaged him. Their boat lay at 
 Battle Bridge in the Narrow Passage, and while they 
 were bearing down upon her, with the sailor-chap in 
 tow, what should Jack do but out with his knife and 
 slip it into one of the gangers. 'Twas nothing much, 
 a waistcoat wound at most, but the ganger resented 
 the liberty, and swearing that no man should tap his 
 claret for nix, he ups with his cudgel and fetches Jack 
 a clip beside the head that lost him the number of 
 his mess, for soon after he was discharged dead along 
 of having his head broke.^ 
 
 Risks of this sort raised grave issues for the 
 sailor issues to be well considered of in those serious 
 moments that came to the most reckless on the wings 
 of the wind or the lift of the waves at sea, what time 
 drink and the gang were remote factors in the problem 
 of life. But ashore ! Ah ! that was another matter. 
 Life ashore was far too crowded, far too sweet for 
 serious reflections. The absorbing business of pleasure 
 left little room for thought, and the thoughts that 
 came to the sailor later, when he had had his fling and 
 was again afoot in search of a ship, decidedly favoured 
 the killing of a gangsman, if need be, rather than the 
 loss of his own life or of a berth. The prevalence of 
 these sentiments rendered the taking of the sailor a 
 dangerous business, particularly when he consorted 
 in bands. 
 
 In that part of the west country traversed by the 
 great roads from Bristol to Liverpool, and having 
 Stourbridge as its approximate centre, ambulatory 
 
 ^ Ad. I. i486 Lieut. Slyford, 24 Nov. 1755. "Discharged dead," 
 abbreviated to "DD," the regulation entry in the muster books against 
 the names of persons deceased.
 
 208 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 bands proved very formidable. The presence of the 
 rendezvous at Stourbridge accounted for this. Sea- 
 men travelled in strength because they feared it. 
 Two gangs were stationed there under Capt. Beecher, 
 and news of the approach of a large party of seamen 
 from the south having one day been brought in, he 
 at once made preparations for intercepting them. 
 Lieut. Barnsley and his gang marched direct to Hoo- 
 brook, a couple of miles south of Kidderminster, a 
 point the seamen had perforce to pass. His instruc- 
 tions were to wait there, picking up in the meantime 
 such of the sailor party as lagged behind from foot- 
 soreness or fatigue, till joined by Lieut. Birchall and 
 the other gang, when the two were to unite forces 
 and press the main body. Through unforeseen circum- 
 stances, however, the plan miscarried. Birchall, who 
 had taken a circuitous route, arrived late, whilst the 
 band of sailors arrived early. They numbered, more- 
 over, forty-six as against eleven gangsmen and two 
 officers. Four to one was a temptation the sailors 
 could not resist. They attacked the gangs with such 
 ferocity that out of the thirteen only one man returned 
 to the rendezvous with a whole skin. Luckily, there 
 were no casualties on this occasion ; but a few days 
 later, while two of Barnsley's gangsmen were out on 
 duty some little distance from the town, they were 
 suddenly attacked by a couple of sailors, presumably 
 members of the same band, who left one of them 
 dead in the road.^ 
 
 Owing to its close proximity to the Thames, that 
 remote suburb of eighteenth century London known 
 as Stepney Fields was much frequented by armed 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1501 Capt. Beecher, 12 July and 4 Aug. 1781.
 
 AT GRIPS WITH THE GANG 209 
 
 bands of the above description, who successfully 
 resisted all attempts to take them. The master-at- 
 arms of the Chatham man-o'-war, chancing once to 
 pass that way, came in for exceedingly rough usage 
 at their hands, and when next day a lieutenant from 
 the same ship appeared upon the scene with a gang 
 at his back and tried to press the ringleaders in that 
 affair, they "swore by God he should not, and if he 
 offered to lay hands on them, they would cut him 
 down." With this threat they drew their cutlasses, 
 slashed savagely at the lieutenant, and " made off 
 through the Mobb which had gathered round them." ^ 
 A spot not many miles distant from Stepney Fields 
 was the scene of a singular fray many years later. 
 His Majesty's ship S^mrre/ happened at the time to 
 be lying in Longreach, and her commander, Capt. 
 Brawn, one day received intelligence that a number 
 of sailors were to be met with in the town of 
 Barking. He at once dispatched his ist and 2nd 
 lieutenants with a contingent of twenty-five men 
 and several petty officers, to rout them out and take 
 them. They reached Barking about nine o'clock in 
 the evening, the month being July, and were not 
 long in securing several of the skulkers, who with 
 many of the male inhabitants of the place were at 
 that hour congregated in public-houses, unsuspicious 
 of danger. The sudden appearance in their midst 
 of so large an armed force, however, coupled with the 
 outcry and confusion inseparable from the pressing of 
 a number of men, alarmed the townsfolk, who poured 
 into the streets, rescued the pressed men, and would 
 have inflicted summary punishment upon the intruders 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 2579 Capt. Townshend, 2i April 1743. 
 14
 
 210 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 had not the senior officer, seeing his party hopelessly 
 outnumbered, tactfully drawn off his force. This he 
 did in good order and without serious hurt ; but just 
 as he and his men were congratulating themselves 
 upon their escape, they were suddenly ambushed, at 
 a point where their road ran between high banks, by 
 a "large concourse of Irish haymakers, to the number 
 of at least five hundred men, all armed with sabres ^ 
 and pitchforks," who with wild cries and all the 
 Irishman's native love of a shindy fell upon the un- 
 fortunate gangsmen and gave them a *' most severe 
 beating." * 
 
 Attacks on the gang, made with deliberate intent 
 to rescue pressed men from its custody, were by no 
 means confined to Barking. The informer throve in 
 the land, but notwithstanding his hostile activity the 
 sailor everywhere had friends who possessed at least 
 one cardinal virtue. They seldom hung back when 
 he was in danger, or hesitated to strike a blow in his 
 defence. 
 
 There came into Limehouse Hole, on a certain day 
 in the summer of 1709, a vessel called the Martin 
 galley. How many men were in her we do not 
 learn ; but whatever their number, there was amongst 
 them one man who had either a special dread of the 
 press or some more than usually urgent occasion for 
 wishing to avoid it. Watching his opportunity, he 
 slipped into one of the galley's boats, sculled her 
 rapidly to land, and there leapt out ^just as a press- 
 gang hove in sight ahead! It was a dramatic 
 moment. The sailor, tacking at sight of the enemy, 
 
 ' So in the original, but " sabres " is perhaps an error for " scythes." 
 * A4. I. 1529 Capt. Brawn, 3 July 1803.
 
 AT GRIPS WITH THE GANG 211 
 
 ran swiftly along the river-bank, but was almost 
 immediately overtaken, knocked down, and thrown 
 into the press-boat, which lay near by. " This 
 gather'd a Mob," says the narrator of the incident, 
 *' who Pelted the Boat and Gang by throwing Stones 
 and Dirt from the Shoar, and being Pursued also by 
 the Galley's men, who brought Cutlasses in the Boat 
 with them to rescue their Prest Man, the Gang 
 was at last forc'd to betake themselves to a Corn- 
 lighter, where they might stand upon their Defence. 
 The Galley's men could not get aboard, but lay with 
 their Boat along the side of the Lighter, where they 
 endeavouring to force in, and the Gang to keep them 
 out, the Boat of a sudden oversett and some of the 
 Men therein were Drown'd. Three of the Press- 
 Gang were forc'd likewise into the Water, whereof 
 'tis said one is Drown'd and the other two in Irons in 
 the New Prison. The remaining part of the Gang 
 leapt into a Wherry, the Galley's men pursuing them, 
 but, not gaining upon them, they gave over the 
 Pursuit." The pressed man all this while was 
 laughing in his sleeve. ** He lay on the other side of 
 the Lighter, in the Tender's boat, whence he made 
 his escape."^ 
 
 In their efforts to restore the freedom of the 
 pressed man, the sailor's friends did not confine their 
 attention exclusively to the gang. When they turned 
 out in vindication of those rights which the sailor 
 did not possess, they not infrequently found their 
 diversion in wrecking the gang's headquarters or in 
 making a determined, though generally futile, on- 
 slaught upon the tender. Respectable people, who 
 
 1 Ad. I. 1437 Capt. Aston, lo Aug. 1709.
 
 212 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 had no particular reason to favour the sailor's cause, 
 viewed these ebullitions of mingled rage and mischief 
 with dismay, stigmatising those who so lightheartedly 
 participated in them as the "lower classes" and the 
 "mob." 
 
 Few towns in the kingdom boasted or repro- 
 bated, as the case might be a more erratically 
 festive mob than Leith. As far back as 1709 Bailie 
 Cockburn had advised the inhabitants of that burgh to 
 "oppose any impressor," and seizing the occasion of 
 the " Impressure of an Apprentice Boy," had set them 
 an example by arresting the pinnace of Her Majesty's 
 ship Rye, together with her whole crew, thirteen in 
 number, and keeping them in close confinement till 
 the lad was given up/ The worthy Bailie was in 
 due time gathered unto his fathers, and with the 
 growth of the century gangs came and went in endless 
 succession, but neither the precept nor the example 
 was ever forgotten in Leith. Much pressing was 
 done there, but it was done almost entirely upon the 
 water. To transfer the scene of action to the strand 
 meant certain tumult, for there the whim of the mob 
 was law. Now it pulled the gang-officer's house 
 about his ears because he dared to press a ship- 
 wright ; again, it stoned the gang viciously because 
 they rescued some seamen from a wreck and kept 
 them. Between whiles it amused itself by cutting 
 down the rendezvous flag-staff; and if nothing better 
 offered, it split up into component parts, each of which 
 became a greater terror than the whole. One night, 
 when the watch had been set and all was quiet, a 
 party of this description, only thriee in number, 
 ^ Ad. I. 2448 Capt. Shale, 4 Jan. 1708-9.
 
 AT GRIPS WITH THE GANG 213 
 
 approached the rendezvous and respectfully requested 
 leave to drink a last dram with some newly pressed 
 men who were then in the cage, their quondam 
 shipmates. Suspecting no ulterior design, the 
 guard incautiously admitted them, whereupon they 
 dashed a quantity of spirits on the fire, set the 
 place in a blaze, and carried off the pressed men amid 
 the hullabaloo that followed.^ 
 
 If Leith did this sort of thing well, Greenock, her 
 commercial rival on the Clyde, did it very much 
 better ; for where the Leith mob was but a sporadic 
 thing, erupting from its slummy fastnesses only in 
 response to rumour of chance amusement to be had 
 or mischief to be done, Greenock held her mob 
 always in hand, a perpetual menace to the gangsman 
 did he dare to disregard the Clydeside ordinance 
 in respect to pressing. That ordinance restricted 
 pressing exclusively to the water ; but it went 
 further, for it laid it down as an inviolable rule 
 that members of certain trades should not be pressed 
 at all. 
 
 It was with the Trades that the ordinance 
 originated. There was little or no Greenock 
 apart from the Trades. The will of the Trades 
 was supreme. The coopers, carpenters, riggers, 
 caulkers and seamen of the town ruled the burgh. 
 Assembled in public meeting, they resolved unani- 
 mously " to stand by and support each other" in the 
 event of a press ; and having come to this decision 
 they indited a trite letter to the magistrates, intimat- 
 ing in unequivocal terms that " if they countenanced 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1516-9 Letters of Capt. Brenton, 1797-8; Lieut. Pierie, 
 2 Feb. 1798.
 
 214 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 the press, they must abide by the consequences," for 
 once the Trades took the matter in hand " they could 
 not say where they would stop." With the worthy 
 burgesses laying down the law in this fashion, it is 
 little wonder that the gangs " seldom dared to press 
 ashore," or that they should have been able to take 
 "only two coopers in ten months." 
 
 For the Trades were as good as their word. The 
 moment a case of prohibited pressini^ became known 
 they took action. Alexander Weir, member of the 
 Shipwrights' Society, was taken whilst returning from 
 his "lawful employ," and immediately his mates, to 
 the number of between three and four hundred, 
 downed tools and marched to the rendezvous, where 
 they peremptorily demanded his release. Have him 
 they would, and if the gang-officer did not see fit to 
 comply with their demand, not only should he never 
 press another man in Greenock, but they would seize 
 one of the armed vessels in the river, lay her along- 
 side the tender, where Weir was confined, and take 
 him out of her by force. Brenton was regulating 
 captain there at the time, and to pacify the mob he 
 promised to release the man and broke his word. 
 Thereupon the people " became very riotous and 
 proceeded to burn everything that came in their way. 
 About twelve o'clock they hauled one of the boats 
 belonging to the rendezvous upon the Square and 
 put her into the fire, but by the timely assistance of 
 the officers and gangs, supported by the magistrates 
 and a body of the Fencibles, the boat was recovered, 
 though much damaged, and several of the ringleaders 
 taken up and sent to prison." The affair did not end 
 without bloodshed. " Lieut. Harrison, in defending
 
 AT GRIPS WITH THE GANG 215 
 
 himself, was under the necessity of running one of 
 the rioters through the ribs."^ 
 
 Though Bailie Cockburn once "arrested" the 
 pinnace of a man-o'-war at Leith, the attempted 
 burning of the Greenock press-boat is worthy of more 
 than passing note as the only instance of that form of 
 retaliation to be met with in the history of home 
 pressing. In the American colonies, on the other 
 hand, it was a common feature of demonstrations 
 against the gang. Boston was specially notorious for 
 that form of reprisal, and Governor Shirley, in one of 
 his masterly dispatches, narrates at length, and with 
 no little humour, how the mob on one occasion burnt 
 with great ^clat what they believed to be the press- 
 boat, only to discover, when it was reduced to ashes, 
 that it belonged to one of their own ringleaders.^ 
 
 The threat of the Greenock artificers to lay along- 
 side the tender and take out their man by force of 
 arms was one for which there existed abundant, if by 
 no means encouraging precedent. Long before, as 
 early, indeed, as 1742, the keelmen frequenting 
 Sunderland had set them an example in that respect 
 by endeavouring, some hundreds strong, to haul the 
 tender ashore an attempt coupled with threats so 
 dire that the officer in command trembled in his 
 shoes lest he and his men should all "be made 
 sacrifices of." ' Nothing so dreadful happened, 
 however, for the attempt, like that made at Shoreham 
 a few years later, when there "appear'd in Sight, 
 from towards Brighthelmstone, about two or three 
 
 * Ad. I. 1508 Letters of Capt. Brenton, 1793. 
 
 * Ad. I. 38i8~Shirley to the Admiralty, i Dec. 1747. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1439 Capt. Allen, 13 March 1741-2.
 
 216 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 Hundred Men arm'd with different Weapons, who 
 came with an Intent to Attack the Dispatch sloop," 
 failed ignominiously, the attackers being routed on 
 both occasions by a timely use of swivel guns and 
 musketry.^ 
 
 Similar disaster overtook the organisers of the 
 Tooley Street affair, of which one Taylor, lieutenant 
 to Capt. William Boys of the Royal Sovereign, was 
 the active cause. At the " Spread-Eagle " in Tooley 
 Street he and his gang one evening pressed a pri- 
 vateersman an insult keenly resented by the master 
 of the ship. He accordingly sent off to the tender, 
 whither the pressed man had been conveyed for 
 security's sake, two wherries filled with armed seamen 
 of the most piratical type. The fierce fight that 
 ensued had a dramatic finish. " Two Pistols we took 
 from them," says the narrator of the incident, in his 
 quaint old style, "and three Cutlasses, and Six Men ; 
 but one of the Men took the Red Hott Poker out of 
 the Fire, and our Men, having the Cutlasses, Cutt 
 him and Kill'd him in Defence of themselves."' 
 
 In attacks of this nature the fact that the tender 
 was afloat told heavily in her favour, for unless 
 temporarily hung up upon a mud-bank by the fall of 
 the tide, she could only be got at by means of boats. 
 With the rendezvous ashore the case was altogether 
 different. Here you had a building in a public street, 
 flaunting its purpose provocatively in your very face, 
 and having a rear to guard as well as a front. For 
 these reasons attacks on the rendezvous were generally 
 attended with a greater measure of success than 
 
 ^ Ad. r. 1482 Lieut. Barnsley, 25 March 1746. 
 ^ Ad. I. 1488 Lieut. Taylor, i April 1757.
 
 AT GRIPS WITH THE GANG 217 
 
 similar attempts directed against the tenders. The 
 face of a pressed man had only to show itself at one 
 of the stoutly barred windows, and immediately a 
 crowd gathered. To the prisoner behind the bars 
 this crowd was friendly, commiserating or chaffing 
 him by turns ; but to the gangsmen responsible for 
 his being there it was invariably and uncompromis- 
 ingly hostile, so much so that it needed only a 
 carelessly uttered threat, or a thoughtlessly lifted 
 hand, to fan the smouldering fires of hatred into a 
 blaze. When this occurred, as it often did, things 
 happened. Paving-stones hurtled through the curse- 
 laden air, the windows flew in fragments, the door, 
 assailed by overwhelming numbers, crashed in, and 
 despite the stoutest resistance the gang could offer 
 the pressed man was hustled out and carried off in 
 triumph. 
 
 The year 1755 witnessed a remarkable attack of 
 this description upon the rendezvous at Deal, where 
 a band of twenty-seven armed men made a sudden 
 descent upon that obnoxious centre of activity and 
 cut up the gang most grievously. As all wore masks 
 and had their faces blackened, identification was out 
 of the question. A reward of ;!f 200, offered for proof 
 of complicity in the outrage, elicited no information, 
 and as a matter of fact its perpetrators were never 
 discovered. 
 
 In Capt. McCleverty's time the gang at Water- 
 ford was once very roughly handled whilst taking in 
 a pressed man, and Mr. Mayor Alcock came hurry- 
 ing down to learn what was amiss. He found the 
 rendezvous beset by an angry and dangerous 
 gathering. " Sir," said he to the captain, " have you
 
 218 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 no powder or shot in the house ? " McCleverty 
 assured him that he had. "Then, sir," cried the 
 mayor, raising his voice so that all might hear, " do 
 you make use of it, and I will support you." The 
 crowd understood that argument and immediately 
 dispersed.^ 
 
 Had the Admiralty reasoned in similar terms 
 with those who beat its gangsmen, converted its 
 rendezvous into match-wood and carried off its 
 pressed men, it would have quickly made itself 
 as heartily feared as it was already hated ; but in 
 seeking to shore up an odious cause by pacific 
 methods it laid its motives open to the gravest 
 misconstruction. Prudence was construed into timid- 
 ity, and with every abstention from lead the sailor's 
 mobbish friends grew more daring and outrageous. 
 
 One night in the winter of 1780, whilst Capt. 
 Worth of the Liverpool rendezvous sat lamenting the 
 temporary dearth of seamen, Lieut. Haygarth came 
 rushing in with a rare piece of news. On the road 
 from Lancaster, it was reported, there was a whole 
 coach-load of sailors. The chance was too good to 
 be lost, and instant steps were taken to intercept the 
 travellers. The gangs turned out, fully armed, and 
 took up their position at a strategic point, just 
 outside the town, commanding the road by which the 
 sailors had to pass. By and by along came the 
 coach, the horses weary, the occupants nodding or 
 asleep. In a trice they were surrounded. Some of 
 the gangsmen sprang at the horses' heads, others 
 threw themselves upon the drowsy passengers. 
 Shouts, curses and the thud of blows broke the 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1500 Deposition of Lieut, M'Kellop, 1780.
 
 AT GRIPS WITH THE GANG 219 
 
 silence of the night. Then the coach rumbled on 
 again, empty. Its late occupants, fifteen in number, 
 sulkily followed on foot, surrounded by their captors, 
 who, as soon as the town was reached, locked them 
 into the press-room for the rest of the night, it being 
 the captain's intention to put them on board the 
 tender in the Mersey at break of day. 
 
 In this, however, he was frustrated by a remark- 
 able development in the situation. Unknown to him, 
 the coach-load of seamen had been designed for the 
 Stag privateer, a vessel just on the point of sailing. 
 News of their capture reaching the ship soon after 
 their arrival in the town, Spence, her ist lieutenant, 
 at once roused out all his available men, armed them, 
 to the number of eighty, with cutlass and pistol, and 
 led them ashore. There all was quiet, favouring 
 their design. The hour was still early, and the 
 silent, swift march through the deserted streets 
 attracted no attention and excited no alarm. At the 
 rendezvous the opposition of the weary sentinels 
 counted for little. It was quickly brushed aside, the 
 strong-room door gave way beneath a few well- 
 directed blows, and by the time Liverpool went to 
 breakfast the Stag privateer was standing out to sea, 
 her crew not only complete, but ably supplemented 
 by eight additional occupants of the press-room who 
 had never, so far as is known, travelled in that 
 commodious vehicle, the Lancaster coach. ^ 
 
 The neighbouring city of Chester in 1803 
 
 matched this exploit by another of great audacity. 
 
 Chester had long been noted for its hostility to the 
 
 gang, and the fact that the local volunteer corps 
 
 * Ad. 7. 300 Law Officers' Opinions, 1778-83, No. 19.
 
 220 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 the Royal Chester Artillery was composed mainly 
 of ropemakers, riggers, shipwrights and sailmakers 
 who had enlisted for the sole purpose of evading the 
 press, did not tend to allay existing friction. Hence, 
 when Capt. Birchall brought over a gang from 
 Liverpool because he could not form one in Chester 
 itself, and when he further signalised his arrival by 
 pressing Daniel Jackson, a well-known volunteer, 
 matters at once came to an ugly head. The day 
 happened to be a field-day, and as Birchall crossed 
 the market square to wait upon the magistrates at 
 the City Hall, he was "given to understand what 
 might be expected in the evening," for one of the 
 artillerymen, striking his piece, called out to his 
 fellows : " Now for a running ball ! There he 
 goes ! " with hissing, booing and execrations. At 
 seven o'clock one of the gang rushed into the 
 captain's lodgings with disquieting news. The 
 volunteers were attacking the rendezvous. He 
 hurried out, but by the time he arrived on the 
 scene the mischief was already done. The enraged 
 volunteers, after first driving the gang into the City 
 Hall, had torn down the rendezvous colours and 
 staff, and broken open the city jail and rescued their 
 comrade, whom they were then in the act of carrying 
 shoulder-high through the streets, the centre of a 
 howling mob that even the magistrates feared to 
 face. By request Birchall and his gang returned to 
 Liverpool, counting themselves lucky to have escaped 
 the " running ball " they had been threatened with 
 earlier in the day.^ 
 
 Another town that gave the gang a hot reception 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1529 Capt. Birchall, 29 Dec. 1803.
 
 AT GRIPS WITH THE GANG 221 
 
 was Whitby. As in the case of Chester the gang 
 there was an importation, having been brought in 
 from Tyneside by Lieuts. Atkinson and Oakes. As 
 at Chester, too, a place of rendezvous had been 
 procured with difficulty, for at first no landlord could 
 be found courageous enough to let a house for so 
 dangerous a purpose. At length, however, one 
 Cooper was prevailed upon to take the risk, and the 
 flag was hung out. This would seem to have been 
 the only provocative act of which the gang was 
 guilty. It sufficed. Anticipation did the rest; for just 
 as in some individuals gratitude consists in a lively 
 sense of favours to come, so the resentment of mobs 
 sometimes avenges a wrong before it has been inflicted. 
 On Saturday the 23rd of February 1793, at the 
 hour of half-past seven in the evening, a mob of a 
 thousand persons, of whom many were women, 
 suddenly appeared before the rendezvous. The first 
 intimation of what was about to happen came in the 
 shape of a furious volley of brickbats and stones, 
 which instantly demolished every window in the 
 house, to the utter consternation of its inmates. 
 Worse, however, was in store for them. An 
 attempt to rush the place was temporarily frustrated 
 by the determined opposition of the gang, who, 
 fearing that all in the house would be murdered, 
 succeeded in holding the mob at bay for an hour and 
 a half ; but at nine o'clock, several of the gangsmen 
 having been in the meantime struck down and 
 incapacitated by stones, which were rained upon the 
 devoted building without cessation, the door at length 
 gave way before an onslaught with capstan-bars, and 
 the mob swarmed in unchecked. A scene of in-
 
 222 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 describable confusion and fury ensued. Savagely 
 assaulted and mercilessly beaten, the gangsmen and 
 the unfortunate landlord were thrown into the street 
 more dead than alive, every article of furniture on 
 the premises was reduced to fragments, and when the 
 mob at length drew off, hoarsely jubilant over the 
 destruction it had wrought, nothing remained of His 
 Majesty's rendezvous save bare walls and gaping 
 windows. Even these were more than the townsfolk 
 could endure the sight of. Next evening they 
 reappeared upon the scene, intending to finish what 
 they had begun by pulling the house down or burning 
 it to ashes ; but the timely arrival of troops frus- 
 trating their design, they regretfully dispersed.^ 
 
 Out at sea the sailor, if he could not set the tune 
 by running away from the gang, played up to it with 
 great heartiness. To sink the press-boat was his 
 first aim. With this end in view he held stolidly on 
 his course, if under weigh, betraying his intention by 
 no sign till the boat, manceuvring to get alongside of 
 him, was in the right position for him to strike. 
 Then, all of a sudden, he showed his hand. Clapping 
 his helm hard over, he dexterously ran the boat 
 down, leaving the struggling gangsmen to make 
 what shift they could for their lives. Many a knight 
 of the hanger was sent to Davy Jones in this 
 summary fashion, unloved in life and cursed in the 
 article of death. 
 
 The attempt to best the gang by a master-stroke 
 of this description was not, it need hardly be said, 
 attended with uniform success. A miss of an inch 
 or two, and the boat was safe astern, pulling like 
 
 * Ad. I. 2739 Lieut. Atkinson, 26 Feb. and 27 June 1793.
 
 AT GRIPS WITH THE GANG 223 
 
 mad to recover lost orround. In these circumstances 
 the sailor recalled how he had once seen a block fall 
 from aloft and smash a shipmate's head, and from 
 this he argued that if a suitable object such as a 
 heavy round-shot, or, better still, the ship's grind- 
 stone, were deftly dropped over the side at the 
 psychological moment, it must either have a some- 
 what similar effect upon the gangsmen below or sink 
 the boat by knocking a hole in her bottom. The 
 case of the John and Elizabeth of Sunderland, that 
 redoubtable Holland pink whose people were "re- 
 solved sooner to dye than to be impressed," affords 
 an admirable example of the successful application of 
 this theory. 
 
 As the John and Elizabeth was running into 
 Sunderland harbour one afternoon in February 
 1742, three press-boats, hidden under cover of the 
 pier-head, suddenly darted out as she surged past 
 that point and attempted to board her. They met 
 with a remarkable repulse. For ten minutes, accord- 
 ing to the official account of the affair, the air was 
 filled with grindstones, four-pound shot, iron crows, 
 handspikes, capstan-bars, boat-hooks, billets of wood 
 and imprecations, and when it cleared there was not 
 in any of the boats a man who did not bear upon his 
 person some bloody trace of that terrible fusillade. 
 They sheered off, but in the excitement of the 
 moment and the mortification of defeat Midshipmen 
 Clapp and Danton drew their pistols and fired into 
 the jeering crew ranged along the vessel's gunwhale, 
 "not knowing," as they afterwards pleaded, "that 
 there was any balls in the pistols." Evidence to the 
 contrary was quickly forthcoming. A man fell dead
 
 224 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 on the pink's deck, and before morning the two 
 middies were safe under lock and key in that 
 "dismal hole," Durham jail. It was a notable 
 victory for the sailor and applied mechanics.^ 
 
 The affair of the King William Indiaman, a ship 
 whose people kept the united boats' -crews of two 
 men-of-war at bay for nearly twenty-four hours, 
 carried the sailor's resistance to the press an appreci- 
 able step further and developed some surprising 
 tactics. Between three and four o'clock in the after- 
 noon of a day in September 1742, two ships came 
 into the Downs in close order. They had been 
 expected earlier in the day, and both the Shrewsbury 
 frigate and the Shark sloop were on the lookout for 
 them. A shot from the former brought the headmost 
 to an anchor, but the second, the King William, 
 hauled her wind and stood away close to the 
 Goodwins, out of range of the frigate's guns. Here, 
 the tide being spent and the wind veering ahead, she 
 was obliged to anchor, and the warships' boats were 
 at once manned and dispatched to press her men. 
 Against this eventuality the latter appear to have 
 been primed " with Dutch courage," as the saying 
 went, the manner of which was to broach a cask 
 of rum and drink your fill. On the approach of the 
 press-boats pandemonium broke loose. The mad- 
 dened crew, brandishing their cutlasses and shouting 
 defiance, assailed the on-coming boats with every 
 description of missile they could lay hands on, not 
 excepting that most dangerous of all casual am- 
 munition, broken bottles. The Shrewsbury s mate 
 fell, seriously wounded, and finding themselves 
 
 * Ad. I. 1439 Capt. Allen, 13 March 1741-2, and enclosure.
 
 AT GRIPS WITH THE GANG 225 
 
 unable to face the terrible hail of missiles, the boats' 
 drew off. Night now came on, rendering further 
 attempts temporarily impossible a respite of which 
 the Indiaman's crew availed themselves to confine 
 the master and break open the arms-chest, which 
 he had taken the precaution to nail down. With 
 morning the boats returned to the attack. Three 
 times they attempted to board, and as often were 
 they repulsed by pistol and musketry fire. Upon 
 this the Shark, acting under peremptory orders from 
 the Shrewsbury, ran down to within half-gunshot of 
 the Indiaman and fired a broadside into her, 
 immediately afterwards repeating the dose on finding 
 her still defiant. The ship then submitted and all 
 her men were pressed save two. They had been 
 killed by the Sharks gun-fire.^ 
 
 With the appearance of the gang on the deck of 
 his ship there was ushered in the last stage but one 
 of the sailor's resistance to the press afloat. How, 
 when this happened, all hands were mustered and 
 the protected sheep separated from the unprotected 
 goats, has been fully described in a previous chapter. 
 These preliminaries at an end, " Now, my lads," said 
 the gang officer, addressing the pressable contingent 
 in the terms of his instructions, " I must tell you that 
 you are at liberty, if you so choose, to enter His 
 Majesty's service as volunteers. If you come in in 
 that way, you will each receive the bounty now being 
 paid, together with two months' advance wages 
 before you go to sea. But if you don't choose to enter 
 volunteerly, then I must take you against your wills " 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1829 Capt. Goddard, 22 Sept. and i6 Oct., and his 
 Deposition, 19 Oct. 1742. 
 
 15
 
 226 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 It was a hard saying, and many an old shellback 
 ay ! and young one too spat viciously when he 
 heard it. Conceive the situation! Here were these 
 poor fellows returning from a voyage which perhaps 
 had cut them off from home and kindred, from all 
 the ordinary comforts and pleasures of life, for 
 months or maybe years ; here were they, with the 
 familiar cliffs and downs under their hungry eyes, 
 suddenly confronted with an alternative of the cruellest 
 description, a Hobson's choice that left them no 
 option but to submit or fight. It was a heartbreak- 
 ing predicament for men, and more especially for 
 sailor-men, to be placed in, and if they sometimes 
 rose to the occasion like men and did their best to 
 heave the gang bodily into the sea, or to drive them 
 out of the ship with such weapons as their hard situ- 
 ation and the sailor's Providence threw in their way 
 if they did these things in the gang's despite, they must 
 surely be judged as outraged husbands, fathers and 
 lovers rather than as disloyal subjects of an exacting 
 king. They would have made but sorry man-o'-war's- 
 men had they entertained the gang in any other way. 
 
 Opposed to the service cutlass, the sailor's emer- 
 gency weapon was but a poor tool to stake his liberty 
 upon, and even though the numerical odds chanced 
 to be in his favour he often learnt, in the course of 
 his pitched battles with the gang, that the edge 
 of a hanger is sharper than the corresponding part of 
 a handspike. Lucky for him if, with his shipmates, 
 he could then retreat to close quarters below or 
 between decks, there to make a final stand for his 
 brief spell of liberty ashore. This was his last ditch. 
 Beyond it lay only surrender or death.
 
 AT GRIPS WITH THE GANG 227 
 
 The death of the sailor at the hands of the 
 gang introduces us to a phase of pressing technically 
 known as the accidental, wherein the accidents were 
 of three kinds casual, unavoidable, and "dis- 
 agreeable." 
 
 The casual accident was one that could be neither 
 foreseen nor averted, as when Capt. Argles, return- 
 ing to England on the breaking up of the Limerick 
 rendezvous in 1814, was captured by an American 
 privateer "well up the Bristol Channel," a place 
 where no one ever dreamed of falling in with such 
 an enemy.^ 
 
 To the unavoidable accident every impress officer 
 and agent was liable in the execution of his duty. It 
 could thus be foreseen in the abstract, though not 
 in the instance. Hence it could not be avoided. 
 Wounds given and received in the heat and turmoil 
 of pressing came under this head, provided they did 
 not prove fatal. 
 
 The accident "disagreeable" was peculiar to 
 pressing. It consisted in the killing of a man, by 
 whatever means and in whatever manner, whilst en- 
 deavouring to press him, and the immediate effect of 
 the act, which was common enough, was to set up a 
 remarkable contradiction in terms. The man killed 
 was not the victim of the accident. The victim was 
 the officer or gangsman who was responsible for 
 striking him off the roll of His Majesty's pressable 
 subjects, and who thus let himself in for the conse- 
 quences, more or less disagreeable, which inevitably 
 followed. 
 
 While it was naturally the ambition of every 
 ^ Ad. I. 1455 Capt. Argles, 17 Aug. 1814.
 
 228 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 officer engaged in pressing "to do the business with- 
 out any disagreeable accident ensuing," he preferred, 
 did fate ordain it otherwise, that the accident should 
 happen at sea rather than on land, since it was on 
 land that the most disagreeable consequences accrued 
 to the unfortunate victim. These embraced flight 
 and prolonged expatriation, or, in the alternative, 
 arrest, preliminary detention in one of His Majesty's 
 prisons, and subsequent trial at the Assizes. What 
 the ultimate punishment might be was a minor, 
 though still ponderable consideration, since, where 
 naval officers or agents were concerned, the law was 
 singularly capricious.^ At sea, on the other hand, 
 the conditions which on land rendered accidents of 
 this nature so uniformly disagreeable, were almost 
 entirely reversed. How and why this was so can be 
 best explained by stating a case. 
 
 The accident in point occurred in the year 1755, 
 and is associated with the illustrious name of Rodney. 
 The Seven Years War was at the time looming in 
 the near future, and England's secret complicity in 
 the causes of that tremendous struggle rendered 
 necessary the placing of her Navy upon a footing 
 adequate to the demands which it was foreseen would 
 be very shortly made upon it. In common with a 
 hundred other naval officers, Rodney, who was then 
 in command of the Prince George guardship at Ports- 
 mouth, had orders to proceed without loss of time to 
 the raising of men. One of his lieutenants was ac- 
 cordingly sent to London, that happy hunting-ground 
 
 ^ As in Lacie's case, 25 Elizabeth, where a mortal wound having 
 been inflicted at sea, whereof the party died on land, the prisoner was 
 acquitted because neither the Admiralty nor a jury could inquire of it.
 
 AT GRIPS WITH THE GANG 229 
 
 of the impress officer, while two others, with picked 
 crews at their backs, were put in charge of tenders to 
 intercept homeward-bounds. This was near the end 
 of May. 
 
 On the 1st of June, in the early morning, one 
 of these tenders the Princess Augusta, Lieut. Sax 
 commander fell in, off Portland Bill, with the 
 Britannia, a Leghorn trader of considerable force. 
 In response to a shot fired as an intimation that she 
 was expected to lay-to and receive a gang on board, 
 the master, hailing, desired permission to retain his 
 crew intact till he should have passed that dangerous 
 piece of navigation known as the Race. To this 
 reasonable request Sax acceded and the ship held on 
 her course, closely followed by the tender. By the 
 time the Race was passed, however, the merchant- 
 man's crew had come to a resolution. They should 
 not be pressed by "such a pimping vessel" as the 
 Princess Augusta. Accordingly, they first deprived 
 the master of the command, and then, when again 
 hailed by the tender, "swore they would lose their 
 lives sooner than bring too." The Channel at this 
 time swarmed with tenders, and to Sax's hint that 
 they might just as well give in then and there as be 
 pressed later on, they replied with defiant huzzas and 
 the discharge of one of their maindeck guns. The 
 tender was immediately laid alongside, but on the 
 gang's attempting to board they encountered a resis- 
 tance so fierce that Sax, thinkingr to bring; the infuri- 
 ated crew to their senses, ordered his people to fire 
 upon them. Ralph Sturdy and John Debusk, armed 
 with harpoons, and John Wilson, who had requisi- 
 tioned the cook's spit as a weapon, fell dead before
 
 230 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 that volley. The rest, submitting without further 
 ado, were at once confined below. 
 
 Now, three questions of moment are raised by 
 this accident : What became of the ship ? what was 
 done with the dead men ? and what punishment was 
 meted out to the lieutenant and his gang ? 
 
 The crew once secured under hatches, the safety 
 of the ship became of course the first consideration. 
 It was assured by a simple expedient. The gang 
 remained on board and worked the vessel into Ports- 
 mouth harbour, where, after her hands had been taken 
 out Rodney the receiver " men in lieu " were put on 
 board, as explained in our chapter on pressing afloat, 
 and with this make-shift crew she was navigated to 
 her destination, in this instance the port of London. 
 
 As persons killed at sea, the three sailors who lay 
 dead on the ship's deck did not come within the juris- 
 diction of the coroner. That official's cognisance of 
 such matters extended only to high-water mark when 
 the tide was at flood, or to low-water mark when it 
 was at ebb. Beyond those limits, seawards, all acts 
 of violence done in great ships, and resulting in may- 
 hem or the death of a man, fell within the sole pur- 
 view and jurisdiction of the Station Admiral, who on 
 this occasion happened to be Sir Edward Hawke, 
 commander of the White Squadron at Portsmouth. 
 Now Sir Edward was not less keenly alive to the 
 importance of keeping such cases hidden from the 
 public eye than were the Lords Commissioners. 
 Hence he immediately gave orders that the bodies 
 of the dead men should be taken " without St 
 Helens" and there committed to the deep. Instead 
 of going to feed the Navy, the three sailors thus went
 
 AT GRIPS WITH THE GANG 231 
 
 to feed the fishes, and another stain on the service 
 was washed out with a commendable absence of pub- 
 licity and fuss. 
 
 There still remained the lieutenant and his gang 
 to be dealt with and brought to what, by another 
 singular perversion of terms, was called justice. On 
 shore, notwithstanding the lenient view taken of such 
 accidents, an indictment of manslaughter, if not of 
 murder, would have assuredly followed the offence ; 
 and though in the circumstances it is doubtful whether 
 any jury would have found the culprits guilty of the 
 capital crime, yet the alternative verdict, with its con- 
 sequent imprisonment and disgrace, held out anything 
 but a rosy prospect to the young officer who had still 
 his second " swab " to win. That was where the 
 advantage of accidents at sea came in. On shore 
 the judiciary, however kindly disposed to the naval 
 service, were painfully disinterested. At sea the 
 scales of justice were held, none too meticulously, by 
 brother officers who had the service at heart. Under 
 the judicious direction of Admiral Osborn, who in 
 the meantime had succeeded Sir Edward Hawke in 
 the Portsmouth command, Lieut. Sax and his gang 
 were consequently called upon to face no ordeal more 
 terrible than an " inquiry into their proceedings and 
 behaviour." Needless to say, they were unanimously 
 exonerated, the court holding that the discharge of 
 their duty fully justified them in the discharge of their 
 muskets.^ When such disagreeable accidents had to 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 5925 Minutes at a Court-Martial held on board H.M.S. 
 Prince George at Portsmouth, 14 Nov. 1755. Precedent for the pro- 
 cedure in this case is found in Ad. 7. 298 Law Officers' Opinions, 
 1733-56, No. 27.
 
 232 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 be investigated, the disagreeable business was done 
 to purloin an apt phrase of Coke's " without prying 
 into them with eagles' eyes." 
 
 But it is time to leave the trail of blood and turn 
 to a more agreeable phase of pressing.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE GANG AT PLAY 
 
 The reasons assigned for the pressing of men who 
 ought never to have made the acquaintance of the 
 warrant or the hanger were often as far-fetched as 
 they are amusing, "You have no right to press a 
 person of my distinction ! " warmly protested an 
 individual of the superior type when pounced upon 
 by the gang. " Lor love yer! that's the wery reason 
 we're a-pressin',of your worship," replied the grinning 
 minions of the service. "We've such a set of black- 
 guards aboard the tender yonder, we wants a toff 
 like you to learn 'em manners." 
 
 The quixotic idea of inculcating manners by means 
 of the press infected others besides the gangsman. 
 In a Navy whose officers not only plumed themselves 
 on representing the ne phis ultra of etiquette, but 
 demanded that all who approached them should do 
 so without sin either of omission or commission, the 
 idea was universal. Pride of service and pride of 
 self entered into its composition in about equal pro- 
 portions ; hence the sailing-master who neglected to 
 salute the flag, or who through ignorance, crass 
 stupidity, or malice aforethought flew prohibited 
 colours, was no more liable to be taught an ex- 
 emplary lesson than the bum-boatman who sauced
 
 234 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 the officer of the watch when detected in the act of 
 smuggling spirits or women into one of His Majesty's 
 ships. 
 
 For all such offenders the autocracy of the quarter- 
 deck, from the rigid commander down to the very 
 young gentleman newly joined, kept a jealous lookout, 
 and many are the instances of punishment, swift and 
 implacable, following the offence. Insulted dignity 
 could of course take it out of the disrespectful fore- 
 mastman with the rattan, the cat or the irons ; but 
 for the ill-mannered outsider, whether pertaining to 
 sea or land, the recognised corrective was His 
 Majesty's press. A solitary exception is found in 
 the case of Henry Crabb of Chatham, a boatman 
 who rejoiced in incurable lameness ; rejoiced because, 
 although there were many cripples on board the 
 Queen's ships in his day, his infirmity was such as 
 to leave him at liberty to ply for hire " when other 
 men durst not for feare of being Imprest." He was 
 an impudent, over-reaching knave, and Capt. Balchen, 
 of the Adventure man-o'-war, whose wife had suffered 
 much from the fellow's abusive tongue and extortion- 
 ate propensities, finding himself unable to press him, 
 brought him to the capstan and there gave him 
 "eleven lashes with a Catt of Nine Tailes."^ 
 
 A letter written in the early forties a letter as 
 breezy as the sea from which it was penned gives 
 us a striking picture of the old-time naval officer as 
 a teacher of deportment. Cruising far down-Channel, 
 Capt. Brett, of the Anglesea man-o'-war, there fell 
 in with a ship whose character puzzled him sorely. 
 He consequently gave chase, but the wind falling light 
 
 ' Ad. I. 1466 Capt. Balchen, 10 March 1703-4.
 
 THE GANG AT PLAY 235 
 
 and night coming on, he lost her. Early next morning, 
 as luck would have it, he picked her up again, and 
 having now a " pretty breeze," he succeeded in drawing 
 within range of her about two o'clock in the after- 
 noon, when he fired a shot to bring her to. The 
 strange sail doubtless feared that she was about to 
 lose her hands, for instead of obeying the summons 
 she trained her-^stern-chasers on the Anglesea and 
 for an hour and a half blazed away at her as fast 
 as she could load. "They put a large marlinespike 
 into one of their guns," the indignant captain tells 
 us, " which struck the carriage of the chase gun upon 
 our forecastle, dented it near two inches, then broke 
 asunder and wounded one of the men in the leg, and 
 had it come a yard higher, must infallibly have killed 
 two or three. By all this behaviour I concluded she 
 must be an English vessel taken by the Spaniards. 
 However, when we came within a cable's length of 
 him he brought to, so we run close under his stern 
 in order to shoot a little berth to leeward of him, and 
 at the same time bid them hoist their boats out. Our 
 people, as is customary upon such occasions, were 
 then all up upon the gunhill and in the shrouds, 
 looking at him. Just as we came under his quarter 
 he pointed a gun that was sticking out a little abaft 
 his main-shrouds right at us, and put the match to it, 
 but it happened very luckily that the gun blew. A 
 fellow that was standing on the quarter-deck then 
 took up a blunderbuss and presented it, which by its 
 not going off must have missed fire. As it was almost 
 impossible, they being stripp'd and bareheaded, besides 
 having their faces besmeared with powder, for us to 
 judge them by their looks, I concluded they must be
 
 236 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 a Parcell of Light-headed Frenchmen run mad, and 
 thinking it by no means prudent to let them kill my 
 men in such a ridiculous manner, I ordered the 
 marines, who were standing upon the quarter-deck 
 with their musquets shoulder'd, to fire upon them. 
 As soon as they saw the musquets presented they fell 
 flat upon the decks and by that means saved them- 
 selves from being kill'd. Some of our people at the 
 same time fired a 9-pounder right into his quarter, 
 upon which they immediately submitted. I own I 
 never was more surprised in all my life to find that 
 she was an English vessel, tho' my surprise was 
 lessened a good deal when I came to see the master 
 and all his fighting men so drunk as to be scarce 
 capable of giving a rational answer to any question 
 that was asked them. I was very glad to find that 
 none of them were hurt ; but I found out the man 
 who presented the blunderbuss, and upon his behaving 
 saucily when I taxed him with it, I took him, out of 
 the vessel."^ 
 
 So abhorrent a condiment was " sauce " to the 
 naval palate, whether of officer or impress agent, that 
 its use invariably brought its own punishment with 
 it. " You are no gentleman ! " said Gangsman Dibell 
 to one Hartnell, a currier who accidentally jostled 
 him whilst he was drinking in a Poole taproom. 
 " No, nor you neither ! " replied Hartnell. The 
 retort cost him a most disagreeable experience. 
 Dibell and his comrades collared him and dragged 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1479 Capt. Brett, 17 April 1743. The captain's use of 
 gender is philologically instructive. Not till later times, it seems, did 
 ships lose the character of a " strong man armed " and take on, uni- 
 formly, the attributes of the skittish female.
 
 THE GANG AT PLAY 237 
 
 him off to the rendezvous, where he was locked up 
 in the black-hole till the next day.^ 
 
 At Waterford Capt. Price went one better than 
 this, for a man who was totally unfit for the service 
 having one day shown him some trifling disrespect, 
 the choleric old martinet promptly set the gang upon 
 him and had him conveyed on board the tender, 
 " where," says Lieut. Collingwood, writing a month 
 later, " he has been eating the king's victuals ever 
 since." ^ Punishment enough, surely ! 
 
 One night at Londonderry, as Lieut. Watson was 
 making his way down to the quay for the purpose of 
 boarding the Hope tender, of which he was com- 
 mander, he accidentally ran against a couple of 
 strangers. 
 
 "Hallo! my lads," cried he, "who and what 
 are you } " 
 
 ** I am what I am," replied one of them, insolently. 
 
 The lieutenant, who had been dining, fired up 
 at this and demanded to know if language such as 
 that was proper to be addressed to a king's officer. 
 
 " As you please," said he of the insolent tongue. 
 " If you like it better, I'll say I'm a piece of a man." 
 
 " So I see by your want of manners," retorted the 
 lieutenant. " Come along with me, my brave piece ! 
 I know those who will make a whole man of you 
 before they're done." 
 
 With that he seized the fellow, meaning to take 
 him to his boat, which lay near by, but the pressed 
 man, watching his chance, tripped him up and made 
 
 ^ Ad. 1. 580 Inquiry into the Conduct of the Impress Officers at 
 Poole, 13 Aug. 1804. 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1 501 Lieut. Collingwood, i8 March 1781.
 
 238 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 off. Next day there was a sequel. The lieutenant 
 "was taken possession of by the Civil Power" on 
 a charge of assault.^ 
 
 Another officer who met with base ingratitude 
 from a pressed man whose manners he attempted 
 to reform was Capt. Bethel of the Phoenix. At the 
 Nore he was once grossly abused by the crew of a 
 Customs- House boat, and in retaliation took one of 
 their number and carried him to sea. Peremptory 
 orders reaching him at one of the Scottish ports, 
 however, he discharged the man and paid his passage 
 south. He was immediately sued for false imprison- 
 ment and cast in heavy damages.* 
 
 Capt. Brereton, of the Fabnouth, was "had" in 
 similar fashion by the master of an East-Indiaman 
 whom he pressed at Manilla because of his insolence, 
 and who afterwards, by a successful suit at law, let 
 him in for ^400 damages and costs.* 
 
 This was turning the tables of etiquette on its 
 professors with a vengeance. 
 
 Such costly lessons in the art of politeness, how- 
 ever, did not in the least abash the naval officer or 
 deter him from the continued inculcation of manners. 
 Young fellows idly roystering on the river could not 
 be permitted to miscall with impunity the gorgeous 
 admiral passing in his twelve-oared barge,* nor irate 
 shipmasters who flouted the impress service of the 
 Crown as a "pitiful" thing and its officers as "little 
 scandalous creatures," be allowed to go scot-free.* 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1531 Lieut. Watson, 27 Oct 1804. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1493 Capt. Bethel, 29 Aug. 1762. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 1494 Capt. Brereton, 18 Oct. 1765. 
 
 * Ad. I. 577 Admiral the Marquis of Carmarthen, 24 June 1710. 
 
 * Ad. I. 2379 Capt. Robinson, 21 Feb. 1725-6.
 
 THE GANG AT PLAY 239 
 
 At whatever cost, the dignity of the service must be 
 maintained. 
 
 Nowhere did the use of invective attain such 
 extraordinary perfection as amongst those who plied 
 their vocations on the country's busy waterways. 
 Here "sauce" was reduced to a science and vitu- 
 peration to a fine art. Thames watermen and Tyne 
 keelmen in particular acquired an astounding pro- 
 ficiency in the choice and application of abusive 
 epithets, but of the two the keelman carried off the 
 palm. The wherryman, it is true, possessed a ripe 
 vocabulary, but the fact that it embraced only a 
 single dialect seriously handicapped him in his race 
 with the keelman, who had no less than three to 
 draw upon, all equally prolific. Between " keelish," 
 " coblish " and " sheelish," the respective dialects 
 of the north-country keelman, pilot and trades- 
 man, he had at his command a source of supply 
 unrivalled in vituperative richness, abundance and 
 variety. With these at his tongue's end none could 
 touch, much less outdo him in power and scope of 
 abusive description. He became in consequence of 
 these superior advantages so " insupportably im- 
 pudent " that the only known cure for his complaint 
 was to follow the prescription of Capt. Atkins of 
 the Panther, and " take him as fast as you could 
 ketch him " ; ^ but even this drastic method of curbing 
 his tongue was robbed of much of its efficacy by the 
 jealous care with which he was "protected." 
 
 Failure to amain, that is, to douse your topsail or 
 dip your colours when you meet with a ship of war 
 the marine equivalent for raising one's hat con- 
 * Ad. I. 1438 Capt. Atkins, 23 Dec. 1720.
 
 240 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 stituted a gross contempt of the king's service. The 
 custom was very ancient, King John having instituted 
 it in the second year of his reign. At that time, and 
 indeed for long after, the salute was obligatory, its 
 omission entailing heavy penalties ; ^ but with the 
 advent of the century of pressing another means of 
 inspiring respect for the flag, now exacted as a courtesy 
 rather than a right, came into vogue. The offending 
 vessel paid for its omission in men. 
 
 If you were anything but a king's ship, and flew 
 a flag that only king's ships were entitled to fly, you 
 were guilty, in the eyes of every right-seeing naval 
 officer, of another piece of ill manners so gross as 
 to be deserving of the severest punishment the press 
 was capable of inflicting upon you. You might fly 
 the " flag and Jack white, with a red cross (commonly 
 called St. George's cross) passing quite through the 
 same " ; likewise the " ensign red, with the cross in 
 a canton of white at the upper corner thereof, next 
 to the staff" ; but if you presumed to display His 
 Majesty's Jack, commonly called the Union Jack, or 
 any other of the various flags of command flown by 
 ships of war or vessels employed in the naval service, 
 swift retribution overtook you. Similarly, the in- 
 advertent hoisting of your colours " wrong end 
 uppermost," or in any other manner deemed incon- 
 sistent with the dignity of the service which permitted 
 you to fly them, laid you open to reprisals of the most 
 
 ^ A copy of the original proclamation may be seen in Lansdowne 
 MSS., clxxi, f. 218, where it is also summarised in the following 
 terms : "Anno 2 regni Johannis regis: F rends not amaining at the 
 j sumons but resisting the King his lieutenant, the L. Admirall or 
 his lieutenant^ to lose the ship and goods, dh theire bodies to be 
 imprisotted"
 
 THE GANG AT PLAY 241 
 
 summary nature. Before you realised the heinousness 
 of your offence, a gang boarded you and your best 
 man or men were gone beyond recall. The joy of 
 waterside weddings occasions prolific in the display 
 of wrong colours was often turned into sorrow in 
 this way. 
 
 Inability to do the things you professed to do 
 involved grave risk of making intimate acquaintance 
 with the gang. If, for example, you were a skipper 
 and navigated your vessel more like a 'prentice than 
 a master hand, some one belonging to you was bound, 
 in waters swarming with ships of war, to pay the 
 piper sooner or later. "A few days ago," writes 
 Capt. Archer of the Isis, "a ship called the Jane, 
 Stewart master, ran on board of us in a most lubberly 
 manner for which, as is customary on such occasions, 
 I took four of his people." ^ 
 
 Ability to handle a musical instrument sometimes 
 proved as fatal to one's liberty as inability to handle 
 a ship. Queen Anne was directly responsible for this. 
 Almost immediately after her accession she signed 
 a warrant authorising the pressing of "drummers, fife 
 and haut boys for sea and land."^ Though the 
 authorisation was only temporary, the practice thus 
 set up continued long after its origin had been 
 relegated to the scrap-heap of memory, and not only 
 continued, but was interpreted in a sense much broader 
 than its royal originator ever intended it should be. 
 This tendency to take an ell in lieu of the stipulated 
 inch was illustrated as early as 1705, when Lieut. 
 Thomson, belonging to the Lichfield, chancing to 
 
 * Ad. I. 1448 Capt. Archer, 17 May 1795. 
 ' Home Office Military Entry Books, clxviii, f. 406. 
 16
 
 242 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 meet one Richard Bullard, fiddler, " persuaded him to 
 go as far as Woolwich with him, to play a tune or 
 two to him and some friends who had a mind to dance, 
 saying he would pay him for it " which he did, when 
 tired of dancing, by handing him over to the press- 
 gang.' 
 
 In 1 78 1, again, a "stout lad of 1 7 " was pressed 
 at Waterford because, as a piper, he was considered 
 likely to be " useful in amusing the new-raised men " ; ' 
 and as late as 1807 ^ g^^^g ^^ Portsmouth, acting 
 under orders from Capt. Sir Robert Bromley, took 
 one Madden, a blind man, because of his *' qualification 
 of playing on the Irish bagpipes." His affliction 
 saved him. He was discharged, and the amount of 
 his pay and victualling was deducted from Sir Robert's 
 wages as a caution to him to be more careful in 
 future.' 
 
 Perhaps the oddest reasons ever adduced in justi- 
 fication of specific acts of pressing were those put 
 forward in the cases of James Baily, a Gosport ferry- 
 man who was pressed on account of his " great 
 inactivity," and of John Conyear, exempt passenger 
 on the packet-boat plying between Dartmouth and 
 Poole, subjected to the same process because, as the 
 officer responsible ingenuously put it when called to 
 book for the act, if Conyear had not been on board, 
 ** another would, who might have been a proper person 
 to serve His Majesty."* 
 
 An ironical interest attaches to the pressing of 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1467 Capt. Byron, 13 July 1705. 
 ' Ad. 1, 1501 Lieut. Collingwood, 18 March 1781. 
 ' Ad. I. 1544 Capt. Sir Robert Bromley, 2 Dec. 1808. 
 * Ad. I. 1451 Capt. Argles, 4 May 1807 ; Ad. i. 2485 Capt Scott, 
 13 March 1780. ^
 
 THE GANG AT PLAY 243 
 
 John Hagin, a youth of nineteen who cherished an 
 ambition to go a-whaHng. Tramping the riverside at 
 Hull one day in search of a ship, he accidentally met 
 one of the lieutenants employed in the local impress 
 service, and mistaking him for the master of a Green- 
 land ship, stepped up to him and asked him for a berth. 
 "Berth?" said the obliging officer. "Come this 
 way ; " and he conducted the unsuspecting youth to the 
 rendezvous.^ 
 
 Before you took a voyage for the benefit of your 
 health in those days it was always advisable to satisfy 
 yourself as to the nature of the cargo the vessel carried 
 or intended to carry, otherwise you were liable to be 
 let in for a longer voyage than health demanded. 
 Richard Gooding of Bawdsey, in the county of Suffolk, 
 a twenty-one-year-old yeoman who knew nothing of 
 the iniquities practised in ships, in an evil hour acted 
 on the advice of his apothecary and ran across to 
 Holland for the sake of his health, which the infirmities 
 of youth appear to have undermined. All went well 
 until, on the return trip, just before Bawdsey Ferry 
 hove in sight, down swooped a revenue cutter's boat 
 with an urgent request that the master should open up 
 his hatches and disclose what his hold contained. 
 He demurred, alleging that it held nothing of interest 
 to revenue men ; but on their going below to see for 
 themselves they discovered an appreciable quantity of 
 gin. Thereupon the master wickedly declared Gooding 
 to be the culprit, and he was pressed on suspicion of 
 attempting to run a cargo of spirits.^ 
 
 Into the operations of the gang this element of 
 
 1 Ad. I. 1455 Capt. Ackton, 23 March 1814. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 1530 Capt. Broughton, 20 April 1803, and enclosure.
 
 244 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 suspicion entered very largely, especially in the press- 
 ing of supposed sailors. To carry about on your 
 person any of the well-known marks of the seafaring 
 man was to invite certain disaster. When pressed, like 
 so many others, because he was " in appearance very 
 much like a sailor," John Teede protested vehemently 
 that he had never been to sea in his life, and that all who 
 said he had were unmitigated liars. " Strip him," 
 said the officer, who had a short way with such cases. 
 In a twinkling Teede's shirt was over his head and 
 the sailor stood revealed. Devices emblematic of 
 love and the sea covered both arms from shoulder 
 to wrist. " You and I will lovers die, eh ? " said the 
 officer, with a twinkle, as he spelt out one of the 
 amatory inscriptions. "Just so, John! I'll see to 
 that. Next man ! " ^ 
 
 Bow-legged men ran the gravest of risks in this 
 respect, and the goose of many a tailor was effectually 
 cooked because of the damning fact, which no pro- 
 testations of innocence of the sea could mitigate, that 
 long confinement to the board had warped his legs 
 into a fatal resemblance to those of a typical Jack-tar. 
 Harwich once had a mayor who, after vowing that he 
 would *' never be guilty of saying there was no law 
 for pressing sailors," as a convincing proof that he 
 knew what was what, and was willing to provide it 
 to the best of his ability, straightway sent out and 
 pressed a tailor ! ^ 
 
 The itinerant Jewish peddler who hawked his 
 wares about the country suffered grievously on this 
 
 * Ad. I. 1522 Description of a Person calling himself John Teede, 
 28 Dec. 1799. 
 
 Ad. I. 1436 Capt. Allen, 26 March 1706.
 
 THE GANG AT PLAY 245 
 
 account. However indisputably Hebraic his name, 
 his accent and his nose might be, those evidences of 
 nationality were Anglicised, so to speak, by the fact 
 that his legs were the legs of a sailor, and the bandy 
 appendages so characteristic of his race sooner or 
 later brought the gang down upon him in full cry and 
 landed him in the fleet. 
 
 In the year 1780 the fishing town of Cromer was 
 thrown into a state of acute excitement by the 
 behaviour of a casual stranger a great, bearded man 
 of foreign aspect who, taking a lodging in the place, 
 resorted daily to the beach, where he walked the sands 
 "at low water mark," now writing with great assiduity 
 in a book, again gesticulating wildly to the sea and 
 the cliffs, whence the suspicious townsfolk, then all 
 unused to "visitors" and their eccentricities, watched 
 his antics in wonder and consternation. The principal 
 inhabitants of the place, alarmed by his vagaries, con- 
 stituted themselves a committee of safety, and with the 
 parson at their head went down to interview him ; and 
 when, in response to their none too polite inquiries, 
 he flatly refused to give any account of himself, they 
 by common consent voted him a spy and a public 
 menace, telling each other that he was undoubtedly 
 engaged in drawing plans of the coast in order to 
 facilitate the landing of some enemy ; for did not 
 the legend run : 
 
 "He who would Old England win. 
 Must at Weyboum Hope begin?" 
 
 and was not the " Hoop," as it was called locally, 
 only a few miles to the northward ? No time was to 
 be lost. Post-haste they dispatched a messenger to
 
 246 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 Lieut. Brace at Yarmouth, begging him, if he would 
 save his country from imminent danger, to lose not a 
 moment in sending his gang to seize the suspect and 
 nip his fell design in the bud. With this alarming 
 request Brace promptly complied, and the stranger 
 was dragged away to Yarmouth. Arraigned before 
 the mayor, he with difficulty succeeded in convincing 
 that functionary that he was nothing more dangerous 
 than a stray agriculturist whom the Empress Catherine 
 had sent over from Russia to study the English 
 method of growing turnips ! ^ 
 
 The unhandsome treatment meted out to the 
 inoffensive Russian is of a piece with the whole aspect 
 of pressing by instigation, of which it is at once a 
 specimen and a phase. The incentive here was 
 suspicion ; but in the fertile field of instigation 
 motives flourished in forms as varied as the weak- 
 nesses of human nature. 
 
 Thomas Onions, respectable burgess of Bridg- 
 north, engaged in working a trow from that place 
 to Bristol, fell under suspicion owing to the mysterious 
 disappearance of a portion of the cargo, which con- 
 sisted of china. The rest of the crew being meta- 
 phorically as well as literally in the same boat, the 
 consignee's agent, on the trow's arrival at Bristol, 
 hinted at a more than alliterative connection between 
 china and chests, which he was proceeding to search 
 when Onions objected, very rightly urging that he 
 had no warrant. " Is it a warrant you're wanting ? " 
 demanded the baffled agent. " Very well, we'll see if 
 we cannot find one." With that he stepped ashore and 
 hurried to the rendezvous, where he knew the officers, 
 
 ^ State Papers, Russia, cv. Lieut. Brace, i8 Aug. 1780.
 
 THE GANG AT PLAY 247 
 
 and within the hour the gang added Onions to the 
 impress stock-pot.^ 
 
 Much the same motive led to the pressing of 
 Charles M 'Donald, a north-country youth of education 
 and property. His mother wished him to enter the 
 army, but his guardians, piqued by her insistence, 
 ** had him kidnapped on board the impress tender at 
 Shields, under pretence of sending him on a visit." * 
 
 An " independent fortune of fourteen hundred 
 pounds," bequeathed to him by his " Aunt Elizabeth," 
 was instrumental in launching John Stillwell of 
 Clerkenwell upon a similar career. His step-mother 
 and uncle desired to retain possession of the money, 
 of which they were trustees ; so they suborned the 
 gang and the young man disappeared.^ 
 
 A more legitimate pastime of the gang was the 
 pressing of incorrigible sons. George Clark of 
 Birmingham and William Barnicle of Margate, the 
 one a notorious thief, the other the despair of his 
 family because of his drunken habits, were two out of 
 many shipped abroad by this cheap but effectual 
 means, the instigator of the gang being in each case 
 the lad's own father.* The distracting problem, 
 ** What to do with our sons ? " was in this way 
 amazingly simplified. 
 
 In thus utilising the gang as a means of retaliating 
 upon those who incurred their displeasure, both naval 
 officers and private individuals, had they been arraigned 
 
 '^ Ad. I. 1542 Memorial of the Inhabitants and Burgesses of 
 Bridgnorth, 12 March 1808. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1537 Capt. Bland, 29 Nov. 1806, and enclosure. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 1539 Capt. Burton, 25 April 1806, and enclosure. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1537 Jeremiah Clark, 30 July 1806; Ad. i. 1547 Lieut. 
 Dawe, 4 Sept. 1809.
 
 248 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 for the offence, could have pleaded in justification of 
 their conduct the example of no less exalted a body 
 than the Admiralty itself. The case of the bachelor 
 seamen of Dover, pressed because of an official animus 
 against that town, was as notorious as their Lordships' 
 futile attempt to teach the Brighton fishermen respect 
 for their betters, or their later orders to Capt. Culver- 
 house, of the Liverpool rendezvous, instructing him 
 " to take all opportunities of impressing seafaring men 
 belonging to the Isle of Man," as a punishment for 
 the "extreme ill-conduct of the people of that Island 
 to His Majesty's Officers on the Impress Service."^ 
 The Admiralty method of paying out anyone against 
 whom you cherished a grudge possessed advantages 
 which strongly commended it to the splenetic and the 
 vindictive. For suppose you lay in wait for your 
 enemy and beat or otherwise maltreated him : the 
 chances were that he would either punish you himself 
 or invoke the law to do it for him ; while if you 
 removed him by means of the garrot, the knife or the 
 poisoned glass, no matter how discreetly the deed was 
 done the hangman was pretty sure to get you sooner 
 or later. But the gang it was as safe as an epidemic ! 
 The fact was not lost upon the community. People 
 in almost every station of life appreciated it at its 
 true worth, and, encouraged by the example of the 
 Admiralty, availed themselves of the gang as the 
 handiest, speediest and safest of mediums for wiping 
 out old scores. 
 
 On shipboard, where life was more cramped and 
 men consequently came into sharper contact than 
 on shore, resentments were struck from daily inter- 
 
 * Ad. 3. 148 Admiralty Minutes, 11 Oct. 1803.
 
 THE GANG AT PLAY 249 
 
 course like sparks from steel. Like sparks some 
 died, impotent to harm their object ; but others, 
 cherished in bitterness of spirit through many a lonely 
 watch, flashed into malicious action with that hoped- 
 for opportunity, the coming of the gang. John Gray, 
 carpenter of a merchant ship, in a moment of anger 
 threatened to cut the skipper down with an axe. 
 This happened under a West- Indian sun. Months 
 afterwards, as the ship swung lazily into Bristol river 
 and the gang came aboard, the skipper found his 
 opportunity. Beckoning to the impress officer, he 
 pointed to John Gray and said : " Take that man ! " ^ 
 Gray never again lifted an axe on board a merchant 
 vessel. 
 
 Certain amenities which once passed between the 
 master and the mate of the Lady Shore serve to 
 throw an even broader light upon the origin of quarrels 
 at sea and the methods of settling them then in vogue. 
 The Lady Shore was on the passage home from 
 Quebec when the master one day gave certain sailing 
 directions which the mate, who was a sober, careful 
 seaman, thought fit to disregard on the ground that 
 the safety of the ship would be endangered if he 
 followed them. The master, an irascible, drunken 
 brute, at this flew into a passion and sought to ingraft 
 his ideas of seamanship upon the mate through the 
 medium of a handspike, with which he caught him a 
 savage blow "just above the eye, cutting him about 
 three inches in length." It was in mid-ocean that 
 this lesson in navigation was administered. By the 
 time Scilly shoved its nose above the horizon the 
 skipper's " down " on the mate had reached an 
 
 ^ Ad. 1. 1542 Capt. Barker, 22 June 1808, and enclosure.
 
 250 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 acute stage. His resentment of the 1.' tter's being the 
 better seaman had now deepened in^o hatred, and 
 to this, as the voyage neared its end, was added 
 growing fear of prosecution. At this juncture a 
 man-o'-war hove in sight and signalled an inspection 
 of hands. " Get your chest on deck, Mr. Mate," 
 cried the exultant skipper. "You are too much 
 master here. It is time for us to part." Taken out 
 of the ship as a pressed man, the mate was ultimately 
 discharged by order of the Admiralty ; but the 
 skipper had his revenge.^ 
 
 A riot that occurred at King's Lynn in the year 
 '55 affords a striking instance of the retaliatory use 
 of the gang on shore. In the course of the disturb- 
 ance mud and stones were thrown at the magistrates, 
 who had come out to do what they could to quell it. 
 Angered by so gross an indignity, they supplied the 
 gang with information that led to the pressing of 
 some sixty persons concerned in the tumult, but as 
 these consisted mainly of " vagrants, gipsies, parish 
 charges, maimed, halt and idiots," the magisterial 
 resentment caused greater rejoicings at Lynn than it 
 did at Spithead, where the sweepings of the borough 
 were eventually deposited.^ 
 
 There is a decided smack of the modern about the 
 use the gang was put to by the journeymen coopers 
 of Bristol. Considering themselves underpaid, they 
 threatened to go on strike unless the masters raised 
 their wages. In this they were not entirely unanimous, 
 however. One of their number stood out, refusing to 
 join the combine ; whereupon the rest summoned the 
 
 * Ad. I. 583 Matthew Gill to Admiral Moorsom, 15 Jan. 1813. 
 
 * Ad. I. 920 Admiral Sir Edward Hawke, 8 June 1755.
 
 THE GANG AT PLAY 251 
 
 gang and had the "blackleg" pressed for his con- 
 tumacy.^ 
 
 In pressing William Taylor of Broadstairs the 
 gang nipped in the bud as tender a romance as ever 
 flourished in the shelter of the Kentish cliffs, which 
 is saying not a little. Taylor was only a poor fisher- 
 man, and when he dared to make love to the pretty 
 daughter of the Ramsgate Harbour-Master, that 
 exalted individual, who entertained for the girl social 
 ambitions in which fishermen's shacks had no place, 
 resented his advances as insufferable impertinence. 
 A word to Lieut. Leary, his friend at the local 
 rendezvous, did the rest. Taylor disappeared, and 
 though he was afterwards discharged from His 
 Majesty's ship Utrecht on the score of his holding a 
 Sea-Fencible's ticket, the remedy had worked its cure 
 and the Harbour-Master was thenceforth free to 
 marry his daughter where he would.^ 
 
 So natural is the transition from love to hate that 
 no apology is needed for introducing here the story 
 of Sam Burrows, the ex-beadle of Chester who fell 
 a victim to the harsher in much the same manner as 
 Taylor did to the gentler passion. Burrows' evil 
 genius was one Rev. Lucius Carey, an Irish clergy- 
 man whether Anglican or Roman we know not, nor 
 does it matter who had contracted the unclerical 
 habit of carrying pistols and too much liquor. In this 
 condition he was found late one night knocking in a 
 very violent manner at the door of the "Pied Bull," 
 and swearing that, while none should keep him out, 
 any who refused to assist him in breaking in should 
 
 * Ad. I. 1542 Capt. Barker, 20 Aug. 1808, and enclosure. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1450 Capt. Austen, 23 Sept. 1803.
 
 252 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 be shot down forthwith. Burrows, the ex-beadle, 
 happened to be passing at the moment. He seized 
 the drunken cleric and with the assistance of James 
 Howell, one of the city watchmen, forcibly removed 
 him to the watch-house, whence he was next day 
 taken before the mayor and bound over to appear 
 at the Sessions. Now it happened that certain 
 members of the local press-gang were Carey's boon 
 companions, so no sooner did he leave the presence 
 of the mayor than he looked them up. That same 
 evening Burrows was missing. Carey had found him 
 a "hard bed," otherwise a berth on board a man- 
 o'-war.^ 
 
 In the columns of the Westminster Journal, under 
 date of loth May 1743, we read of a sailor who, 
 dying at Ringsend, was brought to Irish town church- 
 yard, near Dublin, for burial. " When they laid 
 him on the ground," the narrative continues, " the 
 coffin was observed to stir, on which he was taken 
 up, and by giving him some nourishment he came to 
 himself, and is likely to do well." Whether this 
 sailor was ever pressed, either before or after his 
 abortive decease, we are not informed ; but there is 
 on record at least one well-authenticated instance of 
 that calamity overtaking a person who had passed 
 the bourne whence none is supposed to return. 
 
 In the year 1723 a young lad whose name has 
 not been preserved, but who was at the time ap- 
 prentice to a master sailmaker in London, set out 
 from that city to visit his people, living at Sandwich. 
 He appears to have travelled afoot, for, getting a 
 " lift " on the road, he was carried into Deal, where 
 ^ Ad. I. 1532 Capt Birchall, 17 July 1804, and enclosures.
 
 THE GANG AT PLAY 253 
 
 he arrived late at night, and having no money was 
 glad to share a bed with a seafaring man, the boat- 
 swain of an Indiaman then in the Downs. From this 
 circumstance sprang the events which here follow. 
 
 Along in the small hours of the night the lad 
 awoke, and finding the room stuffy and day on the 
 point of breaking, he rose and dressed, purposing to 
 see the town in the cool of the morning. The catch 
 of the door, however, refused to yield under his hand, 
 and while he was endeavouring to undo it the noise 
 he made awakened the boatswain, who told him that 
 if he looked in his breeches pocket he would find a 
 knife there with which he could lift the latch. Acting 
 on this hint, the lad succeeded in opening the door, 
 and thereupon went downstairs in accordance with 
 his original intention. When he returned some half- 
 hour later, as he did for the purpose of restoring the 
 knife, which he had thoughtlessly slipped into his 
 pocket, the bed was empty and the boatswain gone. 
 Of this he thought nothing. The boatswain had 
 talked, he remembered, of going off to his ship at 
 an early hour, in order, as he had said, to call the 
 hands for the washing down of the decks. The lad 
 accordingly left the house and went his way to Sand- 
 wich, where, as already stated, his people lived. 
 
 Meantime the old inn at Deal, and indeed the 
 whole town, was thrown into a state of violent com- 
 motion by a most shocking discovery. Going about 
 their morning duties at the inn, the maids had come 
 to the bed in which the boatswain and the apprentice 
 had slept, and to their horror found it saturated with 
 blood. Drops of blood, together with marks of 
 blood-stained hands afid feet, were further discovered
 
 254 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 on the floor and the door of the chamber, down the 
 stairs, and along the passage leading to the street, 
 whence they could be distinctly traced to the water- 
 side, not so very far away. Imagination, working 
 upon these ghastly survivals of the hours of darkness, 
 quickly reconstructed the crime which it was evident 
 had been committed. The boatswain was known to 
 have had money on him ; but the youth, it was re- 
 called, had begged his bed. It was therefore plain 
 to the meanest understanding that the youth had 
 murdered the boatswain for his money and thrown 
 the body into the sea. 
 
 At once that terrible precursor of judgment to 
 come, the hue and cry was raised, and that night the 
 footsore apprentice lay in Sandwich jail, a more than 
 suspected felon, for his speedy capture had supplied 
 what was taken to be conclusive evidence of his guilt. 
 In his pocket they discovered the boatswain's knife, 
 and both it and the lad's clothing were stained with 
 blood. Asked whose blood it was, and how it came 
 there, he made no answer. Asked was it the boat- 
 swain's knife, he answered, "Yes, it was," and 
 therewith held his peace. In face of such evidence, 
 and such an admission, he stood prejudged. His 
 trial at the Assizes was a mere formality. The jury 
 quickly found him guilty, and sentence of death was 
 passed upon him. 
 
 The day of execution came. Up to this point 
 Fate had set her face steadfastly against our apprentice 
 lad ; but now, in the very hour and article of death, 
 she suddenly relented and smiled upon him. The 
 dislocating "drop" was in those days unknown. 
 When you were hanged, you were hanged from a
 
 THE GANG AT PLAY 255 
 
 cart, which was suddenly whisked from under you, 
 leaving you dangling in mid-air like a kind of death- 
 fruit nearly, but not quite, ready to fall. Much de- 
 pended on the executioner, and that grim functionary 
 was in this case a raw hand, unused to his work, who 
 bungled the job. The knot was ill-adjusted, the rope 
 too long, the convict tall and lank. This last circum- 
 stance was no fault of the executioner's, but it helped. 
 When they turned him off, the lad's feet swept the 
 ground, and his friends, gathering round him like 
 guardian angels, bore him up. Cut down at the end 
 of a tense half-hour, he was hurried away to a 
 surgeon's and there copiously bled. And being young 
 and virile, he revived. 
 
 Trudging to Portsmouth some little time after, 
 with the intention of for ever leaving a country to 
 which he was legally dead, he fell in with one of the 
 numerous press-gangs frequenting that road, and was 
 sent on board a man-o'-war. There, in course of time, 
 he rose to be master's mate, and in that capacity, 
 whilst on the West-India station, was transferred to 
 another ship. On this ship he met the surprise of 
 his life if life can be said to hold further surprises 
 for one who has died and lived again. As he stepped 
 on deck the first person he met was his old bed- 
 fellow, the boatswain. 
 
 The explanation of the amazing series of events 
 which led up to this amazing meeting is very simple. 
 On the evening of that fateful night at Deal the boat- 
 swain, who had been ailing, was let blood. In his 
 sleep the bandage slipped and the wound reopened. 
 Discovering his condition when awakened by the 
 apprentice, he rose and left the house, intending to
 
 256 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 have the wound re-dressed by the barber-surgeon who 
 had inflicted it, with more effect than discretion, some 
 hours earlier. At the very door of the inn, however, 
 he ran into the arms of a press-gang, by whom he 
 was instantly seized and hurried on board ship.^ 
 
 * Watts, Remarkable Events in the History of Man^ 1825.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 WOMEN AND THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 The medieval writer who declared women to be 
 " capable of disturbing the air and exciting tempests " 
 was not indulging a mere quip at the expense of that 
 limited storm area, his own domestic circle. He ex- 
 pressed what in his day, and indeed for long after, 
 was a cardinal article of belief that if you were so 
 ill-advised as to take a woman to sea, she would surely 
 upset the weather and play the mischief with the ship. 
 
 To this ungallant superstition none subscribed 
 more heartily than the sailor, though always, be it 
 understood, with a mental reservation. Unlike many 
 landsmen who held a similar belief, he limited the 
 malign influence of the sex strictly to the high-seas, 
 where, for that reason, he vastly preferred woman's 
 room to her company ; but once he was safe in port, 
 woman in his opinion ceased to be dangerous, and he 
 then vastly preferred her company to her room. 
 
 For her companionship he had neither far to seek 
 nor long to wait. It was a case of 
 
 "Deal, Dover and Harwich, 
 The devil gave his daughter in marriage." 
 
 All naval seaports were full of women, and to pre- 
 vent the supply from running short thoughtful parish 
 officials church-wardens and other well-meaning but 
 17
 
 258 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 sadly misguided people added constantly to the 
 number by consigning to such doubtful reformatories 
 the undesirable females of their respective petty 
 jurisdictions. The practice of admitting women on 
 board the ships of the fleet, too a practice as old 
 as the Navy itself though always forbidden, was 
 universally connived at and tacitly sanctioned. 
 Before the anchor of the returning man-of-war was 
 let go a flotilla of boats surrounded her, deeply laden 
 with pitiful creatures ready to sell themselves for a 
 song and the chance of robbing their sailor lovers. 
 No sooner did the boats lay alongside than the last 
 vestige of Jack's superstitious dread of the malevolent 
 sex went by the board, and discipline with it. Like 
 monkeys the sailors swarmed into the boats, where 
 each selected a mate, redeemed her from the grasping 
 boatman's hands with money or blows according to 
 the state of his finances or temper, and so brought 
 his prize, save the mark ! in triumph to the gangway. 
 It was a point of honour, not to say of policy, with 
 these poor creatures to supply their respective 
 "husbands," as they termed them, with a drop of 
 good-cheer; so at the -gangway they were searched 
 for concealed liquor. This was the only formality 
 observed on such occasions, and as it was enforced 
 in the most perfunctory manner imaginable, there was 
 always plenty of drink going. Decency there was 
 none. The couples passed below and the hell of the 
 besotted broke loose between decks, where the orgies 
 indulged in would have beggared the pen of a Balzac' 
 During the earlier decades of the century these 
 conditions, monstrous though they were, passed 
 
 1 Statement of Certain Immoral Practices, 1822.
 
 Anne Mills. 
 Who served on board the Maidstone in 1740.
 
 WOMEN AND THE PRESS-GANG 259 
 
 almost unchallenged, but as time wore on and their 
 pernicious effects upon the morale of the fleet became 
 more and more appalling, the service produced men 
 who contended strenuously, and in the end success- 
 fully, with a custom that, to say the least of it, did 
 violence to every notion of decency and clean living. 
 In 1746 the ship's company of the Sunderland cox^- 
 plained bitterly because not even their wives were 
 "suffer'd to come aboard to see them."^ It was a 
 sign of the times. By the year '78 the practice had 
 been fined down to a point where, if a wherry with 
 a woman in it were seen hovering in a suspicious 
 manner about a ship of war, the boatman was im- 
 mediately pressed and the woman turned on shore.^ 
 Another twenty years, and the example of such men 
 as Jervis, Nelson and Collingwood laid the evil for 
 good and all. The seamen of the fleet themselves 
 pronounced its requiescat when, drawing up certain 
 "Rules and Orders "for their own guidance during 
 the mutiny of '97, they ordained that " no woman 
 shall be permitted to go on shore from any ship, but 
 as many come in as pleases."^ 
 
 An unforeseen consequence of thus suppressing 
 the sailor's impromptu liaisons was an alarming in- 
 crease in the number of desertions. On shore love 
 laughs at locksmiths ; on shipboard it derided the 
 boatswain's mate. To run and get caught meant at 
 the worst " only a whipping bout," and, the sailor's 
 hide being as tough as his heart was tender, he ran 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1482 Capt. Brett, 22 Feb. 1745-6. 
 * Ad. I. 1498 Capt. Boteler, 18 April 1778. 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 5125 A Detail of the Proceedings on Board the Queen 
 Charlotte in the Year 1797.
 
 260 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 and took the consequences with all a sailor's stoicism. 
 In this respect he was perhaps not singular. The 
 woman in the case so often counts for more than the 
 punishment she brings. 
 
 Few of those who deserted their ships for amatory 
 reasons had the luck viewing the escapade from the 
 sailor's standpoint that attended the schoolmaster 
 of the Princess Louisa. Going ashore at Plymouth to 
 fetch his chest from the London wagon, he succumbed 
 to the blandishments of an itinerant fiddler's wife, 
 whom he chanced to meet in the husband's temporary 
 absence, and was in consequence ** no more heard of." ^ 
 
 Had it always been a case of the travelling 
 woman, the sailor's flight in response to the voice of 
 the charmer would seldom have landed him in the 
 cells or exposed his back to the caress of the ship's 
 cat. Where he was handicapped in his love flights 
 was this. The haunt or home of his seducer was 
 generally known to one or other of his officers, and 
 when this was not the case there were often other 
 women who gladly gave him away. " Captain 
 Barrington, Sir," writes " Nancy of Deptford" to the 
 commander of a man-o'-war in the Thames, "there is 
 a Desarter of yours at the upper water Gate. Lives 
 at the sine of the mantion house. He is an Irishman, 
 gose by the name of Youe (Hugh) MackMullins, and is 
 trying to Ruing a Wido and three Children, for he has 
 Insenuated into the Old Woman's faver so far that she 
 must Sartingly come to poverty, and you by Sarching 
 the Cook's will find what I have related to be true and 
 much oblidge the hole parrish of St. Pickles Deptford."' 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1478 Capt Boys, 5 April 1742. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1495 Capt. Barrington, 22 Oct. 1771, enclosure.
 
 WOMEN AND THE PRESS-GANG 261 
 
 A favourite resort of the amatory tar was that 
 extra-parochial spot known as the Liberty of the 
 Fleet, where the nuptial knot could be tied without 
 the irksome formalities of banns or licence. The fact 
 strongly commended it to the sailor and brought him 
 to the precinct in great numbers. 
 
 " I remember once on a time," says Keith, the 
 notorious Fleet parson, " I was at a public-house at 
 Ratcliffe, which was then full of Sailors and their 
 Girls. There was fiddling, piping, jigging and eat- 
 ing. At length one of the Tars starts up and says : 
 'Damn ye, Jack! I'll be married just now; I will 
 have my partner.' The joke took, and in less than 
 two hours Ten Couples set out for the Flete. They 
 returned in Coaches, five Women in each Coach ; 
 the Tars, some running before, some riding on the 
 Coach Box, and others behind. The Cavalcade 
 being over, the Couples went up into an upper Room, 
 where they concluded the evening with great Jollity. 
 The landlord said it was a common thing, when a 
 Fleet comes in, to have 2 or 3 Hundred Marriages 
 in a week's time among the Sailors."^ 
 
 In the " Press-Gang, or Love in Low Life," a 
 play produced at Covent Garden Theatre in 1755, 
 Trueblue is pressed, not in, but out of the arms of 
 his tearful Nancy. The situation is distressingly 
 typical. The sailor's happiness was the gangsman's 
 opportunity, however Nancy might suffer in conse- 
 quence. 
 
 For the average gangsman was as void of senti- 
 ment as an Admiralty warrant, pressing you with 
 
 * Keith, Observations on the Act for Preventing Clandestine 
 Marriages, 1753.
 
 262 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 equal avidity and absence of feeling whether he 
 caught you returning from a festival or a funeral. 
 To this callosity of nature it was due that William 
 Castle, a foreign denizen of Bristol who had the 
 hardihood to incur the marital tie there, was called 
 upon, as related elsewhere, to serve at sea in the 
 very heyday of his honeymoon. Similarly, if four 
 seamen belonging to the Dmtdee Greenland whaler 
 had not stolen ashore one night at Shields " to see 
 some women," they would probably have gone down 
 to their graves, seawards or landwards, under the 
 pleasing illusion that the ganger was a man of like 
 indulgent passions with themselves. The negation 
 of love, as exemplified in that unsentimental in- 
 dividual, was thus brought home to many a seafaring 
 man, long debarred from the society of the gentler 
 sex, with startling abruptness and force. 
 
 The pitiful case of the " Maidens Pressed," whose 
 names are enrolled in the pages of Camden Hotten,^ 
 is in no way connected with pressing for naval pur- 
 poses. Those unfortunates were not victims of the 
 gangsman's notorious hardness of heart, but of their 
 own misdeeds. Like the female disciples of the 
 " diving hand " stated by Lutterell'' to have been 
 "sent away to follow the army," they were one and 
 all criminals of the Moll Flanders type who "left 
 their country for their country's good " under com- 
 pulsion that differed widely, both in form and pur- 
 pose, from that described in these pages. 
 
 To assert, however, that women were never 
 
 * Hotten, List of Persons of Quality, etc., who Went from England 
 to the American Plantations. 
 
 ' Lutterell, Historical Relation of State Affairs, 12 March 1706.
 
 WOMEN AND THE PRESS-GANG 263 
 
 pressed, in the enigmatic sense of their being taken by 
 the gang for the manning of the fleet, would be to do 
 violence to the truth as we find it in naval and other 
 records. As a matter of fact, the direct contrary was 
 the case, and there were in the kingdom few gangs 
 of which, at one time or another in their career, it 
 could not be said, as Southey said of the gang at 
 Bristol, that " they pressed a woman." 
 
 The incident alluded to will be familiar to all who 
 know the poet as distinguished from the Bard of 
 Avon. It is found in the second " English Eclogue," 
 under the caption of the " Grandmother's Tale," and 
 has to do with the escapade, long famous in the more 
 humorous annals of Southey 's native city, of blear- 
 eyed Moll, a collier's wife, a great, ugly creature 
 whose voice was as gruff as a mastiff's bark, and who 
 wore habitually a man's hat and coat, so that at a 
 few yards' distance you were at a loss to know 
 whether she. was man or woman. 
 
 " There was a merry story told of her. 
 How when the press-gang came to take her husband 
 As they were both in bed, she heard them coming, 
 Drest John up in her nightcap, and herself 
 Put on his clothes and went before the captain." 
 
 A case of pressing on all-fours with this is said 
 to have once occurred at Portsmouth. A number of 
 sailors, alarmed by the rumoured approach of a gang 
 while they were a-fairing, took it into their heads, so 
 the story goes, to effect a partial exchange of clothing 
 with their sweethearts, in the hope that the hasty 
 shifting of garments would deceive the gang and so 
 protect them from the press. It did. In their parti- 
 garb make-up the women looked more sailorly than
 
 264 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 the sailors themselves. The gang consequently 
 pressed them, and there were hilarious scenes at the 
 rendezvous when the fair recruits were "regulated" 
 and the ludicrous mistake brought to light. 
 
 It was not only on shore, however, or on special 
 occasions such as this, that women played the sailor. 
 A naval commander, accounting to the Admiralty for 
 his shortness of complement, attributes it mainly to 
 sickness, partly to desertion, and incidentally to the 
 discharge of one of the ship's company, "who was 
 discovered to be a woman." ^ 
 
 His experience is capped by that of the master of 
 the Edmund and Mary, a vessel engaged in carrying 
 coals to Ipswich. Shrewdly suspecting one of his 
 apprentices, a clever, active lad, to be other than 
 what he seemed, he taxed him with the deception. 
 Taken unawares, the lad burst into womanly tears 
 and confessed himself to be the runaway daughter of 
 a north-country widow. Disgrace had driven her to 
 sea.^ 
 
 These instances are far from being unique, for 
 both in the navy and the mercantile marine the 
 masquerading of women in male attire was a not 
 uncommon occurrence. The incentives to the adop- 
 tion of a mode of life so foreign to all the gentler 
 traditions of the sex were various, though not inade- 
 quate to so surprising a change. Amongst them un- 
 happiness at home, blighted virtue, the secret love of 
 a sailor and an abnormal craving for adventure and 
 the romantic life were perhaps the most common and 
 the most powerful. The question of clothing pre- 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1503 Capt. Bumey, 15 Feb. 1782. 
 * Naval Chronicle, vol. xxx. 1813, p. 184.
 
 WOMEN AND THE PRESS GANG 265 
 
 sented little difficulty. Sailors' slops could be pro- 
 cured almost anywhere, and no questions asked. The 
 effectual concealment of sex was not so easy, and 
 when we consider the necessarily intimate relations 
 subsisting between the members of a ship's crew, the 
 narrowness of their environment, the danger of un- 
 conscious betrayal and the risks of accidental dis- 
 covery, the wonder is that any woman, however 
 masculine in appearance or skilled in the arts of 
 deception, could ever have played so unnatural a 
 part for any length of time without detection. The 
 secret of her success perhaps lay mainly in two assist- 
 ing circumstances. In theory there were no women 
 at sea, and despite his occasional vices the sailor was 
 of all men the most unsophisticated and simple- 
 minded. 
 
 Conspicuous among women who threw the dust of 
 successful deception in the eyes of masters and ship- 
 mates is Mary Anne Talbot. Taking to the sea as a 
 girl in order to " follow the fortunes " of a young 
 naval officer for whom she had conceived a violent 
 but unrequited affection, she was known afloat as John 
 Taylor. In stature tall, angular and singularly lacking 
 in the physical graces so characteristic of the average 
 woman, she passed for years as a true shellback, 
 her sex unsuspected and unquestioned. Accident at 
 length revealed her secret. Wounded in an engage- 
 ment, she was admitted to hospital in consequence of 
 a shattered knee, and under the operating knife the 
 identity of John Taylor merged into that of Mary 
 Anne Talbot.^ 
 
 It is said, perhaps none too kindly or truthfully, 
 
 ^ Times, 4 Nov. 1799.
 
 266 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 that the lady doctor of the present day no sooner sets 
 up in practice than she incontinently marries the 
 medical man around the corner, and in many instances 
 the sailor-girl of former days brought her career on 
 the ocean wave to an equally romantic conclusion. 
 However skilled in the art of navigation she might 
 become, she experienced a constitutional difficulty in 
 steering clear of matrimony. Maybe she steered 
 for it. 
 
 A romance of this description that occasioned no 
 little stir in its day is associated with a name at one 
 time famous in the West- India trade. Through 
 bankruptcy the name suffered eclipse, and the un- 
 fortunate possessor of it retired to a remote neighbour- 
 hood, taking with him his two daughters, his sole 
 remaining family. There he presently sank under his 
 misfortunes. Left alone in the world, with scarce a 
 penny-piece to call their own, the daughters resolved 
 on a daring departure from the conventional paths of 
 poverty. 
 
 Making their way to Portsmouth, they there 
 dressed themselves as sailors and in that capacity 
 entered on board a man-o'-war bound for the West 
 Indies. At the first reduction of Cura9oa, in 1798, 
 as in subsequent naval engagements, both acquitted 
 themselves like men. No suspicion- of the part they 
 were playing, and playing with such success, appears 
 to have been aroused till a year or two later, when one 
 of them, in a brush with the enemy, was wounded 
 in the side. The surgeon's report terminated her 
 career as a seaman. 
 
 Meanwhile the other sister contracted tropical 
 fever, and whilst lying ill was visited by one of the
 
 *"^ 
 
 Makv Anne Tai.i.ot.
 
 WOMEN AND THE PRESS-GANG 267 
 
 junior officers of the ship. Believing herself to be 
 dying, she told him her secret, doubtless with a view- 
 to averting its discovery after death. He confessed that 
 the news was no surprise to him. In fact, not only 
 had he suspected her sex, he had so far persuaded him- 
 self of the truth of his suspicions as to fall in love with 
 one of his own crew. The tonic effect of such avowals 
 is well known. The fever-stricken patient recovered, 
 and on the return of the ship to home waters the 
 officer in question made his late foremast hand his 
 wife.^ 
 
 Of all the veracious yarns that are told of girl- 
 sailors, there is perhaps none more remarkable than 
 the story of Rebecca Anne Johnson, the girl-sailor of 
 Whitby. One night a hundred and some odd years 
 ago a Mrs. Lesley, who kept the " Bull" inn in Half- 
 moon Alley, Bishopsgate Street, found at her door 
 a handsome sailor-lad begging for food. He had 
 eaten nothing for four and twenty hours, he declared, 
 and when plied with supper and questions by the 
 kind-hearted but inquisitive old lady, he explained that 
 he was an apprentice to the sea, and had run from his 
 ship at Woolwich because of the mate's unduly basting 
 him with a rope's-end. "What! you a 'prentice?" 
 cried the landlady ; and turning his face to the light, 
 she subjected him to a scrutiny that read him through 
 and through. 
 
 Next day, at his own request, he was taken before 
 the Lord Mayor, to whom he told his story. That he 
 was a girl he freely admitted, and he accounted for 
 his appearing in sailor rig by asserting that a brutal 
 father had apprenticed him to the sea in his thirteenth 
 
 ^ Naval Chronicle, vol. viii. 1802, p. 60.
 
 268 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 year. More astounding still, the same unnatural 
 parent had actually bound her, the sailor-girl's, mother, 
 apprentice to the sea, and in that capacity she was not 
 only pressed into the navy, but killed at the battle 
 of Copenhagen, up to which time, though she had 
 followed the sea for many years and borne this child 
 in the meantime, her sex had never once been called 
 in question.^ 
 
 While woman was thus invading man's province 
 at sea, that universal feeder of the Navy, the press- 
 gang, made little or no appeal to her as a sphere of 
 activity. On Portland Island, it is true, Lieut. 
 M'Key, who commanded both the Sea-Fencibles and 
 the press-gang there, rated his daughter as a midship- 
 man ; * but with this exception no woman is known to 
 have added the hanger to her adornment. The three 
 merry maids of Taunton, who as gangsmen put the 
 Denny Bowl quarrymen to rout, were of course 
 impostors. 
 
 But if the ganger's life was not for woman, there 
 was ample compensation for its loss in the wider 
 activities the gang opened up for her. The gangs- 
 man was nothing if not practical. He took the poetic 
 dictum that " men must work and women must weep " 
 a conception in his opinion too sentimentally one- 
 sided to be tolerated as one of the eternal verities of 
 human existence and improved upon it. By virtue 
 of the rough-and-ready authority vested in him he 
 abolished the distinction between toil and tears, 
 decreeing instead that women should suffer both. 
 
 ^ Naval Chronicle^ vol. xx. 1808, p. 293. 
 
 * Ad. I. 581 Admiral Berkeley, Report on Rendezvous, 15 April 
 1806.
 
 WOMEN AND THE PRESS-GANG 269 
 
 " M'Gugan's wife?" growled Capt. Brenton, gang- 
 master at Greenock, when the corporation of that 
 town ventured to point out to him that M'Gugan's 
 wife and children must inevitably come to want unless 
 their bread-winner, recently pressed, were forthwith 
 restored to them, '' M'Gugans wife is as able to get 
 her bread as any woman in the town ! " ^ 
 
 For two hundred and fifty years, off and on ever 
 since, in fact, the press-masters of bluff King Hal 
 denuded the Dorset coast of fishermen and drove the 
 starving women of that region to sea in quest of 
 food ^ the press-gang had been laboriously teaching 
 English housewives this very lesson, the simple 
 economic truth that if they wanted bread for them- 
 selves and their families while their husbands were 
 fagging for their country at sea, they must turn to 
 and work for it. Yet in face of this fact here was 
 M'Gugan's wife trying to shirk the common lot. It 
 was monstrous ! 
 
 M'Gugan's wife ought really to have known better. 
 The simplest calculation, had she cared to make it, 
 would have shown her the utter futility of hoping to 
 live on the munificent wage which a grateful country 
 allowed to M'Gugan, less certain deductions for 
 M'Gugan's slops and contingent sick-benefit, in return 
 for his aid in protecting it from its enemies ; and 
 almost any parish official could have told her, what 
 she ought in reason to have known already, that she 
 was no longer merely M'Gugan's wife, dependent 
 upon his exertions for the bread she ate, but a 
 
 * Ad. I. 151 1 Capt. Brenton, 15 Jan. 1795. 
 
 ' State Papers Domestic, Henry viii. : Lord Russell to the Privy 
 Council, 22 Aug, 1545.
 
 270 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 Daughter of the State and own sister to thousands 
 of women to whom the gang in its passage brought 
 toil and poverty, tears and shame not, mark you, 
 the shame of labour, if there be such a thing, but the 
 bedraggled, gin-sodden shame of the street, or, in the 
 scarce less dreadful alternative, the shame of the 
 goodwife of the ballad who lamented her husband's 
 absence because, worse luck, sundry of her bairns 
 "were gotten quhan he was awa'." 
 
 Lamentable as this state of things undoubtedly 
 was, it was nevertheless one of the inevitables of 
 pressing. You could not take forcibly one hundred 
 husbands and fathers out of a community of five 
 hundred souls, and pay that hundred husbands and 
 fathers the barest pittance instead of a living wage, 
 without condemning one hundred wives and mothers 
 to hard labour on behalf of the three hundred children 
 who hungered. Out of this hundred wives and 
 mothers a certain percentage, again, lacked the ability 
 to work, while a certain other percentage lacked the 
 will. These recruited the ranks of the outcast, or 
 with their families burdened the parish.^ The direct 
 social and economic outcome of this mode of manning 
 the Navy, coupled with the payment of a starvation 
 wage, was thus threefold. It reversed the natural 
 sex-incidence of labour ; it fostered vice ; it bred 
 paupers. The first was a calamity personal to those 
 who suffered it. The other two were national in their 
 calamitous effects. 
 
 In that great diurnal of the eighteenth-century 
 
 * Ad. I. 5125 Memorial of the Churchwardens and Overseers of 
 the Poor of the Parish of Portsmouth, 3 Dec 1793, and numerous 
 instances.
 
 WOMEN AND THE PRESS-GANG 271 
 
 navy, the Captains' Letters and Admirals' Dispatches, 
 no volume can be opened without striking the broad 
 trail of destitution, misery and heart-break, to mention 
 no worse consequences, left by the gang. At nearly 
 every turn of the page, indeed, we come upon recitals 
 or petitions recalling vividly the exclamation in- 
 voluntarily let fall by Pepys the tender-hearted when, 
 standing over against the Tower late one summer's 
 night, he watched by moonlight the pressed men sent 
 away : " Lord! how some poor women did cry." 
 
 A hundred years later and their heritors in sorrow 
 are crying still. Now ifc is a bed-ridden mother 
 bewailing her only son, "the principal prop and stay 
 of her old age " ; again a wife, left destitute " with 
 three hopeful babes, and pregnant." And here, bring- 
 ing up the rear of the sad procession lending to it, 
 moreover, a touch of humour in itself not far removed 
 from tears comes Lachlan M 'Quarry. The gang 
 have him, and amid the Stirling hills, where he was 
 late an indweller, a motley gathering of kinsfolk 
 mourn his loss " me, his wife, two Small helpless 
 Children, an Aged Mother who is Blind, an Aged 
 Man who is lame and unfit for work, his father in 
 Law, and a sister Insane, with his Mother in Law who 
 is Infirm."^ The fact is attested by the minister and 
 elders of the parish, being otherwise unbelievable ; and 
 Lachlan is doubtless proportionately grieved to find 
 himself at sea. Men whose wives "divorced" them 
 through the medium of the gang a not uncommon 
 practice experienced a similar grief. 
 
 Besides the regular employment it so generously 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1454 The Humble Petition of Jullions Thomson, Spouse to 
 Lachlan M 'Quarry, 2 May 18 12.
 
 272 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 provided for wives bereft of their lawful support, the 
 press-gang found for the women of the land many an 
 odd job that bore no direct relation to the earning of 
 their bread. When the mob demolished the Whitby 
 rendezvous in '93, it was the industrious fishwives ot 
 the town who collected the stones used as ammunition 
 on that occasion ; and when, again, Lieiit. M'Kenzie 
 unwisely impressed an able seaman in the house of 
 Joseph Hook, inn-keeper at Pill, it was none other 
 than " Mrs. Hook, her daughter and female servant" 
 who fell upon him and tore his uniform in shreds, thus 
 facilitating the pressed man's escape "through a back 
 way."* 
 
 The good people of Sunderland at one time 
 indulged themselves in the use of a peculiar catch- 
 phrase. Whenever any feat of more than ordinary 
 daring came under their observation, they spoke of it 
 as " a case of Dryden's sister." The saying originated 
 in this way. The Sunderland gang pressed the mate 
 of a vessel, one Michael Dryden, and confined him 
 in the tender's hold. One night Dryden's sister, 
 having in vain bribed the lieutenant in command to 
 let him go, at the risk of her life smuggled some 
 carpenter's tools on board under the very muzzles of 
 the sentinel's muskets, and with these her brother and 
 fifteen other men cut their way to freedom.' 
 
 A tender lying in King Road, at the entrance to 
 Bristol River, was the scene of another episode of 
 the " Dryden's sister " type. Going ashore one morn- 
 ing, the lieutenant in command fell from the bank and 
 broke his sword. It was an ill omen, for in his 
 
 * Ad. I. 1534 Lieut. M'Kenzie, 20 Oct. 1805. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 2740 Lieut. Atkinson, 24 June and 10 July 1798.
 
 WOMEN AND THE PRESS-GANG 273 
 
 absence the hard fate of the twenty pressed men who 
 lay in the tender's hold, "all handcuft to each other," 
 made an irresistible appeal to two women, pressed 
 men's wives, who had been with singular lack of 
 caution admitted on board. Whilst the younger and 
 prettier of the two cajoled the sentinel from his post, 
 the elder and uglier secured an axe and a hatchet and 
 passed them unobserved through the scuttle to the 
 prisoners below, who on their part made such good 
 use of them that when at length the lieutenant 
 returned he found the cage empty and the birds 
 flown. The shackles strewing the press-room bore 
 eloquent testimony to the manner of their flight. The 
 irons had been hacked asunder, some of them with as 
 many as "six or seven Cutts."^ 
 
 Never, surely, did the gang provide an odder job 
 for any woman than the one it threw in the way of 
 Richard Parker's wife. The story of his part in the 
 historic mutiny at the Nore is common knowledge. 
 Her's, being less familiar, will bear retelling. But 
 first certain incidents in the life of the man himself, 
 some of them hitherto unknown, call for brief 
 narration. 
 
 Born at Exeter in or about the year 1764, it is not 
 till some nineteen years later, or, to be precise, the 5 th 
 of May 1783, that Richard Parker makes his debut 
 in naval records. On that date he appears on board 
 the Mediator tender at Plymouth, in the capacity of 
 a pressed man.^ 
 
 The tender carried him to London, where in due 
 
 * Ad. I. 1490 Capt. Brown, 12 May 1759. 
 
 2 Ad. Ships' Musters, i. 9307 Muster Book of H.M. Tender the 
 Mediator. 
 18
 
 274 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 course he was delivered up to the regulating officers, 
 and by them turned over to the Ganges, Captain the 
 Honourable James Lutterell. This was prior to the 
 30th of June 1 783, the date of his official " appearance " 
 on board that ship. On the Ganges he served as a 
 midshipman a noteworthy fact * till the 4th of 
 September following, when he was discharged to the 
 Bull-Dog sloop by order of Admiral Montagu.* 
 
 His transfer from the -5//-Z?^^ banished him from 
 the quarter-deck and sowed within him the seeds of 
 that discontent which fourteen years later made of 
 him, as he himself expressed it, "a scape-goat for the 
 sins of many."* He was now, for what reason we do 
 not learn, rated as an ordinary seaman, and in that 
 capacity he served till the 15th of June 1784, when he 
 was discharged sick to Haslar Hospital.* 
 
 At this point we lose track of him for a matter of 
 
 * Though one of rare occurrence, Parker's case was not altogether 
 unique ; for now and then a pressed man by some lucky chance " got 
 his foot on the ladder," as Nelson put it, and succeeded in bettering 
 himself. Admiral Sir David Mitchell, pressed as the master of a 
 merchantman, is a notable example. Admiral Campbell, " Hawke's 
 right hand at Quiberon," who entered the service as a substitute for a 
 pressed man, is another ; and James Clephen, pressed as a sea-going 
 apprentice, became master's-mate of the Dons, and taking part in 
 the cutting out of the Chevrette, a corvette of twenty guns, from Cameret 
 Bay, in 1801, was for his gallantry on that occasion made a lieutenant, 
 fought at Trafalgar and died a captain. On the other hand, John 
 Norris, pressed at Gallions Reach out of a collier and "ordered to walk 
 the quarter-deck as a midshipman," proved such a " laisie, sculking, idle 
 fellow," and so " filled the sloop and men with vermin," that his promoter 
 had serious thoughts of "turning him ashore." Ad. i. 1477 Capt. 
 Bruce, undated letter, 1741. 
 
 * Ad. Ships' Musters, i. 10614 Muster Book of H.M.S. Ganges. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 5339 Dying Declaration of the Late Unfortunate Richard 
 Parker, 28 June 1797. 
 
 * Ad. Ships' Musters, i. 10420, 10421 Muster Books of H.M. Sloop 
 Bull-Dog.
 
 WOMEN AND THE PRESS-GANG 275 
 
 nearly fourteen years, but on the 31st of March 
 1797, the year which brought his period of service 
 to so tragic a conclusion, he suddenly reappears at 
 the Leith rendezvous as a Quota Man for the county 
 of Perth. Questioned as to his past, he told Brenton, 
 then in charge of that rendezvous, "that he had been 
 a petty officer or acting lieutenant on board the 
 Mediator, Capt. James Lutterell, at the taking of five 
 prizes in 1783, when he received a very large pro- 
 portion of prize-money."^ The inaccuracies evident 
 on the face of this statement are unquestionably due 
 to Brenton's defective recollection rather than to 
 Parker's untruthfulness. Brenton wrote his report 
 nearly two and a half months after the event. 
 
 After a period of detention on board the tender 
 at Leith, Parker, in company with other Quota and 
 pressed men, was conveyed to the Nore in one of the 
 revenue vessels occasionally utilised for that purpose, 
 and there put on board the Sandwich^ the flag-ship 
 for that division of the fleet. At half-past nine on 
 the morning of the 12th of May, upon the 2nd 
 lieutenant's giving orders to "clear hawse," the ship's 
 company got on the booms and gave three cheers, 
 which were at once answered from the Director. 
 They then reeved yard-ropes as a menace to those 
 of the crew who would not join them, and trained the 
 forecastle guns on the quarter-deck as a hint to the 
 officers. The latter were presently put on shore, and 
 that same day the mutineers unanimously chose 
 Parker to be their " President " or leader.^ The fact 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1 517 Capt. Brenton, lo June 1797. 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 5339 Court - Martial on Richard Parker: Deposition of 
 Lieut. Justice.
 
 276 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 that he had been pressed in the first instance, and 
 that after having served for a time in the capacity of 
 a "quarter-deck young gentleman" he had been 
 unceremoniously derated, singled him out for this 
 distinction. There was amongst the mutineers, 
 moreover, no other so eligible ; for whatever Parker's 
 faults, he was unquestionably a man of superior 
 ability and far from inferior attainments. 
 
 The reeving of yard-ropes was his idea, though 
 he disclaimed it. An extraordinary mixture of 
 tenderness and savagery, he wept when it was 
 proposed to fire upon a runaway ship, the Repulse^ 
 but the next moment drove a crowbar into the muzzle 
 of the already heavily shotted gun and bade the 
 gunner " send her to hell where she belonged." " I'll 
 make a beefsteak of you at the yard-arm " was his 
 favourite threat.^ It was prophetic, for that way, as 
 events quickly proved, lay the finish of his own 
 career. 
 
 At nine o'clock on the morning of the 30th of 
 June Parker, convicted and sentenced to death after 
 a fair trial, stood on the scaffold awaiting his now 
 imminent end. The halter, greased to facilitate his 
 passing, was already about his neck, and in one of 
 his hands, which had been freed at his own request, 
 he held a handkerchief borrowed for the occasion 
 from one of the officers of the ship. This he 
 suddenly dropped. It was the preconcerted signal, 
 and as the fatal gun boomed out in response to it he 
 
 "* Ad. I. 5339 Court - Martial on Richard Parker: Depositions of 
 Capt. John Wood, of H.M. Sloop Hound, William Livingston, boat- 
 swain of the Director, and Thomas Barry, seaman on board the 
 Monmouth.
 
 WOMEN AND THE PRESS-GANG 277 
 
 thrust his hands into his pockets with great rapidity 
 and jumped into mid-air, meeting his death without 
 a tremor and with scarce a convulsion. Thanks to 
 the clearness of the atmosphere and the facility with 
 which the semaphores did their work that morning, 
 the Admiralty learnt the news within seven minutes/ 
 
 Now comes the woman's part in the drama on 
 which the curtain rose with the pressing of Parker in 
 'S^, and fell, not with his execution at the yard-arm 
 of the Sandwich, as one would suppose, but four days 
 after that event. 
 
 In one of his spells of idleness ashore Parker had 
 married a Scotch girl, the daughter of an Aberdeen- 
 shire farmer a tragic figure of a woman whose fate 
 it was to be always too late. Hearing that her 
 husband had taken the bounty, she set out with all 
 speed for Leith, only to learn, upon her arrival there, 
 that he was already on his way to the fleet. At 
 Leith she tarried till rumours of his pending trial 
 reached the north country. The magistrates would 
 then have put her under arrest, designing to examine 
 her, but the Admiralty, to whom Brenton reported 
 their intention, vetoed the proceeding as superfluous. 
 The case against Parker was already complete.^ 
 Left free to follow the dictates of her tortured heart, 
 the distracted woman posted south. 
 
 Eating his last breakfast in the gun-room of the 
 Sandwich, Parker talked affectionately of his wife, 
 saying that he had made his will and left her a small 
 estate he was heir to. Little did he dream that she 
 was then within a few miles of him. 
 
 ^ Trial and Life of Richard Parker, Manchester, 1797. 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1517 Capt. Brenton, 15 June 1797, and ndorsement.
 
 278 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 The Sandwich lay that morning above Black- 
 stakes, the headmost ship of the fleet, and at the 
 moment when Parker leapt from her cathead scaffold 
 a boat containing his wife shot out into the stream. 
 He was run up to the yard-arm before her very eyes. 
 She was again too late. 
 
 He hung there for an hour. Meantime, with a 
 tenacity of purpose as touching as her devotion, the 
 unhappy woman applied to the Admiral for the body 
 of her husband. She was denied, and Parker's 
 remains were committed to the new naval burial 
 ground, beyond the Red- Barrier Gate leading to 
 Minster. The burial took place at noon. By night- 
 fall the grief-stricken woman had come to an amazing 
 resolution. She would steal the body. 
 
 Ten o'clock that night found her at the place of 
 interment. Save for the presence of the sentinel at 
 the adjoining Barrier Gate, the loneliness of the spot 
 favoured her design, but a ten-foot palisade sur- 
 rounded the grounds, and she had neither tools nor 
 helpers. Unexpectedly three women came that way. 
 To them she disclosed her purpose, praying them for 
 the love of God to help her. Perhaps they were 
 sailors' wives. Anyhow, they assented, and the four 
 body-snatchers scaled the fence. 
 
 The absence of tools, as it happened, presented 
 no serious impediment to the execution of their 
 design. The grave was a shallow one, the freshly 
 turned mould loose and friable. Digging with their 
 hands, they soon uncovered the coffin, which they 
 then contrived to raise and hoist over the cemetery 
 gates into the roadway, where they sat upon it to 
 conceal it from chance passers-by till four o'clock in
 
 Mary Anne Talbot. 
 Dressed as a sailor.
 
 WOMEN AND THE PRESS-GANG 279 
 
 the morning. It was then dayHght. The neigh- 
 bouring drawbridge was let down, and, a fish-cart 
 opportunely passing on its way to Rochester, the 
 driver was prevailed upon to carry the "lady's box" 
 into that town. A guinea served to allay his 
 suspicions. 
 
 Three days later a caravan drew up before the 
 "Hoop and Horseshoe" tavern, in Queen Street, 
 Little Tower Hill. A woman alighted furtively, 
 for it was now broad daylight, whereas she had 
 planned to arrive while it was still dark. A watch- 
 man chanced to pass at the moment, and the woman's 
 strange behaviour aroused his suspicions. Pulling 
 aside the covering of the van, he looked in and saw 
 there the rough coffin containing the body of Parker, 
 which the driver of the caravan had carried up from 
 Rochester for the sum of six guineas. Later in the 
 day the magistrates sitting at Lambeth Street Police 
 Court ordered its removal, and it was deposited in 
 the vaults of Whitechapel church.^ 
 
 Full confirmation of this extraordinary story, 
 should any doubt it, may be found in the registers 
 of the church in question. Amongst the burials 
 there we read this entry: '' ^ July, //p/, Richard 
 Parker, Skeerness, Kent, age jj. Cause of death, 
 execution. This was Parker, the President of the 
 Mutinous Delegates on board the fleet at the Nore. 
 He was hanged on board H.M.S. Sandwich on the 
 30th day of June r^ 
 
 * Trial and Life of Richard Parker, Manchester, 1797. 
 
 ' Burial Registers of St. Mary Matfellon, Whitechapel, 1797.
 
 CH APTE R XI ( 
 
 IN THE CLUTCH OF THE GANG 
 
 Once the gang had a man in its power, his immediate 
 destination was either the rendezvous press-room or 
 the tender employed as a substitute for that indis- 
 pensable place of detention. 
 
 The press-room, lock-up or "shut-up house," as it 
 was variously termed, must not be confounded with 
 the press-room at Newgate, where persons indicted 
 for felony, and perversely refusing to plead, were 
 pressed beneath weights till they complied with that 
 necessary legal formality. From that historic cell the 
 rendezvous press-room differed widely, both in nature 
 and in use. Here the pressed men were confined 
 pending their dispatch to His Majesty's ships. As a 
 matter of course the place was strongly built, heavily 
 barred and massively bolted, being in these respects 
 merely a commonplace replica of the average bride- 
 well. Where it differed from the bridewell was in its 
 walls. Theoretically these were elastic. No matter 
 how many they held, there was always room within 
 them for more. As late as 1806 the press-room at 
 Bristol consisted of a cell only eight feet square, and into 
 this confined space sixteen men were frequently packed.^ 
 
 * Ad. I. 581 Admiral Berkeley, Report on Rendezvous, 14 March 
 
 1806. 
 
 980
 
 IN THE CLUTCH OF THE GANG 281 
 
 Nearly everywhere it was the same gruesome 
 story. The sufferings of the pressed man went for 
 nothing so long as the pressed man was kept. 
 Provided only the bars were dependable and the 
 bolts staunch, anything would do to " clap him up in." 
 The town " cage " came in handy for the purpose ; and 
 when no other means of securing him could be found, 
 he was thrust into the local prison like a common 
 felon, often amidst surroundings unspeakably awful. 
 
 According to the elder Wesley, no " seat of woe " 
 on this side of the Bottomless Pit outrivalled Newgate 
 except one.^ The exception was Bristol jail. A 
 filthy, evil-smelling hole, crowded with distempered 
 prisoners without medical care, it was deservedly 
 held in such dread as to "make all seamen fly the 
 river " for fear of being pressed and committed to it. 
 For when the eight-foot cell at the rendezvous would 
 hold no more, Bristol pressed men were turned in 
 here to come out, if they survived the pestilential 
 atmosphere of the place, either fever-stricken or 
 pitiful, vermin-covered objects from whom even the 
 hardened gangsman shrank with fear and loathing.* 
 Putting humane considerations entirely aside, it is well- 
 nigh inconceivable that so costly an asset as the 
 pressed man should ever have been exposed to such 
 sanitary risks. The explanation doubtless lies in the 
 enormous amount of pressing that was done. The 
 number of men taken was in the aggregate so great 
 that a life more or less was hardly worth considering. 
 
 Of ancient use as a county jail, Gloucester 
 Castle stood far higher in the pressed man's esteem 
 
 ^ London Chronicle, 6 Jan. 1761. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 1490 Capt. Brown, 4 Aug. 1759.
 
 282 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 as a place of detention than did its sister prison 
 on the Avon. The reason is noteworthy. Richard 
 Evans, for many years keeper there, possessed a 
 magic palm. Rub it with silver in sufficient quantity, 
 and the "street door of the gaol " opened before you 
 at noonday, or, when at night all was as quite as the 
 keeper's conscience, a plank vanished from the roof 
 of your cell, and as you stood lost in wonder at its 
 disappearance there came snaking down through the 
 hole thus providentially formed a rope by the aid of 
 which, if you were a sailor or possessed of a sailor's 
 agility and daring, it was feasible to make your escape 
 over the ramparts of the castle, though they towered 
 " most as high as the Monument." ^ 
 
 In the absence of the gang on road or other 
 extraneous duty the precautions taken for the safety 
 of pressed men were often very inadequate, and this 
 circumstance gave rise to many an impromptu rescue. 
 Sometimes the local constable was commandeered as 
 a temporary guard, and a story is told of how, the 
 gang having once locked three pressed men into the 
 cage at Isleworth and stationed the borough watch- 
 man over them, one Thomas Purser raised a mob, 
 demolished the door of the cage, and set its delighted 
 occupants free amid frenzied shouts of : *' Pay away 
 within, my lads ! and we'll pay away without. Damn 
 the constable ! He has no warrant."' 
 
 In strict accordance with the regulations governing, 
 or supposed to govern, the keeping of rendezvous, 
 the duration of the pressed man's confinement ought 
 never to have exceeded four-and-twenty hours from 
 
 * Ad. I. 1490 Capt. Brown, 28 April and 26 May 1759. 
 
 Ad. 7, 298 Law Officers' Opinions, 1733-56, No. 99.
 
 IN THE CLUTCH OF THE GANG 283 
 
 the time of his capture ; but as a matter of fact it 
 often extended far beyond that limit. Everything 
 depended on the gang. If men were brought in 
 quickly, they were as quickly got rid of; but when 
 they dribbled in in one's and two's, with perhaps 
 intervals of days when nothing at all was doing, 
 weeks sometimes elapsed before a batch of suitable 
 size could be made ready and started on its journey 
 to the ships. 
 
 All this time the pressed man had to be fed, or, 
 as they said in the service, subsisted or victualled, 
 and for this purpose a sum varying from sixpence to 
 ninepence a day, according to the cost of provisions, 
 was allowed him. On this generous basis he was 
 nourished for a hundred years or more, till one day 
 early in the nineteenth century some half-score of 
 gaunt, hungry wretches, cooped up for eight weary 
 weeks in an East-coast press-room during the rigours 
 of a severe winter, made the startling discovery that 
 the time-honoured allowance was insufficient to keep 
 soul and body together. They accordingly addressed 
 a petition to the Admiralty, setting forth the cause 
 and nature of their sufferings, and asking for a 
 " rise." A dozen years earlier the petition would 
 have been tossed aside as insolent and unworthy of 
 consideration ; but the sharp lesson of the Nore 
 mutiny happened to be still fresh in their Lordships' 
 memories, so with unprecedented generosity and 
 haste they at once augmented the allowance, and that 
 too for the whole kingdom, to fifteen-pence a day.^ 
 
 It was a red-letter day for the pressed man. A 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1546 Petition of the Pressed Men at King's Lynn, 27 Jan. 
 1809, and endorsement.
 
 284 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 single stroke of the official pen had raised him from 
 starvation to opulence, and thenceforward, when 
 food was cheap and the purchasing power of the 
 penny high, he regaled himself daily, as at Limerick 
 in 1 8 14, on such abundant fare as a pound of beef, 
 seven and a half pounds of potatoes, a pint of milk, 
 a quart of porter, a boiling of greens and a mess of 
 oatmeal ; or, if he happened to be a Catholic, on fish 
 and butter twice a week instead of beef. The quantity 
 of potatoes is worthy of remark. It was peculiar to 
 Ireland, where the lower classes never used bread. ^ 
 
 Though faring thus sumptuously at his country's 
 expense, the pressed man did not always pass the 
 days of his detention in unprofitable idleness. There 
 were certain eventualities to be thought of and 
 provided against. Sooner or later he must go before 
 the "gent with the swabs" and be "regulated," that 
 is to say, stripped to the waist, or further if that 
 exacting officer deemed it advisable, and be critically 
 examined for physical ailments and bodily defects. 
 In this examination the local "saw-bones" would 
 doubtless lend a hand, and to outwit the combined 
 skill of both captain and surgeon was a point of 
 honour with the pressed man if by any possibility it 
 could be done. With this laudable end in view he 
 devoted much of his enforced leisure to the rehearsal 
 of such symptoms and the fabrication of such defects 
 as were best calculated to make him a free man. 
 
 For the sailor to deny his vocation was worse 
 than useless. The ganger's shrewd code " All as 
 says they be land-lubbers when I says they baint, be 
 liars, and all liars be seamen " effectually shut that 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1455 Capt. Argles, i March 1814.
 
 IN THE CLUTCH OF THE GANG 285 
 
 door in his face. There were other openings, it is 
 true, whereby a knowing chap might wriggle free, 
 but officers and medicoes were extremely " fly." He 
 had not practised his many deceptions upon them 
 through long years for nothing. They well knew 
 that on principle he *' endeavoured by every stratagem 
 in his power to impose " that he was, in short, a 
 cunning cheat whose most serious ailments were to be 
 regarded with the least sympathy and the utmost 
 suspicion. Yet in spite of this disquieting fact the old 
 hand, whom long practice had made an adept at 
 deception, and who, when he was so inclined, could 
 simulate " complaints of a nature to baffle the skill of 
 any professional man,"^ rarely if ever faced the ordeal 
 of regulating without "trying it on." Often, indeed, 
 he anticipated it. There was nothing like keeping 
 his hand in. 
 
 Fits were his great stand-by,^ and the time he 
 chose for these convulsive turns was generally night, 
 when he could count upon a full house and nothing 
 to detract from the impressiveness of the show. 
 Suddenly, at night, then, a weird, horribly inarticu- 
 late cry is heard issuing from the press-room, and at 
 once all is uproar and confusion. Unable to make 
 himself heard, much less to restore order, and fearing 
 that murder is being done amongst the pressed men, 
 the sentry hastily summons the officer, who rushes 
 down, half-dressed, and hails the press-room. 
 " Hullo ! within there. What's wrong? " 
 Swift silence. Then, "Man in a fit, sir," replies 
 a quavering voice. 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1540 Capt. Barker, 5 Nov. 1807, 
 
 * Ad. I. 1534 Capt. Barker, 11 Jan. 1805, and many instances.
 
 286 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 Out with him ! " cries the officer. 
 
 Immediately, the door being hurriedly unbarred, 
 the *' case " is handed out by his terrified companions, 
 who are only too glad to be rid of him. To all 
 appearances he is in a true epileptic state. In the 
 light of the lantern, held conveniently near by one of 
 the gangsmen, who have by this time turned out in 
 various stages of undress, his features are seen to be 
 strongly convulsed. His breathing is laboured and 
 noisy, his head rolls incessantly from side to side. 
 Foam tinged with blood oozes from between his 
 gnashing teeth, flecking his lips and beard, and when 
 his limbs are raised they fall back as rigid as 
 iron.^ 
 
 After surveying him critically for a moment the 
 officer, if he too is an old hand, quietly removes the 
 candle from the lantern and with a deft turn of his 
 wrist tips the boiling-hot contents of the tallow cup 
 surrounding the flaming wick out upon the bare arm 
 or exposed chest of the "case." When the fit was 
 genuine, as of course it sometimes was, the test had 
 no particular reviving effect ; but if the man were 
 shamming, as he probably was in spite of the great 
 consistency of his symptoms, the chances were that, 
 with all his nerve and foreknowledge of what was in 
 store for him, the sudden biting of the fiery liquid 
 into his naked flesh would bring him to his feet dancing 
 with pain and cursing and banning to the utmost 
 extent of his elastic vocabulary. 
 
 ^ Almost the only symptom of le grand wa/ which the sailor could 
 not successfully counterfeit was the abnormal dilation of the pupils so 
 characteristic of that complaint, and this difficulty he overcame by 
 rolling his eyes up till the pupils were invisible.
 
 IN THE CLUTCH OF THE GANG 287 
 
 When this happened, " Put him back," said the 
 officer. " He'll do, alow or aloft." 
 
 Going aloft at sea was the true epileptic's chief 
 dread. And with good reason, for sooner or later 
 it meant a fall, and death. 
 
 In the meantime other enterprising members of 
 the press-room community made ready for the scru- 
 tiny of the official eye in various ways, practising 
 many devices for procuring a temporary disability and 
 a permanent discharge. Some, horrible thought ! 
 "rubbed themselves with Cow Itch and Whipped 
 themselves with Nettles to appear in Scabbs " ; 
 others "burnt themselves with oil of vitriol" to 
 induce symptoms with difficulty distinguishable from 
 those of scurvy, that disease of such dread omen to 
 the fleet ; whilst others emulated the passing of the 
 poor consumptive of the canting epitaph, whose 
 "legs it was that carried her off." Bad legs, indeed, 
 ran a close race with fits in the pressed man's sprint 
 for liberty. They were so easily induced, and so 
 cheaply. The industrious application of the smallest 
 copper coin procurable, the humble farthing or the 
 halfpenny, speedily converted the most insignificant 
 abrasion of the skin into a festering sore,^ 
 
 Here and there a man of iron nerve, acting on 
 the common belief that if you had lost a finger the 
 Navy would have none of you, adopted a more 
 heroic method of shaking off the clutch of the gang. 
 Such a man was Samuel Caradine, some time in- 
 
 * Ad. I. 1439 Capt. Ambrose, 20 June 1741 ; Ad. i, 1544 Capt. 
 Bowyer, 18 Dec. 1808 ; Ad. i. 1451 A. Clarke, Examining Surgeon 
 at Dublin, 18 May 1807 ; Ad. i. 1517 Letters of Capt. Brenton, March 
 and April 1797, and many instances.
 
 288 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 habitant of Kendal. Committed to the House of 
 Correction there as a preliminary to his being turned 
 over to the fleet for crimes that he had done, he 
 expressed a desire to bid farewell to his wife. She 
 was sent for, and came, apparently not unprepared ; 
 for after she had greeted her man through the iron 
 door of his cell, "he put his hand underneath, and 
 she, with a mallet and chisel concealed for the pur- 
 pose, struck off a finger and thumb to render him 
 unfit for His Majesty's service."^ 
 
 A stout-hearted fellow named Browne, who hailed 
 from Chester, would have made Caradine a fitting 
 mate. " Being impressed into the sea service, he 
 very violently determined, in order to extricate him- 
 self therefrom, to mutilate the thumb and a finger 
 of his left hand ; which he accomplished by repeatedly 
 maiming them with an old hatchet that he had 
 obtained for that purpose. He was immediately 
 discharged."^ Such men as these were a substantial 
 loss to the service. Fighting a gun shoulder to 
 shoulder, what fearful execution would they not have 
 wrought upon the " hereditary enemy " ! 
 
 It did not always do, however, to presume upon 
 the loss of a forefinger, particularly if it were missing 
 from the left hand. Capt. Barker, while he was 
 regulating the press at Bristol, once had occasion to 
 send into Ilchester for a couple of brace of convicts 
 who had received the royal pardon on condition of 
 their serving at sea. Near Shepton Mallet, on the 
 return tramp, his gangsmen fell in with a party armed 
 with sticks and knives, who "beat and cut them in 
 a very cruel manner." They succeeded, however, 
 
 ^ TimeSy 3 Nov. 1795. * Liverpool Advertiser^ 6 June 1777.
 
 IN THE CLUTCH OF THE GANG 289 
 
 in taking the ringleader, one Charles Biggen, and 
 brought him in ; but when Barker would have dis- 
 charged the fellow because his left forefinger was 
 wanting, the Admiralty brushed the customary rule 
 aside and ordered him to be kept/ 
 
 The main considerations entering into the dispatch 
 of pressed men to the fleet, when at length their 
 period of detention at headquarters came to an end, 
 were economy, speed and safety. Transport was 
 necessarily either by land or water, and in the case 
 of seaport, river or canal towns, both modes were 
 of course available. Gangs operating at a distance 
 from the sea, or remote from a navigable river or 
 canal, were from their very situation obliged to send 
 their catch to market either wholly by land, or by 
 land and water successively. Land transport, though 
 always healthier, and in many instances speedier and 
 cheaper than transport by water, was nevertheless 
 much more risky. Pressed men therefore preferred 
 it. The risks rescue and desertion were all in 
 their favour. Hence, when they " offered chearfully 
 to walk up," or down, as the case might be, the 
 seeming magnanimity of the offer was never per- 
 mitted to blind those in charge of them to the need 
 for a strong attendant guard.^ The men would have 
 had to walk in any case, for transport by coach, 
 though occasionally sanctioned, was an event of rare 
 
 * Ad. I. 1528 Capt. Barker, 28 July 1803, and endorsement. 
 
 * In the spring of 1795 a body of Quota Men, some 130 strong, 
 voluntarily marched from Liverpool to London, a distance of 182 
 miles, instead of travelling by coach as at first proposed. Though all 
 had received the bounty and squandered it in debauchery, not a man 
 deserted ; and in their case the danger of rescue was of course absent. 
 Ad. I. 151 1 Capt. Bowen, 21 April 1795. 
 
 19
 
 290 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 occurrence. A number procured in Berkshire were 
 in 1756 forwarded to London "by the Reading 
 machines," but this was an exceptional indulgence 
 due to the state of their feet, which were already 
 "blistered with travelling." 
 
 Even with the precaution of a strong guard, there 
 were parts of the country through which it was highly 
 imprudent, if not altogether impracticable, to venture 
 a party on foot. Of these the thirty-mile stretch of 
 road between Kilkenny and Waterford, the nearest 
 seaport, perhaps enjoyed the most unenviable repu- 
 tation. No gang durst traverse it ; and no body 
 of pressed men, and more particularly of pressed 
 Catholics, could ever have been conveyed even for 
 so short a distance through a country inhabited by 
 a fanatical and strongly disaffected people without 
 courting certain bloodshed. The naval authorities in 
 consequence left Kilkenny severely alone. ^ 
 
 The sending of men overland from Appledore to 
 Plymouth, a course frequently adopted to avoid the 
 circuitous sea-route, was attended with similar risks. 
 The hardy miners and quarrymen of the intervening 
 moorlands loved nothing so much as knocking the 
 gangsman on the head.^ 
 
 The attenuated neck of land between the Mersey 
 and the Dee had an evil reputation for affairs of this 
 description. Men pressed at Chester, and sent across 
 the neck to the tenders or ships of war in the Mersey, 
 seldom reached their destination unless attended by 
 an exceptionally strong escort. The reason is briefly 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1529 Capt. Bowen, 12 Oct. 1803. 
 
 * Ad. I. 581 Admiral Berkeley, Report on Rendezvous, 22 Sept 
 1805.
 
 IN THE CLUTCH OF THE GANG 291 
 
 but graphically set forth by Capt. Ayscough, who 
 dispatched three such men from Chester, under con- 
 voy of his entire gang, in 1780. "On the road 
 thither," says he, "about seven miles from hence, at 
 a village called Sutton, they were met by upwards 
 of one Hundred Arm'd Seamen from Parkgate, be- 
 longing to different privateers at Liverpool. An 
 Affray ensued, and the three Impress'd men were 
 rescued by the Mobb, who Shot one of my Gang 
 through the Body and wounded two others." ^ Park- 
 gate, it will be recalled, was a notorious " nest of 
 seamen." The alternative route to Liverpool, by 
 passage-boat down the Dee, was both safer and 
 cheaper. To send a pressed man that way, accom- 
 panied by two of the gang, cost only twelve-and- 
 six.^ 
 
 Mr. Midshipman Goodave and party, convoying 
 pressed men from Lymington to Southampton, once 
 met with an adventure in traversing the New Forest 
 which, notwithstanding its tragic sequel, is not with- 
 out its humorous side. They bad left the little 
 fishing village of Lepe some miles behind, and were 
 just getting well into the Forest, when a cavalcade 
 of mounted men, some thirty strong, all muffled in 
 greatcoats and armed to the teeth, unexpectedly 
 emerged from the wood and opened fire upon them. 
 Believing it to be an attempt at rescue, the gang 
 closed in about their prisoners, but when one of these 
 was the first to fall, his arm shattered and an ear shot 
 off, the gangsmen, perceiving their mistake, broke 
 and fled in all directions. Not far, however. The 
 
 1 Ad. I. 1446 Capt. Ayscough, 17 Nov. 1780. 
 * Ad. I. 580 Admiral Phillip, 14 Sept. 1804.
 
 292 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 smugglers, for such they were, quickly rounded them 
 up and proceeded, not to shoot them, as the would-be 
 fugitives anticipated, but to administer to them the 
 "smugglers' oath." This they did by forcing them 
 on their knees and compelling them, at the point of 
 the pistol and with horrible execrations, to " wish 
 their eyes might drop out if they told their officers 
 which way they, the smugglers, were gone." Having 
 extorted this unique pledge of secrecy as to their 
 movements, they rode away into the Forest, unaware 
 that Mr. Midshipman Goodave, snugly ensconced in 
 the neighbouring ditch, had seen and heard all that 
 passed a piece of discretion on his part that later on 
 brought at least one of the smugglers into distressing 
 contact with the law.^ 
 
 Just as the dangers of the sea sometimes rendered 
 it safer to dispatch pressed men from seaport towns 
 by land as at Exmouth, where the entrance to the 
 port was in certain weathers so hazardous as to bottle 
 all shipping up, or shut it out, for days together so 
 the dangers peculiar to the land rendered it as often 
 expedient to dispatch them from inland towns by 
 water. This was the case at Stourbridge. Handed 
 over to contractors responsible for their safe-keeping, 
 the numerous seamen taken by the gangs in that 
 town and vicinity were delivered on board the tenders 
 in King Road, below Bristol conveyed thither by 
 water, at a cost of half a guinea per head. This sum 
 included subsistence, which would appear to have 
 been mainly by water also. To Liverpool, the 
 alternative port of delivery, carriage could only be 
 
 ^ Ad. 7. 300 Law Officers' Opinions, 1778-83, No. 18 : Informations 
 of Shepherd Goodave, i Oct. 1779.
 
 TN THE CLUTCH OF THE GANG 293 
 
 had by land, and the risks of land transit in that 
 direction were so great as to be considered insuper- 
 able, to say nothing of the cost.^ 
 
 At ports such as Liverpool, Dublin and Hull, 
 where His Majesty's ships made frequent calls, the 
 readiest means of disposing of pressed men was of 
 course to put them immediately on ship-board ; but 
 when no ship was thus available, or when, though 
 available, she was bound foreign or on other pro- 
 hibitive service, there was nothing for it, in the case 
 of rendezvous lying so far afield as to render land 
 transport impracticable, but to forward the harvest 
 of the gangs by water. In this way there grew up 
 a system of sea transport that centred from many 
 distant and widely separated points of the kingdom 
 upon those great entrepots for pressed men, the 
 Hamoaze, Spithead and the Nore. 
 
 Now and then, for reasons of economy or expedi- 
 ency, men were shipped to these destinations as 
 ** passengers " on colliers and merchant vessels, their 
 escort consisting of a petty officer and one or more 
 gangsmen, according to the number to be safeguarded. 
 Occasionally they had no escort at all, the masters 
 being simply bound over to make good all losses 
 arising from any cause save death, capture by an 
 enemy's ship or the act of God. From King's 
 Lynn to the Nore the rate per head, by this means 
 of transport, was 2, 15s., including victualling ; from 
 Hull, 2, I2S. 6d. ; from Newcastle, los. 6d. The 
 lower rates for the longer runs are explained by the 
 fact that, shipping facilities being so much more 
 numerous on the Humber and the Tyne, competi- 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1500 Letters of Capt. Beecher, 1780.
 
 294 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 tion reduced the cost of carriage in proportion to 
 its activity.^ 
 
 In spite of every precaution, such serious loss 
 attended the shipping of men in this manner as to 
 force the Admiralty back upon its own resources. 
 Recourse was accordingly had, in the great majority 
 of cases, to that handy auxiliary of the fleet, the hired 
 tender. Tenders fell into two categories cruising 
 tenders, employed exclusively, or almost exclusively, 
 in pressing afloat after the manner described in an 
 earlier chapter, and tenders used for the double 
 purpose of "keeping" men pressed on land and of 
 conveying them to the fleet when their numbers grew 
 to such proportions as to make a full and consequently 
 dangerous ship. In theory, "any old unmasted hulk, 
 unfit to send to sea, would answer to keep pressed 
 men in." ^ In practice, the contrary was the case. 
 Fitness for sea, combined with readiness to slip at 
 short notice, was more essential than mere cubic 
 capacity, since transhipment was thus avoided and 
 the pressed man deprived of another chance of taking 
 French leave. 
 
 One all-important consideration, in the case of 
 tenders employed for the storing and detention of 
 pressed men prior to their dispatch to the fleet, was 
 that the vessel should be able to lie afloat at low 
 water ; for if the fall of the tide left her high and dry, 
 the risk of desertion, as well as of attack from the 
 shore, was enormously increased. Whitehaven could 
 make no use of man-storing tenders for this reason ; 
 
 '^ Ad. I. 579 Admiral Phillip, 3 and 11 Aug. 1801 ; Admiral 
 Pringle, 2 April 1795. 
 
 2 Ad. I. 579 Admiral Pringle, 2 April 1795.
 
 IN THE CLUTCH OF THE GANG 295 
 
 and at the important centre of King's Lynn, which 
 was really a receiving station for three counties, it 
 was found "requisite to have always a vessel below 
 the Deeps to keep pressed men aboard," since their 
 escape or rescue by way of the flats was in any 
 anchorage nearer the town a foregone conclusion.^ 
 
 On board the tenders the comfort and health of 
 the pressed man were no more studied than in the 
 strong-rooms and prisons ashore. A part of the hold 
 was required to be roughly but substantially parti- 
 tioned off for his security, and on rare occasions this 
 space was fitted with bunks ; but as the men usually 
 arrived "all very bare of necessaries" except when 
 pressed afloat, a case we are not now considering 
 any provision for the slinging of hammocks, or the 
 spreading of bedding they did not possess, came to 
 be looked upon as a superfluous and uncalled-for 
 proceeding. Even the press-room was a rarity, save 
 in tenders that had been long in the service. Down 
 in the hold of the vessel, whither the men were turned 
 like so many sheep as soon as they arrived on board, 
 they perhaps found a rough platform of deal planks 
 provided for them to lie on, and from this they were at 
 liberty to extract such sorry comfort as they could during 
 the weary days and nights of their incarceration. 
 Other conveniences they had none. When this too 
 was absent, as not infrequently happened, they were 
 reduced to the necessity of " laying about on the 
 Cables and Cask," suffering in consequence " more 
 than can well be expressed." ^ It is not too much 
 
 * Ad. I. i486 Capt. Baird, 27 Feb. 1755. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1439 Capt. A'Court, 22 April 1741 ; Ad. I. 1497 Capt. 
 Bover, 11 Feb. 1777, and Captains' Letters, />ajj-/w.
 
 296 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 to say that transported convicts had better treat- 
 ment. 
 
 Cooped up for weeks at a stretch in a space 
 invariably crowded to excess, deprived almost entirely 
 of light, exercise and fresh air, and poisoned with bad 
 water and what Roderick Random so truthfully called 
 the "noisome stench of the place," it is hardly 
 surprising that on protracted voyages from such 
 distant ports as Limerick or Leith the men should 
 have "fallen sick very fast."^ Officers were, indeed, 
 charged "to be very careful of the healths of the 
 seamen " entrusted to their keeping ; yet in spite of 
 this most salutary regulation, so hopelessly bad were 
 the conditions under which the men were habitually 
 carried, and so slight was the effort made to ameliorate 
 them, that few tenders reached their destination with- 
 out a more or less serious outbreak of fever, small-pox 
 or some other equally malignant distemper. Upon 
 the fleet the effect was appalling. Sickly tenders 
 could not but make sickly ships. 
 
 If the material atmosphere of the tender's hold 
 was bad, its moral atmosphere was unquestionably 
 worse. Dark deeds were done here at times, and 
 no man "peached" upon his fellows. Out of this 
 deplorable state of things a remarkable legal proceed- 
 ing once grew. Murder having been committed in 
 the night, and none coming forward to implicate the 
 offender, the coroner's jury, instead of returning their 
 verdict against some person or persons unknown, 
 found the entire occupants of the tender's hold, 
 seventy-two in number, guilty of that crime. A 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1444 Capt. Allen, 4 March 1771, and Captains' Letters, 
 passim.
 
 IN THE CLUTCH OF THE GANG 297 
 
 warrant was actually issued for their apprehension, 
 though never executed. To put the men on their 
 trial was a useless step, since, in the circumstances, 
 they would have been most assuredly acquitted.^ 
 Just as assuredly any informer in their midst would 
 have been murdered. 
 
 The scale of victualling on board the tenders was 
 supposed to be the same as on shore. " Full allowance 
 daily " was the rule ; and if the copper proved too 
 small to serve all at one boiling, there were to be as 
 many boilings as should be required to go round. 
 Unhappily for the pressed man, there was a weevil in 
 his daily bread. While it was the bounden duty of 
 the master of the vessel to feed him properly, and of 
 the officers to see that he was properly fed, " officers 
 and masters generally understood each other too well 
 in the pursery line." ^ Rations were consequently 
 short, boilings deficient, and though the cabin went well 
 content, the hold was the scene of bitter grumblings. 
 
 Nor were these the only disabilities the pressed 
 man laboured under. His officers proved a sore trial 
 to him. The Earl of Pembroke, Lord High Admiral, 
 foreseeing that this would be the case, directed that 
 he should be " used with all possible tenderness and 
 humanity." The order was little regarded. The 
 callosity of Smollett's midshipman, who spat in the 
 pressed man's face when he dared to complain of his 
 sufferings, and roughly bade him die for aught he 
 cared, was characteristic of the service. Hence a 
 later regulation, with grim irony, gave directions for 
 his burial. He was to be put out of the way, as soon 
 
 * Ad. 7. 300 Law Officers' Opinions, 1778-83, No, 20. 
 ' Ad. I. 579 Admiral M'Bride, 19 March 1795.
 
 298 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 as might be after the fatal conditions prevailing on 
 board His Majesty's tenders had done their work, 
 with as great a show of decency as could be extracted 
 from the sum of ten shillings. 
 
 Strictly speaking, it was not in the power of 
 the tender's officers to mitigate the hardships of the 
 pressed man's lot to any appreciable extent, let them be 
 as humane as they might. For this the pressed man 
 himself was largely to blame. An ungrateful rogue, 
 his hide was as impervious to kindness as a duck's 
 back to water. Supply him with slops ^ wherewith 
 to cover his nakedness or shield him from the cold, 
 and before the Sunday muster came round the 
 garments had vanished not into thin air, indeed, 
 but in tobacco and rum, for which forbidden luxuries 
 he invariably bartered them with the bumboat women 
 who had the run of the vessel while she remained in 
 harbour. Or allow him on deck to take the air and 
 such exercise as could be got there, and the moment 
 your back was turned he was away sans cong^. Few 
 of these runaways were as considerate as that Scotch 
 humorist, William Ramsay, who was pressed at Leith 
 for beating an informer and there put on board the 
 tender. Seizing the first opportunity of absconding, 
 " Sir," he wrote to the lieutenant in command, " I am 
 so much attached to you for the good usage I have 
 received at your hands, that I cannot think of ventur- 
 ing on board your ship again in the present state of 
 affairs. I therefore leave this letter at my father's 
 
 * The regulations stipulated that slops should be served out to all 
 who needed them ; but as their acceptance was held to set up a contract 
 between the recipient and the Crown, the pressed man was not un- 
 naturally averse from drawing upon such a source of supply as long as 
 any chance of escape remained to him.
 
 IN THE CLUTCH OF THE GANG 299 
 
 to inform you that I intend to slip out of the 
 way."i 
 
 When that clever adventuress, Moll Flanders, 
 found herself booked for transportation beyond the 
 seas, her one desire, it will be recalled, was " to come 
 back before she went." So it was with the pressed 
 man. The idea of escape obsessed him escape 
 before he should be rated on shipboard and sent 
 away to heaven only knew what remote quarter of 
 the globe. It was for this reason that irons were so 
 frequently added to his comforts. " Safe bind, safe 
 find " was the golden rule on board His Majesty's 
 tenders. 
 
 How difficult it was for him to carry his cherished 
 design into execution, and yet how easy, is brought 
 home to us with surprising force by the catastrophe 
 that befell the Tasker tender. On the 23rd of May 
 1755 the Tasker sailed out of the Mersey with a full 
 cargo of pressed men designed for Spithead. She 
 possessed no press-room, and as the men for that 
 reason had the run of the hold, all hatches were 
 securely battened down with the exception of the 
 maindeck scuttle, an opening so small as to admit of 
 the passage of but one man at a time. Her crew 
 numbered thirty-eight, and elaborate precautions were 
 taken for the safe-keeping of her restless human 
 freight. So much is evident from the disposition of 
 her guard, which was as follows : 
 
 (a) At the open scuttle two sentries, armed with 
 pistol and cutlass. Orders, not to let too 
 many men up at once. 
 ^ Ad. I. 1524. Capt. Brenton, 20 Oct. 1800.
 
 300 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 {d) On the forecastle two sentries, armed with 
 musket and bayonet. Orders, to fire on any 
 pressed man who should attempt to swim 
 away. 
 
 (c) On the poop one sentry, similarly armed, and 
 
 having similar orders. 
 
 (d) On the quarter-deck, at the entrance to the 
 
 great cabin, where the remaining arms were 
 kept, one sentry, armed with cutlass and 
 pistol. Orders, to let no pressed man come 
 upon the quarter-deck. 
 
 There were thus six armed sentinels stationed 
 about the ship ample to have nipped in the bud any 
 attempt to seize the vessel, but for two serious errors 
 of judgment on the part of the officer responsible for 
 their disposition. These were, first, the discretionary 
 power vested in the sentries at the scuttle ; and, second, 
 the inadequate guard, a solitary man, set for the 
 defence of the great cabin and the arms it contained. 
 Now let us see how these errors of judgment affected 
 the situation. 
 
 Either through stupidity, bribery or because they 
 were rapidly making an offing, the sentries at the 
 scuttle, as the day wore on, admitted a larger number 
 of pressed men to the comparative freedom of the 
 deck than was consistent with prudence. The number 
 eventually swelled to fourteen sturdy, determined 
 fellows, the pick of the hold. One of them, 
 having a fiddle, struck up a merry tune, the rest fell 
 to dancing, the tender's crew who were off duty 
 caught the infection and joined in, while the officers 
 stood looking on, tolerantly amused and wholly un-
 
 IN THE CLUTCH OF THE GANG 301 
 
 suspicious of danger. Suddenly, just when the fun 
 was at its height, a splash was heard, a cry of " Man 
 overboard ! " ran from lip to lip, and officers and crew 
 rushed to the vessel's side. They were there, gazing 
 into the sea, for only a minute or two, but by the 
 time they turned their faces inboard again the fourteen 
 determined men were masters of the ship. In the 
 brief disciplinary interval they had overpowered the 
 guard and looted the cabin of its store of arms. That 
 night they carried the tender into Redwharf Bay 
 and there bade her adieu.^ To pursue them in so 
 mountainous a country would have been useless ; to 
 punish them, even had they been retaken, impossible. 
 As unrated men they were neither mutineers nor 
 deserters,^ and the seizure of the tender was at the 
 worst a bloodless crime in which no one was hurt save 
 an obdurate sentry, who was slashed over the head 
 with a cutlass. 
 
 The boldness of its inception and the anticlimaxical 
 nature of its finish invest another exploit of this 
 description with an interest all its own. This was the 
 cutting out of the Union tender from the river Tyne 
 on the 1 2th April 1777. The commander, Lieut. 
 Colville, having that day gone on shore for the 
 
 '^ Ad. I. 920 Admiral Sir Edward Hawke, 3 June 1755, and 
 enclosures. 
 
 '^ By 4 & 5 Anne, cap. 6, pressed men could be apprehended and 
 tried for desertion by virtue of the Queen's shilling having been forced 
 upon them at the time they were pressed, but as the use of that coin fell 
 into abeyance, so the Act in question became gradually a dead-letter. 
 Hay, Murray, Lloyd, Pinfold and Jervis, Law Ofificers of the Crown, 
 giving an opinion on this important point in 1756, held that "pressed 
 men are not subject to the Articles (of War) until they are actually rated 
 on board some of His Majesty's ships." Ad. 7. 299 Law Officers' 
 Opinions, 1756-77, No. 3, Case 2,
 
 302 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 " benefit of the air," and young Barker, the midship- 
 man who was left in charge in his absence, having 
 surreptitiously followed suit, the pressed men and 
 volunteers, to the number of about forty, taking 
 advantage of the opportunity thus presented, rose and 
 seized the vessel, loaded the great guns, and by dint 
 of threatening to sink any boat that should attempt to 
 board them kept all comers, including the commander 
 himself, at bay till nine o'clock in the evening. By 
 that time night had fallen, so, with the wind blowing 
 strong off-shore and an ebb-tide running, they cut the 
 cables and stood out to sea. For three days nothing 
 was heard of them, and North Shields, the scene of 
 the exploit and the home of most of the runaways, was 
 just on the point of giving the vessel up for lost when 
 news came that she was safe. Influenced by one 
 Benjamin Lamb, a pressed man of more than ordinary 
 character, the rest had relinquished their original 
 purpose of either crossing over to Holland or running 
 the vessel ashore on some unfrequented part of the 
 coast, and had instead carried her into Scarborough 
 Bay, doubtless hoping to land there without inter- 
 ference and so make their way to Whitby or Hull. 
 In this design, however, they were partly frustrated, 
 for, a force having been hastily organised for their 
 apprehension, they were waylaid as they came ashore 
 and retaken to the number of twenty-two, the rest 
 escaping. Lamb, discharged for his good offices in 
 saving the tender, was offered a boatswain's place if 
 he would re-enter ; but for poor Colville the affair 
 proved disastrous. Becoming demented, he attempted 
 to shoot himself and had to be superseded.^ 
 
 * Ad. I. 1497 Capt. Bover, 13 April 1777, and enclosures.
 
 IN THE CLUTCH OF THE GANG 303 
 
 All down through the century similar incidents, 
 crowding thick and fast one upon another, relieved 
 the humdrum routine of the pressed man's passage 
 to the fleet, and either made his miserable life in 
 a measure worth living or brought it to a summary 
 conclusion. Of minor incidents, all tending to the 
 same happy or unhappy end, there was no lack. 
 Now he sweltered beneath a sun so hot as to 
 cause the pitch to boil in the seams of the deck 
 above his head; again, as when the Boneta sloop, 
 conveying pressed men from Liverpool to the 
 Hamoaze in 1740, encountered " Bedds of two or 
 three Acres bigg of Ice & of five or Six foot 
 thicknesse, which struck her with such force 'twas 
 enough to drive her bows well out," he " almost 
 perished " from cold.^ To-day it was broad farce. 
 He held his sides with laughter to see the lieutenant 
 of the tender he was in, mad with rage and drink, 
 chase the steward round and round the mainmast 
 with a loaded pistol, whilst the terrified hands, fearing 
 for their lives, fled for refuge to the coalhole, the 
 roundtops and the shore.^ To-morrow it was tragedy. 
 Some " little dirty privateer " swooped down upon 
 him, as in the case of the Admiral Spry tender from 
 Waterford to Plymouth,^ and consigned him to what 
 he dreaded infinitely more than any man-o'-war a 
 French prison ; or contrary winds, swelling into a 
 sudden gale, drove him a helpless wreck on to some 
 treacherous coast, as they drove the Rich Charlotte 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 2732 Capt. Young, 8 Feb. 1739-40. 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1498 Complaint of the Master and Company of H.M. 
 Hired Tender Speedwell^ 21 Dec. 1778. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 1500 Dickson, Surveyor of Customs at the Cove of Cork, 
 30 April 1780.
 
 304 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 upon the Formby Sands in 1745/ and there remorse- 
 lessly drowned him. 
 
 Provided he escaped such untoward accidents as 
 death or capture by the enemy, sooner or later the 
 pressed man arrived at the receiving station. Here 
 another ordeal awaited him, and here also he made 
 his last bid for freedom. 
 
 Taking the form of a final survey or regulating, 
 the ordeal the pressed man had now to face was 
 no less thoroughgoing than its precursor at the 
 rendezvous had in all probability been superficial 
 and ineffective. Eyes saw deeper here, wits were 
 sharper, and in this lay at once the pressed man's 
 bane and salvation. For if genuinely unfit, the fact 
 was speedily demonstrated ; whereas if merely sham- 
 ming, discovery overtook him with a certainty that 
 wrote "finis" to his last hope. Nevertheless, for this 
 ordeal, as for his earlier regulating at the rendezvous, 
 the sailor who knew his book prepared himself with 
 exacting care during the tedium of his voyage. 
 
 No sooner was he mustered for survey, then, 
 than the most extraordinary, impudent and in many 
 instances transparent impostures were sprung upon 
 his examiners. Deafness prevailed to an alarming 
 extent, dumbness was by no means unknown. Men 
 who fought desperately when the gang took them, or 
 who played cards with great assiduity in the tender's 
 hold, developed sudden paralysis of the arms.^ Legs 
 which had been soundness itself at the rendezvous 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1440 Capt. Amherst, 4 Oct. 1745. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 1464 Capt. Bloyes, Jan. 1702-3 ; Ad. i. 1470 Capt. 
 Bennett, 26 Sept. 171 1. An extraordinary instance of this form of 
 malingering is cited in the " Naval Sketch -Book," 1826.
 
 IN THE CLUTCH OF THE GANG 305 
 
 were now a putrefying mass of sores. The itch broke 
 out again, virulent and from all accounts incurable. 
 Fits returned with redoubled frequency and violence, 
 the sane became demented or idiotic, and the most 
 obviously British, losing the use of their mother 
 tongue, swore with many gesticulatory sacr^s that 
 they had no English, as indeed they had none for 
 naval purposes. Looking at the miserable, disease- 
 ridden crew, the uninitiated spectator was moved to 
 tears of pity. Not so the naval officer. In France, 
 when a prisoner of war, learning French there with- 
 out a master, he had heard a saying that he now 
 recalled to some purpose : Vin de grain est plus doux 
 que nest pas vin de presse "Willing duties are 
 sweeter than those that are extorted." The punning 
 allusion to the press had tickled his fancy and fixed 
 the significant truism in his memory. From it he 
 now took his cue and proceeded to man his ship. 
 
 So at length the pressed man, in spite of all his 
 ruses and protestations, was rated and absorbed into 
 that vast agglomeration of men and ships known as 
 the fleet. Here he underwent a speedy metamor- 
 phosis. It was not that he lost his individuality and 
 became a mere unit amongst thousands. Quite the 
 contrary. Friends, creditors or next-of-kin, concoct- 
 ing petitions on his behalf, set forth in heart-rending 
 terms the many disabilities he suffered from, together 
 with many he did not, and prayed, with a fervour 
 often reaching no deeper than their pockets, that 
 he might be restored without delay to his bereaved 
 and destitute family. Across the bottom right-hand 
 corner of these petitions, conveniently upturned for 
 that purpose, the Admiralty scrawled its initial order :
 
 306 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 " Let his case be stated." The immediate effect of 
 this expenditure of Admiralty ink was magical. It 
 promoted the subject of the petition from the ranks, 
 so to speak, and raised him to the dignity of a 
 ' State the Case Man." 
 
 He now became a person of consequence. The 
 kindliest inquiries were made after his health. The 
 state of his eyes, the state of his limbs, the state of 
 his digestion were all stated with the utmost minute- 
 ness and prolixity. Reams of gilt-edged paper were 
 squandered upon him ; and by the time his case had 
 been duly stated, restated, considered, reconsidered 
 and finally decided, the poor fellow had perhaps voy- 
 aged round the world or by some mischance gone to 
 the next. 
 
 In the matter of exacting their pound of flesh 
 the Lords Commissioners were veritable Shylocks. 
 Neither supplications nor tears had power to move 
 them, and though they sometimes relented, it was 
 invariably for reasons of policy and in the best 
 interests of the service. Men clearly shown to be 
 protected they released. They could not go back 
 upon their word unless some lucky quibble rendered 
 it possible to traverse the obligation with honour. 
 Unprotected subjects who were clearly unfit to eat 
 the king's victuals they discharged for substitutes. 
 
 The principle underlying their Lordships' gracious 
 acceptance of substitutes for pressed men was beauti- 
 fully simple. If as a pressed man you were fit to 
 serve, but unwilling, you were worth at least two 
 able-bodied men ; if you were unfit, and hence unable 
 to serve, you were worth at least one. This simple 
 rule proved a source of great encouragement to the
 
 Thk Prkss-Gang, or English Liberty displayed.
 
 IN THE CLUTCH OF THE GANG 307 
 
 gangs, for however bad a man might be he was 
 always worth a better. 
 
 The extortions to which the Lords Commissioners 
 lent themselves in this connection three, and, as in 
 the case of Joseph Sanders of Bristol,^ even four 
 able-bodied men being exacted as substitutes could 
 only be termed iniquitous did we not know the dupli- 
 city, roguery and deep cunning with which they had 
 to cope. Upon the poor, indeed, the practice en- 
 tailed great hardship, particularly when the home 
 had to be sacrificed in order to obtain the discharge 
 of the bread-winner who had been instrumental in 
 getting it together ; but to the unscrupulous crimp 
 and the shady attorney the sailor's misfortune 
 brought only gain. Buying up " raw boys," or Irish- 
 men who " came over for reasons they did not wish 
 known " rascally persons who could be had for a 
 song they substituted these for seasoned men who 
 had been pressed, and immediately, having got the 
 latter in their power, turned them over to merchant 
 ships at a handsome profit. At Hull, on the other 
 hand, substitutes were sought in open market. The 
 bell-man there cried a reward for men to go in that 
 capacity.^ 
 
 Even when the pressed man had procured his 
 substitutes and obtained his coveted discharge, his 
 liberty was far from assured. In theory exempt 
 from the press for a period of at least twelve months, 
 he was in reality not only liable to be re-pressed at 
 any moment, but to be subjected to that process as 
 often as he chose to free himself and the gang to 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1534 Capt. Barker, 4 Jan. 1805, and endorsement. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1439 George Crowle, Esq., M.P. for Hull, 28 Dec. 1739.
 
 308 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 take him. A Liverpool youth named William Crick 
 a lad with expectations to the amount of '* near 
 ;^4000," was in this way pressed and discharged by 
 substitute three times in quick succession.^ Intend- 
 ing substitutes themselves not infrequently suffered 
 the same fate ere they could carry out their intention." 
 The discharging of a pressed man whose petition 
 finally succeeded did not always prove to be the 
 eminently simple matter it would seem. Time and 
 tide waited for no man, least of all for the man who 
 had the misfortune to be pressed, and in the interval 
 between his appeal and the order for his release his 
 ship, as already hinted, had perhaps put half the 
 circumference of the globe between him and home ; 
 or when the crucial moment arrived, and he was 
 summoned before his commander to learn the gratify- 
 ing Admiralty decision, he made his salute in 
 batches of two, three or even four men, each of 
 whom protested vehemently that he was the original 
 and only person to whom the order applied. An 
 amusing attempt at " coming Cripplegate " in this 
 manner occurred on board the Lennox in 171 1. A 
 woman, who gave her name as Alice Williams, 
 having petitioned for the release of her "brother," 
 one John Williams, a pressed man then on board that 
 ship, succeeded in her petition, and orders were sent 
 down to the commander, Capt. Bennett, to give the 
 man his discharge. He proceeded to do so, but to his 
 amazement discovered, first, that he had no less than 
 four John Williamses on board, all pressed men ; 
 
 * Ad. I. 579 Rear-Admiral Child, 8 Aug. 1799. 
 ' Ad. I. 1439 Lieut. Leaver, 5 Jan. 1739-40, and numerous in- 
 stances.
 
 IN THE CLUTCH OF THE GANG 309 
 
 second, that while each of the four claimed to be the 
 man in question, three of the number had no sister, 
 while the fourth confessed to one whose name was 
 not Alice but " Percilly " ; and, after long and patient 
 investigation, third, that one of them had a wife 
 named Alice, who, he being a foreigner domiciled by- 
 marriage, had " tould him she would gett him cleare" 
 should he chance to fall into the hands of the press- 
 gang. In this she failed, for he was kept.^ 
 
 Of the pressed man's smiling arrest for debts which 
 he did not owe, and of his jocular seizure by sheriffs 
 armed with writs of Habeas Corpus, the annals of his 
 incorporation in the fleet furnish many instances. 
 Arrest for fictitious debt was specially common. In 
 every seaport town attorneys were to be found who 
 made it their regular practice. Particularly was this 
 true of Bristol. Good seamen were rarely pressed 
 there for whom writs were not immediately issued on 
 the score of debts of which they had never heard.^ 
 To warrant such arrest the debt had to exceed twenty 
 pounds, and service, when the pressed man was 
 already on shipboard, was by the hands of the Water 
 Bailiff. 
 
 The writ of Habeas Corpus was, in effect, the only 
 legal check it was possible to oppose to the impudent 
 pretensions and high-handed proceedings of the gang. 
 While H.M.S. Amaranth lay in dock in 1804 and 
 her company were temporarily quartered on a hulk in 
 Long Reach, two sheriff's officers, accompanied by a 
 man named Cumberland, a tailor of Deptford, boarded 
 the latter and served a writ on a seaman for debt. 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1470 Capt. Bennett, 2 Dec. 171 1. 
 * Ad. I. 579 Admiral Philip, 5 Dec. 1801.
 
 310 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 The first lieutenant, who was in charge at the time, 
 refused to let the man go, saying he would first send 
 to his captain, then at the dock, for orders, which he 
 accordingly did. The intruders thereupon went over 
 the side, Cumberland " speaking very insultingly." 
 Just as the messenger returned with the captain's 
 answer, however, they again put in an appearance, 
 and the lieutenant hailed them and bade them come 
 aboard. Cumberland complied. " I have orders from 
 my captain," said the lieutenant, stepping up to him, 
 " to press you." He did so, and had it not been that 
 a writ of Habeas Corpus was immediately sworn out, 
 the Deptford tailor would most certainly have ex- 
 changed his needle for a marlinespike.^ 
 
 Provocative as such redemptive measures were, 
 and designedly so, they were as a rule allowed to pass 
 unchallenged. The Lords Commissioners regretted 
 the loss of the men, but thought " perhaps it would be 
 as well to let them go."* For this complacent attitude 
 on the part of his captors the pressed man had reason 
 to hold the Law Officers of the Crown in grateful 
 remembrance. As early as 1755 ^^^7 gave it as their 
 opinion too little heeded that to bring any matter 
 connected with pressing to judicial trial would be 
 "very imprudent." Later, with the lesson of twenty-two 
 years' hard pressing before their eyes, they went still 
 further, for they then advised that a subject so conten- 
 tious, not to say so ill-defined in law, should be kept, if 
 not altogether, at least as much as possible out of court.^ 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1532 Lieut. Collett, 13 Feb. 1804. 
 
 Ad. 7. 302 Law Officers' Opinions, 1783-95, No. 24. 
 
 Ad. 7. 298 Law Officers' Opinions, 1733-56, No. 99 ; Ad. 7. 299 
 Law Officers' Opinions, 1756-77, No. 70.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 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 extra- 
 ordinary 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 im- 
 perfections, 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 ; 
 
 (d) 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
 
 312 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 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." ^ In this way, Ezekiel-like, he retrieved 
 his losses ; but to the regiments so completed the 
 addition of these resurrection recruits proved demoral- 
 ising 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 power- 
 ful sea-going rivals. How bad they were, the 
 epithets spontaneously applied to them by the out- 
 raged 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." 
 
 * State Papers Foreign^ Germany^ vol. ccacL Robinson to Hyndford, 
 31 May 1742.
 
 HOW THE GANG WENT OUT 313 
 
 " 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 sea- 
 men. 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. ^ Latham, commanding the Bristol, on the 
 * Ad. I. 1469 Capt. Billingsley, 5 May 1708.
 
 314 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 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.^ 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."^ 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."' 
 
 That most reprehensible practice, the pressing of 
 
 "^ Ad. I. i6i Admiral Watson, 26 Feb. 1754. 
 
 2 Ad. I. 480 Admiral Mostyn, i and 6 April 1755. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 1490 Capt. Baird, 22 May 1759.
 
 HOW THE GANG WENT OUT 315 
 
 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. ^ 
 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" 
 ^ Ad. I. 579 Capt. Boyle, 2 June 1801.
 
 316 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 seasickness and fear of that which is high.* 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.' 
 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 ;' Bethell, of the Phoenix^ 
 had many who had " never seen a gun fired in their 
 lives " ; * and Adams, of the Bird-in-kand, learnt the 
 fallacy of the assertion that that raia 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." ^ 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 ; 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 thenj^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, 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1 47 1 Capt. Billop, 26 Oct. 1712. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1477 Capt. Bruce, 6 Oct. 1741. 
 
 " Ad. I. 1482 Capt. Belitha, 15 July 1746. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1490 Capt. Bethell, 21 Aug. 1759. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1440 Capt. Adams, 7 Oct. 1744. 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1478 Capt. Boys, 14 April 1742; Ad. i. 1512 Capt. 
 Bayly, 21 July 1796, and Captains' Letters, /ajj/w.
 
 HOW THE GANG WENT OUT 317 
 
 should rise and run away with the ship ; ^ 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;^ 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.* 
 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.* 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 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 1499 Capt. Bennett, 22 Sept. 1779. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 1439 Capt. Ambrose, 7 July and 26 Sept. 1741. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 1440 Capt. Amherst, 12 Dec. 1744. 
 
 Ad. I. 1439 Capt. Anson, 18 Sept. 1740, and 7 Dec. 1742.
 
 318 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 tailor and the huckstering Jew, the gait of these 
 individuals, who belonged mostly to the sailor class, 
 was strongly accentuated by an adventitious circum- 
 stance 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 " ^ 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 jail- 
 birds they were, to "hopping the twig."* 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 5125 Petition of the Convicts on board the Stanislaus 
 hulk, Woolwich, 18 May 1797. 
 
 ' Ad. 1. 2733 Capt. Young, 21 March 1776.
 
 HOW THE GANG WENT OUT 319 
 
 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 e;nancipated convict. In his letters to the 
 Navy Board, Capt. Aston, R.N., relates how, im- 
 mediately after the passing of the later Act ^ 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.^ 
 
 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 bes* 
 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 
 
 ^ 4 & 5 Anne, cap. 6. 
 
 * Ad. I. 1436 Letters of CapL Aston, 1704-5.
 
 320 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 pumping of sewage into the fleet was to taint the 
 ships with a taint far more deadly than mere inepti- 
 tude. A spirit of ominous restlessness prevailed. 
 Slackness was everywhere observable, coupled with 
 incipient insubordination which no discipline, how- 
 ever 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.^ 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 propor- 
 tion 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.' 
 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, not- 
 withstanding 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 
 
 * Ad. I. 5125 Petition of the Company of H.M.S. Nymph, 1797. 
 ' Ad. I. 1499 Capt. Bennett, 22 Sept. 1799, and Captains' Letters, 
 passim.
 
 HOW THE GANG WENT OUT 321 
 
 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.^ 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 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 578 Vice-Adrairal Vernon, 27 Jan. 1742-3. 
 21
 
 322 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 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,^ 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 
 
 ^ Ad. I. 5125 Petition of the Ship's Company of the Shannon^ 
 16 June 1796.
 
 HOW THE GANG WENT OUT 323 
 
 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 con- 
 tinuous 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
 
 324 THE PRESS GANG 
 
 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 supe- 
 riority, 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 ;
 
 HOW THE GANG WENT OUT 325 
 
 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.^ 
 
 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 cut- 
 lass 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 
 
 1 Newcastle Papers Newcastle to Yorke, 27 Feb. 1749-50.
 
 326 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 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 "volun- 
 teerly " 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* 
 tO;^ii4 in 1756. Between these extremes his cost 
 fluctuated in the most extraordinary manner. At 
 Weymouth, in 1762, it was at least ;^icxd ; at Deal, 
 in 1805, ;^32 odd; at Poole, in the same year, ;^8o.* 
 From 1756 the average steadily declined until in 
 1795 it touched its eighteenth century minimum of 
 about ;^6.^ A sharp upward tendency then developed, 
 and in the short space of eight years it soared again 
 to ;^20. It was at this figure that Nelson, perhaps 
 the greatest naval authority of his time, put it in 
 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 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 sea- 
 men deserted from the fleet.* Assuming, with him, 
 that every man of this enormous total was either a 
 
 * State Papers Domestic^ Elizabeth, vol. Ixxiii. f. 38 : Estimate of 
 Charge for Pressing 400 Mariners, 1570. 
 
 ' London Chronicle, 16-18 March, 1762 ; Ad. i. 581 Admiral 
 Berkeley, 14 Feb. and 5 Aug. 1805. 
 
 ' Ad. I. 579 Average based on Admirals' Reports on Rendezvous, 
 
 1791-5- 
 
 * Ad. I. 580 Memorandum on the State of the Fleet, 1803.
 
 HOW THE GANG WENT OUT 327 
 
 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,ooo for raising 
 them in the first instance, and, in the second, a further 
 outlay of ;^840,ooo 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 basis being ;^6o, 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 ;i^8o ; 
 the cost of each at 26, 13s. 4d. Hence Nelson's 
 forty-two thousand deserters entailed upon the nation 
 an actual expenditure, not of ;!f 1,680,000, 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
 
 328 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 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 obtain- 
 ing 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 impos- 
 sible 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
 
 HOW THE GANG WENT OUT 329 
 
 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 con- 
 scription. 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. 
 
 33
 
 332 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 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 ; every- 
 thing 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. i, 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
 
 r 
 
 TV 
 
 J^/. 
 
 ; ; :: 
 
 \ . 1 
 
 Gf;.3?^^. M 
 
 ;> 
 
 Admiral Voun(;"s Torpkuo. 
 F"roni the Oriijinal Dniwing at tin- Public Rocord Office.
 
 APPENDIX 333 
 
 should be very carefully covered to prevent its sus- 
 taining 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 con- 
 cealed 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 prob- 
 ably 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
 
 334 THE PRESS-GANG 
 
 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." 
 
 PrinUdby Morrison & Gibb Limitsd, Edinburgh
 
 INDEX 
 
 22
 
 INDEX 
 
 Adams, Capt., 133, 134. 
 
 Admiral Spry tender, 303. 
 
 Adventure, H.M.S., 234. 
 
 Ages below eighteen and over fifty- 
 five exempt, 84, 85. 
 
 Alcock, Henry, Mayor of Water- 
 ford, 196, 217, 218. 
 
 Alms, Capt., 182, 183. 
 
 Amaranth, H.M.S., 309. 
 
 Ambrose, Capt., 317. 
 
 Amherst, Capt., 317. 
 
 Amphitrite, H.M.S., 34. 
 
 Andover, the press-gang at, 179. 
 
 Anglesea, H.M.S., 234. 
 
 Anne, Queen, impresses foreign 
 seamen, 13. 
 arms of press-gang under, 73. 
 drummers and fifers pressed for 
 
 navy in her reign, 241. 
 sailors unwilling to serve, 28. 
 
 Anson, Admiral Lord, 104. 
 
 Anthony, John, pressed with two 
 protections on him, 102. 
 
 Appledore, press-gang at, 72, 290. 
 
 Apprentices, exempt from impress- 
 ment only in some circum- 
 stances, 85, 86. 
 in North - country pressed be- 
 cause their indentures bore 
 Scotch 14s. stamp instead of 
 English 15s., 102. 
 
 Archer, Capt., 241. 
 
 Arms of the press-gang, 72, 72f 
 
 Assurance, H.M.S., 35. 
 
 Aston, Capt., 319. 
 
 Atkinson, Lieut., 221. 
 
 Ayscough, Capt., 291. 
 
 Baily, James, a ferryman, pressed 
 
 for his inactivity, 242. 
 Baird, Capt., 314. 
 Balchen, Capt., 104, 234. 
 
 Ball, Capt., 198. 
 
 Banyan days, 38. 
 
 Bargemen impressed in thou- 
 sands, 92. 
 
 Barker, Capt., regulating officer at 
 Bristol, 94, 288. 
 midshipman, 302. 
 
 Barking, the press-gang at, 209, 
 210. 
 
 Barnicle, William, 247. 
 
 Barnsley, Lieut., 208. 
 
 Barrington, Capt., 260. 
 
 Bath,Bristol gang's fruitless attempt 
 at, 161. 
 
 Bawdsey, 243. 
 
 Beaufort, East Indiaman, 126. 
 
 Beecher, Capt., 67, 208. 
 
 Bennett, Capt., 59, 60, 163, 308, 
 316. 
 
 Bertie, Capt., 26. 
 
 Bethell, Capt., paid damages for 
 wrongfully impressing, 238, 
 316. 
 
 Bettesworth, John, claims privi- 
 lege of granting private pro- 
 tections to Ryde and Ports- 
 mouth ferrymen, 105. 
 
 Biggen, Charles, 289. 
 
 Billingsley, Capt., 119, 313. 
 
 Bingham, William, 204. 
 
 Birchall, Lieut., 208, 220. 
 
 Bird-in-hand, H.M.S., 316. 
 
 Birmingham, sham gangs at, 67. 
 
 Black Book of the Admiralty, 
 30. 
 
 Blackstone, Sir W., 15, 16. 
 
 Blackwater, men working turf boats 
 on, not exempt, 95. 
 
 Blanche, H.M.S., 35. 
 
 Blear-eyed Moll, 263. 
 
 Blonde, H.M.S., 192. 
 
 Boats for the press-gang, 72. 
 337
 
 338 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Boat steerers on whalers exempt 
 from impressment, 90. 
 
 Boatswains, conditions of exemp- 
 tion, 87-9. 
 
 Bonttta sloop, 135, 303. 
 
 Boscawen, Capt., 98, 109, no. 
 
 Boston, Mass., 215. 
 
 Bounty system, the, 22. 
 
 Bowen, Capt., 184. 
 
 Box, Lieut., 192. 
 
 Boys, Capt., 147, 216. 
 
 Brace, Lieut., 246. 
 
 Bradley, Lieut., 182. 
 
 Brawn, Capt., 209. 
 
 Breedon, Lieut., 182. 
 
 Brenton, Capt. Jahleel, afterwards 
 Vice-Admiral, 59,214, 269 ,275. 
 
 Brenton, E. P., Naval History^ 44. 
 
 Brenton, Lieut., 195. 
 
 Brereton, Capt., 238. 
 
 Brett, Capt., 1 10, 234. 
 
 Bridges a favourite haunt of the 
 press-gang, 177. 
 
 Brighton, the press-gang at, 18 1-3, 
 248. 
 
 Bristol, the press-gang at, 81, 83, 
 94, 114, 162, 246, 249, 262, 
 272, 288. 
 
 Bristol jail as press-room, 281. 
 
 Bristol, H.M.S., 313. 
 
 Britannia trading vessel, three 
 of the crew shot in resisting 
 the press-gang, 229 ; the ship 
 captured and taken to port, 
 the affair not within the 
 coroner's purview, the bodies 
 buried at sea, 230 ; court- 
 martial acquits officers, 231. 
 
 Brixham, the press-gang at, 114. 
 
 Broadfoot case, the, 205, 206. 
 
 Broadstairs fishermen, 129, 
 the press-gang at, 176. 
 
 Bromley, Capt. Sir Robert, 242. 
 
 Bullard, Richard, a fiddler per- 
 suaded to go to Woolwich to 
 play and for payment was 
 handed to the gang, 242. 
 
 Bull- Dog sloop, 274. 
 
 Burchett, Josiah, Observations on 
 the Navy, 19. 
 
 Burrows, Sam, 251. 
 
 Butler, Capt., 189, 190. 
 
 Byron, Lord, 57. 
 
 Calahan, a gangsman, killed in 
 attempting an arrest, 206. 
 
 Cambridge bargemen, press-gang 
 among, 92. 
 
 Campbell, Admiral, 274. 
 
 Cape Breton, 51. 
 
 Caradine, Samuel, 287, 288. 
 
 Carey, Rev. Lucius, 251. 
 
 Carmarthen, Admiral the Marquis 
 of, 197. 
 
 Carolina, 51. 
 
 Carpenters, conditions of exemp- 
 tion, 87, 89. 
 on warships on coast of Scot- 
 land could be replaced by 
 shipwrights pressed from the 
 yards, 88. 
 
 Carrying the ship up, 124-9. 
 
 Cartel ships, 141. 
 
 Castle, William, an alien, impressed 
 on his honeymoon, 81, 262. 
 
 Castleford, the press-gang at, 164. 
 
 Cawsand safe from the press-gang, 
 158. 
 
 Cecil,|William,LordBurleigh,96,97. 
 
 Centurion, H.M.S., Anson's flag- 
 ship, whose crew on their 
 return had life-protection from 
 the press, 104. 
 
 Chaplains, 35-7. 
 
 Charles ll., 36, 63. 
 
 Chatham, crimpage at, 50. 
 
 Chatham, H.M.S., 209. 
 
 Chester, the press-gang, at 58, 163, 
 219, 220, 251, 290. 
 
 Chevrette corvette, 274. 
 
 Clapp, Midshipman, 223. 
 
 Clark, George, 247. 
 
 Clephen, James, 274, 
 
 Clincher %\a\-\ix\%, 141. 
 
 Cockbum, Bailie, of Leith, 215. 
 
 Cogboume's electuary, 41. 
 
 Coke, Sir E., 15. 
 
 Collingwood, Admiral Lord, 59. 
 Lieut., 237. 
 
 Colvill, Admiral Lord, 47. 
 
 Colville, Lieut., 301, 302. 
 
 Convoys, 132, 146. 
 
 Conyear, John, 242. 
 
 Cooper, Josh, 66. 
 
 Cork, crimpage at, 50, 164. 
 the press-gang at, 72, 141, 163, 
 164, 165.
 
 INDEX 
 
 339 
 
 Comet bomb ship, 128. 
 
 Cornwall, the press-gang in, 157. 
 
 Coversack, safe from the press- 
 gang, 158. 
 
 Coventry, Mr. Commissioner, 78. 
 
 Coventry, sham gangs at, 67. 
 
 Cowes, press-gang at, 56, 180. 
 
 Crabb, Henry, 234. 
 
 Crews depleted by the press-gang, 
 124-9. 
 
 Crick, William, 308. 
 
 Crimps, 48-50, 151, 164. 
 as sham gangsmen, 67. 
 
 Cromer, the suspicions of the in- 
 habitants bring the press-gang 
 to take a noted Russian, 246. 
 
 Crown Colonies, desertions in, 
 50-2. 
 
 Croydon, the press-gang around, 
 
 177. 
 Cruickshank, John, chaplain, 35. 
 Culverhouse, Capt., 248. 
 Customs, Board of, loi. 
 
 Dansays, Capt., 134. 
 Danton, Midshipman, 223. 
 Darby, Capt., 69. 
 Dartmouth, H.M.S., 36, 37. 
 Dartmouth, press-gang at, 72. 
 Davidson, Samuel, of Newcastle, 
 
 applies for life protection, 104. 
 " DD," discharged dead, in muster 
 
 books against names of persons 
 
 deceased, 207. 
 Deal, press-gang at, 56,60, 62, 174, 
 
 196-8, 217, 255-6. 
 cutters, 117. 
 Death of sailor in resisting impress 
 
 "accidental," 227. 
 Debusk, John, shot by the press- 
 gang on the Britannia, 229. 
 Dent, Capt., 197. 
 Deptford, the press-gang at, 189, 
 
 260. 
 Desertion from the Navy, 46-9, 
 
 259, 260. 
 Devonshire, H.M.S., 197. 
 Dipping the flag, 239-40. 
 Director, H.M.S., 275. 
 Discipline in the Navy, 30-5. 
 Disinfecting a ship, 37. 
 Dispatch sloop, 216. 
 Dolan, Edward, 153. 
 
 Dominion and Laws of the Sea. 
 
 See Justice, A. 
 Dorsetshire, H.M.S., 189-91. 
 Douglas, Capt. Andrew, 31. 
 Dover, press-gang at, 56, 60, 62, 
 
 197-8, 248. 
 Downs, crimpage in the, 49. 
 press-gang in, 13, 56, 116, 145, 
 
 224, 225. 
 Doyle, Lieut., 199. 
 Dreadnought, H. M.S., 44, no, 184. 
 Drummers pressed for the Navy, 
 
 241. 
 Dryden, Michael, illegally pressed, 
 
 65, 272. 
 Dryden's sister, 272. 
 Dublin, sham gangs at, 68, 69, 199. 
 
 the press-gang at, 115. 
 Duke, H.M.S., 314. 
 Duke of Vandome, H.M.S., 317. 
 Duncan case, the, 14. 
 Dundas, Henry, 104. 
 Dundonald, Lord, Autobiography, 
 
 25. 
 Dunkirk, H.M.S., 44. 
 
 Eccentricity leads to impressment, 
 245, 246. 
 
 Eddystone lighthouse, building de- 
 layed through impressment of 
 workmen, 105. 
 builders of the third, protected, 
 
 105. 
 keepers at, put inward-bound 
 ships' crews ashore, 153. 
 
 Edinburgh, press-gang at, 56. 
 
 Edmund and Mary collier, 264. 
 
 Edward ill. on the Navy, 28. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 96. 
 
 Elizabeth ketch, 89. 
 
 Ely bargemen, press-gang among, 
 92. 
 
 Emergency crews of men unfit for 
 pressing supplied to merchant- 
 men by the crimps, 150-3. 
 
 Emergency men working on their 
 own account, 153, 154. 
 places of muster for, 152. 
 
 English Eclogues. See Southey, R. 
 
 Evading the press-gang. See under 
 Press-gang, How it was evaded. 
 
 Evans, Richard, keeper of Glou- 
 cester Castle, 282.
 
 340 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Exemption from impressment, not 
 
 a right, 79- 
 of foreigners, 80, 8i. 
 negroes not included, 82. 
 of landsmen only theoretical, 80. 
 property no qualification for ex- 
 emption, 80. 
 of harvesters, 83, 84. 
 of gentlemen, judged by appear^ 
 
 ances, 84, 
 below 18 and over 55 years, 84, 85. 
 of apprentices dependent on cir- 
 cumstances, 85, 86, 
 of merchant seamen dependent 
 
 on circumstances, 86, 87. 
 of masters, mates, boatswains, 
 
 and carpenters dependent on 
 
 circumstances, 87-9. 
 of some of crew of whalers, 90. 
 of Thames wherrymen by quota 
 
 system, 92. 
 of Tyne keelman by the same, 93. 
 of Severn and Wye trow-men by 
 
 io7 levy, 94. 
 did not extend to turf boats on 
 
 Shannon and Blackwater, 95. 
 special for four on each fishing 
 
 vessel, and later for all engaged 
 
 in taking, curing, and selling 
 
 fish, 97. 
 of Worthing fishermen for a levy, 
 
 98-9. 
 of Scottish and Manx fishermen, 
 
 on similar terms, 99. 
 worthless without a document of 
 
 protection, icx>-2. 
 Exeter, the press-gang at, 62, 179. 
 
 Falmouth^ H.M.S., 145, 146, 238. 
 
 Falmouth, press-gang at, 192. 
 
 Faversham, the press-gang at, 176. 
 
 Femu, H.M.S., 313. 
 
 Ferries, a favourite haunt of the 
 press-gang, 178. 
 
 Fevershaniy H.M.S., 37. 
 
 Fifers pressed for the Navy, 241. 
 
 Fire on ship board, 147. 
 
 Fisheries, carefully fostered, three 
 fish days made compulsory, 95. 
 became a great nursery for sea- 
 men, few exemptions granted, at 
 first special concessions only to 
 the whale and cod fisheries, 96. 
 
 Fisheries, continued 
 later only such number as the 
 warrant specified might be 
 taken, and these the Justices 
 chose ; in 1801 no person em- 
 ployed in taking, curing, or 
 selling fish could be impressed, 
 
 .97- 
 with their best men impressed, 
 only small smacks could be 
 worked, 98. 
 a quota system preferred by the 
 fishermen of some ports, 98, 99. 
 in Cornwall, the men turned tin- 
 ners in the off-season, 157. 
 Flags, flying without authority, 240. 
 
 omission to dip, 239-40. 
 Fleet, Liberty of, 261. 
 Folkstone market-boats, 1 1 7. 
 Folkstone, press-gang at, 56, 6a 
 Forcible entry by the press-gang 
 
 illegal, 199. 
 Foreigners impressed, 13, 8r, 148. 
 theoretically exempt, 80, 81. 
 married to English wives con- 
 sidered naturalised, 81. 
 in emergency crews, 153. 
 Frederick the Great, 311, 312. 
 Freeholders at one time exempt 
 
 from impressment, 13-15, 82. 
 Fubbs, H.M.S., 134. 
 
 Gage, Capt., 88. 
 
 Galloper, tender to the Dread- 
 nought, 119. 
 
 Ganges, H.M.S., 274. 
 
 Garth, Dr., 41. 
 
 Gaydon, Lieut., 61. 
 
 Gentlemen exempt from the im- 
 press, but j udged by appearance 
 and manner, 84. 
 
 Gibbs, Capt., 61. 
 
 Glory, H.M.S., 34. 
 
 Gloucester, the press-gang at, 178. 
 
 Gloucester Castle used as press- 
 room, 281, 282. 
 the keeper's magic palm, 282. 
 
 Godalming, the press-gang at, 55, 
 62. 
 
 Golden, John, Lord Mayor's barge- 
 man, wrongfully impressed, 93. 
 
 Good, James, midshipman, 62. 
 
 Goodave, Midshipman, 291, 292.
 
 INDEX 
 
 341 
 
 Gooding, Richard, 243. 
 
 Gosport, the press-gang at, 184, 
 
 189, 190, 242. 
 Gravesend, the press-gang at, 176. 
 Gray, John, 249. 
 Great Yarmouth, press-gang at, 56, 
 
 114, 164, 246. 
 Greenock, crimpage at, 49. 
 press-gang at, 56, 60, 213-5. 
 Trades Guild, 213-5. 
 Greenock ferries, the press-gang at, 
 
 178. 
 Greenwich Hospital, 43. 
 Grimsby, the press-gang at, 114. 
 
 Habeas Corpus, writs of, as means 
 of arresting, and so freeing, 
 pressed men for debts not 
 owing, 309. 
 
 Half-pay officers, their projects 
 and inventions, 21. 
 
 Hamoaze, the, an entrepot for 
 pressed men, 293. 
 
 Harpooners exempt from impress- 
 ment, 90. 
 
 Harrison, Lieut., 214. 
 
 Hart, Alexander, 198. 
 
 Harwich, H.M.S., 31. 
 
 Haverfordwest, press-gang at, 56, 6 1 . 
 
 Hawke, Admiral Sir Edward, 230, 
 231, 
 
 Hawke, H.M.S., 316. 
 
 Haygarth, Lieut., 218. 
 
 Health and illness, 40, 41. 
 
 Hector, H.M.S., 57. 
 
 Herbert, Emanuel, 205. 
 
 Hind armed sloop, 82. 
 
 Historical Relation of State Affairs. 
 See Lutterell, N. 
 
 Hogarth's " Stage Coach," 104. 
 
 Hook, Joseph, 272. 
 
 Hope tender, 237. 
 
 Hotten, J. C., List of Persons of 
 Quality, etc., who went from 
 England to the American 
 Plantations, 262. 
 
 Hull, press-gang at, 62, 66. 
 
 Humber, the press-gang on, 136. 
 
 Hurst Castle, the press-gang at, 1 14. 
 
 Ilfracombe, the press-gang at, 61. 
 Impressment. See Pressed labour. 
 Informers, 188. 
 
 Inland waterways and the gang 
 72. 
 at one time without the juris- 
 diction of the admirals, 90-1. 
 
 Innes, Capt., 82. 
 
 Ipswich, the press-gang at, 203. 
 
 Isis, H.M.S., 241. 
 
 Isle of Man fishermen, 99. 
 
 Jackson, Daniel, pressed from the 
 
 Chester Volunteers, 220. 
 Jamaica, 50, 51. 
 Jason, H.M.S., 52. 
 Jervis, John, Earl of St. Vincent, 259. 
 Jews, pressed on account of bandy 
 
 legs, 244. 
 John and Elizabeth pink, 223, 224. 
 John, King, impressment under, 4- 
 
 7, 28, 80. 
 Johnson, Rebecca Anne, 267. 
 Jones, Paul, 141, 204. 
 Justice, A., Dominion and Laws of 
 
 the Sea, 28, 82. 
 
 Keith, A., parson of the Fleet, 261. 
 Observations on the Act for 
 Preventing Clandestine Mar- 
 riages, 261. 
 
 Kilkenny, the press-gang at, 290. 
 
 King's Lynn, press-gang at, 63, 71, 
 89, 142, 156, 180, 250. 
 
 Kingston, William, case of, 13. 
 
 King William, Indiaman, 224, 225. 
 
 Lady Shore, the, 249. 
 
 Landsmen exempt only in theory, 
 
 82, 83. 
 Latham, Capt., 313. 
 Law officers' opinions on pressing, 
 
 14-6, 68, 70, 75, 79, 88, 93, 196, 
 
 198, 219, 282, 292, 297, 301, 
 
 310. 
 Leave, stoppage of, 44, 45. 
 Leeds, the press-gang at, 164. 
 Leith, crimpage at, 49. 
 press-gang at, 56, 59, 212, 213, 
 
 215. 
 Lennox, H.M.S., 163, 316. 
 Letting, John, pressed with two 
 
 protections on him, 102. 
 Lewis, Edward, chaplain, 37. 
 Libraries, ships', 43. 
 Lichfield, H.M.S., 241.
 
 842 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Ucome, H.M.S., Ii8. 
 
 Limehouse Hole, the press-gang at, 
 
 2IO-I. 
 
 Lindsay, Admiral the Earl of, 
 
 Instructions, 31. 
 Linesmen on whalers exempt from 
 
 impressment, 90. 
 Liskeard, the press-gang at, 179. 
 List of Persons of Quality , etc., who 
 
 went from England to the 
 
 American Plantations. See 
 
 Hotten, J. C. 
 Litchfield, H.M.S., 32. 
 Littlehampton, the press-gang at, 
 
 182. 
 Liverpool, crimpage at, 49. 
 press-gang at, 56, 64, 163, 185, 
 
 196, 204, 218, 219, 220, 248. 
 Lodden Bridge, the press-gang at, 
 
 178. 
 London, the press-gang in, 174, 
 
 175, 206, 216. 
 Londonderry, the press-gang at, 
 
 237- 
 
 Longcroft, Capt., 61. 
 
 Loo, H.M.S., 196. 
 
 Love, Henry, gets life protection as 
 promised by Pitt and Dundas, 
 104. 
 
 Lowestoft, the press-gang at, 114. 
 
 Lulworth, 157. 
 
 Lundy Island, safe from the press- 
 gang, but not to the sailors' 
 liking, 158. 
 crews marooned on, 158. 
 
 Lutterell, N., Historical Relation of 
 State Affairs, 262. 
 Capt. Hon. Jas., 274, 275. 
 
 Lymington, the press-gang at, 294. 
 
 M'Bride, Admiral, 61. 
 
 M'Cleverty, Capt., 217, 218. 
 
 M'Donald, Alexander, impressed 
 under the age of twelve, 85. 
 Charles, 247. 
 
 M'Gugan's wife, 269. 
 
 M'Kenzie, Lieut., 272. 
 
 M'Quarry, Lachlan, 271. 
 
 Magna Carta, its provisions con- 
 trary to impressment, 5-7. 
 
 Mansfield, Lord, 16. 
 
 Margate, the press-gang at, 176. 
 
 Maria brig, 193. 
 
 Marines, 128, 129. 
 
 Marooned crews on Lundy Island) 
 
 158, 159. 
 Martin galley, 210, 
 iWary smuggler, 135. 
 Masters, conditions of exemption, 
 
 87-9. 
 Mastery of the sea, a necessity for 
 
 England, 19. 
 Mates, conditions of exemption, 
 
 87-9. 
 Medway, press-gang on, 139-40. 
 Medway, H.M.S., 189, 190. 
 Men in lieu, 125-9, 153. 
 Merchant seamen, conditions of 
 
 exemption, 86-9. 
 unprotected when sleeping ashore, 
 
 89-91. 
 the most valuable asset to the 
 
 Navy, 107. 
 Merchant service, hard conditions 
 
 of crews, 28. 
 Mercury, H.M.S., 196. 
 Messenger, George, 136. 
 Mike, James, hanged for desertion, 
 
 47. 
 Moll Flanders, 299. 
 Monarch, H.M.S., 314. 
 Monmouth, H.M.S., 44. 
 Monumenta furidica, 30. 
 Morals in the Navy, 258-9. 
 improved by Jervis, Nelson, and 
 
 Collingwood, 259. 
 Moriarty, Capt, 165. 
 Mortar sloop, 317. 
 Mostyn, Admiral, 314. 
 Mediator tender, 273, 275. 
 Mitchell, Admiral Sir D., 274. 
 Montagu, Admiral, 42. 
 Mousehole, safe from the press- 
 gang, 158. 
 Moverty, Thomas, pressed, not 
 
 having protection on him, loi. 
 
 Nancy of Deptford, 260. 
 Naseby, H.M.S., 36. 
 Nassau, H.M.S. , 35. 
 Naval History. See Brenton, E. P. 
 Navy, the growth of, in i8th 
 century, 20. 
 natural sources of supply of 
 
 crews, 20. 
 hard conditions of service in, 29.
 
 INDEX 
 
 343 
 
 Navy, continued 
 discipline in, 30-5. 
 provisions in, 36-8. 
 comforts in, 39-40. 
 Negroes not exempt from im- 
 pressment, 82. 
 Nelson, Admiral Lord, 24, 40, 47, 
 
 48, 61, no, 259. 
 Nemesis^ H.M.S., 198. 
 Newcastle-upon-Tyne, press-gang 
 at, 56, 61, 94, 186, 188, 193, 204. 
 grand protection enjoyed by, 93. 
 New England, 51, 
 Newgate compared with the press- 
 room, 280, 281, 
 Newhaven, the press-gang at, 164, 
 
 182, 
 Newland, safe from the press-gang, 
 
 158. 
 Newquay, safe from the press- 
 gang, 158. 
 Nore, the press-gang at the, 116, 
 141. 
 the mutiny at, 273-9. 
 an entrepot for pressed-men, 293. 
 Norfolk, Indiaman, 145. 
 Norris, John, 274. 
 North Forland, press-gang at, 116. 
 Nymph, H.M.S., 33, 35. 
 
 Oakley, Lieut., 174. 
 
 Oaks, Lieut., 14, 221. 
 
 O'Brien, Lieut., 198. 
 
 Observations on Corporeal Punish- 
 ment, Impressment, etc. See 
 Penrose, Admiral Sir V. C. 
 
 Observations on the Act for Pre- 
 venting Clandestine Marriages. 
 See Keith, A. 
 
 Observations on the Navy. See 
 Burchett, J. 
 
 Okehampton, the press-gang at, 179. 
 
 Onions, Thomas, 246. 
 
 Orford, H.M.S., 137. 
 
 Orkney fishermen, 99. 
 
 Osborne, Admiral, 231. 
 
 Osmer, Lieut., 194. 
 
 Otter sloop, 88. 
 
 Oyster vessels, 119. 
 
 Pallas, H.M.S., 25. 
 Parker, Richard, president of the 
 mutineers at the Nore, 273-9. 
 
 Parkgate, a resort of seamen, 163, 
 291. 
 
 Paying off discharged entire crews, 
 24. 
 
 Paying the shot, 124. 
 
 Pay of sailors, 43-5. 
 deferred, 44-6. 
 
 Pembroke, Earl of, Lord High 
 Admiral, 297. 
 
 Penrose, Admiral Sir V. C, Ob- 
 servations on Corporeal Punish- 
 ment, Impressment, etc., 44. 
 
 Pepys, S., 9, II, 41, 74, 78, 271. 
 
 Peter the Great, Czar of Russia, 
 12, 13. 
 
 Petitions of seamen of the Fleet 
 and others, 17, 34, 35, 68, 83, 
 197, 271, 283, 304, 305, 308, 
 318, 320, 322. 
 
 Phoenix, H.M.S., 238, 316. 
 
 Pill, a favourite haunt of sailors, and 
 shunned by gangsmen, 159- 
 61, 272. 
 
 Pilots, 141, 142, 154. 
 
 Pitt, William, 104, 165. 
 
 Plymouth, the press-gang at, 89, 
 176, 205, 273. 
 
 Polpero, safe from the press-gang, 
 158. 
 
 Poole, press-gang at, 65, 90, 157, 
 194, 195, 203, 236, 242. 
 mayor refuses to back press- 
 warrants, 90, 193. 
 
 Popham, Admiral Sir Home, his 
 schemefor coast defence, 165- 
 168. 
 
 Portland Bill, press-gang off, 229. 
 
 Portland Island, 157. 
 
 Portsmouth, desertions at, 48. 
 the press-gang at, 176, 184, 228, 
 242, 263. 
 
 Post-chaise, sailors in, 185, 186. 
 
 Press-boats sunk at sea, 222-5. 
 
 Pressed labour (see also Press- 
 gang), antiquity of, i, 3. 
 for civil occupations, i. 
 for warfare, 2. 
 means of enforcing, 2, 3, 5, 
 
 7-9. 
 contrary to the spirit of Magna 
 
 Carta, 5, 6. 
 penalties for resistance, 7. 
 derivation of the term, 9, 10.
 
 344 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Pressed labour, continued 
 the classes from which drawn, 
 
 II, 12. 
 
 exemptions from, 13. 
 
 necessity of, in English Navy, 
 
 19-53. 
 its crippling effect on trade, 20. 
 Press-gang, the 
 why it was a necessity for the 
 Navy, 23-52. 
 
 its services not needed by some 
 captains, 25. 
 what it was, 54-76. 
 
 the official and the popular 
 views, 54. 
 
 the class of men it was com- 
 posed of, 54, 55- 
 
 its quarters, landsmen joining 
 the land force not to be 
 pressed for sea service, 55. 
 
 ship-gangs entirely seamen, 
 varying numbers m gang, 56. 
 
 the officers, 56, 57. 
 
 the shore service the grave of 
 promotion, 57. 
 
 general character of officers 
 ashore, 58-9. 
 
 duties of the Regulating Cap- 
 tain, 60, 
 
 pay and road money, etc., 60-2. 
 
 perquisites, peculation, and 
 bribery in the service, 63-6. 
 
 sham-gangs, 66-70. 
 
 the rendezvous, 70-2. 
 
 boat's arms, 72. 
 
 press warrant, 73-6. 
 whom the gang might take,77-l 05 . 
 
 primarily those who used the 
 sea, yy. 
 
 later on trade suffers from the 
 gang, 78. 
 
 exemption granted as an in- 
 dulgence, 79. 
 
 the foreigner first exempted, 80. 
 
 but not if he had an English 
 wife, and was soon assumed 
 to have one, 81. 
 
 negroes not exempt, lands- 
 men theoretically only, 82. 
 
 harvesters were exem pt if hold- 
 ing a certificate, 83, 84. 
 
 gentlemen exempt if dressed 
 as such, 84. 
 
 Press-gang, whom the gang might 
 take, continued 
 
 only those proved to be between 
 eighteen and fifty-five, 84. 
 
 the position of apprentices was 
 uncertain, 85, 86. 
 
 to press merchant seamen was 
 resented by trade, 86, 87. 
 
 masters, mates, boatswains, 
 and carpenters were exempt, 
 87. 
 
 colliers were exempt up to a 
 certain proportion, 88. 
 
 ship protections did not count 
 on shore, 89. 
 
 mate was not entitled to liberty 
 unless registered at the 
 rendezvous, 89. 
 
 harpooners were protected out 
 of season on land or on 
 colliers, 90. 
 
 the press-gang preyed upon its 
 fellows, 91. 
 
 watermen, bargemen, and canal 
 boat-dwellers were con- 
 sidered to use the sea, 91, 92. 
 
 Thames watermen and some 
 others exempt if certain 
 quota of men supplied, 92-4. 
 
 large numbers pressed from 
 Ireland, 95. 
 
 fishermen indifferently pro- 
 tected, but fisheries fostered, 
 95-100. 
 
 all protected persons bound to 
 carry their protection on 
 them, 100-2. 
 
 an error in protection invali- 
 dated it, 102. 
 
 protections often disregarded, 
 103. 
 
 special protections, 104-5. 
 its activities afloat, 106-142. 
 
 the merchant seamen the prin- 
 cipal quest, 106. 
 
 the chain of sea-gangs, 107-19. 
 
 the outer rings, frigates press- 
 ing for their own crews and 
 armed sloops as tenders to 
 ships of the line, and the 
 vessels employed by regulat- 
 ing captams at the large 
 ports, 108-13.
 
 INDEX 
 
 345 
 
 Press-gang, its activities afloat, 
 continued 
 the inner ring of boat-gangs in 
 
 harbour or on rivers, 114-9 ; 
 
 their methods, 117, 118. 
 methods of pressing at sea, 119- 
 
 24. 
 complications arising from 
 
 pressing at sea, 124-9. 
 their varied success, 130. 
 and the right to search foreign 
 
 vessels for English seamen, 
 
 131, 132. 
 
 and convoys, 132. 
 
 and privateers, 132-4. 
 
 and smugglers, 134-6. 
 
 smuggling by, 137. 
 
 and ships in quarantine, 1 38-40. 
 
 and transports, 140, 141. 
 
 and cartel ships, 141. 
 
 and pilots, 141, 142. 
 how it was evaded, 143-71. 
 
 in the ship, with her or from 
 her, 144, 
 
 or a combination, 145, 146. 
 
 hiding on board from, 147. 
 
 evasions assisted by the skip- 
 per, 148, 149. 
 
 and men in lieu and foreigners 
 in emergency crews, 153. 
 
 pilots and fisherman taken by, 
 when acting as emergency 
 men, 154. 
 
 evaded by desertion from the 
 ship, 154, 155. 
 
 evaded by hiding on land and 
 changing quarters, 155-7. 
 
 Cornwall dangerous for, 157. 
 
 safe retreats from, 158-61, 163. 
 
 empowered to take Severn and 
 Wye trow-men, 162. 
 
 unsuccessful efforts of, 163-5. 
 
 evaded by borrowed, forged, 
 and American protections 
 and by disguises, 168-71. 
 what it did ashore, 172-201. 
 
 the sailor betrayed by marked 
 characteristics ; sailors out- 
 numbered on shore by the 
 gang, 173. 
 
 Us object the pressing of 
 sailors who escaped the sea- 
 gangs, 174. 
 
 Press-gang, what it did ashore, 
 continued 
 
 its London rendezvous and 
 
 taverns used, 174, 175. 
 the inland distribution of, 176, 
 
 180. 
 the class of places selected for 
 
 operations of, 176, 177. 
 the land-gangs necessarily am-' 
 
 bulatory, 179, 180. 
 its resting and refreshment 
 
 places chosen for purposes 
 
 of capture, the methods 
 
 adopted, 180. 
 a hot press at Brighton, 18 1-3. 
 a ruse at Portsmouth, 184. 
 how the sailors' liking for drink 
 
 was turned to account, 
 
 185. 
 the amount of violence used, 
 
 186. 
 outside assistance to, 187-9. 
 rivalry between gangs, 189- 
 
 91. 
 assisted by mayors and county 
 
 magistrates, 191. 
 assisted by the military, 191, 
 
 192, 
 townsmen who sided with the 
 
 sailors against, 192, 193. 
 brutal behaviour of, at Poole, 
 
 194-5. 
 resisted at Deal and Dover, 
 
 196-8. 
 forcible entry by, illegal, 199. 
 magistrates consign vagabonds 
 
 and disorderly persons to, 
 
 199-201. 
 how it was resisted, 202-32. 
 various weapons used agains 
 
 203, 204. 
 gangs-men killed by sailors re- 
 sisting them, 206. 
 sailors killed by gangsmen, 
 
 206, 207. 
 by armed bands of seamen, 
 
 208-210. 
 by the populace in attempting 
 
 to impress, 210. 
 pressed-men recaptured from, 
 
 211-20. 
 tenders attacked, 215-7 
 rendezvous attacked, 217-22.
 
 346 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Press-gang, resisted, continued 
 
 press-boats attacked and sunk, 
 222-5. 
 
 resistance when the press-gang 
 had come abroad, 225-32. 
 
 the hardship of impressment on 
 arrival from long voyage, 
 225, 226. 
 
 the only means of resistance, 
 226. 
 
 a sailor's death in such case 
 " accidental," casual, un- 
 avoidable, or disagreeable, 
 227. 
 
 a case in point, 228-32. 
 at play, 233-56. 
 
 humorous reason given for im- 
 pressing a person, 206. 
 
 inculcating manners by means 
 of the press, 233. 
 
 the respect due to naval officers, 
 234-8. 
 
 the outsider liable to be pressed 
 for breach of naval etiquette, 
 234-8. 
 rudeness to the press- 
 gang treated the same 
 way, 236-7, 238. 
 
 damages from officers for 
 wTongful impressment, fail- 
 ure to dip the flag, or flying an 
 unauthorised flag, might lead 
 to pressing from that crew, 
 239, 240. 
 
 unseamanlike management of 
 a ship laid the crew open to 
 pressmg, 241. 
 
 pipers and fiddlers, etc., im- 
 pressed, 242. 
 
 ridiculous reasons given 
 for impressing, 242. 
 
 unsuspecting passenger in a 
 smuggler declared owner of 
 contraband and pressed, 243. 
 
 tattoo marks and bandy legs 
 lead to pressing, 244. 
 
 any eccentricity sufficient to 
 ensure the attention of the 
 press-gang, 245, 246. 
 
 used by trustees to keep heirs 
 from their money, and by 
 parents to rid them of incor- 
 rigible sons, 247. 
 
 Press-gang, at play, continued 
 used for purposes of retaliation, 
 
 247-50. 
 used by strikers to get rid of a 
 
 "blackleg," 250-1. 
 used by stem parent to part his 
 
 daughter and her lover, 
 
 251. 
 a drunken cleric's revenge by 
 
 means of, 251-2. 
 by pressing a sailor, causes his 
 
 late bedfellow to be hanged 
 
 as his murderer, 252-6. 
 and women, 257-79. 
 of women and sailors in 
 
 general, 257-61. 
 lack of sentiment in gangsmen, 
 
 261. 
 women impressed by, 263, 264. 
 women masquerading as men 
 
 to go to sea, 264, 268. 
 women in the gang, 268. 
 the hardship brought on women 
 
 by the gang, 268, 271. 
 fostered vice and bred paupers, 
 
 270. 
 women who released sailors 
 
 from the press-gang, 272, 
 
 273- 
 
 the devotion of RichardParker*s 
 wife, 273-9. 
 In the clutch of, 280-310. 
 
 the press-room, what it was ; 
 strongly built and small as it 
 might be, could hold any 
 number, 280. 
 
 Bristol gaol and Gloucester 
 Castle used as press-rooms, 
 281. 
 
 inadecjuate precautions for re- 
 tainmg pressed men on the 
 road, regulations for rendez- 
 vous, 282. 
 
 victualling in the press-room, 
 283, 284. 
 
 regulating or examining for fit- 
 ness for service, 284. 
 
 fabricated ailments and defects, 
 
 284-9- 
 dispatching pressed men to 
 
 the fleet, 289-94. 
 tenders hired for transport of 
 
 pressed men, 294.
 
 INDEX 
 
 347 
 
 Press-gang, In the clutch of, con- 
 tinued 
 
 comfort and health of pressed 
 
 men on tenders, 295, 296. 
 the victualling of pressed men 
 
 on tenders, 297. 
 prevention of escape, 299-301. 
 an attempt to escape with the 
 
 Toj^^r tender escapes from, 
 
 300, 301. 
 The Union tender cut out from 
 
 the Tyne by the pressed 
 
 men, 301, 302. 
 various excitements aboard, 
 
 303- 
 a final examination, 304, 305. 
 petitions, 305, 306, 308. 
 substitutes, 306-7. 
 How the gang went out, 311-29. 
 causes of withdrawal of press- 
 gang, 311. 
 the increasingly bad quality of 
 
 the product, 312-9. 
 the spirit of restlessness and 
 mutiny engendered, 320, 
 321. 
 the injury to trade, 323. 
 only continued so long by the 
 apathy of the people, 324-5. 
 the cost of impressing, 326-8. 
 Press-Gang, or Love in Low Life, 
 
 The, 261. 
 Press warrants, 73-6, 90, 97, 108, 
 122. 
 forged, 69. 
 Presting, the original term and its 
 
 meaning, 9, 10. 
 Prest money, 10, 61, 74. 
 Price, Capt., 237. 
 
 Prince George guardship at Ports- 
 mouth, 228. 
 Princess Augusta, a letter of 
 
 marque, 133, 134. 
 Princess Augusta tender, 229. 
 Princess Louisa, H.M.S., 260. 
 Privateers, loss of seamen by, 50- 
 2, 146. 
 pressing from, 132-4. 
 recapture of pressed crew of, 
 219. 
 Prize money, 45. 
 
 Profane abuse of crews by officers, 
 29. 
 
 Protections, for masters, mates, 
 boatswains, and carpenters, 87. 
 
 worthless, if the holder were 
 ashore, 88. 
 
 bound to be always carried, 100-2. 
 
 slightest error in description 
 invalidated, 102. 
 
 were often disregarded, 103. 
 
 special, 104, 105. 
 
 for men in lieu, 128. 
 
 for crews of convoys and priv- 
 ateers expired on arrival in 
 home waters, 132, 143. 
 
 lent, bought, and exchanged, 168. 
 
 American, 169-71. 
 Provisions in the Navy, 36-8. 
 
 Quarantine, 138, 140. 
 Queensferry, the press-gang at, 178. 
 Quota men, 22, 92-4, 98, 99, 165, 
 275, 289. 
 
 " R" for "run" in ships' books to 
 
 denote deserter, 151. 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 28, 38. 
 Ramsgate, the press-gang at, 251. 
 Reading, the press-gang at, 179. 
 Registration of seamen, 22. 
 Regulating, i.e. examination of 
 
 pressed-men for fitness, 284. 
 ailments and defects fabricated 
 
 or assumed, 284-9. 
 Regulating captains, 60, 85. 
 
 character of a, 58, 59. 
 Repulse, H.M.S., 276. 
 Rendezvous, 55, 70-2, 213. 
 attacked, 217-22, 272. 
 regulations of, 282, 283. 
 Rescue of pressed men from the 
 
 gang, 211-20. 
 Reunion, H.M.S., 34. 
 Rhode Island, 51. 
 Rice, 42. 
 Richard 11., 90. 
 
 Richards, John, midshipman, 62. 
 Richardson, Lieut., 137. 
 Right of search, 131, 132. 
 Roberts, Capt. John, 89. 
 Rochester, the press-gang at, 195. 
 Rodney, Admiral Lord, 179, 228. 
 Roebuck, H.M.S., no. 
 Romsey, the press-gang at, 179. 
 Routh, Capt., 164.
 
 348 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Royal Sovereign, H.M.S., 139, 147, 
 216. 
 
 Ruby gunship, 26. 
 
 Rudsdale, Lieut., 118. 
 
 Rum, 39, 40. 
 
 Rupert, H.M.S., 317. 
 
 Russia, impressment in, 12, 13. 
 
 Russian Navy, 12. 
 
 Ryde, the Lord of the Manor, 
 claimed the privilege of pri- 
 vate protections for his ferry- 
 men to Portsmouth and Gos- 
 p>ort, 105. 
 the press-gang at, 180. 
 
 Rye, H.M.S., 212. 
 
 Rye, the press-gang at, 141. 
 
 Sailor, the word disfavoured by 
 Navy Board, 26. 
 a creature of contradictions, 26, 
 
 27, 45- 
 St. Ives, safe from the press-gang, 
 
 158. 
 St.Lawrence River, deserters m, 47. 
 St. Vincent, Earl of. See Jervis, J. 
 Salisbury, the press-gang at, 179. 
 Sanders, Joseph, 307. 
 Sandwich, H.M.S., flag-ship at the 
 
 Nore, 275, 277, 278. 
 Sax, Lieut., 229. 
 Scipio, H.M.S., 316. 
 Scott, John, pressed when his pro- 
 tection was lying in his coat 
 
 beside him, loi. 
 Scottish fishermen, 99. 
 Seahorse, H.M.S., 36, 69. 
 " Serving out slops," 30. 
 Severn trow-men, exempted from 
 
 impress by 10% levy, 94. 
 Court of Exchequer rules the 
 
 reverse, 162. 
 Seymour, Lieut., 140. 
 Sham gangs, 66-70, 268. 
 Shandois sloop, 125. 
 Shannon, H.M.S., 34, 322. 
 Shannon, men working turf boats 
 
 on, not exempt, 95. 
 Shark, sloop, I2ii2^. 
 " She " applied to a ship, a recent 
 
 use, 236. 
 Sheemess, crimpage at, 49. 
 Shields, press-gang at, 14, 64, 247, 
 
 262. 
 
 Ships, impressment of, 4, 5. 
 Shipwrights in Scotch yards could 
 
 be pressed as carpenters on 
 
 warships, 88. 
 Shirley, Governor, 215. 
 Shoreham, the press-gang at, 182. 
 Shrewsbury, H.M.S., 197, 224, 225. 
 Shrewsbury, sham gangs at, 67. 
 Sloper, Major-General, 182, 192. 
 Smeaton, John, 105. 
 Smugglers, crew of, pressed, 136. 
 unsuspecting passenger declared 
 
 owner and pressed, 243. 
 Solebay, H.M.S., 33, 203. 
 Southampton, the press-gang at, 
 
 115. 
 Southey, Robt, English Eclogues, 
 
 263. 
 Southsea Castle, H.M.S., 196. 
 Spithead, crimpage at, 50. 
 
 an entrep6t for pressed men, 293. 
 Spy sloop of war, 135. 
 Squirrel, H.M.S., 209. 
 Stag, H.M.S., 135. 
 Stag privateer, 219. 
 Stangate Creek, the fray at, 140. 
 Stephens, George, impressed at 
 
 thirteen, 85. 
 Stephenson, George, 193. 
 Stepney Fields, press-gang at, 208, 
 
 209. 
 Stillwell, John, 247. 
 Stourbridge, the press-gang at, 178, 
 
 207, 208, 292. 
 Strike-me-blind. See Rice. 
 Sturdy, Ralph, shot by the press- 
 gang on the Britannia, 229. 
 Sunderland, press-gang at, 64, 65, 
 
 215, 223, 224, 272. 
 Surgeons, 36, 41, 60. 
 Swansea, 61. 
 
 Tailors pressed on account of bandy 
 
 legs, 244. 
 Talbot, Mary Anne, 265. 
 Tasker tender, 299. 
 Tassell, William, a protected mate, 
 
 pressed ashore, 89. 
 Taunton, Denny-Bowl quarry, near 
 
 three girls as sham gang, 70, 
 
 268. 
 the press-gang at, 179. 
 Taylor, Lieut,, 216.
 
 INDEX 
 
 349 
 
 Taylor, William, 251. 
 
 Teede, John, undone by tattoo 
 
 marks, 244. 
 Tenders, 108-10, 112-5. 
 attacked, 215-7. 
 hired for transport of pressed 
 
 men, 294. 
 the health and comfort of pressed 
 
 men on, 296. 
 their victualling, 297. 
 attempts to escape from and 
 with, 300-3. 
 Thames, press-gang on the, 115,116. 
 wherrymen exempted by levy of 
 one in five, 93. 
 ThetiSy H.M.S., 189. 
 Thomson, Lieut., 241. 
 Thurlow, Lord, 14, 93. 
 Ticket men. See Men in lieu. 
 Tobacco, 39. 
 
 Trading classes the greatest 
 sufferers from impressment, 78. 
 not without resentment, 78, 79. 
 various trades gradually ex- 
 empted, 80-100. 
 Tramps. See Vagabonds. 
 Transports, 140, 141. 
 Travelling, cost of, 60, 61. 
 Trial and Life of Richard Parker ^ 
 
 277, 279. 
 Trim, William, 194, 203. 
 Trinity House, loi. 
 Triton brig, 118. 
 Triton^ Indiaman, 145. 
 Turning over of crews, 24, 25. 
 Tyne keelman exempt from im- 
 press by levy the men sup- 
 plied being obtained by them 
 by bounties, 93. 
 
 Union tender, 301. 
 Utrecht, H.M.S., 251. 
 
 Vagabonds handed over to the 
 
 press-gang, 199. 
 Vanguard, H. M.S., 47, 119. 
 Vernon, Admiral, 39, 41, 50, 319. 
 Victualling in the press-room, 283, 
 
 284. 
 Virginia, 51. 
 
 Wages due to sailors to date of 
 impressment, 124, 125. 
 
 Walbeoff, Capt., 194. 
 
 Ward, Ned, Wooden World Dis- 
 sected, 2.7. 
 
 Waterford, press-gang at, 58, 59, 
 83, 118, 196, 217, 218, 237, 242. 
 
 Watermen's language, 239. 
 
 Watson, Lieut., 237. 
 
 Watts, John, punished with 170 
 lashes, 31. 
 
 Weapons used against the press- 
 gang, 203, 204, 216. 
 
 Weir, Alexander, 214. 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, 33. 
 
 Whalers, some of crew of, exempt 
 from impressment, 90. 
 
 Whitby, the press-gang at, 221, 272. 
 
 White, John, pressed at Bristol 
 ninety yards from his vessel, 
 90. 
 
 Whitefoot, James, impressed at 
 Bristol, 83. 
 
 Whitworth, Charles, Envoy to 
 Russia, 13. 
 
 " Widows' men," 52. 
 
 Williams, John, 308. 
 
 Willing Traveller smuggler, 135. 
 
 Wilson, John, shot by the press- 
 gang on the Britannia, 229. 
 
 Winchelsea, H.M.S., 34. 
 
 Winstanley, London butcher, 
 served as pressed man 16 
 years, 83. 
 
 Wolf armtd sloop, 136. 
 
 Women and the Press-gang, 159, 
 188. See also under Press- 
 gang, "The Press-gang and 
 Women," 257-79. 
 
 Wooden World Dissected. See 
 Ward, Ned. 
 
 Wool, illegal export of, 136. 
 
 Worth, Capt., 218. 
 
 Worthing fishermen, 98. 
 
 Wye trow-men exempted from 
 impress by 10% levy, 94. 
 Court of Exchequer rules the 
 reverse, 162. 
 
 Yarmouth Roads, the press-gang 
 
 in, 135- 
 " Yellow Admirals," 57. 
 Yorke, Sol. -Gen., 75. 
 Young, Admiral, 49. 
 his torpedo, 165, 331-4.
 
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