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The  Press-Gang 

AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE 


J.  R..  HUTCHINSON 


o,  /-1-y 


THE  PRESS-GANG 


THE  PRESS-GANG 

AFLOAT  AND  ASHORE 


BY 


J.  R.  HUTCHINSON 


LONDON 
EVELEIGH     NASH 

\  1913 


fuetm  ^  oo ^<j <? 


.••  -«.  •* 


CONTENTS 


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 


19 

54 

77 

106 

143 
172 

202 

233 
257 
280 

3" 


Appendix:  Admiral  Young's  Torpedo 
Index        .        


331 
335 


M94583 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

An  Unwelcome  Visit  from  the  Press  Gang  Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

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.  Broadlkv,  by 
whose  kind  permission  it  is  reproduced. 

Sailors  Carousing  .  .  .  .  .  .236 

From  the  Mezzotint  after  J.  Ibbbtson. 

Anne  Mills  who  served  on  board  the  Maidstone  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  Public  Record  Office. 


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 
rog,d[s:  arid'  b^ftt^rg  its  ships  and  cities.  These  were 
jhe.  cpiniTionprace  achievements  of  peace,  at  which 
;,\  bvjeinVt4?  cOQrcecf/ijilght  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. 

2  In  more  modern  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.f  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  12 15, 
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  1 208  ;  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  capiatur  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  vili. — 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. 


V 


10  THE  PRESS-GANG 

as  "  prest  "  money  —  "  prest "  being  the  English 
equivalent  of  the  obsolete  French  priest,  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  -word  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  " 
iox  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.  16-27, 
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,  discliarged  by  express  Admiralty  order 
because  he  was  a  "  substantial  man  and  had  a  landed 
estate."  2 

^  Ad.  I.  1436 — Capt.  J.  Anderson's  letters  and  enclosures  ;  State 
Papers,  Russia^  vol.  iv. — V^hitworth  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  for  "his  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  nomine,  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,  1756-77,  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  starving  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  Admiralty,  in  his  Observations  on 
the  Navy^  1700. 

19 


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  vv^ere  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- 

1  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 

1  Ad.  I.  2733— Capt.  Young,  28  Sept.  1776. 

2  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  A'udy 
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."— ^^.  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,  Woodefi  World  Dissected^  1 744. 


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  iii.,   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. 

2  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 !  God  bless  you !  You  know  what  I 
mean  I " 

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.  1746-7. 


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. 

2  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. 
^  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 
him,  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 
Dartmouth,  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.  5265 — 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  Dartm°,  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  "turn'd  on  the  cock  in 
the  hould"  and  through  forgetfulness   "left  it  running  for  eighteen 


38  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.— ^^. 
I.  2653— Capt.  Watson,  18  April  1741. 

1  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,  fstmous  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  Letter, 
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,  1 812-7. 
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  Dunkirk,  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  Bosca wen'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  land  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 

1  Ad.  I.  1470— Capt.  Bennett,  8  March    1710-11.      Ad.  i.  1471  — 
Capt.  Butler,  19  March,  1711-12. 

2  Ad.  I.  1468— Capt.  Baker,  3  Nov.  1706. 

*  Penrose  (Sir  V.  C,  Vice-Admiral  of  the  Blue),  Observations  on 
Corporeal  Punishment,  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." ^ 

^  Ad.  I.  2732— Capt.  Young,  12  Dec.  1742. 

2  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  si::,  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  i.,  art.  7. 

2  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  22  nd  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  Vangtmrd.  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  i2tii  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- 

1  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  sifhilar  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 
1  Ad.  I.  1471— Capt.  Balchen,  13  May  17 16. 


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. 

^  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  £7,0  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 

1  Ad.  I.  1440— Capt.  Askew,  27  Aug.  1748. 

2  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 

^  Londofi  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. 


1 

o 

< 


•  ,    •  e         e  e 

•      •         *  «  «« 

•  •  •  •  •  • 


•  ••• 

•  ••  • 

"  •« 

•  ••  • 

••••• 

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  /^i 
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  ^148  for  1776  miles 
of  travel;  Capt.  Gibbs,  of  Swansea,  with  ;!^i90  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  £ig,  5s.  2d.  {Ad. 
Victualling  Dept.,  Miscellanea,  No.  26). 

^  Ad.  I.  1493 — Capt.  Bover,  6  March  1763,  and  endorsement. 

2  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  litde 
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.  i.   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.  1 546— Petition  of  the  Owners  of  the  Fishing  Cobbles  of 
Lynn,  3  March  1809. 

*  Ad.  I.  1557 — Capt.  Bell,  27  June  1806,  enclosure. 

*  Ad.  I.  579— Admiral  Child,  30  Jan.  1800. 


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  gencx^al  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.  1801,  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 

1  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  liquor  from  the  masters 
as  a  consideration  for  not  pressing  their  men,  did  not 
escape  so  lighdy.     Him  the  Admiralty  prosecuted.^ 

It  was  in  companies,  however,  that  the  sham 
ganger  most  frequendy  took  the  road,  for  num- 
bers not  only  enhanced  his  chances  ot  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  mel6e  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. 
2  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  Officers'  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  office,  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  t  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  1709 to  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 
dechned  the  invitation,  "having  the  Notion  of  being  sent  to  CaroHna." — 
Ad.  I.  1437— Letters  of  Capt.  Aston. 

*  13  George  II.  cap.  17. 


The  Press-Gaxg  seizing  a  Victim. 


i        •  *  • 

•      •    •  •    • 

•  •    •  •  • 

•  •     •  •« 
•       •  • 


•  •    •        « 

•      •    •  •  « 


I 


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  1806. 

^  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 

1  Ad.  I.  482— Admiral  Lord  Colvill,  29  Oct.  1762. 
*  Ad.  I.  585— Admiral  Donnelly,  22  Feb.  181 5. 


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. 

2  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 

"^  A(i.  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  11.  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- 
nessof  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  ^lo  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. 

2  Ad.  I.  1829— Capt.  Gage,  29  Sept.  1742. 

'  Ad,  7.  300— 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!"^ 

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— Cskpt.  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  thai  other  towns  do 
not  enjoy y  ^ 

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  George  II.  cap.  28.    Ad.  i.  2732— Capt.  Young,  14  March  1756. 
Ad.  7.  300 — Law  Officers'  Opinions,  1778-83,  No.  42. 


AVHOM  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  arminor  the  fleet  was  like  to  be  undone.     With 

o 

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.  Baird,  27  Feb.  1755,  and  numerous  instances. 
^  15  Richard  11.  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  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  th'eir  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.^ 

1  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 
1  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 

1  S/a^e  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  Justice^  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  n.  cap.  15,  ^  /\i  George  iii,  cap.  21. 


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- 

1  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.^ 

1  Ad.  I.  1446— Capt.  Alms,  2  Jan.  1780. 

2  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."  ^ 

x^dmiralty  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, 

1  Ad.  I.  1497 — Thomas  Hurry,  master,  3  March  1777. 


WHOM  THE  GANG  MIGHT  TAKE     IQI 

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,  11  August  1743.    Ad.  i.  1531— Capt. 
Ballard,  15  March  1804,  and  enclosure. 


102:  ;•:,•.•;  :  THEi-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  injustice  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 

1  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  1777  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  tfhe  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  Thornborough,  30  Nov.  18 13. 

^  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 

1  Ad.  I.  1531 — 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 
1  Ad.  I.  1478— Letters  of  Capt.  Boscawen,  July  and  August  1743. 


110  THE  PRESS-GANG 

thirty-four  seamen  temporarily  drafted  into  her  from 
Bosca wen'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  ei^ht,  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  Humber,  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  Pordand  Bill,  Portsmouth  tenders  from  Pordand 
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 
Humber  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 

1  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. 


Seizing  a  Waterman  on  Tower  Hill  on  thi 
Morning  of  his  Wedding  Day. 


I 


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 
silendy  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.  Licorne,  "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 

1  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,  ^^^  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 

1  Nor  were  they  always  effective,  as  witness  the  following : 
"Tuesday  the  15th,  the  Shandois  sloop  from  Holland  came  by  this  place 
(the  Nore).  I  put  15  men  on  b**  her  to  secure  her  Comp^  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  merr'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 
1  Ad.  I.  1541— 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  Comet  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. 

2  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  simil^y 
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. 
2  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  ^etsey  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 


W       O 


• 

«c  c«  c 

•     • 

•  •  « 

•••• 

*  c    ** 

•         • 

•••• 

«*  *« 

, 

••  •• 

• 

•  • 

•  •••  • 

•  •••• 

• 

.:::. 

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 


••••      .< 


•••••     ••••• 


•     •• 


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 

1  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  Reeft  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  pyo//  armed  sloop,  whilst  pressing 
on  the  H umber  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.^ 

1  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  unofficer- 
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  22  nd  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  22  nd  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 

1  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 

1  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  with  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  Falmouth! s  boats  could  not 
forge  ahead  to  board  her  before  the  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, 
lo 


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. 

2  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 

1  Ad.  I.  1 510 — 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 


160  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, 

1  Ad.  I.  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  wind'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  !  the  warrant's  out,  the  hanger's  drawn  ! 
Cheerily,  lads,  so  cheerilee  !  we'll  leave  'em  an  i?  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'  htXXtrs,  passim. 

2  Ad.  I.  580 — Admiral  Lord  Nelson,  Memorandum  on  the  State  of 
the  Fleet,  1803. 


154  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 

1  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 

1  Ad.  I.  i486— Capt.  Baird,  29  March  and  21  April  1755. 


156  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 

1  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. 


\ 

158  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  they  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 

1  Ad.  I.  581— Admiral  Berkeley,  Report  on  Rendezvous,  28  Sept. 
1805. 

^  Ad.  I.  579— Admiral  M'Bride,  9  March  1795.  ^^'  i-  57^  — 
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 


Z-' 


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 — enough  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  regulating 
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 

1  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  1 804  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  To wn.  "^  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  tbe  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- 
1  Ad.  I.  1502— Capt.  Bennett,  12  and  26  April  1782. 


EVADING  THE  GANG  165 

less  the  vagaries  of  the  wayward  children  of  the 
State,  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  fiat-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.  162 1— Capt.  Crosby,  30  Dec.  1796. 

2  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  were  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  jf3  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  visdd  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.^ 


1  Ad.  I.  2734— Capt.  Yorke,  8  March  1798. 

2  Ad.  I.  580— Admiral  Phillip,  Report  on  Rendezvous,  25  April  1804. 

^  Ad.  I.    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  w^ho  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  prest  by  the  men  of  war  and  tenders  y 

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 


176  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  sailors  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 
1  "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,  suppHed  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  s*-  ne  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  Queensfefry 
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. 


180  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. 


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  Litde- 
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 

1  Ad.  I.  i445-46--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  ASHOKE     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  gang. 

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  owrl  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. 


i     '.  ■     ... -it  Ki  l!o  .  i  '  ,.  .,ml  [.t<''»it<»r»: 

ikM   ,    !',.  .!,;(•  t'^  k    s'-'      i;-  -  ■  ''••'     ■  ■^  ■  ■''■■'    '• 

Avli.iu-N.;   ihail  bc^inoIciUJ    I        :      :•    «'<  ■  ■■'"■-'   i'i -■ 
Nigai.s,  ■iniin  the  Jk'ur.s   oi    i'cia   in  th<_    .:<    :.  ■■•.i^  '  > 
Sivtlir  lullowing  Morning,  atui   which  iiinr  iL.    i!«lM.' 
gLUCL   ctafc,';. 

__    ~"  1^^      DlTsl  RE 

Members]  of  the  Jerufalem  Coffee-Houje. 
\  Lhe~^HEATRE   in  North- Shields. 

On     MONDAY,    November  24th,    1794. 

Will   be  porforme,!  A   ntw   COMEDY,  called   I  lie 

World  in   a    Village: 

TRIAL    of"  "friendship. 

'r/r««»  hv  th.il  lujily  xlrhriitrrl  Ai/th.r,  J.  C 
hij^bli  l^l,'!  Hiafrjn  it  //m-  -Thrjltr  R'yol, 

joUvbov,  (.inhoncllMilli-rl 
t;ngi-rv,  |\Vinc-m..r.h.m  :,n,l  liarix^r) 
Albut,  (a  cirmiK-a  lircwcr) 
CilJta'in  Mullinali.ick,  (a  SeaOlliccr} 

01.1  Willows,  la  StcwaiJ) 
<.ipt.iiii  Vaulluileii,  {a  Dii;c!iii..iu) 
£<l  ,vard  Bellevuv, 
William  IWleviif, 

Old  Soldier,  M 

Clisrlc,  [j.  lortur.jtr  Ailvc;'.!-.!!:;) 

Louila.      '  Ml 

Mrs  Allnit.  Mi-. 


tml   of    .■> 


lie    Tippies  of  Ninety  Four: 

o  ;;, 

The  Golden  Days  we  now  Pojfefs^  Sir. 

i,rf„rc  the    Farrc,  Mrs    li  T  C  <;  1  N  S  (i,y  nff.t.:)  v.iit  Ur.-f, 

<■'  Yes  Kind  Sir  and  I'll  Thank  you  too." 

l-.ul  «t  Act  idutticKirgc,  Mr  VVHF.K.1,KK    -.v;;)  lk„-  Mr  Srid},'    '...    ■■■  ■■ 
Hii..tiiii;  ^3on^;,  ii,  DrciV  a,i,l  (^lur.Klrr,  v.illed 

OLD    TOWLER'. 

■V'.  -.vhiJ   will  (,<•  aiWcd,  A  cclctTitSd  \-\  R  C  K,  «'!.■.!  '!  \.  ^ 

MIDNIGHT  HOUR? 

u  v.,  ^ 

Diamond  Cut  Diamoncf, 


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«;-(;^r/i...  ,.v//,  ,;«„../ .^V"""""- 

Mr          C  A  \V  1)  F.  I.  I  . 

Mr          r  k  i   T  C  M  A  R  1). 

Mr             \V    A    T   r  S.   , 

Mr         N  K.  'A'  l>  O  I'  X  1 '. 

Mr      ^    CO  1.  I.  !  K  R 

Mr            \\    A   R  V.    ;  C  j\. 

c  A  w  n  I-,  1.  1 . 

\VH  }.  y.  1.  p.  p. 

11  U  O  O  1   X  <• 

Mr        c  ;;  A  i!  A  \i. 

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(    O  i    I.  1  h.  K.                   .          •      . 

u  r.  .V  r,  o  I.  .V  \). 

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V.  it  ]-.  1.  1.  !■:  ;; 

Mrs             <J  '  K  K  ;.  i-    E. 

1)  xMil  nnj-  .1     C-in--     Srnf;,  <  ailed 

',7/  Dublin  to  London. 

AHAM.  y  \ 


One  of  the  Rarest  of  Press-Gang  Records. 

A  play-bill  announcing  the  suspension  of  the  Gang's  operations  on 
"Play  Nights";   in  the  collection  of  Mr.  A.  M.  Broadley, 
by  whose  kind  permission  it  is  reproduciqdki  ,  .- 

;,  [.  (Km.  !:  i 


1 1;  u  0'.  I.I  /. 


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 
1  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 


Jit 


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 

1  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. 

1  Ad.  I.  1498— Capt.  Bover,  ii  Aug.  1778. 


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  fl'ght.  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 

1  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. 
3  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. 

2  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,  £s  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  VlII 

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 


i 


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 

1  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  dow^n.  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 
1  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 

^  iVestminster  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  ni'.,  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 /  happGn^d  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 
1  Ad.  I.  2579 — Capt.  Townshend,  21  April  1743. 


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  almost  severe 
beating."  2 

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." 
*  Ad.  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- 
Gane  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 
^  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   three    in    number, 

1  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.  1 5 16-9— 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  pressing  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. 

2  Ad.  I.  3818— 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  afioat  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 

1  Ad.  I.  1482— Lieut.  Barnsley,  25  March  1746. 

2  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  u'  on  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  ;^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 

1  Ad.  I.  1 500— 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 
captains  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 

*  Aci.  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,  manoeuvring  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 

1  Ad.  I.  2739— Lieut.  Atkinson,  26  Feb.  and  27  June  1793. 


AT  GRIPS  WITH  THE  GANG       223 

mad  to  recover  lost  ground.  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  gun  whale, 
"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 
>vas  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 

1  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  Shark's  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    16  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  Hobsons  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  w^as  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 

1  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   I  St  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,  thinking  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 
d^e  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  ofificer  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 

1  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  plus  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 

233 


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.  I.  580 — Inquiry  into  the  Conduct  of  the  Impress  Officers  at 
Poole,  13  Aug.  1804. 

2  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  Falmouth,  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 

''Ad.  I 

^  Ad.  I 
^  Ad.  I 


1 531 — Lieut.  Watson,  27  Oct.  1804. 

1493— Capt.  Bethel,  29  Aug.  1762. 

1494 — Capt.  Brereton,  18  Oct.  1765. 

577 — Admiral  the  Marquis  of  Carmarthen,  24  June  17 10, 

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- 
1  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,  62  theire  bodies  to  be 
imprisoned," 


THE  GANG  AT  PLAY  241 

summary  nature.  Before  you  realised  the  helnousness 
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  a  gang  at  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  Daily,  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 

1  Ad.  I.  1467— Capt.  Byron,  13  July  1705. 

2  Ad.  I.  1 501 — Lieut.  Collingwood,  18  March  1781. 

3  Ad.  I.  1544— Capt.  Sir  Robert  Bromley,  2  Dec.  1808. 

*  Ad.  I.  145 1— 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-whaling.  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  18 14. 

^  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  Weybourn  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  righdy  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,  I.  1542— Capt.  Barker,  22  June  1808,  and  enclosure. 


250  THE  PRESS-GANG 

acute  stage.  His  resentment  of  the  latter's  being  the 
better  seaman  had  now  deepened  into  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.  I n  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 
thoucrh  he  was  afterwards  discharo^ed  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. 
2  jid  j_  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  J ou7'nal,  under 
date  of  loth  May  1743,  we  read  of  a  sailor  who, 
dying  at  Ringsend,  was  brought  to  Irishtown  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 

1  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  and  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  gfuilt. 
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  surrouuded  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 
^  Statement  of  Certain  Immoral  Practices,  1822. 


fie 


Anne  Mills. 
Who  served  on  board  the  Maidstone  in  1740. 


cc   c      « 


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  cowi- 
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 

1  Ad.  I.  1482— Capt.  Brett,  22  Feb.  1745-6. 

2  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."^ 

1  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  Dundee  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  LutterelP  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- 

1  Ad.  I.  1503— Capt.  Burney,  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  Cura^oa,  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 


Mary  Anne  Talbot, 


.•^ 


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 
1 806. 


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  I "  ^ 

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. 

2  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,  ^"^  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  it  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."  1  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 13, 


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,  Lieut.  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 

1  Ad.  I.  1534 — Lieut.  M'Kenzie,  20  Oct.  1805. 

2  ^^  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  5th 
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  1783,  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  ^92^//-/^^^ 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 

1  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  Doris,  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. 

2  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 5 17 — 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 
'83,  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. 

1  Trial  and  Life  of  Richard  Parker,  Manchester,  1797. 

2  Ad.  I.  1517— Capt.  Brenton,  15  June  1797,  and  endorsement. 


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  daylight.  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:  '' 4  July,  //p/,  Richard 
Parker,  Skeerness,  Kent,  age  jj.  Cause  of  death, 
execution.  This  was  Parker,  the  President  of  the 
Mutinotis  Delegates  on  board  the  fleet  at  the  Nore. 
He  was  hanged  on  board  H.M,S.  Sandwich  on  the 
sot  h  day  of  June  y^ 

^  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. 


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. 

2  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. 
2  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. 

1  Ad.  I.  1540— Capt.  Barker,  5  Nov.  1807. 

2  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  mal  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.  145 1 — A.  Clarke,  Examining  Surgeon 
at  Dublin,  18  May  1807  ;  Ad.  i.  15 17 — 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  preHminary  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  ha^tchet  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, 

^  Times,  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 

1  Ad.  I.  1528— Capt.  Barker,  28  July  1803,  and  endorsement. 

2  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  had  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. 


IN  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- 

1  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 

1  Ad.  I.  i486— Capt.  Baird,  27  Feb.  1755. 

2  Ad.  I.  1439— Capt.  A'Court,  22  April  1741  ;  Ad.  i.  1497— Capt. 
Bover,  11  Feb.  1777,  and  Captains'  Letters,  passim. 


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. 


I  IN  THE  CLUTCH  OF  THE  GANG     297 

warrant  was  actually  issued  for  their  apprehension, 
I  though  never  executed.  To  put  the  men  on  their 
f  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  w^as  to  be  put  out  of  the  way,  as  soon 

1  Aii.  7.  300— Law  Officers'  Opinions,  1778-83,  No.  20. 

2  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  cong4.  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."^ 

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 
Renders. 

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. 

2  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  Officers  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.^ 

1  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. 

2  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, 
20  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  sacrds  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 


The  Press-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. 

2  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. 
2  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  they  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.^ 

1  Aii.  I.  1532— Lieut.  Collett,  13  Feb.  1804. 

2  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.  cccxl. — 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  V  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  jifi  I,  480 — Admiral  Mostyn,  rand  6  April  1755. 

3  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-hand,  learnt  the 
fallacy  of  the  assertion  that  that  vara  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  them  to  engage  the  French 
privateers  by  whom  they  were  held  up  in  the  river 
of  Shannon,  dared  not  lend  a  single  hand  lest  the 
pressed  men,  who  formed  the  greater  part  of  his  crew, 

*  Ad.  I.  1471— 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'  \.^\X.txs,  passim. 


•  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 

1  Ad.  I.  1499— Capt.  Bennett,  22  Sept.  1779. 

2  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. 

2  Ad.  I.  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  emancipated  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  Capt.  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  y/alk  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,  ^^^^  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-Admiral  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, 
I  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 


,824  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 

^  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.  gd.  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  ;^ioo;  at  Deal, 
in  1805,  £>Z'^  odd;  at  Poole,  in  the  same  year,  £%o} 
From  1756  the  average  steadily  declined  until  in 
1795  it  touched  its  eighteenth  century  minimum  of 
about  £^?  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 

1  state  Papers  Domestic^  Elizabeth^  vol.  Ixxiii.  f.  38  :   Estimate  of 
Charge  for  Pressing  400  Mariners,  1570. 

2  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  ;f  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  ;^8o ; 
the  cost  of  each  at  £26,  13s.  4d.  Hence  Nelsons 
forty-two  thousand  deserters  entailed  upon  the  nation 
an  actual  expenditure,  not  of  ^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  -  ^ong  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. 

331 


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 


10      0       4 

! 

— TT py" 77 — T 

^f;      -f/       ^'^      I 


^ 


ri 


.^/. 


f^-:: 


;> 


Ci>L  _i!^ 


Admiral  Young's  Torpedo. 
From  the  Original  Drawing  at  the  Public  Record  Office. 


•  •  • 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•  t  • 

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." 


Printed  by  Morrison  &  Gibb  Limited,  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,  21.7,  218. 

Alms,  Capt.,  182,  183. 

Afnaranth,  H.M.S.,  309. 

Ambrose,  Capt.,  317. 

Amherst,  Capt.,  317. 

Amphitrite,  H.M.S.,  34. 

Andover,  the  press-gang  at,  179. 

Angksea,  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,  7^. 

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. 

BathjBristol  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. 
Black  water,  men  working  turf  boats 

on,  not  exempt,  95. 
Blanche,  H.M.S.,  35. 
Blear-eyed  Moll,  263. 
'Blonde,  H.M.S.,  192. 
f  Boats  for  the  press-gang,  72. 
337 


338 


INDEX 


Boat  steercrs  on  whalers  exempt 
from  impressment,  90. 

Boatswains,  conditions  of  exemp- 
tion, 87-9. 

Bonetta  sloop,  135,  303. 

Boscawen,  Capt.,  98,  109,  1 10. 

Boston,  Mass.,  215. 
s^ounty  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. 
v'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,  23 1 . 

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,  Lord  Burleigh,  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  li.,  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  gun-hrig,  141. 

Cockburn,  Bailie,  of  Leith,  215. 

Cogbourne'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. 
vCrews  depleted  by  the  press-gang, 

124-9. 
J  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. 
T^eath  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  III.  on  the  Navy,  28. 

EHzabeth,  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. 


S40 


INDEX 


•. 


Exemption  from  impressment,  not 
a  right,  79. 

of  foreigners,  80,  81. 

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  1 8  and  over  5  5  years,  84, 8  5. 

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 
10%  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, 
t     on  similar  terms,  99. 
'^  worthless  without  a  document  of 

protection,  100-2. 
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. 

Fermey  H. M.S.,  313. 

Ferries,  a  favourite  haunt  of  the 
press-gang,  178. 

Fevers haniy  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  1 801  no  person  em- 
ployed   in   taking,   curing,  or 
selUng  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,  117. 
Folkstone,  press-gang  at,  56,  60. 
Forcible  entry  by  the  press-gang 

illegal,  199. 
Foreigners  impressed,  13,  81,  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. 
Fubbsy  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,  1 14. 

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-gangat,  56,61. 

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. 
eave,  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. 


■-i,i 


842 


INDEX 


Marines,  128,  129. 

Marooned  crews  on  Lundy  Island, 

158,  159. 
Martin  galley,  210. 
Mary  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. 
yMedway^  H.M.S.,  189,  190. 
the  press-gang  at,,^en  in  lieu,  125-9,  153. 

''^Merchant    seamen,    conditions 


Ucorm,  H.M.S.,  118. 

Limehouse  Hole,  the  press-gang  at, 

210-1. 
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 
See 


American    Plantations. 
Hotten,  J.  C. 
Litchfield,  H.M.S.,  32 
Littlehampton 
1/         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. 


\ 


of 

exemption,  86-9. 
unprotected  when  sleeping  ashore, 

89-91. 
the  most  valuable  asset  to  the 
1/      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,  110,259. 
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,  11,41,74,78,271. 

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. 


844 


INDEX 


Pressed  labour,  continued— 
the  classes  from  which  drawn, 

II,  12. 

exemptions  from,  1 3. 

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  in  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-io5. 

primarily  those  who  used  the 
sea,  77. 

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  exempt  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 captains  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,  1 19- 
24. 

complications  arising  from 
pressing  at  sea,  1 24-9. 

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,  138-40. 

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. 
Vwhat  it  did  ashore,  172-201. 

the  sailor  betrayed  by  marked 
characteristics  ;  sailors  out- 
numbered on  shore  by  the 
gang,  173. 

its  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. 
V'^-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  against* 

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 
wrongful  impressment,  fail- 
ure to  dip  the  flag,  or  flying  an 
unauthorised  flag,  might  lead 
to  pressing  from  that  crew, 
239,  240. 

unseanianlike  management  of 
a  ship  laid  the  crew  open  to 
pressing,  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  stern  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. 

inadequate  precautions  for  re- 
taining 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 

Tasker  tender  escapes  from, 

300,  301. 
The  (jnion  tender  cut  out  from 

the    Tyne   by  the   pressed 

men,  301,  302. 
various    excitements    aboard, 

303- 
a  final  exammation,  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. 

sHghtest  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  IL,  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,  I47> 
216. 

Ruby  gunship,  26. 

Rudsdale,  Lieut.,  118. 

Rum,  39,  40. 

/?tt/^r/,  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- 
port,  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  in,  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,  224,  225. 
"  She  "  applied  to  a  ship,  a  recent 

use,  236. 
Sheerness,  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  entrepot  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. 
'lenders,  108-10,  112-5. 
attacked,  215-7. 
Vliired    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. 
Thetis,  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^ 

2775  279- 

Trim,  WiUiam,  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- 
pHed  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, 27. 

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  2LX\x\edi  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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interest  to  his  new  novel,  the  scene  of  which  is  laid  in 
Edinburgh.  Mr.  Niven  already  holds  a  prominent 
place  among  the  school  of  modern  realists,  and  the 
brilliant  characterisation  of  some  very  interesting 
*  types'  which  he  gives  us  in  *  Ellen  Adair'  should  do 
much  to  further  enhance  his  reputation. 


MY  ENEMY  JONES 

An  Extravaganza 

By    ROBERT   BARR 

Author  of  ''  The  Mutable  Many  "  /   ''  Stranleigh's 
Millions y'  etc. 

Price  3^.  dd,  net 

RAVEN,   V.C, 

By  CORALIE  STANTON  and  HEATH  HOSKEN 
Second  Impression  Price  6f. 

'*  Raven,  V.C.  is  a  fine  character,  and  the  scenes 
on  the  India  frontier,  are  splendidly  done.  The  book 
is  one  of  enthralling  interest  with  an  original  and  very 
lovable  heroine." — Daily  Express, 

**A  fine  stirring  tale  ...  we  very  strongly  recom- 
mend xC— Globe, 

13 


MR,  SASH'S  asQEW  ^OFELS 


THE   GRELL    MYSTERY 

By  FRANK  FROEST 

Late  Superintendent  Criminal  Investigation 
Department^  Scotland  Yard 

Second  Impression  Price  dr. 

**  A  rattling  story — a  murder  mystery,  with  the  most 
puzzling  and  exciting  *  ends  '  to  it,  full  of  thrills  and 
triumphs  and  checks  and  counter-checks,  and  with 
none  of  the  nonsensical  machinery  of  the  shilling 
shocker  in  it.  .  .  .  Mr.  Froest  takes  us  behind  the 
scenes  at  Scotland  Yard  and  shows  how,  line  upon  line, 
inch  by  inch,  a  case  is  built  up.  Apart  from  the 
thumping  excitements  of  the  book  (and  they  are 
countless)  the  character  drawing  is  neatly  done.'* — 

Daily  News. 

**  It  is  all  highly  realistic,  and  we  are  carried  along 
breathlessly  from  start  to  finish  .  .  .  one  of  the 
cleverest  detective  stories  we  remember  to  have  read 
for  a  long  time  past." — Pall  Mall  Gazette, 

**  A  rich  feast  of  excitement  .  .  .  the  character- 
isation ...   is  well  done." — Spectator, 


14 


MR,  RASH'S  !N:EW  V^VELS 

FERRIS  OF  THE  CHERRY 
TREES 

By  J.  S.  FLETCHER 
Author  of  **  The  Town  of  Crooked  WaySy''  etc. 

Price  6s. 

Mr.  Fletcher  is  the  literary  lord  of  the  land  of  broad 
acres,  and  *^  Ferris  of  the  Cherry  Trees"  is  one  of 
the  best  of  his  many  fine  novels.  The  Cherry  Trees 
is  the  name  of  a  farm. 

**  Mr.  J.  S.  Fletcher  is  one  of  the  score  of  modern 
novelists  who  inspire  their  readers  with  confidence. 
The  sound  construction  and  strong  characterisation 
of  his  workmanship  .  .  .  accord  well  with  his  home- 
spun scenes  of  Yorkshire  manners." — Nation, 

**  A  fine  story." — Morning  Post, 

"It  is  the  quiet,  cumulative  method  of  the  true 
artist ;  and  the  reader  who  gets  his  nose  into  the  story 
will  not  want  to  skip  a  page.  Of  the  strength  and 
fine  technique  of  the  novel  and  its  atmosphere,  as 
well  as  the  true  studies  of  rural  character,  there  is 
no   doubt.      A  notable  piece  of  work. " 

— Westminster  Gazette, 


EVELEIGH  NASH 

36  King  St.,  Covent  Garden,  London,  W.C. 

15 


The  WttiminnUr  Pms  (Gerrards  Ltd.) 
411a  Harrow  R»ad,  London  W. 


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