Impressment
- Forced Recruitment
into the Royal Navy
The
‘pressing’ of men into the service of the Crown was very much a contentious
issue during its time of operation and there was much comment passed. The
overwhelming modern understanding is of all and sundry being picked up by less
than discerning press gangs. This is not unnatural considering that this was a
perception put over by contemporaneous opponents of the press. However, it is
far from the reality, which was very much more complicated.
Already
by the 17th century sailing ships were highly complex machines,
which required skilled hands to operate their mechanisms and this would
continue into the 18th and 19th centuries. Sailors
learned their skills through time and experience, in the main begun as boys.
Whether on naval warships, privateers, merchantmen of the great chartered
companies, or lesser merchantmen, the ‘people’ (that is to say all who were not
held ‘officers’ rank) were drawn from the same pool of labour. All signed on
per voyage and theoretically could choose whom they served. However, even if
war on land was the concern of relatively small groups of often-mercenary
groups of professional warriors, war at sea already required more of a mass
participation. As warships grew both in number and size, very large numbers of
men were needed to prosecute state wishes when required in long and frequent
periods of war. (Men-o-war were generally laid up in
the shorter periods of peace in between.)
The
traditional perspective of the Royal Navy during these centuries is of crews
receiving unremitting hell. Whilst some good modern research has shown this to be not entirely
accurate, life was far from luxurious for anyone at sea in these centuries,
whether ‘officer’ or one of the ‘people’, on warships or merchantmen. It is
true that a great many men genuinely ‘took the sovereign’s shilling’ and if
sailors’ songs are to be believed, perhaps for reasons which may often have
reflected a nationalistic defence which is not apparent elsewhere in society at
this time. Nevertheless, a great many men did not
want to serve the monarch, whether they had already spent time on warships, or
not.
This
was, however, immaterial to commands of warships that needed seamen as crews.
If merchant seamen could be induced, through bounties, to join voluntarily -
well and good. But if not, men still had to be
procured. Interestingly, far more men were pressed at sea than on shore.
Homeward bound merchantmen on their final approaches to discharge were often
boarded and ‘volunteers’ were called for. If not gaining the requisite number,
men were simply pressed and this included individuals who were theoretically
‘protected’ from just such an eventuality.
The
more traditional view of the press-gang is on shore
though. Far from having great power, those charged with the task of obtaining
men by pressing had to operate in conditions that were less than ideal. If they
were not careful they themselves could end up in prison and some were even
murdered. Skilled seamen were sought after, preferably from merchantmen, but
not uncommonly from other warships. Landsmen were not wanted, as they required
long training in the basics. Nevertheless, though it was necessary to make up
the numbers onboard with landsmen it seems that these were mostly volunteers in
the true sense of the word. It was most unusual, though not absolutely out of
the question, for press-gangs to range the countryside picking up any
able-bodied males they encountered.
For
excellent detailed analysis of conditions in the R.N. during the Seven Years
War (1756-1763) including the press, currently in print, see N.A.M. Rodger’s The Wooden World: An Anatomy the Georgian Navy (London: Fontana
Press, 1986).