by Roy Adkins
Conditions on board the tenders and receiving ships were so bad that they led to the rapid transmission of diseases like typhus in previously healthy men, but calls to improve the system fell on deaf ears. Fifteen years before William Robinson suffered the hell-hole of the tender, The Times wrote:
Instead of a tender to receive the impressed men, and confine them until they are sent on board their respective ships, there should be large roomy houses for them on shore, where the air might have free circulation, and where health could not be forced away by the stench of putrified air. This might be easily accomplished at Tower-hill, Deptford, and Greenwich, and would redound to the humanity of Government, whose duty it is to provide in the most comfortable manner for these men who are torn from their families to do the most dangerous part of the public duty. Deaths and diseases are the consequence of the bad treatment these poor fellows receive before they get on board the fleet. They are crammed together like so many slaves from Africa, and used, not as the men on whose fidelity and courage the existence of this country depends – but as if they were the veriest felons that ever received sentence of transportation.35
Probably the most heartless impressment was that of merchant seamen who were returning home after a voyage of one or two years and were taken before they saw their families again. In March 1803, seamen were seized from East India Company ships off Plymouth, having made the long journey from India: ‘While the six East Indiamen were lying to off the Eddystone, for the easterly wind, on Monday last the English cruisers in the Channel, manned and armed, boarded them all, and made a fair sweep of nearly 300 prime seamen for the service of the fleets; the crews of the Indiamen, till boarded, had not the most distant idea of an approaching rupture with France.’36 Even returning prisoners-of-war were liable to be seized. In late 1798, the nineteen-year-old George Mackay managed to flee from France, where he had been held prisoner for four years after HMS Scout was captured in the Mediterranean. His escape was through Switzerland and Germany, and at Cuxhaven he boarded a packet boat to Yarmouth:
After a very boisterous passage of three days, I reached the shores of Albion in perfect safety. How did my heart leap with ecstasy at finding myself once more upon British ground! How exquisite were my anticipations of a happy interview with an aged father and a beloved sister! Alas! I knew not the luckless fate which awaited me: I knew not, that in the space of a few minutes, every fond and cheering hope would be cruelly blasted: – I knew not, that such a measure of affliction was awaiting me, as would cause me most deeply to regret having left an enemy’s country! But to proceed: I had not been seated long before a cheerful fire, regaling myself with a draught of good English porter, which to me seemed equal, if not superior, to nectar, when a press-gang, who, it would appear, had observed me entering the house, suddenly rushed upon me, and without the least ceremony, dragged me into the presence of their commanding officer. In vain I pleaded my long captivity – In vain I entreated them to suffer me to proceed to London to see an aged father, whom I had not beheld for several years; these sons of Neptune were inexorable; and having securely lodged me on board of a tender, I was from thence carried to the Nore, and put on board a frigate, which in a few days afterwards sailed for the West Indies.37
Violent opposition to the press-gangs was inevitable and widespread. A hot press took place at the start of the Revolutionary Wars with France in 1793, but the seamen of one East India Company ship refused to cooperate:
On Thursday evening a press-gang attempted to get on board the Camden East Indiaman, lying at Gravesend; but the crew resolutely opposed their coming into the ship: and appeared with arms in their hands, swearing they would cut them down. A young Irishman, remarkably strong, took up a grindstone lying on the deck, and swore he would throw it upon them if they did not desist, upon which they rowed off, but returned again at four o’clock next morning, and being served as before, were obliged to sheer off.38
Sometimes pressed men were successfully rescued, as the merchant captain Samuel Kelly witnessed at Liverpool the following year:
My lodgings were near one of the naval rendezvous, which gave me an opportunity of witnessing an unpleasant transaction. A carpenter had been impressed and was lodged in the press-hole at the bottom of Water Street. This circumstance being communicated to the shipwrights, a large body of the trade assembled at night with a long spar [of wood] which they used as a battering ram against the prison door, which soon burst asunder and all the men within were liberated. They then proceeded to the rendezvous in Strand Street which they broke open and literally gutted the house, the feathers of the beds were emptied into the streets and the furniture broken to pieces or carried off as booty, in which business a number of women assisted, as well as in drinking the beer and liquors, and even the windows were demolished.39
That same year, over two thousand miles away at St John’s in Newfoundland, impressed men were also rescued, resulting in the murder of a lieutenant from the frigate HMS Boston, as the seaman Aaron Thomas recorded in his journal:
It was deemed necessary for the benefit of His Majesty’s Service that a boat should be manned from the Boston for the purpose of going ashore a pressing. Lieutenant [Richard] Lawry was sent with the party. They returned with some hands which they had pressed. The next day, Saturday the 25th October [1794], Mr Lawry was sent ashore with two of these men in order to get their cloaths and the wages from the persons whom they had served as fishermen during the season. They landed at the upper end of the harbor, on which Mr Lawry took four of the boat’s crew with him, as the men had a few yards to walk. They passed under some fish flakes [frames for drying fish], when suddenly a number of Irishmen, armed with wattles [sticks] surrounded Mr Lawry and three of the boat’s crew. They rescued the impressed men, and then beat Mr Lawry in so unmerciful a manner that he died the next morning of the wounds he had received in this fray. Two of the boat’s crew were beat in a terrible manner, and their lives for some time despaired of. One other got off with a few strokes, and his messmate got off, perhaps with his life, by running for, and gaining the boat.40
The logbook for the Boston recorded: ‘Sunday 26 [October 1794]... At half past 1 Lieut. Lawry died of his wounds received from the mob. Carpenters employed making a coffin for him. Sent a party of marines on shore in search of the murderers.’41 Thomas noted that one of the Irishmen gave evidence against the others, and Richard Power and Garret Farrell were hanged six days later. ‘Had this transaction happened in England,’ Thomas observed, ‘a great scope offered itself for the pleading of counsel. They would a spoke on the right and necessity of pressing, on volunteers and impressed men … The two men that were hanged were natives of Ireland and most deservedly met their deserts.’42
Impressment frequently provoked a response from the mob, and nearly four years later in Hull, in July 1798, another incident led to rioting:
On Thursday evening last, as Lieutenant [ James] LOTEN of the Impress Service in Hull, was going home from the house of the rendezvous, he met a sailor armed with a large knife, such as is used in Greenland, with which he instantly struck the Lieutenant and cut him in the hand. Lieutenant L. took him immediately to the rendezvous, and had him sent on board the Nonsuch [tender]. A large mob of idle and disorderly persons collected about the house, and broke all the windows of that and some of the adjoining ones. Their disposition to commit further acts of riot was so evident, that it was judged prudent to call out the military and yeomen, who were soon under arms, and continued so for three hours, till the mob had left the streets, and the quiet was restored.43
Murders and assaults were also committed by members of the press-gang, who were invariably found not guilty when the cases went before the courts. In 1779 sixteen men from a press-gang under the command of Midshipman William Palmer were tried at Ipswich for the murder of the publican Thomas Nichols at Bury in Suffolk. Because of the sensitivity of the case, it was transferred in June to the Court of King’s Bench in London, where it was heard that
A debate ensued on what constituted murder, during which it was stated that ‘the situation of the prisoners would be particularly hard indeed, if, when compelled to a service which they dare not refuse, they are to answer with their lives for consequences which are, if not inevitable, but too probable to follow from the execution of their duty’.45 It was decided that there was no murderous intention and that it could not be proved who was in the house at the time. The prisoners were therefore discharged.
Captains obviously preferred to have seafaring men, but frequently only landsmen were found, a poor substitute for a proper crew. Among them were vagrants and convicts, who could be forcibly recruited into the navy. In October 1787 The Times reported that in London, ‘The operations of the press-gangs have made a visible change in the streets – all the idle, vagabonding part, are removed, and an addition thereby made to the safety of the inhabitants. So many poor fellows, without employment, and acting under the combined influence of distress and drink, must be thieves or rogues, if not otherwise provided for.’46 This system could usefully rid places of troublesome inhabitants, as in Liverpool a few years earlier, where Captain Worth, the regulating officer, said that ‘George Wood was impressed at the request of the neighbourhood where he lived, being a common disturber of their peace. I declined taking him at first, but being solicited again and understanding he was a stout fellow, he was taken and carried on board the Assistance near three months since; from her he swam away and [was] brought on board the second time by the Wigan gang.’47 Impressment suited the wealthy – crime was reduced because vagrants and criminals were taken off the streets, wages were held in check for some types of workers, because they were threatened with the press-gang, and the warships were manned so as to protect trade. Another source of recruits was through the Marine Society, which had been founded in 1756 by Jonas Hanway to take young boys off the street and give them clothing and training for the navy.
Especially in times of war, though, the supply of new recruits through impressment was inadequate, and in 1795 two Quota Acts were passed that required every county and numerous ports to supply a specified number of able-bodied men for the navy in return for a bounty. The county of Berkshire, for instance, was required to find 108 men and Staffordshire 245, while the port of Dartmouth was expected to supply 394. This drew in many landsmen and criminals, and when in March 1797 William Hotham was put in charge of HMS Adamant, he thought it was very dangerous to have crews of ships filled up by men of dubious backgrounds. He believed there were seditious elements present – which turned out to be the case, as mutinies at Spithead and the Nore followed soon after. He later commented:
The scheme of quota men was a new and injudicious one; and threw a mass of population into the fleet, whose habits were altogether strange to the seamen of it, the admixture with whom was unnatural and prejudicial. It was then a common practice with the London Police when they got hold of a confirmed rogue but lacked sufficient evidence to convict him, to send him on board any ship known to be in want of men, in order effectually to dispose of him. Men of this kind, often pronounced demagogues, with a little knowledge of politics and a smattering of education, indignant at their compulsory servitude, were in a frame of mind to excite discontent and defiance in others.48
Perhaps surprisingly, many sailors did enlist voluntarily, and their reasons were varied; sometimes lured by the romance of the sea and the chance of adventure, escaping an unhappy situation on land, or quite simply because they wanted to be part of the service. Twenty-five-year-old Irish Catholic Henry Walsh did not dream of a life at sea, but was desperately unhappy at his home near Aghalee, County Antrim, and after an argument with his father in the summer of 1809, he decided to head for Belfast and start afresh. ‘I then considered it,’ he said, ‘the only place of refuge for to ease my troubled mind, as I wished to live in obscurity from all my friends or any that I had ever knew.’49 He wrote a letter home: ‘Dear mother, when these few lines fall in your hands I then will be far from you … I hope that my absence will restore happiness in the family. I hope that my father will never frown nor reflect on me for my disobedient and mispent life.’50
The majority of recruits who volunteered had limited prospects in jobs on land and so were attracted by the idea of being given meals, accommodation, alcohol, tobacco and medical care, as well as their pay. For many men the harsh and brutal life of a warship was little different from the struggle to survive on land, and the offer of a cash payment or ‘bounty’ to each volunteer was generally enough to sway them. The hope of prize-money loomed large, and experienced sailors might enlist with ships that had ‘lucky’ captains who could make them a fortune. A prize was an enemy vessel and its cargo captured at sea, and prize-money was the value of such ships and cargoes paid to the crews involved according to a fixed scale of shares, reflecting the ranks of the officers and the men. Such a system was not far removed from outright piracy and would be alien in today’s navy, but it was then a key element of service and could even influence operations.
It is not possible to establish how many men were pressed and how many were volunteers, because the impressed men frequently bowed to the inevitable and agreed to volunteer, which gave them a sum of money. At St John’s in Newfoundland in October 1794, on the day he was murdered, Lieutenant Lawry of HMS Boston returned to shore with ‘2 men (who had been preste but had entered) for their cloaths and wages’51 – the men were deemed as having entered the navy voluntarily. The smuggler John Rattenbury was caught by the press-gang at Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1798 and taken to the Royal William receiving ship at Spithead to await being transferred to his allotted ship: ‘I remained there in close confinement for a month, hoping that by some chance or other, I might be able to make my escape; but seeing no prospect of accomplishing my design, I at last volunteered my services for the Royal Navy: if that can be called a voluntary act, which is the effect of necessity, not of inclination.’52 George Price, rated as a landsman on board HMS Speedy, was listed as a volunteer, but was actually impressed at Deptford in November 1803 from an East Indiaman that was on the point of sailing to China. The twenty-three-year-old wrote from a hospital ship to his brother, a publican at Southwark, to inform him of his situation:
I had the misfortune to be prest out of the Walmer Castle Indiaman and was very unwell at the time [they] took me on board the Speedy brig, and there I got so bad that they was obliged to send me on board the Sesex [Sussex] hospital ship lying at Sheerness … After I was on board the Speedy a few days I got so bad that I did not know where I was, no more than you did, and in that state I lost every article belonging to me, even the shirt of my back. Now I will leave you to guess what miserable state I am now in.53
When he was pressed, George Price like numerous others was quick-witted enough to use a false name. In letters to his brother he urged him to reply to his alias of George Green.
Unlike the seamen, no officer was compelled to join the navy, but there was never a shortage of candidates. To be an officer, it was necessary to be a gentleman. Although not impossible, very few officers rose through the ranks from humble social origins, and those who did were sometimes given the disparaging title of ‘tarpaulins’. One impediment to success was that few ordinary seamen were sufficiently
well educated to pass their lieutenant’s examinations, though they might make it to the rank of midshipman.
Thomas Troubridge came from a trade background. Born in London, about three years before Nelson, he was the only son of Richard Troubridge, an Irish baker, and Elizabeth Squinch of Marylebone. He was educated at St Paul’s School in London and then possibly joined the merchant navy, before moving to the Royal Navy. With his father’s background, Troubridge had no chance of being an army officer, but rose rapidly through the naval ranks. His first naval voyage was on board HMS Seahorse to the East Indies as an able seaman, from which he was promoted a few months later to midshipman. This was an eventful time, as he became firm friends with one of the other midshipmen – Horatio Nelson. Troubridge eventually reached the rank of rear-admiral.
Many senior officers disliked the idea of officers rising from the ranks and were all too well aware of a person’s origins. Captain George Westcott, from Honiton in Devon, was also the son of a baker. He joined the navy at the age of fifteen, and the Naval Chronicle recorded his background:
Young Westcott used frequently to be sent to the mill [at Honiton]. It happened in one of his visits, that by the accidental breaking of a rope, the machine was disordered; and neither the owner nor his men being equal to the task of repairing it, Westcott offered to use his skill in splicing it, although attended with danger and difficulty. The miller complied, and the job was executed with such nicety, that he told him ‘he was fit for a Sailor, since he could splice so well; and if he ever should have an inclination to go to sea, he would get him a berth.’ Accordingly an opportunity presented itself, of which the lad accepted; and he began his naval career in the humble capacity of a cabin-boy; a situation the most common in the ship, and not much calculated to afford vent to the expansion of genius. But he contrived to exercise his abilities to such good purposes, and discovered such an acuteness of understanding, that he was, in a very short time, introduced among the Midshipmen; in which rank his behaviour was so conciliating and prudent, that further advancement followed.54