Читать книгу The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore - J. R. Hutchinson - Страница 8

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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 accordingly composed of the stoutest men procurable, dare-devil fellows capable of giving a good account of themselves in fight, or of carrying off their unwilling 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." [Footnote: London Chronicle, 16 March 1762.]

The getting of a gang together presented little 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, seafaring 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. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1502—Capt. Boston, Report on Rendezvous, 1782.]

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 gangsman avoided encounters with men he had pressed, 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 Liverpool 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, escaped this unpleasant but necessary duty in their

younger days. But on shore an altogether different order of things

prevailed.

[Illustration: MANNING THE NAVY. Reproduced by kind permission from a

rare print in the collection of Mr. A. M. Broadley.]

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!"

[Footnote: The authenticity of the anecdote, notwithstanding the fact that it was long current in naval circles, is more than doubtful. When 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.]

A lieutenant attached to the gang at Chester is responsible for a piece of descriptive writing, of a biographical nature, which perhaps depicts the impress 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 Disposition. This City has been several times just on the point of writing against him to the Board of Admiralty. 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." [Footnote: Ad, 1. 1500—Lieut. Shuckford, 7 March 1780.]

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 indiscretions of which the hectoring old officer was guilty shortly after his arrival, aroused strong hostility 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 perquisites 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. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1500—Capt. Bennett, 13 Nov. 1780, and enclosures constituting the inquiry.] 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 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 1 Pound 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 [Footnote: 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, 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" (Admiralty Records 1. 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 19 Pounds, 55. 2d. (Admiralty Records Victualling Dept, Miscellanea, No. 26).] and such purposes as "entertainments to the Mayor and Corporation, the Magistrates and the Officers of the Regulars and the Militia, by way of return for their civilities 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 Pounds. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1493—Capt. Bover, 6 March 1763, and endorsement.]

"Road-money" was generally allowed at the rate of 3d. a mile for officers and 1d. 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 Pounds for 1776 miles of travel; Capt. Gibbs, of Swansea, with 190 Pounds for 1561 miles; and Capt. Longcroft, of Haverfordwest, with 524 Pounds for 8388 miles—a charge characterised by Admiral M'Bride, who that year reported upon the working of the impress, as "immense." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 579—Admiral M'Bride, 19 March 1795.] 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 1s. 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, diverted into the pockets of those who did the pressing. The practice, however, was short-lived. Tending as it did to fill the ships with unserviceable men, it was speedily discontinued and the historic shilling made over to the certifying surgeon.

The shore midshipman could boast but little affinity with his namesake of the quarter-deck. John Richards, midshipman of the Godalming gang, had never in his life set foot on board a man-of-war or been to sea. His age was forty. The case of James Good, of Hull, is even more remarkable. He had served as "Midshipman of the Impress" for thirty years out of sixty-three. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1455—Capt. Acklom, 6 Oct. 1814. Admiralty Records 1.1502—Capt. Boston, Report on Rendezvous, 1782.] 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 1s. 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, 10s. 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-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 cannot 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 department, 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 throughout 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 everybody's knowledge—at King's Lynn in Norfolk, where the gang had no need to go a-fishing because, regularly 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 the Regulating Captain, the Lieutenant and himself." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1546—Petition of the Owners of the Fishing Cobbles of Lynn, 3 March 1809.] And if, again, rating a gangsman in choicest quarterdeck language were no serious offence, why should not the Regulating Captain rate his son as midshipman, 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. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1557—Capt. Bell, 27 June 1806, enclosure.] 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. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 579—Admiral Child, 30 Jan. 1800.]

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 "gratifications" 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 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 15 Pounds 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. Representations were made to the Admiralty, and the unfortunately constituted lieutenant was "broke" and black-listed. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 2740—Lieut. Atkinson, 24 June 1798, and endorsement.]

Another species of fraud upon which the Admiralty was equally severe, was that long practised with impunity by a certain regulating officer at Poole. Not only did he habitually put back the dates on which men were pressed, thus "bearing" them for subsistence money they never received, he made it a further practice to enter on his books the names of fictitious pressed men who opportunely "escaped" after adding their quota to his dishonest perquisites. So general was misappropriation of funds by means of this ingenious fraud that detection was deservedly visited with instant dismissal. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1526—Capt. Boyle, 2 Oct. 1801, and endorsement.]

Though to the gangsman all things were reputedly lawful, some things were by no means expedient. He could with impunity deprive almost any ablebodied adult of his freedom, and he could sometimes, 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 "discharging" 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, his gangsman, both of whom were eventually brought to justice and turned over to His Majesty's ships.

The rôle 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 Doubloon's & 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. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1500—Letters of Capt. Beecher, 1780]

Ex-midshipman Rookhad, who when dismissed 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 lightly. Him the Admiralty prosecuted. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 7. 298—Law Officers' Opinions, 1733–56, No. 12. Process was by information in the Court of King's Bench, for a misdemeanour.]

It was in companies, however, that the sham ganger most frequently took the road, for numbers not only enhanced his chances of obtaining money, they materially diminished the risk of capture. One such gang was composed of "eighteen desperate villians," who were nevertheless taken. Another, a "parcel of fellows armed with cutlasses like a pressgang," 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 mêlée petitioner's husband, then constable of Bow, was "wounded soe that he shortly after dyed." [Footnote: State Papers Domestic, Anne, xxxvi. No. 17.]

There were occasions when the sham gang 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 Providence 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 not slow to avail themselves of. They put the Excise Officers on the scent, and Cooke was prosecuted for smuggling. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 7. 298—Law Officers' Opinions, 1733–56, No. 101.]

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 suitable 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 13 Pounds 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. Sometimes 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 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 unspeakable 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 1s. 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 1s. 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 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 "seamen" as possibly he could procure, giving to each man so impressed 1s. "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 regulating the nearest rendezvous. All civil authorities 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 pressing 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.

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 execution 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 gangsman 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 tradition 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. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 7. 298—Law Officers' Opinions, 1733–56, No. 102.] He accordingly pronounced it to be non-essential to the validity of warrants. Nevertheless, 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 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 unavoidably made them many enemies.