The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore

The Press-Gang Afloat and
Ashore

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore
by John R. Hutchinson Copyright laws are changing all over the world.
Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before
downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg
eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore
Author: John R. Hutchinson
Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6766] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on January 24,
2003]

Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE
PRESS-GANG AFLOAT AND ASHORE ***

Steve Schulze, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team. This file was produced from images generously made available
by the CWRU Preservation Department Digital Library.

THE PRESS-GANG AFLOAT AND ASHORE
BY J. R. HUTCHINSON

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.
APPENDIX: ADMIRAL YOUNG'S TORPEDO.
INDEX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS:

AN UNWELCOME VISIT FROM THE PRESS GANG.

MANNING THE NAVY. Reproduced by kind permission from a rare
print in the collection of Mr. A. M. BROADLEY.
THE PRESS-GANG SEIZING A VICTIM.
SEIZING A WATERMAN ON TOWER HILL ON THE MORNING
OF HIS WEDDING DAY.
JACK IN THE BILBOES. From the Painting by MORLAND.
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 reproduced.
SAILORS CAROUSING. From the Mezzotint after J. IBBETSON.
ANNE MILLS WHO SERVED ON BOARD THE MAIDSTONE IN
1740.
MARY ANNE TALBOT.
MARY ANNE TALBOT DRESSED AS A SAILOR.
THE PRESS GANG, OR ENGLISH LIBERTY DISPLAYED.
ADMIRAL YOUNG'S TORPEDO. 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 compelling 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 construction, it met with little opposition in its
designs, experienced little difficulty in coercing the labour necessary
for piling its walls, excavating its tanks, raising its pyramids and castles,
or for levelling its roads and building its ships and cities. These were
the commonplace achievements of peace, at which even the coerced
might toil unafraid; for apart from the normal incidence of death, such
works entailed little danger to the lives of the multitudes who wrought
upon them. Men could in consequence be procured for them by the
exercise of the minimum of coercion--by, that is to say, the mere threat
of it.
When peace went to the wall and the pressed man was called upon to
go to battle, the case assumed another aspect, an acuter phase. Given a
state of war, the danger to life and limb, the incidence of death, at once
jumped enormously, and in proportion as these disquieting factors in
the pressed man's