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It is in vain to assert the inviolability of the obligation of allegiance. It is in vain to set up the plea of necessity, and to allege that she cannot exist without the impressment of HER seamen. The naked truth is, she comes, by her press-gangs, on board of our vessels, seizes OUR native as well as naturalized seamen, and drags them into her service.
Many men joined in consequence of the deeds he had already done, and some, after reading the placards or hearing them read, though they had no great faith in the promises. Still, the ship could not be manned entirely without sending out press-gangs. At length the "Pallas" was ready for sea.
When we read of the military being called in to assist the civil power in backing up the press-gang, of parties of soldiers patrolling the streets, and sentries with screwed bayonets placed at every door while the press-gang entered and searched each hole and corner of the dwelling; when we hear of churches being surrounded during divine service by troops, while the press-gang stood ready at the door to seize men as they came out from attending public worship, and take these instances as merely types of what was constantly going on in different forms, we do not wonder at Lord Mayors, and other civic authorities in large towns, complaining that a stop was put to business by the danger which the tradesmen and their servants incurred in leaving their houses and going into the streets, infested by press-gangs.
The provisions were frequently very bad, and the greater number of men who were sent as surgeons on board the ships were grossly ignorant of their professional duties. Still the love of adventure existing in the breasts of English lads, the opportunities which seamen enjoyed of obtaining prize-money, and the efforts of the press-gangs, kept the Royal Navy tolerably supplied with men.
Others lay in the middle of the harbour ready for sea, but waiting for their crews to be collected by the press-gangs on shore, and to be made up with captured smugglers, liberated gaol-birds, and broken-down persons from every grade of society.
Popular as had been the war, Parliament had only voted 70,000 men for the navy, though in order that each ship should have had her full complement, fully 85,000 men would have been required. Many ships, indeed, went to sea imperfectly manned; the proper number of the crews being often made up of men sent from the jails, and landsmen carried off by the press-gangs.
What are you doing out here at this time of night?" "Mornin', arn't it, sir? Same as you, I s'pose. Who was to stop in bed with press-gangs coming and dragging folkses off to sea?" "Then you heard them?" "Heerd 'em, yes, sir! I was that feared o' being took myself that I got into hiding." "You were not fighting, then?" "Me? Fight? Not me! I lay low and listened."
But Sylvia understood her better than Daniel did as it appeared. 'Hou'd thy tongue, mother. 'She's a good lass at times; and if she liked to wear a yellow-orange cloak she should have it. Here's Philip here, as stands up for laws and press-gangs, I'll set him to find us a law again pleasing our lass; and she our only one. Thou dostn't think on that, mother!
He had had enough of Galloway, and a permanent change of air was what he longed for to a far land, under other skies, and among a people of a strange tongue, who had never heard of press-gangs and Solway smugglers. In the enforced leisure provided for him by the stoppage of compulsory recruitments, Eben McClure added to his knowledge.
Morris, courteously but firmly, "I have requested this interview that I might place before you the complaint of the United States that your press-gangs enter our American ships and impress our seamen under the pretence that they are British subjects. It has long been a sore subject with America, and calls for a speedy remedy, sir."
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