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Updated: May 11, 2025
Brisband along with me as far as the Temple, and there looked upon a new booke, set out by one Rycault, secretary to my Lord Winchelsea, of the policy and customs of the Turks, which is, it seems, much cried up. But I could not stay, but home, where I find Balty come back, and with him some muster-books, which I am glad of, and hope he will do me credit in his employment.
Ships in 1803 did not get their full crews at once, any more than they did half a century later. I have, therefore, thought it necessary to take the muster-books for the months in which the crews had been brought up to completion. An examination of the books would be likely to dispel many misconceptions about the old navy.
As already stated, their total complements amounted to 17,234, and the number of the 'blue-jackets' of full age to at least 11,500. The muster-books appear to have been kept with great care. The only exception seems to be that of the Victory, in which there is some reason to think the number of men noted as 'prest' has been over-stated owing to an error in copying the earlier book.
The ordinary official description of these as shown by entries in the muster-books was 'rendezvous'; but other terms were used. It has often been thought that they were simply impressment offices. The fact is that many more men were raised at these places by volunteering than by impressment.
Brisband along with me as far as the Temple, and there looked upon a new booke, set out by one Rycault, secretary to my Lord Winchelsea, of the policy and customs of the Turks, which is, it seems, much cried up. But I could not stay, but home, where I find Balty come back, and with him some muster-books, which I am glad of, and hope he will do me credit in his employment.
The names on their lists are, therefore, merely those of men who were passed on to other ships, in whose muster-books they appeared again. There remained thirty-one ships which, as far as could be ascertained, account for the additional force which the Government had decided to put in commission, more than two-thirds of them being ships of the line.
Without being unduly imaginative, we may suppose that in 1803 there were heroes who preferred being 'carried off' to defend their country afloat to meeting the liabilities of putative paternity in their native villages. The muster-books examined cover several months, during which many 'prest' men were discharged and some managed to desert, so that the total was never present at anyone time.
A small table is then brought up, on which are spread the muster-books; and the captain's clerk, who is the only person seated, begins calling over the names. Each man, as his turn comes, pulls off his hat, smooths down his hair, and passes over from the lee side of the deck to the weather side, stepping across the gratings just before the binnacle.
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