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Updated: June 18, 2025
To such men as these the large sum offered by the lieutenant of the press-gang for the accommodation of the Mariners' Arms was simply and immediately irresistible.
The Governments made mistakes, the Admiralty left much to be desired both in organisation and in personnel. But the will was there. The best proof of the national determination is to be found in the best hated of all the institutions of that time, the press-gang, a brutal and narrow-minded form of asserting the principle that a citizen's duty is to fight for his country.
The captain was in a raging temper, for he was short-handed to begin with. He would have started a press-gang, but there was no superfluity of men in that township: nothing but boys and grandfathers. As I was helping to run the trip I was pretty annoyed also, and I sluiced down the drunkards with icy Danube water, using all the worst language I knew in Dutch and German.
"'Necessity! said the count: 'Pardon me if I remind you that necessity is the tyrant's plea. "I mended my plea, and changed necessity into utility general utility. It was essential to England's defence to her existence she could not exist without her navy, and her navy could not be maintained without a press-gang as I was assured by those who were skilled in naval affairs.
'Been! he repeated; then, coming a step nearer to her, and taking her hand, not tenderly this time, but with a resolution to be satisfied. 'Did not your cousin Hepburn, I mean did not he tell you? he saw the press-gang seize me, I gave him a message to you I bade you keep true to me as I would be to you. Between every clause of this speech he paused and gasped for her answer; but none came.
Yet the conditions of life under which the English sailor lived were scarcely of a kind to foster the serene, austere virtues of patriotism and heroism. The English sailor was often snared into the active service of his country sorely against his will by means of the odious instrument for recruiting known as the press-gang.
By a stretch of authority they might, it is true, be confined to quarters or on board a guardship; but if in these circumstances they rose in a body and got ashore, they could neither be retaken nor punished as deserters, but to use the good old service term had to be "rose" again by means of the press-gang.
Then she went on quickly, and lifting her beautiful eyes to Philip's face, with a look of inquiry 'He thinks as Charley Kinraid may ha' been took by t' press-gang.
In times of war they mitigated the evil by filling the ranks of our armies from the gaols, and manning our navies by the help of the press-gang, but in times of peace the scum of society was always increasing. At last a great idea arose in the mind of England.
I must try if Dan Tugwell will undertake it. None of the rest know the coast as he does, and few of them have the bravery. But Dan is a very sulky fellow, very difficult to manage. He will never betray us; he is wonderfully grateful; and after that battle with the press-gang, when he knocked down the officer and broke his arm, he will keep pretty clear of the Union-jack.
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