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Updated: June 14, 2025
Laws is made for to keep some folks fra' harming others. Press-gangs and coast-guards harm me i' my business, and keep me fra' getting what I want. Theerefore, what I think and say is this: Measter Cholmley should put down press-gangs and coast-guards. If that theere isn't reason I ax yo' to tell me what is? an' if Measter Cholmley don't do what I ax him, he may go whistle for my vote, he may.
"No, do you go, as I tell ye," replied the kind old master. "I'll stay on board and look after the ship. But I say, lad, take your protection with you. The press-gangs are sure to be out, and you may chance to fall in with one of them."
A short time after Sam had gone to sea Ben, who was his father's main-stay, had on one occasion gone to Morbury, just at the time when press-gangs were hard at work along the coast, laying hands on every seafaring person, whether willing or unwilling, to man the fleet. Ben, not suspecting danger, was walking along the quay, when a party of seamen rushed out of a public-house and surrounded him.
Please God, to-morrow a'll tak' a start at walking, if t' weather holds up. 'Ay! said Donkin, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice; 'feyther and me has settled many puzzles; it's been a loss to Government as they hannot been here for profiting by our wisdom. We've done away wi' taxes and press-gangs, and many a plague, and beaten t' French i' our own minds, that's to say.
This blow was never forgotten nor forgiven, although my father was very sorry for it, and begged her pardon the next day, with promises of amendment. Just at this time the French Revolution commenced, and there was expectation of a war with France; the press-gangs were ordered out, and the seamen, aware of it, remained concealed until they should leave the town.
He had heard of the acts of the press-gangs as he might have heard of any legend, and then they had passed from his mind; but now all this was being brought before him and exemplified in a way that was terribly real. These four men just carried in were the last victims of outrage, and his indignation seemed to be boiling up within him when the bluff-looking man said good-humouredly,
"Well said, gal! but you're out o' your reckonin', ef you think women a'n't nothin' in war-time. I tell yew, them is the craft that sails afore the wind, and does the signallin' to all the fleet. When gals is full-rigged an' tonguey, they're reg'lar press-gangs to twist young fellers round, an' make 'em sail under the right colors.
I belie' me she first began to think on him time o' t' fight aboard th' Good Fortune, when Darley were killed, and he would seem tame-like to her if he couldn't conquer press-gangs, and men-o'-war. She's sooner think on him drowned, as she's ne'er to see him again.
But it produced great annoyance; all parties concerned, even those who had lost the ring, would rather have buried it in silence. It was hushed up afterwards. Butterby ought to understand people's wishes, before he sets to work." "I wish press-gangs were in fashion!" emphatically uttered Roland. "What a nice prize he'd make!"
In the true narrative of "John Nichol, Mariner," published in 1822 by Blackwood in Edinburgh, and Cadell in London, and which everywhere bears the spontaneous impress of truth, the old sailor, in the most artless, touching, and almost uncomplaining manner, tells of his "skulking like a thief" for whole years in the country round about Edin-burgh, to avoid the press-gangs, prowling through the land like bandits and Burkers.
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