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Updated: May 26, 2025
On the 5th November 1803 their Lordships informed officers in charge of rendezvous that it was 'necessary for the speedy manning of H.M. ships to impress all persons of the denominations exprest in the press-warrant which you have received from us, without regard to any protections, excepting, however, all such persons as are protected pursuant to Acts of Parliament, and all others who by the printed instructions which accompanied the said warrant are forbidden to be imprest. In addition to these a long list of further exemptions was sent.
All civil authorities were to be "aiding and assisting" to him in the discharge of this duty. Now this document, the stereotyped press-warrant of the century, here concisely summarised in its own phraseology, was not at all what it purported to be.
The arms of the gang comprised, first, a press-warrant, and, second, such weapons as were necessary to enforce it.
In theory an authority for the taking of seafaring men only, the press-warrant was in practice invested with all the force of a Writ of Quo Warranto requiring every able-bodied male adult to show by what right he remained at large. The difference between the theory and the practice of pressing was consequently as wide as the poles.
According to the "Humble Petition of Grace Blackmore of Stratford le Bow, widow," on Friday the 29th of May, in an unknown year of Queen Anne's reign, "there came to Bow ffaire severall pretended pressmasters, endeavouring to impress." A tumult ensued. There were occasions when the sham gang operated under cover of a real press-warrant, and for this the Admiralty was directly to blame.
Though according to the strict letter of the law as defined by various decisions of the courts a press-warrant was legally executable only by the officer to whom it was addressed, in practice the limitation was very widely departed from, if not altogether ignored; for just as a constable or sheriff may call upon bystanders to assist him in the execution of his office, so the holder of a press-warrant, though legally unable to delegate his authority by other means, could call upon others to aid him in the execution of his duty.
In order to invest the business of taking the sailor with some semblance of legality, it was necessary that the commander of the tender, in whose name the press-warrant was made out, or one of his two midshipmen, each of whom usually held a similar warrant, should conduct the proceedings in person; and the first duty of this officer, on setting foot upon the deck of the vessel held up in the manner just described, was to order her entire company to be mustered for his inspection.
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