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Updated: July 15, 2025
I have heard, indeed, a Ridiculous Tale setting forth that, finding myself Destitute in London after the Chaplain, Mr Pinchin, and I had parted company, and after escaping from the Pressgang, I enlisted in the Foot Guards.
Lieutenant Donnagheu, a somewhat celebrated snapper-up of loose mariners, emerged upon the scene; and in a few minutes was enabled to exult in the secure possession of an additional prize in the unfortunate Henry Mason, who, too late, discovered that he had embroiled himself with a pressgang!
Without waiting to hear more of what Jerry might say, I hurried aft, and found the first lieutenant issuing his orders. "What is it you want, my man?" he asked as I approached him, hat in hand. "Please, sir, I've got a young wife ashore at Southsea, and I was torn away from her by a pressgang. May I have leave to go and see her, and I promise to be back at any time you may name."
"All my life," answered Ranulph, "and, by your leave, I will tell you how." Not waiting for permission, after the manner of his country, he told Richambeau of his Jersey birth and bringing up, and how he was the victim of the pressgang. "Very good," said Richambeau. "You Jersey folk were once Frenchmen, and now that you're French again, you shall do something for the flag.
Another, a "parcel of fellows armed with cutlasses like a pressgang," appeared at Dublin in 1743, where they boldly entered public-houses on pretence of looking for sailors, and there extorted money and drink.
That poker proves the contrary: and if your wit can serve you upon your own emergency, I expect that it will be employed for the benefit of the service." He then sent for O'Brien, and gave him a lecture for allowing me to go with the pressgang, pointing out, what was very true, that I could have been of no service, and might have met with a serious accident.
To have set forth to raise the south of Ireland, to have undertaken a diversion that would never be forgotten, that, on the contrary, would be marked by historians as a main factor in the restoration of the house of Stuart to have embarked on such an enterprise and to be deported like any troublesome villager delivered to the pressgang for his hamlet's good! To end thus! It was too much.
The mob no sooner saw them than the greater number scampered off to a safe distance, where they gave vent to their feelings by uttering the most fearful howls and hurling maledictions on the heads of the pressgang; but the prisoners must have seen that all hope of escape was gone, for they now quietly submitted to their fate, and when they reached the quay stepped, as ordered, into the boats.
The affair of the pressgang gave great concern to all of the council; for it was thought that the loyalty of the burgh would be called in question, and doubted by the king's ministers, notwithstanding our many assurances to the contrary; the which sense and apprehension begat among us an inordinate anxiety to manifest our principles on all expedient occasions.
The head of the pressgang who had kidnapped us would be delighted to take care of her while we worked, and as soon as it appeared that we were only to work a short time not to be kept on indefinitely into the small hours of the night we were not sorry to lend a helping hand. A fresh batch of captives, condemned to hard labour, shortly came up and replaced us.
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