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Updated: June 12, 2025
Men of all classes were shipped on board, often out of the prisons and hulks, and the sweepings of the streets. Quantity was looked-for because quality could not be got. An able seaman was a great prize. The pressgangs were always at work on shore, and they thought themselves fortunate when such could be found.
Their time, however, was not always passed so agreeably, as they had on several occasions to take charge of the pressgangs sent on shore to pick up men, and more than once they were engaged in pretty severe encounters with the unwilling seamen whom it was their duty to capture. Mr Foley and the young midshipman were spending the evening at Mr Ferris's, when they were summoned out.
There came about this time a hot press at Portsmouth; and as more than once the pressgangs had landed in the Isle of Wight, I was very sure that unless I got stowed away securely I should be picked up.
He loved to talk of his cruises in the Mediterranean, of the whizzing of cannon balls, the mutilation of limbs, decks slippery with gore, levanters, pressgangs, boatswains' calls, and the cat-o'-nine tails of the boatswains' mates.
These words had a great effect on the honest waggoner, who did not attempt to make any further efforts to detain me. Generally speaking, the most ruffian-like and least scrupulous of the crew were employed in the pressgangs, for they often had very brutal work to perform. The men into whose hands I had fallen were as bad as any I had ever met.
As he did so he beckoned me out of the room, and I accompanied him to the door. "I'll tell you what it is, Mr Weatherhelm," said he, "you have been bred a seaman, and the pressgangs are very hot at work just now. They take everybody who has been at sea, no matter what his present calling whether he has a wife and family depending on him or not.
"It is fortunate that you fell in with us instead of any other man-of-war, or you would have lost your best hands," said Gerald; "and we, I suspect, shall have to send pressgangs on shore to pick up all the fellows we can find. You had better give a hint to your men not to trust themselves out of the ship, for all would be fish who come to our net, they may depend on that."
One of these unfortunate men, after having successfully dodged the pressgangs for a fortnight, and living meanwhile in an unenviable state of anxiety, was pounced upon by some disguised members of a pressgang as he left the boarding house one evening. He struggled hard to escape, but was knocked down and dragged off to the naval rendezvous.
Pressgangs were sent on shore every day all along the coast where there was a chance of picking up men. Agents even visited the mines, and people who had been working under ground all their lives, were suddenly transferred to the deck of a man-of-war, and very fine seamen they made too, for they were hardy, intelligent fellows, and liked the change, and no wonder.
Go on as you have begun, and Heaven preserving your life, there is no reason why you shouldn't reach the highest," said the proud father, as he once more parted from his son. Those were days of pressgangs, and Dick Rogers took good care to hide away till he ascertained the craft Pearce was to join, when he at once volunteered for her.
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