Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 12, 2025
But now it was that our new second and third lieutenants showed their mettle, for on the very night of my arrival on board they organised two formidable pressgangs, which they led ashore, one party landing at Portsmouth and the other at Gosport; and between them they managed to make a clean sweep of pretty nearly all the crimps' houses within a radius of four miles of the harbour, returning to the ship shortly before daylight the next morning considerably battered and the worse for wear for they had been engaged in a series of desperate hand-to-hand fights but bringing with them sixty-three fine, able-bodied merchant seamen, who had been in close hiding while awaiting a berth.
About six years ago if we recollect rightly as to date the Lords of the Admiralty, considering that Dibdin's songs had always been 'worth a dozen pressgangs, as the common saying is, ordered that twenty of the best songs should be printed on strong paper, and presented to every man and boy in the royal navy.
No, no, Dick; don't you ever go on board a man-of-war of your own free will, or you'll repent it; and, I say, keep clear of pressgangs when you get a little older, or you may be having to go, whether you like it or no."
The license of these pressgangs was so well known, and had been made familiar to me by so many tales, that I had little hope from the first of escaping their clutches. It is true they were only authorised to impress seamen and fishermen, and that after proving their commission before justices of the peace.
Dibdin's songs might be 'worth a dozen pressgangs' for manning the navy in war-time, and, for aught we can predicate to the contrary, they may be so again; but we reiterate our conviction, that they never caused sailors to ship aboard a man-o'-war.
This he did, and every day almost he brought off a man, and all he did bring off were good able seamen. Others volunteered, and we were now more than half manned, and ready for sea. The admiral then gave us permission to send pressgangs on shore. "Mr Simple," said Swinburne, "I've tried all I can to persuade a lot of fine chaps to enter, but they won't.
A difficulty existed then, as now, in manning the navy, and the pressgangs were always hard at work endeavouring to secure by force or stratagem the necessary crew for the ships.
Pressgangs paraded the streets all day, and many men within the ages of 19 and 40 were, it is said, temporarily incarcerated in the Church of Notre Dame de Lorette. An extraordinary meeting was held at the Hôtel de Ville in consequence of a supposed discovery of a reactionary plot.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking