by Roy Adkins
At least one ship’s chaplain, Edward Mangin, thought the task of converting his crew impossible:
I perceived that by behaving well, I should probably gain the respect of several, and that the most reprobate among them would not treat me very badly, but I did not see the smallest likelihood of effecting any material change in the morals of such an assemblage. To leave them unreproved and vicious was possible, and I daresay it was equally possible to have transformed them all into Methodists, or madmen and hypocrites of some other kind, but to convert a man-of-war’s crew into Christians would be a task to which the courage of Loyola, the philanthropy of Howard, and the eloquence of St. Paul united, would prove inadequate.95
The seamen might not be outwardly religious, but Daniel Goodall felt that nearly all of them had religious beliefs that could be broadly thought of as Christian:
Sailors, it is said, are not the most serious of mortals … [but] there is much of fallacy lurking under this assumption – an assumption soon dismissed by those who acquire experience of Jack on service, when he presents a very different phase of social existence to what is witnessed by those who see him only enjoying a holiday ashore. The comparative solitude of his life on shipboard, and the sublimity of the dangers he is often called upon to encounter, are not without their effects … and hence it will be found by those who may take the trouble to look beneath the surface of that air of recklessness and dash so generally characteristic of Jack ashore, that there is underlying it a strong foundation of simple, honest faith … Vice and dissipation I have witnessed in large measure and in revolting forms amongst the heterogeneous gatherings of humanity with which our vessels used to be crammed, but I never met an infidel among seamen – certainly not among those who had been afloat for any length of time.96
Most seamen were also intensely superstitious, as Frederick Hoffman commented: ‘The greater number of the sons of the sea, although fearless of the enemy and of the weather, however stormy, are superstitious and have implicit faith in ghost-stories, mermaids, witches and sea-monsters, as well as in the flying Dutch ship off the Cape of Good Hope.’97 This view was shared by William Glascock, who joined the navy in 1800, seven years after Hoffman:
They implicitly believe in omens, mermaids, the flying Dutchman, evil spirits, the appearance of the ghosts of the departed, and the pranks of malicious spirits and goblins. They familiarly talk of frightful sounds and preternatural noises coming up from the deep, all having an import of fearful warning, and occasionally portending accidents, or the death of a messmate. The simple and uneducated mind of the sailor seizes on the supposition of some preternatural occurrence in all such cases, as the easiest way of accounting for these appearances, which a better-informed mind would endeavour to unravel by the application of philosophical principles or a close examination of the facts.98
Having been drawn from all over Britain and beyond, the men brought with them local superstitions to mix with those only associated with the sea. Even in the same ship men would hold different superstitions and disagree on the best way to invoke good luck and avoid disasters.
Wind and weather were the source of many superstitions, and the effort to make progress against a wind blowing in completely the wrong direction gave rise to several myths, as on one occasion recorded by William Robinson: ‘A headwind is the constant topic, and the boatswain, on coming upon deck, would look about him, to see how the wind was, and, with a great deal of good humour and apparent seriousness, would swear most positively that we should never have a fair wind whilst that holy friar was on board; and all the bad luck on board was set down to his account.’99 In this instance the boatswain was trying to raise the men’s spirits with a joke, as there was no holy man on board, but when people regarded as ‘Jonahs’, bringers of ill-fortune, were present, such comments could be taken very seriously. On this occasion, Robinson related, the men responded that ‘their wives and lasses had not got hold of the tow-rope; a phrase intimating that, from being absent so long, they had taken to themselves other husbands in harbour, and did not want them home yet’.100 This was even more of an edged joke, since with the men at sea for years at a time they could easily find previous relationships had dissolved. The seaman James Whiting of HMS Vindictive, who had been away for several years, received such a reply from his brother after enquiring about his wife: ‘You mentioned your wife but I am very sorry to tell you she is not worthy to be called so, for she has had a child by another man, in your absence, and [from] what I can hear, her proceedings is very bad, therefore I did not think [it] proper to deliver the letter you sent her, for she reported you was dead, and more so, that you was flogged to death, which made us very unhappy.’101
Frederick Marryat, who became a novelist following his naval career, remembered how they avoided setting sail on Fridays: ‘It certainly does savour of superstition, but sailors have an idea that ships have their lucky and their unlucky days; and the lucky day is soon found out. The dislike which sailors have to sail on a Friday is well known.’102 Glascock agreed: ‘Valuable as a fair wind is to a sailor, he would sooner lose it, and run the chance of its chopping about, and detaining him for weeks in harbour, than voluntarily sail on a Friday. Should he be compelled, from circumstances, to sail on that ill-starred day … he will not fail to attribute to that circumstance every minutest failure, or most serious accident, which subsequently occurs throughout the voyage.’103
Seamen were also superstitious about apparitions and mythical sea creatures. When off the coast of Canada, James Gardner recalled that the seamen mistook a man overboard for something sinister:
About eight in the evening, with little wind and going two knots, and nothing in sight, a voice was heard astern hailing, ‘On board the Hind, ahoy!’ I must confess I was a little staggered, and some curious remarks were made by the seamen. One fellow said, ‘I’ll be damned if we were off the Cape but I should think it was the Flying Dutchman.’ ‘As to that,’ says another, ‘he has a roving commission and may cruise where he likes.’ ‘Bad luck to me,’ says a marine, ‘if it’s not a mermaid.’ ‘And to sum up,’ says old Macarthy, the quartermaster, ‘it may be the poor fellow that fell overboard the other day.’ However, the voice hailed again, saying ‘Bear a hand and send the boat, for I’m damned if I can keep up much longer.’ The jolly boat was immediately lowered from the stern and sent in the direction of the voice, and will it be believed that the fellows were afraid to take into the boat one of the main topmen (who had fallen overboard out of the main chains, being half asleep) until he had told his name and answered several ridiculous questions?104
According to Glascock, the seamen even believed that birds were sent from Satan: ‘Their appearance at sea is almost always thought a sinister occurrence. Some are considered the harbingers of a tempest and storm; others, like “Mother Carey’s chickens,” the active agents of the foul fiend, already bent on their destruction.’105 After surviving a hurricane in the Indian Ocean in 1809, Robert Hay heard the men of the Culloden blaming their misfortunes on various apparitions:
Some of our seamen gravely affirmed that shortly after the commencement of the gale they had seen the flying Dutchman cross our bows under a very heavy press of sail. This, joined to the circumstance of a large flock of Mother Careys chickens having been recently seen skiffing along near the surface, and to the knowledge that near the same spot Sir Thomas Troubridge in the Ramilies 74 [actually the Blenheim] with his whole crew had shortly before perished, augured as they mysteriously hinted no good.106
The distinction between religion and superstition could easily be blurred. When the town of St Pierre on Martinique was attacked in 1794, Frederick Hoffman was among the party searching the town after it surrendered:
The principal church had also suffered, as two sacrilegious shells had penetrated it and fallen near the altar. On entering it we found the models of three frigates. As they had not struck their colours [surrendered], we did them that favour, and made prizes of them. There were also some pictures of grim-
looking saints, which one of the sailors was endeavouring to unhook until another called out, ‘Let them alone, Jack, they’ll only bring you bad luck,’ on which he desisted.107
The model ships would have been votive offerings, placed in the church by grateful sailors thanking God for a safe journey – a practice that itself would be thought superstitious by many Protestants.
Those who survived to become experienced seamen, and perhaps climb a few steps up the promotion ladder, not only learned the ropes but also the variety, the tedium, the dangers and occasional excitement of life at sea, as well as picking up some vices, and often diseases, on the way. Having spent so long at sea, often from a young and impressionable age, many of them knew no other life, and in Captain James Scott’s view,
Sailors are beings who decidedly differ from the rest of our species. There are many prominent distinctions in their character, but they cannot be fairly judged by the common standard of other men: they enter the service as mere children, before a principle is fixed, or a feeling matured; their studies incomplete, and their minds just in that pliant state, which may be disfigured or beautified, according to the nature and strength of the impressions made upon them.108
Such men were the driving force behind the great sailing warships that protected Britain’s coastline, took the war to the enemy, and ultimately controlled seaborne commerce. On his way to exile on St Helena, Napoleon acknowledged to his British captors, ‘The sea is yours – your seamen are as much superior to ours as the Dutch were once to yours.’109
Map of the Strait of Dover and the Downs and Nore anchorages
TWO
PRESSED
On Saturday night there was another hot press on the Thames. Ministry are determined to prepare for the worst. We have now as fine a navy as ever swam on the bosom of the Ocean.
The Times on the press-gang in action in London in 1790 when war was threatening1
In April 1810, seventeen-year-old merchant seaman Joseph Bates landed in Liverpool for the first time, hoping to find a ship bound for America. After only a few days at the port, he was shocked and then enraged when ‘a “press gang” (an officer and twelve men) entered our boarding house in the evening and asked to what country we belonged. We produced our American protections, which proved us to be citizens of the United States. Protections and arguments would not satisfy them. They seized and dragged us to the “rendezvous”, a place of close confinement. In the morning we were examined before a naval lieutenant, and ordered to join the British navy.’2 Bates had been about to return home to Boston, but instead was forcibly conscripted into the navy:
To prevent our escape, four stout men seized us, and the lieutenant, with his drawn sword, going before, we were conducted through the middle of one of the principal streets of Liverpool like condemned criminals ordered to the gallows. When we reached the river side [the Mersey], a boat well manned with men was in readiness, and conveyed us on board the Princess, of the royal navy. After a rigid scrutiny, we were confined in the prison room on the lower deck, with about sixty others.3
Such scenes occurred right round the coast of Britain, as well as at sea and in foreign ports, both in times of peace and war, because impressment was the most effective method of recruitment. Joseph Bates was to serve just over two years before being interned as a prisoner-of-war when hostilities broke out between Britain and America in 1812. Along with other American sailors, Bates was eventually taken to Dartmoor prison, from which he was released on 27 April 1815 – five years to the day after being illegally conscripted at Liverpool.
Impressment was bitterly resented by those men and their families who were likely to be affected by it, and every trick was employed to avoid being picked up. In one incident at Cork in Ireland during the severe winter of 1813–14, John Harvey Boteler, a midshipman aboard the frigate Orontes, was ordered on shore to accompany a press-gang. ‘We had intimation of a lot of seamen hid in a small public-house in the cove,’ he said, ‘and after a scrimmage secured very prime hands, such a scene; a wake was got up, women howling over the coffin, where a corpse was said to be, but our lieutenant would not believe them, and sure enough out popped a seaman, who laughed himself, when all was over.’4
The Impress Service recruited seamen and was staffed by naval officers. In each location they operated from a base known by the French term ‘rendezvous’, but frequently abbreviated to ‘rondy’. This was often established at a pub, and here volunteers could join the navy, but regular press-gangs also patrolled along the coast and into the surrounding countryside, especially along rivers to inland ports. Press-gangs also acted from warships out at sea or in harbour, at home and abroad, seizing new hands from coastal settlements and from merchant ships. Unlike the army, which relied on persuasion and inducements to recruit soldiers, the navy was allowed to force men into the service – to impress them. The word ‘prest’ came from the French prêter, to lend or pay in advance. It was originally a small sum of money paid to a seaman upon recruitment, who was then said to be ‘prest’. It took on a more menacing meaning when conflated with ‘press’, implying coercion.
By law a press-gang was only allowed to take seafaring men and those who used the river (including bargemen and fishermen), between the ages of eighteen and fifty-five. Experienced seamen were preferred, and they were easily identified, because they tended to wear different types of clothes, their hands were ingrained with tar, and many were bow-legged and walked with a noticeable rolling gait after being at sea for weeks or months at a time. When Lord Eldon met Admiral Collingwood in London, he observed that ‘I had not seen him for many years – he had been so long on board ship, that he walked with difficulty.’5
Night-time was best for seizing seamen, while they were asleep, and in times of acute shortages of sailors, press-gangs invariably took landsmen, with no sea experience. Even though only seafarers were supposed to be taken, this was not adhered to, and there was obviously corruption, as the Middlesex Journal reported in 1771, the year Nelson joined the navy: ‘For some time past it has been a common practice for the press-gangs to seize abundance of honest tradesmen indiscriminately, and carry them to the rendezvous houses, where they extort money from them to let them go again.’6 Bogus press-gangs also duped money from terrified men, as one newspaper reported for London in 1787:
On Saturday evening a pretended press-gang, consisting of five men, stopped a man in Long-lane as he was going home with his wages, and, under pretence of impressing him for the King’s Service, were hauling him away; the man, however, upon producing half a guinea, was permitted to go away. He having watched the party [go] into a public house, went to Horsleydown, and brought a real gang with the proper officer, who surprized the sharpers regaling on their booty, every one of whom were carried on board the tender at the Tower.7
A similar story occurred in London during the hot press that began in March 1803: ‘On Saturday evening last, a banditti, to the amount of 21, composed of coal-heavers,* &c. formed themselves into two parties, with a view to plunder; and under the pretence of being authorised press-gangs, seized between 40 and 50 labourers coming from their pay-tables, in the neighbourhood of Wapping, from whom they extorted about 20l. [£20] for their liberation.’8 Unluckily for them, two real press-gangs encountered these fraudsters and forced them into the navy.
Impressment was a royal prerogative, but it was an irony recognised at the time that British freedom, much celebrated in songs like ‘Rule, Britannia!’, was defended in times of war by a navy totally dependent on conscripting the lower classes into what many regarded as ‘legalised slavery’. Captain Thomas Pasley was sympathetic: ‘Poor Sailors – you are the only class of beings in our famed Country of Liberty really Slaves, devoted and hardly [harshly] used, tho’ the very being of the Country depends on you.’9 Impressment was certainly akin to slavery, as the men were forced to leave their families and employment, with an uncertain future ahead. Their period of service was indefinite – for as long as they were needed �
� and they were obliged to work every day of the year, with some respite on Sundays, but no entitlement to shore leave and certainly no entitlement to see their families. Consequently, it was constantly feared that these men might desert.
From the time Nelson entered the navy, opposition to impressment began to be linked to other radical campaigns, such as the War of Independence in America and a few years later the revolution in France. The legality of impressment was challenged, and by the end of the war increasing pressure was exerted to reform the system. One letter to a magazine by a London resident was typical in its call for impressment to be abolished: ‘This subject demands (if possible) more of morality and patriotism than the abolition of the Slave Trade! Pressing is quite as great a stigma on the country in the eyes of all Europe; and whilst it absolutely makes them doubt our sincerity as to the abolition of the slave trade, it has a dreadful effect on the morals of us all!’10
A system of conscription would have targeted all classes, unlike impressment, as Napoleon commented to his Irish surgeon Barry O’Meara years later when in exile on St Helena:
You talk of your freedom. Can any thing be more horrible than your pressing of seamen? You send your boats on shore to seize upon every male that can be found, who, if they have the misfortune to belong to the canaille [the rabble], if they cannot prove themselves gentlemen, are hurried on board of your ships, to serve as seamen in all quarters of the globe. And yet you have the impudence to talk of the conscription in France: it wounds your pride, because it fell upon all ranks.11
Napoleon’s assessment cut right to the heart of the matter, because only the lower classes were affected, and therefore reform would be slow in coming. Working-class men dreaded impressment, and news of an approaching press-gang provoked widespread panic. The campaigner William Lovett was born at Newlyn in Cornwall in 1800, and he wrote of his early years:
