The manning problem
A sailing warship needed far more men than a merchant ship of the same size. Big guns had to be hauled and fired by crews, sails had to be handled, and losses from disease and battle had to be replaced. When war began, a navy might need to find thousands of experienced seamen quickly, and there was no standing reserve large enough to do so in the early modern period. This is the background to impressment, the practice of compelling men to serve.
Impressment was not unique to Britain. Many states in different periods used forms of compulsory service at sea. Britain’s version is the best known, largely because the Royal Navy was large and long-lived and because impressment left a deep mark on popular memory.
How the press worked
In Britain, impressment rested on custom and royal authority and was supported by various acts of Parliament. In wartime, officers were authorised to take seafaring men, and parties of sailors under a lieutenant, often called press gangs, went through ports and coastal towns looking for suitable men. They also boarded merchant ships, sometimes taking part of the crew from a vessel coming home. This could leave a merchant ship short-handed, and masters sometimes resisted.
The target was meant to be men with sea experience, and in principle certain people were protected, including some apprentices, some trades, and men with official protections. In practice, the line was often blurred, and disputes about who could lawfully be taken were common. Gangs also took men for whom the law gave less clear cover, and violence and resistance occurred at times.
Impressment was never the only source of men. The navy also relied on volunteers, who might be offered a bounty (a payment) to sign up. During the long wars with France between the 1790s and 1815, Parliament passed measures that required counties and ports to supply men, and these often resulted in the recruitment of landsmen, as well as seamen. Historians debate the proportion of the navy that was pressed at any given time, and the figure varied with the war and the year, so any single percentage should be treated with caution.
Other navies had different arrangements. France, for example, used a system of registering seafarers and calling them up in turn, known as the inscription maritime. Privateers and merchant owners competed with navies for the same pool of skilled seamen, and in wartime, the offer of prize money from privateering under letters of marque drew many sailors away from naval service.
Life after being taken
For a man who had been pressed, the experience could mean sudden removal from home and work, a long absence and little say in the matter. Once aboard, however, he was integrated into the ship’s routine like everyone else, and many pressed men became capable and loyal sailors. Skilled seamen were more valuable than unskilled landsmen, so a ship’s officers often welcomed the former and had to train the latter.
Pay was low and could be in arrears for long periods, which added to resentment. Sailors received a share of prize money if their ship captured enemy vessels, which was a significant incentive but unevenly distributed, with officers receiving far larger shares than ordinary seamen.
The rules of the service
Order in the Royal Navy rested on the articles of war, a set of regulations read to the crew that set out offences and penalties. Offences included mutiny, desertion, sleeping on watch and disobeying orders, and some carried the death penalty. Courts martial tried serious charges, and a captain also had authority to punish lesser offences himself.
The best-known punishment was flogging with the cat-o’-nine-tails, which was carried out in front of the assembled crew, and the number of lashes was recorded in the ship’s log. Other penalties included loss of rations or privileges, confinement and extra duties. The severity of punishment depended heavily on the captain, and records suggest a wide range of practice, from commanders who rarely used the lash to others who used it often.
Reformers criticised flogging through the nineteenth century, and it was restricted and eventually ended in the Royal Navy later in that century. Historians point out that discipline was also kept by routine, ritual, rank, and the shared interests of a crew, and not by punishment alone. Many ships were run firmly but fairly, and a well-regarded captain could command loyalty.
Mutiny and protest
Discipline sometimes broke down. In 1797, sailors at Spithead and then at the Nore mutinied in what became a major crisis for the Royal Navy. The Spithead protest focused largely on pay, food and conditions, and it was settled with concessions, while the Nore mutiny was more radical and ended in punishments, including executions. The events showed that crews could organise, and that Admiralty policy had to consider grievances as well as authority.
Individual ship mutinies also occurred. The mutiny on HMS Bounty in 1789 is the most famous, and it has been retold many times, though the popular version simplifies a complicated story and the motives of those involved are still discussed by historians. The mutiny took place on a small ship far from home, a reminder of how isolated a crew could be from outside authority.
Impressment and international tension
Impressment also had diplomatic consequences. British ships stopped American vessels and removed men they believed to be British subjects or deserters, and this practice, including cases where American citizens were taken by mistake, became one of the grievances that led to the War of 1812. After the end of the long wars in 1815, the practice fell out of regular use in Britain, and the navy moved gradually toward longer-term enlistment and a more stable professional service.
The shape of a warship’s community
Putting a crew together and keeping them in order was one of the great administrative tasks of the Georgian navy. A ship of the line might hold several hundred men from many backgrounds, and success in battle, whether in the Trafalgar tactics of 1805 or in lesser fleet actions of the era, depended on trained crews as much as on the design of the ship. The royal dockyards built and maintained the vessels, but men had to be found by other means, and the combination of coercion, pay, prize money and discipline shaped the experience of shipboard daily life for a generation of sailors.