It has been said that taverns bearing names of ships, maritime phrases, and seafaring titles were usually chosen as shipping offices for the enlistment of privateersmen and marines on men-of-war. It is more probable that the most popular tavern in any locality frequented by sailors and seamen was the one chosen, whatever its name. In the Boston Post Boy of June, 1762, is the following notice:—
“NOW BOUND ON A CRUIZE OF SIX MONTHS
Against His Majesties enemies, The Brigantine Tartar, a Prime Sailor mounting Fourteen Six Pounders, Twenty Culverines, and will carry One Hundred and Twenty Men. Commanded by William Augustus Peck. All
Gentlemen Seamen
and able bodied Landsmen who have a mind to make their Fortunes, and are inclined to take a Cruize in this said Vessel, by applying at this King’s Head Tavern at the North End, may view the Articles which are more advantageous to the Ship’s Company than were ever before offered in this Place.”
To those who know the condition of Jack Tar aboard ship a century ago, and the attitude which Captain Peck doubtless assumed to his seamen the moment the Tartar was started on this “Cruize,” there is a sarcastic pleasantry in the term Gentlemen Seamen used by him in common with other captains ashore, that might be swallowed in a taproom with bowls of grog and flip, but would never go down smoothly on shipboard.
Gentlemen sailors were frequently impressed in a very different manner. The press-gang was one of the peculiar institutions of Great Britain, and its aggressive outrages formed one of the causes of “Madison’s War,” as old people liked to term the War of 1812. The Virginia Gazette of the first of October, 1767, tells of a far different scene from that indicated by the plausible words of Captain Peck; one in which a Norfolk tavern took a part:—
“It appears that Captain Morgan of the Hornet, Sloop of War, concerted a bloody riotous Plan, to impress Seamen, at Norfolk, Virginia, for which Purpose his Tender was equipped with Guns and Men, and under cover of the Night, said Morgan landed at a public wharff, having first made proper Dispositions either for an Attack or Retreat; then went to a Tavern, and took a chearful Glass, after which they went to work and took every Person they met with and knock’d all down that resisted; and dragg’d them on board the Tender but the Town soon took the Alarm, and being headed by Paul Loyal, Esq., a Magistrate, they endeavor’d to convince Captain Morgan of his Error; but being deaf to all they said he ordered the People in the Tender to fire on the Inhabitants, but they refused to obey their Commander’s orders and he was soon oblig’d to fly, leaving some of his Hornets behind, who were sent to Gaol.”
Naval Pitcher.