Just before the War of 1812 a deserter from a British ship slipped on board the United States frigate Essex. When an officer with a gang came for him he was, of course, surrendered. On asking, then, that he be allowed to go below for his clothes, permission was granted, but instead of getting his clothing he ran to the carpenter’s bench, picked up an axe, and deliberately chopping off his left hand, he carried it on deck and threw it at the feet of the British lieutenant, saying he would cut off his foot also before he would serve again in the British navy. As he was no longer able to do duty as a sailor the lieutenant left him.
The United States Frigate Essex.
From a lithograph at the Naval Academy, Annapolis.
Lest these stories seem to the humane reader to exaggerate the horrors of life on a British naval ship, the following facts from the London “Annual Register” for 1781 (page 41 of “Principal Occurrences”) will be found conclusive: The total number of men “raised” for the navy, 1776 to 1780, was 170,928. Of these, 1,243 only were killed by the enemy, while 18,545 “died,” and 42,069 deserted. More than ten per cent. of all who were “raised” “died,” while almost one-fourth of them all succeeded in deserting, in spite of the rigors of the imprisonment into which they were carried.
It is necessary to give figures relating to the Revolutionary period instead of the era of the War of 1812, because British officials have absolutely refused to publish any such statistics since 1800.
What bearing all these facts have on the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain, if not plain already, will very soon appear. Animated by the belief that “our maritime supremacy is in fact a part of the law of nations,” and by the further belief that “America certainly cannot pretend to wage war with us; she has no navy to do it with,” the British naval officers kidnapped English-speaking sailors wherever they were found, even when these sailors were confessedly born citizens of the United States. The British government did, indeed, rule that where an American (natural-born) had a certificate from the American government attesting his nativity—where he could, by documentary evidence, prove his nativity—he might be excused by the British “recruiting” gangs, but the rule was, in fact, a mere diplomatic subterfuge for use should policy at any time require a “disavowal.” In actual practice the only judge of a man’s citizenship was the recruiting officer of the short-handed ship, and the lithe-limbed Yankee sailor was just the kind of a man the British press-gang was looking for. In fact, the British periodicals of that day continuously scoffed at these citizenship papers, and it was asserted in Parliament, as well as by the press, that the American naval officers, as well as naval officials stationed on shore, deliberately issued false papers at every opportunity—in short, that the Americans, as a nation, were liars, perjurers, and forgers.
As early as 1747, when Massachusetts was a colony in most peaceful relations with the home government, a press-gang caused a bloody riot on the streets of Boston, where press-gangs were “already stigmatized as barbarous by public opinion.” Indeed, one of the irritations leading to the hostilities begun in 1775 was the work of the press-gang. The war of the Revolution forever settled the question of the right of the British government to impress an American, but instead of stopping such violations of the rights of a free-minded people it rather increased them. For the hatred and contempt which the British felt toward the Americans as a people during that war was intensified by the result of it. It was the personal pleasure of the British officer to get these Yankees where he could make them feel his power. It is on record (see “Life of Elder Joseph Bates”) that the British officers were particular to see that these Americans took off their hats when the band played “God Save the King,” and that a common form of address was “Here, you damned Yankee scoundrel,” do this or that. That the “damned Yankee scoundrel” was triced up and flogged on the slightest provocation by these officers, who confessedly enjoyed seeing flesh creep under the lash, scarcely need be said.
No sooner was the war of the Revolution over and American merchant ships free to sail to British ports than the outrages began on the American seamen. It was literally true that the United States had no navy and could not wage war with England. We did not have even one ship-of-war left to carry the flag, and the party that ruled the nation then was utterly opposed to building one. It called itself the party of the people—it was fearful lest something or somebody enslave the people—but when the friends of American seamen, shanghaied into the barbarous slavery of a British warship, protested, this “liberty-loving” party pigeon-holed the documents. But let us be just in this matter. It was the liberty-loving party that did at last declare war. The opposition preferred to trust in “the humanity” and “sense of justice” which the offending nation was supposed to possess.
So the press-gangs worked on merrily. Not only was the American walking in the street of a foreign city in immediate danger; the American ships on the high seas were stopped and stripped of their crews. The British ships even lay to off New York, Boston, and other American ports to intercept American merchantmen, from which seamen were taken until they were so short-handed that they were lost. The American seamen were left to face death by shipwreck, as they were disciplined to death on the decks of British naval warships. And because they were lithe and quick-witted—because they more readily devised means for escape from this slavery than others—they were transferred to the ships doing duty on the coasts of Africa and in the East Indies, just as American prisoners captured during the war of the Revolution were sent to and compelled to serve on those stations.