The Plymouth reporter of _The_Naval_Chronicle_ does not give many details of the volunteering for the navy in 1803, though he alludes to it in fluent terms more than once. On the 11th October, however, he reports that, 'So many volunteer seamen have arrived here this last week that upwards of £4000 bounty is to be paid them afloat by the Paying Commissioner, Rear-Admiral Dacres.' At the time the bounty was £2 10s. for an A.B., £1 10s. for an ordinary seaman, and £1 for a landsman. Taking only £4000 as the full amount paid, and assuming that the three classes were equally represented, three men were obtained for every £5, or 2400 in all, a number raised in about a week, that may be compared with that given as resulting from impressment. In reality, the number of volunteers must have been larger, because the A.B.'s were fewer than the other classes.
Some people may be astonished because the practice of impressment, which had proved to be so utterly inefficient, was not at once and formally given up. No astonishment will be felt by those who are conversant with the habits of Government Departments. In every country public officials evince great and, indeed, almost invincible reluctance to give up anything, whether it be a material object or an administrative process, which they have once possessed or conducted. One has only to stroll through the arsenals of the world, or glance at the mooring-grounds of the maritime states, to see to what an extent the passion for retaining the obsolete and useless holds dominion over the official mind. A thing may be known to be valueless—its retention may be proved to be mischievous—yet proposals to abandon it will be opposed and defeated. It is doubtful if any male human being over forty was ever converted to a new faith of any kind. The public has to wait until the generation of administrative Conservatives has either passed away or been outnumbered by those acquainted only with newer methods. Then the change is made; the certainty, nevertheless, being that the new men in their turn will resist improvements as obstinately and in exactly the same way as their predecessors.
To be just to the Board of Admiralty of 1803, it must be admitted that some of its members seem to have lost faith in the efficacy of impressment as a system of manning the navy. The Lords Commissioners of that date could hardly—all of them, at any rate—have been so thoroughly destitute of humour as not to suspect that seizing a few score of men here and a few there when tens of thousands were needed, was a very insufficient compensation for the large correspondence necessitated by adherence to the system (and still in existence). Their Lordships actively bombarded the Home Office with letters pointing out, for example, that a number of British seamen at Guernsey 'appeared to have repaired to that island with a view to avoid being pressed'; that they were 'of opinion that it would be highly proper that the sea-faring men (in Jersey as well as Guernsey), not natives nor settled inhabitants, should be impressed'; that when the captain of H.M.S. Aigle had landed at Portland 'for the purpose of raising men' some resistance had 'been made by the sailors'; and dealing with other subjects connected with the system. A complaint sent to the War Department was that 'amongst a number of men lately impressed (at Leith) there were eight or ten shipwrights who were sea-faring men, and had been claimed as belonging to a Volunteer Artillery Corps.'
We may suspect that there was some discussion at Whitehall as to the wisdom of retaining a plan which caused so much inconvenience and had such poor results. The conclusion seems to have been to submit it to a searching test. The coasts of the United Kingdom were studded with stations—thirty-seven generally, but the number varied—for the entry of seamen. The ordinary official description of these—as shown by entries in the muster-books—was 'rendezvous'; but other terms were used. It has often been thought that they were simply impressment offices. The fact is that many more men were raised at these places by volunteering than by impressment. The rendezvous, as a rule, were in charge of captains or commanders, some few being entrusted to lieutenants. The men attached to each were styled its 'gang,' a word which conveys no discredit in nautical language. On 5th November 1803 the Admiralty sent to the officers in charge of rendezvous the communication already mentioned—to press men 'without regard to any protections,'—the exceptions, indeed, being so many that the officers must have wondered who could legitimately be taken.
The order at first sight appeared sweeping enough. It contained the following words: 'Whereas we think fit that a general press from all protections as above mentioned shall commence at London and in the neighbourhood thereof on the night of Monday next, the 7th instant, you are therefore (after taking the proper preparatory measures with all possible secrecy) hereby required to impress and to give orders to the lieutenants under your command to impress all persons of the above-mentioned denominations (except as before excepted) and continue to do so until you receive orders from us to the contrary.' As it was addressed to officers in all parts of the United Kingdom, the 'general press' was not confined to London and its neighbourhood, though it was to begin in the capital.
Though returns of the numbers impressed have not been discovered, we have strong evidence that this 'general press,' notwithstanding the secrecy with which it had been arranged, was a failure. On the 6th December 1803, just a month after it had been tried, the Admiralty formulated the following conclusion: 'On a consideration of the expense attending the service of raising men on shore for His Majesty's Fleet comparatively with the number procured, as well as from other circumstances, there is reason to believe that either proper exertions have not been made by some of the officers employed on that service, or that there have been great abuses and mismanagement in the expenditure of the public money.' This means that it was now seen that impressment, though of little use in obtaining men for the navy, was a very costly arrangement. The Lords of the Admiralty accordingly ordered that 'the several places of rendezvous should be visited and the conduct of the officers employed in carrying out the above-mentioned service should be inquired into on the spot.' Rear-Admiral Arthur Phillip, the celebrated first Governor of New South Wales, was ordered to make the inquiry. This was the last duty in which that distinguished officer was employed, and his having been selected for it appears to have been unknown to all his biographers.
It is not surprising that after this the proceedings of the press-gang occupy scarcely any space in our naval history. Such references to them as there are will be found in the writings of the novelist and the dramatist. Probably individual cases of impressment occurred till nearly the end of the Great War; but they could not have been many. Compulsory service most unnecessarily caused—not much, but still some—unjustifiable personal hardship. It tended to stir up a feeling hostile to the navy. It required to work it machinery costly out of all proportion to the results obtained. Indeed, it failed completely to effect what had been expected of it. In the great days of old our fleet, after all, was manned, not by impressed men, but by volunteers. It was largely due to that that we became masters of the sea.
VI
PROJECTED INVASIONS OF THE BRITISH ISLES[62]
[Footnote 62: Written in 1900. (_The_Times_.)]