The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore

J. R. (John Robert) Hutchinson

Informations

• Publié par: ondoo
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 32
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Press-Gang
Afloat and Ashore by John R. Hutchinson
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be
sure to check the copyright laws for your country
before downloading or redistributing this or any
other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when
viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not
remove it. Do not change or edit the header
without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other
information about the eBook and Project
Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and
restrictions in how the file may be used. You can
also find out about how to make a donation to
Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla
Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By
Computers, Since 1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands
of Volunteers!*****
Title: The Press-Gang Afloat and AshoreAuthor: John R. Hutchinson
Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6766] [Yes,
we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on January 24, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK, THE PRESS-GANG AFLOAT AND
ASHORE ***
Steve Schulze, Charles Franks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.
This file was produced from images generously
made available by the CWRU
Preservation Department Digital Library.
THE PRESS-GANG AFLOAT AND
ASHORE
BY J. R. HUTCHINSONCONTENTS
I. HOW THE PRESS-GANG CAME IN.
II. WHY THE GANG WAS NECESSARY.
III. WHAT THE PRESS-GANG WAS.
IV. WHOM THE GANG MIGHT TAKE.
V. WHAT THE GANG DID AFLOAT.
VI. EVADING THE GANG.
VII. WHAT THE GANG DID ASHORE.
VIII. AT GRIPS WITH THE GANG.
IX. THE GANG AT PLAY.
X. WOMEN AND THE PRESS-GANG.
XI. IN THE CLUTCH OF THE GANG.
XII. HOW THE GANG WENT OUT.APPENDIX: ADMIRAL YOUNG'S TORPEDO.
INDEXLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS:
AN UNWELCOME VISIT FROM THE
PRESS GANG.
MANNING THE NAVY. Reproduced by kind
permission from a rare print in the collection of Mr.
A. M. BROADLEY.
THE PRESS-GANG SEIZING A VICTIM.
SEIZING A WATERMAN ON TOWER HILL ON
THE MORNING OF HIS WEDDING DAY.
JACK IN THE BILBOES. From the Painting by
MORLAND.
ONE OF THE RAREST OF PRESS-GANG
RECORDS. A play-bill announcing the suspension
of the Gang's operations on "Play Nights," in the
collection of Mr. A. M. BROADLEY, by whose kind
permission it is reproduced.
SAILORS CAROUSING. From the Mezzotint after
J. IBBETSON.
ANNE MILLS WHO SERVED ON BOARD THE
M A I D S T O N E IN 1740.MARY ANNE TALBOT.
MARY ANNE TALBOT DRESSED AS A SAILOR.
THE PRESS GANG, OR ENGLISH LIBERTY
DISPLAYED.
ADMIRAL YOUNG'S TORPEDO. Reproduced from
the Original Drawing at the
Public Record Office.
THE PRESS-GANG.CHAPTER I.
HOW THE PRESS-GANG CAME IN.
The practice of pressing men—that is to say, of
taking by intimidation or force those who will not
volunteer—would seem to have been world-wide in
its adoption.
Wherever man desired to have a thing done, and
was powerful enough to insure the doing of it, there
he attained his end by the simple expedient of
compelling others to do for him what he, unaided,
could not do for himself.
The individual, provided he did not conspire in
sufficient numbers to impede or defeat the end in
view, counted only as a food-consuming atom in
the human mass which was set to work out the
purpose of the master mind and hand. His face
value in the problem was that of a living wage. If he
sought to enhance his value by opposing the
master hand, the master hand seized him and
wrung his withers.
So long as the compelling power confined the
doing of the things it desired done to works of
construction, it met with little opposition in its
designs, experienced little difficulty in coercing the
labour necessary for piling its walls, excavating itstanks, raising its pyramids and castles, or for
levelling its roads and building its ships and cities.
These were the commonplace achievements of
peace, at which even the coerced might toil
unafraid; for apart from the normal incidence of
death, such works entailed little danger to the lives
of the multitudes who wrought upon them. Men
could in consequence be procured for them by the
exercise of the minimum of coercion—by, that is to
say, the mere threat of it.
When peace went to the wall and the pressed man
was called upon to go to battle, the case assumed
another aspect, an acuter phase. Given a state of
war, the danger to life and limb, the incidence of
death, at once jumped enormously, and in
proportion as these disquieting factors in the
pressed man's lot mounted up, just in that
proportion did his opposition to the power that
sought to take him become the more determined,
strenuous, and undisguised.
Particularly was this true of warlike operations upon
the sea, for to the extraordinary and terrible risks
of war were here added the ordinary but ever-
present dangers of wind and wave and storm,
sufficient in themselves to appal the unaccustomed
and to antagonise the unwilling. In face of these
superlative risks the difficulty of procuring men was
accentuated a thousand-fold, and with it both the
nature and the degree of the coercive force
necessary to be exercised for their procuration.
In these circumstances the Ruling Power had no