The Press Gang and the Law
Impressment for Naval Service of seamen in British ports dates back to the reign of Edward I; Christopher Lloyd describes the practice and how it ceased in the mid-nineteenth century.
Voltaire describes how he found a Thames waterman, who had been boasting about the liberty of Englishmen, confined the next day in a prison cell by the press gang. Eighteenth-century writers were indeed frequently embarrassed by the paradox of a seemingly arbitrary power existing in a country that prided itself on the liberty of its constitution.
The press gang has become part of the folklore of English history. It is commonly regarded as a typical example of the brutality and injustice that prevailed in eighteenth-century England in the age of sail. The fact is that impressment goes back to remote feudal times and forward to the twentieth century, when it is called conscription or national service and the methods of implementing it are both more polite and more effective.
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