The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore | Page 6

Anne herself, in the few years she had been
on the throne, had not only exercised it with a free hand, but had laid
that hand without scruple upon many a foreign seaman.
The lengths to which the system had gone by the end of the third
quarter of the century is thrown into vivid relief by two incidents, one
of which occurred in 1726, the other fifty years later.
In the former year one William Kingston, pressed in the Downs--a man
who hailed from Lyme Regis and habitually "used the sea"--was,
notwithstanding that fact, discharged by express Admiralty order
because he was a "substantial man and had a landed estate." [Footnote:
Admiralty Records 1. 1473--Capt Charles Browne, 25 March 1726, and
endorsement.]
The incident of 1776, known as the Duncan case, occurred, or rather
began, at North Shields. Lieutenant Oaks, captain of the press-gang in
that town, one day met in the streets a man who, unfortunately for his
future, "had the appearance of a seaman." He accordingly pressed him;
whereupon the man, whose name was Duncan, produced the title-deeds
of certain house property in London, down Wapping way, worth some
six pounds per annum, and claimed his discharge on the ground that as
a freeholder and a voter he was immune from the press. The lieutenant
laughed the suggestion to scorn, and Duncan was shipped south to the
fleet.
The matter did not end there. Duncan's friends espoused his cause and
took energetic steps for his release. Threatened with an action at law,
and averse from incurring either unnecessary risks or opprobrium
where pressed men were concerned, the Admiralty referred the case to
Mr. Attorney-General (afterwards Lord) Thurlow for his opinion.
The point of law Thurlow was called upon to resolve was, "Whether
being a freeholder is an exception from being pressed;" and as Duncan
was represented in counsel's instructions--on what ground, other than
his "appearance," is not clear--to be a man Who habitually used the sea,

it is hardly matter for surprise that the great jurist's opinion, biassed as
it obviously was by that alleged fact, should have been altogether
inimical to the pressed man and favourable to the Admiralty.
"I see no reason," he writes, in his crabbed hand and nervous diction,
"why men using the sea, and being otherwise fit objects to be
impressed into His Majesty's service, should be exempted only because
they are Freeholders. Nor did I ever read or hear of such an exemption.
Therefore, unless some use or practice, which I am ignorant of, gives
occasion to this doubt, I see no reason for a Mariner being discharged,
seriously, because he is a Freeholder. It's a qualification easily attained:
a single house at Wapping would ship a first-rate man-of-war. If a
Freeholder is exempt, eo nomine, it will be impossible to go on with the
pressing service. [Footnote: It would have been equally impossible to
go on with the naval service had the fleet contained many freeholders
like John Barnes. Granted leave of absence from his ship, the
_Neptune,_ early in May, "in order to give his vote in the city," he
"return'd not till the 8th of August."--Admiralty Records 1. 2653--Capt.
Whorwood, 23 Aug. 1741.] There is no knowing a Freeholder by sight:
and if claiming that character, or even showing deeds is sufficient, few
Sailors will be without it." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 7. 299--Law
Officers' Opinions, 1756-77, No. 64.]
Backed by this opinion, so nicely in keeping with its own inclinations,
the Admiralty kept the man. Its views, like its practice, had undergone
an antipodal change since the Kingston incident of fifty years before.
And possession, commonly reputed to be nine points of the law, more
than made up for the lack of that element in Mr. Attorney-General's
sophistical reasoning.
In this respect Thurlow was in good company, for although Coke, who
lived before violent pressing became the rule, had given it as his
opinion that the king could not lawfully press men to serve him in his
wars, the legal luminaries who came after him, and more particularly
those of the eighteenth century, differed from him almost to a man.
Blackstone, whilst admitting that no statute expressly legalised pressing,
reminded the nation--with a leer, we might almost say--that many
statutes strongly implied, and hence--so he put it--amply justified it. In
thus begging the question he had in mind the so-called Statutes of
Exemption which, in protecting from impressment certain persons or

classes of persons, proceeded on the assumption, so dear to the Sea
Lords, that the Crown possessed the right to press all. This also was the
view taken by Yorke, Solicitor-General in 1757. "I take the
prerogative," he declares, "to be most clearly legal." [Footnote:
Admiralty Records 7. 298--Law Officers' Opinions, 1733-56, No. 102.]
Another group of lawyers took