Criminals were allowed as an alternative to long terms of imprisonment, to volunteer for what was evidently regarded by the authorities as an equivalent to the gaol--a man-o'-war. "All the bad characters of a neighbourhood, loafers, poachers, footpads, possible murderers, men suspected of any crime, but against whom there was not sufficient evidence, were arrested and sent on board, with a note to the captain begging him to take measures to prevent their return; which, as such men were commonly stout-built fellows enough, he was no ways loath to do. The gaol-birds from the towns were unquestionably worse; worse physically, worse morally, and perhaps worse hygienically; they were not infrequently infected with gaol-fever, and brought the infection to the fleet; they were largely the cause of the severe, even brutal, discipline that ruled in the navy towards the end of last century." According to the sailors themselves--"Them was the chaps as played hell with the fleet: every grass-combing beggar as chose to bear up for the bounty had nothing to do but to dock the tails of his togs and take to the tender." They used to ship in shoals; they were drafted by forties and fifties to each ship in the fleet; they were hardly up the side, hardly mustered abaft, before there was "Send for the barber, shave their pates, and send 'em for'rd to the head, to be scrubbed and sluished from clue to ear-ring, afore you could venture to berth 'em below. Then, stand clear of their shore-going rigs--every finger was fairly a fishhook; neither chest, nor bed, nor blanket, nor bag escaped their sleight-of-hand thievery; they pluck you, aye, as clean as a poulterer, and bone your very eyebrows whilst staring you full in the face." [Sidenote: _ROADS INFESTED_] These were the men who, instead of bringing prosperity to the innkeepers and country folk, robbed and plundered stray travellers and lonely houses by the way. Singly, they robbed hen-roosts and old market-women; in bands their courage rose to highway robbery on a larger scale, and even to murder. An official posting down to Portsmouth with money for a ship's company came within an ace of being relieved of several thousands of pounds; for on his coach being upset on Rake Hill a number of fellows appeared with offers of help, and would have carried off the gold had not the boxes in which it was contained been too heavy. As it was, while some of them were engaging every one's attention in attempting to raise the coach out of the slough in which it had become embedded, the remainder of the band had got hold of the specie-boxes, and were battering them in with great stones, when a party of marines opportunely arrived and caught them in the very act.