Informations not infrequently took the form of anonymous communications addressed by the same hand to two different gangs at one and the same time, and when this was the case, and both gangs sallied forth in quest of the skulker, a collision was pretty sure to follow. Sometimes the encounter resolved itself into a running fight, in the course of which the poor sailor, who formed the bone of contention, was pressed and re-pressed several times over between his hiding-place and one or other of the rendezvous. Rivalry between gangs engaged in ordinary pressing led to many a stirring encounter and bloody fracas. A gang sent out by H.M.S. _Thetis_ was once attacked, while prowling about the waterside slums of Deptford, by "three or four different gangs, to the number of thirty men." [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1502--Capt. Butcher, 29 Oct. 1782.] There was a greater demand for bandages than for sailors in Deptford during the rest of the night. The most extraordinary affair of this description to be met with in the annals of pressing is perhaps one that occurred early in the reign of Queen Anne. Amongst the men-of-war then lying at Spithead were the _Dorsetshire_, Capt. Butler commander, and the _Medway_. Hearing that some sailors were in hiding at a place a little distance beyond Gosport, Capt. Butler dispatched his 1st and 2nd lieutenants, in charge of thirty of his best men, with instructions to take them and bring them on board. It so happened that a strong gang was at the same time on shore from the _Medway_, presumably on the same errand, and this party the Dorsetshires, returning to their ship with the seamen they had taken, found posted in the Gosport road for the avowed purpose of re-pressing the pressed men. By a timely detour, however, they reached the waterside "without any mischief done."