The Press-Gang Afloat and AshoreHutchinson, J. R. (John Robert)
History
The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore
Hutchinson, J. R. (John Robert)
Great Britain -- History, Naval; Impressment
In pressing William Taylor of Broadstairs the gang nipped in the bud
as tender a romance as ever flourished in the shelter of the Kentish
cliffs, which is saying not a little. Taylor was only a poor fisherman,
and when he dared to make love to the pretty daughter of the Ramsgate
Harbour-Master, that exalted individual, who entertained for the girl
social ambitions in which fishermen's shacks had no place, resented
his advances as insufferable impertinence. A word to Lieut. Leary, his
friend at the local rendezvous, did the rest. Taylor disappeared, and
though he was afterwards discharged from His Majesty's ship Utrecht on
the score of his holding a Sea-Fencible's ticket, the remedy had worked
its cure and the Harbour-Master was thenceforth free to marry his
daughter where he would. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1450--Capt.
Austen, 23 Sept. 1803.]
So natural is the transition from love to hate that no apology is needed
for introducing here the story of Sam Burrows, the ex-beadle of Chester
who fell a victim to the harsher in much the same manner as Taylor did
to the gentler passion. Burrows' evil genius was one Rev. Lucius Carey,
an Irish clergyman--whether Anglican or Roman we know not, nor does it
matter--who had contracted the unclerical habit of carrying pistols and
too much liquor. In this condition he was found late one night knocking
in a very violent manner at the door of the "Pied Bull," and swearing
that, while none should keep him out, any who refused to assist him
in breaking in should be shot down forthwith. Burrows, the ex-beadle,
happened to be passing at the moment. He seized the drunken cleric and
with the assistance of James Howell, one of the city watchmen, forcibly
removed him to the watch-house, whence he was next day taken before the
mayor and bound over to appear at the Sessions. Now it happened that
certain members of the local press-gang were Carey's boon companions, so
no sooner did he leave the presence of the mayor than he looked them up.
That same evening Burrows was missing. Carey had found him a "hard bed,"
otherwise a berth on board a man-o'-war. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_
1. 1532--Capt Birchall, 17 July 1804, and enclosures.]
In the columns of the _Westminster Journal_, under date of both May
1743, we read of a sailor who, dying at Ringsend, was brought to
Irishtown church-yard, near Dublin, for burial. "When they laid him on
the ground," the narrative continues, "the coffin was observed to stir,
on which he was taken up, and by giving him some nourishment he came
to himself, and is likely to do well." Whether this sailor was ever
pressed, either before or after his abortive decease, we are not
informed; but there is on record at least one well-authenticated
instance of that calamity overtaking a person who had passed the bourne
whence none is supposed to return.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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