"But it is said that, though desirable in many respects, the _expense_ of such a plan will always prevent its being adopted. It admits, however, of demonstration, that instead of being dearer, this plan would be actually cheaper than that which is now followed. Not more than 1,000,000_l._ or 1,200,000_l._ a year would be required to be added to the navy estimates, and that would not be a real, but merely a nominal advance. The violence and injustice to which the practice of impressment exposes sailors operates at all times to raise their wages, by creating a disinclination on the part of many young men to enter the sea-service; and this disinclination is vastly increased during war, when wages usually rise to four or five times their previous amount, imposing a burden on the commerce of the country, exclusive of other equally mischievous consequences, many times greater than the tax that would be required to keep up the peace establishment of the navy to its proper level. It is really, therefore, a vulgar error to suppose that impressment has the recommendation of cheapness in its favour; and, though it had, no reasonable man will contend that that is the only, or even the principal, circumstance to be attended to. In point of fact, however, it is as costly as it is oppressive and unjust." These remarks are creditable to the good sense and humanity of McCulloch; but are too much devoted to the _expediency_ of outrage. To speak more clearly, the discussion is conducted in too cool-blooded a style. We defy any man of ordinary sensibility to read the accounts of scenes attending many cases of impressment, without feeling the deepest pity for the enslaved seaman and his bereaved relatives and friends, and burning with indignation at the heartless tyranny displayed by the government. After a long and laborious voyage in a merchant vessel, the sun-burned seamen arrives in sight of home. His wife and children, who have long bewailed his absence and feared for his fate, stand, with joyous countenances, upon the shore, eager to embrace the returned wanderer. Perhaps a government vessel, on the search for seaman, then sends its barbarous press-gang aboard the merchantman, and forces the husband and father once more from the presence of the beloved ones. Or, he is permitted to land. He visits his home, and is just comfortably settled, resolved to pass the rest of his days with his family, when the gang tears him from their arms—and years—long, dragging years will pass away before he will be allowed to return. Then, the wife may be dead, the children at the mercy of the parish. This is English freedom! A gang of manacled negroes shocks humanity, and calls down the vengeance of heaven upon the head of the slave-driver; but a press-gang may perform its heart-rending work in perfect consistency with the free and glorious institutions of Britain.