The Evil Necessity: British Naval Impressment in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World by Denver Brunsman, and: Poseidon's Curse: British Naval Impressment and Atlantic Origins of the American Revolution by Christopher P. Magra (review)

The impressment of sailors into the British navy was a common and controversial wartime practice from the late seventeenth century until the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Although impressment occurred throughout Great Britain's Atlantic empire, the subject never received a book-length study until the publication of Denver Brunsman's The Evil Necessity: British Naval Impressment in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World, in 2013. This work was followed three years later by Christopher P. Magra's Poseidon's Curse: British Naval Impressment and the Atlantic Origins of the American Revolution. While both volumes cover some of the same material, each author has a different focus. Brunsman, while conceding the harsh effects of impressment on sailors and their families, argues that the practice was essential to maintaining Britain's maritime empire during the long eighteenth century (1688-1815), and is most concerned with the period from 1688 to 1763, intending to cover the remainder of the time span in a second volume. In contrast, Magra views impressment in a less favorable light, places more emphasis on its victimization of sailors and its negative effects on merchants and trade, and argues that it was an important factor in precipitating the American Revolution.

Brunsman notes that forcing men into service with the Royal Navy contradicted the fundamental principles of English liberty, and that the estimated 250,000 sailors impressed between 1688 and 1815 constituted the largest involuntary labor force in the British Empire with the exception of enslaved Africans. Impressed sailors not only lost their freedom to choose occupations during their time in the navy, but also sacrificed the opportunity to earn high wartime wages on merchant vessels and had their lives placed at risk from disease and combat. Their families also suffered from the loss of income the sailors had provided. Many Britons despised impressment for these reasons, and some political leaders likewise, if less intensely, disliked forced naval service. Brunsman asserts that historians have followed suit by focusing on the negative aspects of the practice and opposition to it.

Seeking to provide a more balanced account, Brunsman acknowledges the difficulties caused by impressment, but maintains that it was a compromise necessary to protect Britain, its colonies, and the maritime trade on which the imperial economy was based from foreign threats while attempting to minimize the infringements upon the liberty of British subjects. He observes that critics have argued that impressment reflected bias against members of the lower classes—in this case, mariners—and counters that this was not the result of a conscious choice but rather a product of circumstance, as sailors due to their occupation were almost invariably part of society's lower strata.

Brunsman traces the origins of impressment from its beginnings in the late seventeenth century, when Britain's expanding empire led to conflict with imperial rivals that in turn necessitated a larger navy to protect trade and fight foreign enemies. Because there were never enough skilled mariners to supply the needs of both the merchant service and the wartime Royal Navy, and too few men willing to enlist voluntarily, British officials turned to impressment to meet the need for naval manpower. The groups assigned to acquire sailors, press gangs, usually consisted of an officer and several navy seamen, and worked both at sea and on land. In the former case, they boarded private vessels, generally those inbound to British or colonial ports, and forced members of the crew aboard a warship. On land, press gangs combed areas frequented by sailors to round up men for the navy, often encountering resistance. At sea, some mariners abandoned ship...