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19 I n November 1794, the sailors of the northeastern English seaport of North Shields received a temporary respite from naval impressment.The port’s three press gangs announced that during performances in the local theater of John O’Keefe’s comedy The World in a Village, seamen would not be at risk of capture. Officers in the press gangs advertised the terms of their offer in the theater’s playbill: “Lieutenant Kelly, Lieutenant King, and Lieutenant Bevis, Pledge their Words of Honour, that no Seaman whatever shall be molested by their People, on Play Nights, from the Hours of Four in the Afternoon to Six the following Morning, after which time the indulgence ceases.” Press gangs always had to negotiate their authority with local civil officials in Atlantic seaports,and many possible explanations exist for the limited amnesty program in North Shields. Perhaps the navy’s recruiting officers had to promise the town’s officials they would not ruin the production of O’Keefe’s play. Or the amnesty might have been a ploy by the officers to lure local seamen into a false sense of security. Then again, the press gangs just might have wanted some time off to attend the theater.1 Whatever the case, the amnesty underscored the relentless pressure that sailors faced from impressment. The implication of the lieutenants’ offer was that, under normal circumstances, seamen were always in danger of being “molested.” One wonders how nonsailors, or landsmen as they were known, reacted to the announcement in the playbill. Most probably did not give it a second thought because they had become so familiar with navy press gangs during Britain’s nearly constant state of warfare in the second half of the eighteenth century. Others might have felt relief that on play nights, at least, the taverns and waterfront of North Shields would be free from the usual disturbances that went along with impressment. Finally, just maybe some of the town’s landsmen might have meditated on what it meant that some of their fellow British subjects did not have the liberty to go out in public in wartime without risking being forced into the nation’s service. We begin with a story from the end of the period covered by this book to highlight the extraordinary evolution of impressment. Although it started in the Middle Ages and had many timeless qualities, the eighteenth-century institution was a product of several changes in the late seventeenth century. Before then,the bumbling,endearing Falstaff in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part II (1597) was as likely to be the Englishman’s frame of reference for a recruiting chapter 1 | Imperial Design 20 | E m p i r e officer of the crown as the professional naval lieutenants stationed in North Shields. Between these two eras, impressment shifted from a semi-voluntary, seasonal duty to a condition of involuntary, continuous service in wartime. The underlying cause was empire.From the late 1600s,the emerging British Empire expanded its naval and commercial focus. By controlling the world’s sea lanes with its navy, Britain challenged and ultimately triumphed over its larger European continental rivals. British naval supremacy depended on not just any labor but the work of skilled seafaring professionals. The demands of empire helped to transform impressment from a class-based to a skill-based institution.By virtue of their talents,mariners carried a disproportionate share of Britain’s imperial burden in the eighteenth century. The exploitation of their labor was not without serious consequence or controversy. The following pages will trace how impressment developed from a form of labor tribute in the Middle Ages and source of bemusement in the pages of Shakespeare to a centerpiece of Britain’s imperial war machine. Origins The practice of impressing men for naval service was a fixture of England’s early history. Dating to Anglo-Saxon times, forcing men to sea was a royal prerogative that functioned according to feudal-like principles; select English ports had the duty of providing ships and men in naval campaigns in exchange for special trading rights and privileges. The custom survived the Norman Conquest of 1066. In 1216, less than a year after agreeing to Magna Carta, King John commissioned twenty-two seaports to provide manned vessels for his service. In 1588, impressed seamen helped to defeat the Spanish Armada. With each of England’s revolutions and regime changes in the seventeenth century—1649, 1660, and 1688—impressment only grew stronger. Thus, by...

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