Impressment - The Impress Service and Impressment at Sea

The Impress Service and Impressment At Sea

The Impress Service was formed to force sailors to serve on naval vessels (there was no concept of joining the navy as a fixed career path for non-officers at the time), seamen were attached to ships for the duration of its commission. They were encouraged to stay in the Navy after the commission but could leave to seek other employment when the ship was paid off. Impressment was based on the legal power of the King to call men to military service, as well as to recruit volunteers (who were paid a bounty upon joining, unlike pressed men). Seamen were not covered by the Magna Carta and "failure to allow oneself to be pressed" was punishable by hanging although the punishment became less severe over time.

In Elizabethan times, impressment as a form of recruitment became a statute and with the introduction of the Vagrancy Act in 1597, men of disrepute (vagrants) were drafted into service. In 1703, an act was passed limiting the impressment of men to only those under 18 years of age who were not apprenticed. A further act in 1740 raised the age to 55. Although no foreigner could be pressed, if they married a British woman, or had worked on a British merchant ship for two years they lost their protection. Some governments, including Britain, issued "Protections" against impressment which had to be carried on the person at all times but in times of crisis the Admiralty would order a "Hot Press" which meant that no one was exempt.

The Royal Navy also impressed seamen from inbound British merchant ships at sea, though this was done by individual warships, rather than the Impress Service. Impressment, particularly press gangs, were consistently unpopular with the British public (as well as in the American colonies), and local officials often acted against them, to the point of imprisoning officers from the Impressment Service, or opposing them by force of arms.