British impressment and its discontents

Abstract

This article restates the argument that naval impressment was a contentious issue in the eighteenth century. It was subject to legal challenges during the American War of Independence. It engendered mutinies and affrays and a growing volume of litigation as the century progressed. The notion that impressment was insignificant is based on an atypical set of years during which the Admiralty strove to make naval recruitment as seamless as possible by allowing regulating officers in the ports to volunteer men who might otherwise have been impressed. The Admiralty had no wish to make impressment a contentious issue in the volatile political climate of the 1790s. It was aided in this endeavour by the circumstance of dearth and destitution, and the willingness of local authorities to augment existing bounties. As the example of the Sea Fencibles subsequently revealed, volunteering was an imperfect index of patriotic endeavour, despite claims to the contrary.