crews with boys, landsmen, and fishermen.
It was the age in which Dr. Price was a great authority on public
finance, the age of Mr. Pitt's sinking fund, when borrowed money
was repaid with further borrowings; so that a corresponding
roundabout method for manning the navy may have had attractions
for some people. A conclusive reason why it was not adopted is
that its adoption would have been possible only at the cost of
disorganising such a great industrial undertaking as our maritime
trade. That this disorganisation did not arise is proved by the
fact that our merchant service flourished and expanded.

It is widely supposed that, wherever the men wanted for the navy
may have come from, they were forced into it by the system of
'impressment.' The popular idea of a man-of-war's 'lower deck'
of a century ago is that it was inhabited by a ship's company
which had been captured by the press-gang and was restrained
from revolting by the presence of a detachment of marines. The
prevalence of the belief that seamen were 'raised'--'recruited' is
not a naval term--for the navy by forcible means can be accounted
for without difficulty. The supposed ubiquity of the press-gang
and its violent procedure added much picturesque detail, and even
romance, to stories of naval life. Stories connected with it,
if authentic, though rare, would, indeed, make a deep impression
on the public; and what was really the exception would be taken
for the rule. There is no evidence to show that even from the
middle of the seventeenth century any considerable number of men
was raised by forcible impressment. I am not acquainted with a
single story of the press-gang which, even when much embellished,
professes to narrate the seizure of more than an insignificant body.
The allusions to forcible impressment made by naval historians
are, with few exceptions, complaints of the utter inefficiency
of the plan. In Mr. David, Hannay's excellent 'Short History of
the Royal Navy' will be found more than one illustration of its
inefficient working in the seventeenth century. Confirmation,
if confirmation is needed, can be adduced on the high authority
of Mr. M. Oppenheim. We wanted tens of thousands, and forcible
impressment was giving us half-dozens, or, at the best, scores.
Even of those it provided, but a small proportion was really
forced to serve. Mr. Oppenheim tells us of an Act of Parliament
(17 Charles I) legalising forcible impressment, which seems to