British, Swedes,
Dutch, Russians, Norwegians, or Spaniards, they were liable to be
claimed as fit persons to serve "His Majesty." In spite of remonstrances
and menaces, they were conveyed on board the British men-of-war,
doomed to submit to insult and injustice, and to risk their lives while
fighting in quarrels in which they felt no interest.

British seamen were seized wherever met, whether pursuing their lawful
business on the high seas, or while on shore walking quietly through the
streets of a city or town; even in the bosom of their families, or when
quietly reposing on their pillows! Press-gangs, composed of desperate
men, headed by resolute and unscrupulous officers, were constantly on
the lookout for men, and took them, sometimes after hard fighting,
and dragged them away to undergo the horrors of slavery on board a
man-of-war!

It is not remarkable that a sailor in those days should have dreaded a
"man-of-war" as the most fearful of evils, and would resort to desperate
means to avoid impressment or escape from bondage. Those few fortunate
men, who, by resolution or cunning, had succeeded in escaping from their
sea-girt prisons, detailed the treatment they had received with minute
and hideous accuracy to others; and that they could not have exaggerated
the statements is proved by the risks they voluntarily encountered to
gain their freedom. The bullets of the marines on duty, the fear of
the voracious shark in waters where they abounded, the dangers of a
pestilential climate, or the certainty, if retaken, of being subjected
to a more revolting and excruciating punishment than was every devised
by the Spanish Inquisition FLOGGING THROUGH THE FLEET could not deter
British seamen from attempting to flee from their detested prison-house.

American seamen were sometimes forcibly taken from American ships,
and their protestations against the outrage, and their repeated
declarations, "I am an American citizen!" served only as amusement to
the kidnappers. Letters which they subsequently wrote to their friends,
soliciting their aid, or the intercession of the government, seldom
reached their destination. It was rarely that the poor fellows were
heard of after they were pressed on board a man-of-war. They died of
disease in pestilential climates, or fell in battle while warring in
behalf of a government they hated, and principles with which they had no
sympathy.

This gross violation of the laws of nations and the p