press gang

press gang, the popular name for a group of seamen, under the command of an officer, who were employed in wartime to bring in men—and on at least one occasion a woman, Mary Anne Talbot—for service in the navy. Although connected by most people with the British Navy other nations employed similar methods of recruitment for their navies and the impressment of men for service in warships was widespread. In Britain these groups operated mainly in seaports, but occasionally visited inland towns to pick up seamen who may have been thought to reside or visit there, though during the Revolutionary (1793–1801) and Napoleonic (1803–1815) Wars against France the Sea Fencibles were exempt. Men thus taken were, in the British Navy, entered in the ship's muster-book (see muster, to) as landsmen, and were paid at a lower rate than those who had volunteered. Hot press was the name given to a condition of impressment when the need for men to man British warships was so acute that the press gangs were given instruction to take men regardless of any protections they might carry. When news of a hot press in any district got around, all likely men usually went into hiding until the danger was past.