including marines and boys, of these ships amounted to 17,234.  The number of ‘seamen’ was 11,861, though this included some of the officers who were borne on the same muster-list.  The total number of seamen actually required exceeded 11,500.  The Naval Chronicle contains a vivid, not to say sensational, account of the steps taken to raise them.  The report from Plymouth, dated 10th March, is as follows:  ’Several bodies of Royal Marines in parties of twelve and fourteen each, with their officers and naval officers armed, proceeded towards the quays.  So secret were the orders kept that they did not know the nature of the business on which they were going until they boarded the tier of colliers at the New Quay, and other gangs the ships in the Catwater and the Pool, and the gin-shops.  A great number of prime seamen were taken out and sent on board the Admiral’s ship.  They also pressed landsmen of all descriptions; and the town looked as if in a state of siege.  At Stonehouse, Mutton Cove, Morris Town, and in all the receiving and gin-shops at Dock [the present Devonport] several hundreds of seamen and landsmen were picked up and sent directly aboard the flag-ship.  By the returns last night it appears that upwards of 400 useful hands were pressed last night in the Three Towns....  One press-gang entered the Dock [Devonport] Theatre and cleared the whole gallery except the women.’  The reporter remarks:  ’It is said that near 600 men have been impressed in this neighbourhood.’  The number—­if obtained—­would not have been sufficient to complete the seamen in the complements of a couple of line-of-battle ships.  Naval officers who remember the methods of manning ships which lasted well into the middle of the nineteenth century, and of course long after recourse to impressment had been given up, will probably notice the remarkable fact that the reporter makes no mention of any of the parties whose proceedings he described being engaged in picking up men who had voluntarily joined ships fitting out, but had not returned on board on the expiration of the leave granted them.  The description in TheNaval_Chronicle_ might be applied to events which—­when impressment had ceased for half a century—­occurred over and over again at Portsmouth, Devonport, and other ports when two or three ships happened to be put in commission about the same time.

We shall find that the 600 reported as impressed had to be considerably reduced before long.  The reporter afterwards wisely kept himself from giving figures, except in a single instance when he states that ‘about forty’ were taken out of the flotilla of Plymouth trawlers.  Reporting on 11th March he says that ’Last Thursday and yesterday’—­the day of the sensational report above given—­’several useful hands were picked up, mostly seamen, who were concealed in the different lodgings and were discovered by their girls.’  He adds, ’Several prime seamen were yesterday taken disguised as labourers