An examination of the books would be likely to dispel many misconceptions about the old navy.  Not only is it noted against each man’s name whether he was ‘pressed’ or a volunteer, it is also noted if he was put on board ship as an alternative to imprisonment on shore, this being indicated by the words ’civil power,’ an expression still used in the navy, but with a different meaning.  The percentage of men thus ‘raised’ was small.  Sometimes there is a note stating that the man had been allowed to enter from the ‘——­shire Militia.’  A rare note is ’Brought on board by soldiers,’ which most likely indicated that the man had been recaptured when attempting to desert.  It is sometimes asserted that many men who volunteered did so only to escape impressment.  This may be so; but it should be said that there are frequent notations against the names of ‘prest’ men that they afterwards volunteered.  This shows the care that was taken to ascertain the real conditions on which a man entered the service.  For the purposes of this inquiry all these men have been considered as impressed, and they have not been counted amongst the volunteers.  It is, perhaps, permissible to set off against such men the number of those who allowed themselves to be impressed to escape inconveniences likely to be encountered if they remained at home.  Of two John Westlakes, ordinary seamen of the Boadicea, one—­John (I.)—­was ‘prest,’ but was afterwards ’taken out of the ship for a debt of twenty pounds’; which shows that he had preferred to trust himself to the press-gang rather than to his creditors.  Without being unduly imaginative, we may suppose that in 1803 there were heroes who preferred being ‘carried off’ to defend their country afloat to meeting the liabilities of putative paternity in their native villages.

The muster-books examined cover several months, during which many ‘prest’ men were discharged and some managed to desert, so that the total was never present at anyone time.  That total amounts to 1782.  It is certain that even this is larger than the reality, because it has been found impossible—­without an excessive expenditure of time and labour—­to trace the cases of men being sent from one ship to another, and thus appearing twice over, or oftener, as ‘prest’ men.  As an example of this the Minotaur may be cited.  Out of twenty names on one page of her muster-book thirteen are those of ‘prest’ men discharged to other ships.  The discharges from the Victory were numerous; and the Ardent, which was employed in keeping up communication with the ships off Brest, passed men on to the latter when required.  I have, however, made no deductions from the ‘prest’ total to meet these cases.  We can see that not more than 1782 men, and probably considerably fewer, were impressed to meet the increase of the navy during the greater part of 1803.  Admitting that there were cases of impressment from merchant vessels abroad to complete the crews of our men-of-war in distant