To be just to the Board of Admiralty of 1803, it must be admitted that some of its members seem to have lost faith in the efficacy of impressment as a system of manning the navy.  The Lords Commissioners of that date could hardly—­all of them, at any rate—­have been so thoroughly destitute of humour as not to suspect that seizing a few score of men here and a few there when tens of thousands were needed, was a very insufficient compensation for the large correspondence necessitated by adherence to the system (and still in existence).  Their Lordships actively bombarded the Home Office with letters pointing out, for example, that a number of British seamen at Guernsey ’appeared to have repaired to that island with a view to avoid being pressed’; that they were ’of opinion that it would be highly proper that the sea-faring men (in Jersey as well as Guernsey), not natives nor settled inhabitants, should be impressed’; that when the captain of H.M.S. Aigle had landed at Portland ‘for the purpose of raising men’ some resistance had ‘been made by the sailors’; and dealing with other subjects connected with the system.  A complaint sent to the War Department was that ’amongst a number of men lately impressed (at Leith) there were eight or ten shipwrights who were sea-faring men, and had been claimed as belonging to a Volunteer Artillery Corps.’

We may suspect that there was some discussion at Whitehall as to the wisdom of retaining a plan which caused so much inconvenience and had such poor results.  The conclusion seems to have been to submit it to a searching test.  The coasts of the United Kingdom were studded with stations—­thirty-seven generally, but the number varied—­for the entry of seamen.  The ordinary official description of these—­as shown by entries in the muster-books—­was ‘rendezvous’; but other terms were used.  It has often been thought that they were simply impressment offices.  The fact is that many more men were raised at these places by volunteering than by impressment.  The rendezvous, as a rule, were in charge of captains or commanders, some few being entrusted to lieutenants.  The men attached to each were styled its ‘gang,’ a word which conveys no discredit in nautical language.  On 5th November 1803 the Admiralty sent to the officers in charge of rendezvous the communication already mentioned—­to press men ’without regard to any protections,’—­the exceptions, indeed, being so many that the officers must have wondered who could legitimately be taken.

The order at first sight appeared sweeping enough.  It contained the following words:  ’Whereas we think fit that a general press from all protections as above mentioned shall commence at London and in the neighbourhood thereof on the night of Monday next, the 7th instant, you are therefore (after taking the proper preparatory measures with all possible secrecy) hereby required to impress and to give orders to the lieutenants under your command to impress all persons of the above-mentioned denominations (except as before excepted) and continue to do so until you receive orders from us to the contrary.’  As it was addressed to officers in all parts of the United Kingdom, the ‘general press’ was not confined to London and its neighbourhood, though it was to begin in the capital.