ays. 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 _The_Naval_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 in the different marble quarries
round the