Until recently I assumed the people who pressed drunks into the RN would take any youngish males from anywhere they could get them. This was not at all the case. The gangs predominantly operated in Port Towns, and they were after merchant sea men. Working on a sailing ship was extremely dangerous work that required skilled and experienced men.
Taking just any drunk young guy from any town, who had had no sailing experience what so ever would have been a total waste of time.
The gangs were after men who would be a help and not a hinderance to the successful operation of each ship.
Sadly not True at all
What you quoted was this pious Hope
In reality this was like the "Pirates Code"
As in
"Impress Seamen only?
How do we tell e'm from landsmen, they could be lying to evade the "Press"
Any way "It's only a Guide really"
We're the Press Gang aint we?"
the real truth was this
"The lawless press-gangs were no respecters of persons. In vain did apprentices and landsmen claim exemption. They were skulking sailors in disguise, or would make good seamen at the first scent of salt-water; and were carried off to the sea ports. Press-gangs were the terror of citizens and apprentices in London, of laborers in villages, and of artisans in the remotest inland towns.
"Patrolling in or near sea ports, the press gang would try to find men aged between 15 and 55 with seafaring or river-boat experience, but this was not essential; those with no experience were called "
landsmen". From 1740, landsmen were legally exempt from impressment, but this was on occasion ignored in wartime unless the person seized was an
apprentice or a "
gentleman".
[16] Two landsmen were considered by captains to be the equivalent of one able seaman. If a landsman was able to prove his status to the Admiralty he was usually released. Court records do however show fights breaking out as people attempted to avoid what was perceived as wrongful impressment, and the London
Times reported occasions when press gangs instituted a "hot press" (ignoring protections against impressment) in order to man the navy."
After all you don't need to be a seaman to man a cannon or swing a cutlass, do you? and that was the logic that prevailed.
"
The resulting dilution of skills was acceptable on large warships, where only 20 per cent of the crew was needed for skilled work aloft. The rest of the work, including the heavy hauling, was done by the 'landmen' or 'waisters' - those who worked in the waist area of the ship.
By contrast, the prime seamen, rated as Able or Ordinary, saw themselves as an elite group within a vertically stratified working community. The topmen, who worked on the highest yards, spent much of their day aloft, in the tops, which on a battleship would be spacious areas out of sight of the officers, and far above the inferior members of the crew. They would form their own mess, a group of six to ten men who cooked and ate together, and avoided 'waisters', marines and other deck-bound labourers.
