"Road-money" was generally allowed at the rate of 3d. a mile for officers and 1d. a mile for gangers when on the press; but as a matter of fact these modest figures were often largely exceeded—to the no small emolument of the regulating officer. Lieut. Gaydon, commanding at Ilfracombe, in 1795 debited the Navy Board with a sum of 148 Pounds for 1776 miles of travel; Capt. Gibbs, of Swansea, with 190 Pounds for 1561 miles; and Capt. Longcroft, of Haverfordwest, with 524 Pounds for 8388 miles—a charge characterised by Admiral M'Bride, who that year reported upon the working of the impress, as "immense." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 579—Admiral M'Bride, 19 March 1795.] He might well have used a stronger term.
An item which it was at one time permissible to charge, possesses a special interest. This was a bonus of 1s. a head on all men pressed—a bonus that was in reality nothing more than the historic prest shilling of other days, now no longer paid to pressed men, diverted into the pockets of those who did the pressing. The practice, however, was short-lived. Tending as it did to fill the ships with unserviceable men, it was speedily discontinued and the historic shilling made over to the certifying surgeon.
The shore midshipman could boast but little affinity with his namesake of the quarter-deck. John Richards, midshipman of the Godalming gang, had never in his life set foot on board a man-of-war or been to sea. His age was forty. The case of James Good, of Hull, is even more remarkable. He had served as "Midshipman of the Impress" for thirty years out of sixty-three. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1455—Capt. Acklom, 6 Oct. 1814. Admiralty Records 1.1502—Capt. Boston, Report on Rendezvous, 1782.] The pay of these elderly youths at no time exceeded a guinea a week.
The gangsman was more variously, if not more generously remunerated. At Deal, in 1743, he had 1s. per day for his boat, and "found himself," or, in the alternative, "ten shillings for every good seaman procured, in full for his trouble and the hire of the boat." At Dover, in 1776, he received 2s. 6d. a day; at Godalming, six years later, 10s. 6d. a week; and at Exeter, during the American War of Independence, when the demand for seamen was phenomenal, 14s. a week, 5s. for every man pressed, and clothing and shoes "when he deserved it." Pay and allowances were thus far from uniform. Both depended largely upon the scarcity or abundance of suitable gangsmen, the demand for seamen, and the astuteness of the officer organising the gang. Some gangs not on regular wages received as much as "twenty shillings for each man impressed, and six-pence a mile for as many miles as they could make it appear each man had travelled, not exceeding twenty, besides (a noteworthy addition) the twelve-pence press-money "; but if a man pressed under these conditions were found to be unserviceable after his appearance on shipboard, all money considerations for his capture were either withheld or recalled. On the whole, considering the arduous and disagreeable nature of the gangsman's calling, the Navy Board cannot be accused of dealing any too generously by him.
"If ever you intend to man the fleet without being cheated by the captains and pursers," Charles II. is credited with having once said to his council, "you may go to bed." What in this sense was true of the service afloat was certainly not less true of that loosely organised and laxly supervised naval department, the impress ashore. Considering the repute of the officers engaged in it, and the opportunities they enjoyed for peculation and the taking of bribes—considering, above all, the extreme difficulty of keeping a watchful eye upon officers scattered throughout the length and breadth of the land, the wonder is, not that irregularities crept in, but that they should have been, upon the whole, so few and so venial.
To allow the gangsmen to go fishing for sea-fish or dredging for oysters, as was commonly done when there was little prospect of a catch on land, was no more heinous than the custom prevailing—to everybody's knowledge—at King's Lynn in Norfolk, where the gang had no need to go a-fishing because, regularly as the cobbles came in, the midshipman attached to the gang appeared on the quay and had the "insolence to demand Three of the Best Fysh for the Regulating Captain, the Lieutenant and himself." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1546—Petition of the Owners of the Fishing Cobbles of Lynn, 3 March 1809.] And if, again, rating a gangsman in choicest quarterdeck language were no serious offence, why should not the Regulating Captain rate his son as midshipman, even though "not proper to be employed as such." And similarly, granting it to be right to earn half a sovereign by pressing a man contrary to law, where was the wrong in "clearing him of the impress" for the same amount, as was commonly done by the middies at Sunderland and Shields. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1557—Capt. Bell, 27 June 1806, enclosure.] These were works of supererogation rather than sins against the service, and little official notice was taken of them unless, as in the case of Liverpool, they were carried to such lengths as to create a public scandal. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 579—Admiral Child, 30 Jan. 1800.]
There were, as a matter of course, some officers in the service who went far beyond the limits of such venial irregularities and, like Falstaff, "misused the king's press damnably." Though according to the terms of their warrant they were "to take care not to demand or receive any money, gratuity, reward, or any other consideration whatsoever for the sparing, exchanging or discharging any person or persons impressed or to be impressed," the taking of "gratifications" for these express purposes prevailed to a notorious extent. The difficulty was to fasten the offence upon the offenders. "Bailed men," as they were called, did not "peach." Their immunity from the press was too dearly bought to admit of their indulging personal animus against the officer who had taken their money. It was only through some tangle of circumstance over which the delinquent had no control that the truth leaked out. Such a case was that of the officer in command of the Mary tender at Sunderland, a lieutenant of over thirty years' standing. Having pressed one Michael Dryden, a master's mate whom he ought never to have pressed at all, he so far "forgot" himself as to accept a bribe of 15 Pounds for the man's release, and then, "having that day been dining with a party of military officers," forgot to release the man. The double lapse of memory proved his ruin. Representations were made to the Admiralty, and the unfortunately constituted lieutenant was "broke" and black-listed. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 2740—Lieut. Atkinson, 24 June 1798, and endorsement.]
Another species of fraud upon which the Admiralty was equally severe, was that long practised with impunity by a certain regulating officer at Poole. Not only did he habitually put back the dates on which men were pressed, thus "bearing" them for subsistence money they never received, he made it a further practice to enter on his books the names of fictitious pressed men who opportunely "escaped" after adding their quota to his dishonest perquisites. So general was misappropriation of funds by means of this ingenious fraud that detection was deservedly visited with instant dismissal. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1526—Capt. Boyle, 2 Oct. 1801, and endorsement.]
Though to the gangsman all things were reputedly lawful, some things were by no means expedient. He could with impunity deprive almost any ablebodied adult of his freedom, and he could sometimes, with equal impunity, add to his scanty earnings by restoring that freedom for a consideration in coin of the realm; but when, like Josh Cooper, sometime gangsman at Hull, he extended his prerogative to the occupants of hen-roosts, he was apt to find himself at cross-purposes with the law as interpreted by the sitting magistrates.
Amongst less questionable