devious means we have here described, was made "ready" for the sea
service. "Press" means to constrain, to urge with force--definitions
precisely connoting the development and manner of violent enlistment.
Hence, as the change from covert to overt violence grew in strength,
"pressing," in the mouths of the people at large, came to be
synonymous with that most obnoxious, oppressive and fear-inspiring
system of recruiting which, in the course of time, took the place of
its milder and more humane antecedent, "presting." The "prest" man
disappeared, [Footnote: The Law Officers of the Crown retained him, on
paper, until the close of the eighteenth century--an example in which
they were followed by the Admiralty. To admit his disappearance would
have been to knock the bottom out of their case.] and in his stead
there came upon the scene his later substitute the "pressed" man,
"forced," as Pepys so graphically describes his condition, "against
all law to be gone." An odder coincidence than this gradual
substitution of "pressed" for _prest,_ or one more grimly
appropriate in its application, it would surely be impossible to
discover in the whose history of nomenclature.

With the growth of the power and violence of the impress there was
gradually inaugurated another change, which perhaps played a larger
part than any other feature of the system in making it finally
obnoxious to the nation at large--finally, because, as we shall see,
the nation long endured its exactions with pathetic submission and
lamentable indifference. The incidence of pressing was no longer
confined, as in its earlier stages, to the overflow of the populace
upon the country's rivers, and bays, and seas. Gradually, as naval
needs grew in volume and urgency, the press net was cast wider and
wider, until at length, during the great century of struggle, when the
system was almost constantly working at its highest pressure and