matter of fact, both ships and men were retained during the royal
pleasure at rates fixed by custom.] No exception was taken to these
edicts. Long usage rendered the royal lien indefeasible. [Footnote: In
more modern times the pressing of ships, though still put forward as a
prerogative of the Crown, was confined in the main to unforeseen
exigencies of transport. On the fall of Louisburg in 1760, vessels
were pressed at that port in order to carry the prisoners of war to
France (_Admiralty Records_ 1. 1491--Capt. Byron, 17 June 1760);
and in 1764, again, we find Capt. Brereton, of the _Falmouth_,
forcibly impressing the East India ship _Revenge_ for the purpose
of transporting to Fort St. George, in British India, the company,
numbering some four hundred and twenty-one souls, of the _Siam_,
then recently condemned at Manilla as unseaworthy.--_Admiralty
Records_ 1. 1498--Letters of Capt. Brereton, 1764.]

In the carrying out of the royal commands there was consequently, at
this stage in the development of pressing, little if any resort to
direct coercion. From the very nature of the case the principle of
coercion was there, but it was there only in the bud. The king's right
to hale whom he would into his service being practically undisputed, a
threat of reprisals in the event of disobedience answered all
purposes, and even this threat was as yet more often implied than
openly expressed. King John was perhaps the first to clothe it in
words. Requisitioning the services of the mariners of Wales, a
notoriously disloyal body, he gave the warrant, issued in 1208, a
severely minatory turn. "Know ye for certain," it ran, "that if ye act
contrary to this, we will cause you and the masters of your vessels to
be hanged, and all your goods to be seized for our use."

At this point in the gradual subjection of the seaman to the needs of