Donnelly, 22 Feb. 1815.] Their point of view, poor fellows, was
doubtless a strictly comparative one.

Theoretically exempt by virtue of his calling, whatever that might be,
the landsman was in reality scarcely less marked down by the gang than
his unfortunate brother the seafaring man; for notwithstanding all its
professions to the contrary, Admiralty could not afford to ignore the
potentialities of the reserve the landsman represented. Hence no
occupation, no property qualification, could or did protect him. As
early as 1705 old Justice, in his treatise on sea law, deplores
bitterly the "barbarous custom of pressing promiscuously landsmen and
seamen," and declares that the gang, in its purblind zeal, "hurried
away tradesmen from their houses, 'prentices and journeymen from their
masters' shops, and even housekeepers (householders) too." By 1744 the
practice had become confirmed. In that year Capt. Innes, of His
Majesty's armed sloop the _Hind_, applied to the Lords Commissioners
for "Twenty Landsmen from Twenty to Twenty-five years of Age."
The Admiralty order, "Let the Regulating Captains send them as
he desires," [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1983--Capt. Innes,
3 May 1744, and endorsement.] leaves no room for doubt as to the class
of men provided. They were pressed men, not volunteers.

Nor is this a solitary instance of a practice that was rapidly growing
to large proportions. Many a landsman, in the years that followed,
shared the fate of the Irish "country farmer" who went into Waterford
to sell his corn, and was there pressed and sent on board the tender;
of James Whitefoot, the Bristol glover, "a timid, unformed young man,
the comfort and support of his parents," who, although he had "never
seen a ship in his life," was yet pressed whilst "passing to follow
his business," which knew him no more; and of Winstanley, the London