May 1813. _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1503--Capt. Butchart, 22 Jan.
1782, and enclosure.] The gang did not pause by the way to discuss
such questions.

Apprentices fell into a double category--those bound to the sea, those
apprenticed on land. Nominally, the sea apprentice was protected from
the impress for a term of three years from the date of his indentures,
provided he had not used the sea before; [Footnote: 2 & 3 Anne, cap.
6, re-affirmed 13 George II. cap. 17.] while the land apprentice
enjoyed immunity under the minimum age-limit of eighteen years. The
proviso in the first case, however, left open a loop-hole the impress
officer was never slow to take advantage of; and the minimum
age-limit, as we have just seen, had little if any existence in fact.
Apprentices pressed after the three years' exemption had expired were
never given up, nor could their masters successfully claim them in
law. They dropped like ripe fruit into the lap of Admiralty. On the
other hand, apprentices pressed within the three years' exemption
period were generally discharged, for if they were not, they could be
freed by a writ of Habeas Corpus, or else the masters could maintain
an action for damages against the Admiralty. [Footnote: _Admiralty
Records_ 7. 300--Law Officers' Opinions, 1778-83, No. 25.]
'Prentices who "eloped" or ran away from their masters, and then
entered voluntarily, could not be reclaimed by any known process at
law if they were over eighteen years of age. On the whole, the
position of the apprentice, whether by land or sea, was highly
anomalous and uncertain. Often taken by the gang in the hurry of
visiting a ship, or in the scurry of a hot press on shore, he was in
effect the shuttlecock of the service, to-day singing merrily at his
capstan or bench, to-morrow bewailing his hard fate on board a
man-o'-war.