ashore, or to sail in the coal trade, until such time as they should
be required to proceed on another whaling voyage. If, however, they
took service on board any vessel other than a collier, they forfeited
their protections and could be "legally detained." [Footnote: 13
George II. cap. 28. _Admiralty Records_ 1. 2732--Capt. Young, 14
March 1756. _Admiralty Records_ 7. 300--Law Officers' Opinions,
1778-83, No. 42.]

In one ironic respect the gang strongly resembled a boomerang. So
thoroughly and impartially did it do its work that it recoiled upon
those who used it. The evil was one of long standing. Pepys complained
of it bitterly in his day, asserting that owing to its prevalence
letters could neither be received nor sent, and that the departmental
machinery for victualling and arming the fleet was like to be undone.
With the growth of pressing the imposition was carried to absurd
lengths. The crews of the impress tenders, engaged in conveying
pressed men to the fleet, could not "proceed down" without falling
victims to the very service they were employed in. [Footnote:
_Admiralty Records_ 1. 1486--Capt. Baird, 27 Feb. 1755, and
numerous instances.] To check this egregious robbing of Peter to pay
Paul, both the Navy Board and the Government were obliged to "protect"
their own sea-going hirelings, and even then the protections were not
always effective.

Between the extremes represented by the landsman who enjoyed nominal
exemption and the seaman who enjoyed none, there existed a middle or
amphibious class of persons who lived exclusively on neither land nor
water, but habitually used both in the pursuit of their various
callings. These were the wherry or watermen, the lightermen, bargemen,
keelmen, trowmen and canal-boat dwellers frequenting mainly the inland