Part 6

Smollett, Galt, Marryatt, and the other naval novelists, not those well-nigh forgotten Dry-as-dusts whose works encumber the back shelves of our law libraries, are the authorities for the press-gang of popular imagination. The sea-port invaded, the house surrounded at dead of night by man-o'-war's men with stout cudgels, and by naval officers with cutlasses; the able-bodied mariner knocked down _first_ and _then_ bid stand in the king's name; the official shilling thrust into his reluctant palm before he is hauled off in irons--who has not devoured with joy this wild romance, with its tang of the sea, its humour and rough frolic, the daring and exciting prelude to much more daring and more exciting achievements? But how far can we trust these entertaining authors? And what was the legal status of the press-gang?

We are like to get nearest the truth in a law case with its official documents and sifted evidence and considered decision. The trial of one Alexander Broadfoot for the murder of one Calahan is the best available. In the April of 1774 H.M.S. _Mortar_ lay at anchor off Bristol. The captain held a warrant of impressment, but he could delegate his authority only to a commissioned officer, whose name must be inserted in his order; and the only one aboard was the lieutenant. On the 25th the ship's boat was sent down Channel, _with neither captain nor lieutenant_ to look for men. She had no luck till evening, when she came across the _Bremen Factor_, a homeward bound merchantman, still some leagues from port, but beating thitherward up Channel. The man-o'-war's men having boarded her, were proceeding to search the hold, when they were confronted by Broadfoot, the boatswain, armed to the teeth. He demanded what they came for. "For you and your comrades," was the plain and honest, though no doubt irritating answer. "Keep back, I have a blunderbuss loaded with swan shot," said Broadfoot, levelling his piece. The press-gang stopped. "Where is your lieutenant?" he went on. (Evidently this boatswain knew a little of the law.) "He is not far off," was the evasive answer, showing that the man's acts and words had impressed his assailants. Did Broadfoot grasp the fact that they were trespassers? At any rate, he let fly, killed Calahan on the spot, and wounded two others. He was tried at Bristol, and acquitted of the capital charge--for the action of the man-o'-war's men was plainly irregular; but he was found guilty of manslaughter, for that he had used more force than was necessary. Another case is that of Robert Goldswain, a small freeholder at Marlow, in Bucks. In the March of 1778 he was a bargeman on the Thames, engaged in carrying timber to the king's yard; with a protection order from the Navy Board to him by name so long as he should continue in that service. But these were troubled times, the French had just declared for the revolted American colonists and our war-ships were frightfully undermanned; so, on the 16th of March, the Admiralty fixed the next night for a general press on the Thames, with direction to seize--despite protection orders--on all sailors and watermen whatsoever, saving and excepting merchant skippers and men exempted by special acts. Goldswain was in the net, and was passed from ship to ship down to the Nore, where his captors were overtaken by an order from the Court requiring a return to a writ of Habeas Corpus issued on his behalf. Counsel's argument for the Admiralty--that the device of first issuing protection orders to lure sea and watering men from their lurking-places, and then pouncing on them under the authority of a general press, was excellent--did not commend itself to the Court, which, in the battle over poor Goldswain's body, suspected some antagonism between the Admiralty and the Naval Board. In the end my lords gave way, and Marlow received again her ravished freeholder.

During the strain and stress of our eighteenth century war-making, when we had every need of seamen to man our battle-ships, and could not afford the market price for them, there was much impressment, and through frequent appeals to the courts the law on the subject was exactly determined. It was a prerogative of the Crown, a remnant of larger rights which at one time took in soldiers and ships, or their equivalent in cash (Hampden's famous trial scarce needs mention); it could not be justified (it was allowed) by reason, but only by public necessity. On command of the king all sea and river-faring men were liable to naval service in time of war. The right to impress was founded on immemorial usage, for, though given by no statute, it was recognised by many. It was so held on the authority of a case in Queen Elizabeth's reign: the sole customary exception was a ferryman; but merchant captains were in practice likewise allowed to go free. Only in Charles I.'s reign, when all the Crown prerogatives were jealously overhauled, was there any serious questioning of its legality, but it was exercised by the Commonwealth as well as by the Monarchy. Given up in fact some fifty years since, it has never been so in law. You find in Horner's _Crown Practice_ (1844) a form of _Habeas Corpus ad subjiciendum_ for impressed men, with the comment that it is little needed now.

Of the enormous number of commissions and statutes relating to impressment, an example taken here and there must suffice. The acts express amazement and virtuous indignation at mariners unwilling to serve. One (_temp._ Henry VII.) sets forth that such as are chosen, and have received their wages, shall, if they give leg-bail, be amerced in double, and go to prison for a year--when they are caught. Another (_temp._ Philip and Mary) reproves the Thames watermen who, in pressing time, "do willingly and obstinately withdraw, hide, and convey themselves into secret places and outcovers; and, after the said time of pressing is o'erpassed, return to their employments." After the Revolution an attempt was made to establish a naval reserve by means of a voluntary register, and so do away with impressment, but this was a complete failure. Then, to foster the coal and other trades, certain exceptions were granted; and still later, sailors in outward bound merchantmen were exempted because of the hardship inflicted on their employers (the hardship of the sailor impressed in sight of port after a long voyage was not considered). When a warship fell in with a merchantman on the high seas she impressed what men she would. British sailors found on board American vessels were hauled out forthwith, and this was one cause of the War of 1812.

Press-gang stories, more or less authentic, are numerous. Here are samples which serve to show that the searchers did not nicely discriminate between those who were and were not legally subject to impressment. A well-dressed man was seized. He protested that he was a gentleman of position. "The very boy we want," gleefully replied his captors; "for we've such a set of topping blackguards aboard the tender, that we wanted a gentleman to teach 'em manners." Sham press-gangs for the black-mailing of honest citizens were common. In one case a couple had given all their money to go free, when the real gang coming up made booty of both parties, and had them aboard in no time. The quarrymen at Denny Bowl, sixty strong, were heard to brag in their cups what _they_ would do did the press-gang dare to molest _them_, whereupon "three merry girls" got into breeches, put cockades in their hats, took sword and pistol, and advanced, when the quarrymen ran like hares. And to conclude, there is the legend of the gang that raided "The Cock and Rummer" in Bow Street. They seized the cook. The customers, fearing for their dinner, or themselves, rushed to the rescue. Long the strife hung dubious, when the constable (he ought to have been a Bow Street runner) stalked in. The gang, with a fine sense of humour, let the cook go, seized _him_, and away at a great rate, though not fast enough to get clear.

SUMPTUARY LAWS

"Act of Parliament" is a term apt to mislead. To-day it is enforced by so powerful a machinery that practice conforms to precept; but in mediæval England much law was dead letter. Statutes were often mere admonitions; they expressed but an ideal, a pious intention. This was specially true of the Sumptuary Laws, whereby the dress and food of the king's subjects were nicely regulated. If you turn over a book of costumes you find that man's attire has varied more than woman's. The sorts and conditions of men were marked by rigid lines. This fact was shown forth in their dress, and that again re-acted on their modes of thought and habits of life. "Men's apparel," says Edmund Spenser, "is commonly marked according to their condition, and their conditions are often-times governed by their garment, for the person that is gowned is by his gown put in mind of gravity, and also restrained from lightness by the very unaptness of his Tweed." Of old time man's dress was rich and varied, but how to catch its vanished effect? In Courts of Justice there is still the splendid, if occasional, bravery of the judge. See the same man in private, gaze on divinity disrobed, and the disenchantment measures for you what is lost in the splendid garb of other days. In mediæval Europe the Church first condemned a too ornate appearance. Thus, under our early Norman Kings, long hair was much in vogue. In 1104 Bishop Serlo, preaching before Henry I. and his Court in Normandy, attacked this fashion roundly, compared his hearers to "filthy goats," and moved them by his eloquence to tears of contrition. He saw and seized that softer hour. Descending from the pulpit he then and there clipped the polls of them that heard him till he must fain sheath his shears for lack of argument. This rape of the locks was followed by a royal edict against long hair. Alas! for this story. Rochester Cathedral still bears the effigies of Henry and Maud his queen; each is adorned even as Absalom, and Time, whilst it has mauled their faces in cruel fashion, has with quaint irony preserved intact those stone tresses.

Two centuries pass ere the Sumptuary Laws proper begin. The 10 Edward III. c. 3 (1336) ordered that no man was to have more than two courses at dinner, nor more than two kinds of meat, with potage in each course; but on eighteen holidays in the year the lieges might stuff at will. Next Parliament common folk were forbidden to wear furs; but the 37 Edward III. was the great session for such work, made needful (it was thought) by the sudden increase of luxury from the plunder of the French wars. Some half-dozen Acts prescribed to each rank, from peers to ploughmen, its wear; nay, the very price of the stuff was fixed; whilst all wives were to garb themselves according to their husbands' means--a pious wish, repeated a century afterwards, in an Act of the Scots James II. The veils of the baser sort were not to cost more than 12d. apiece: embroidery or silk was forbidden to servants, and these were to eat of flesh or fish but once a day. Cloth merchants were to make stuff enough, and shopkeepers to have stock enough, to supply the anticipated demand. Such apparel as infringed the statute was forfeit to the king. The knight's dress will serve for sample of what was required. It was to be cloth of silver, with girdles reasonably embellished with silver, and woollen cloth of the value of six marks the piece. Under Richard II. monstrous sleeves were much affected. A monkish scribe inveighs bitterly against these "pokys, like bag-pipes." Some hung down to the knees; yea, even to the feet. Servants were as bad as their masters! When potage is brought to table, "the sleeves go into them and get the first taste." Nay, they are "devil's receptacles," since anything stolen is safely lodged therein. And so a statute of the time prohibited any man below a banneret from wearing large hanging sleeves, open or closed.

The fashion changed to _dagges_, a term explained by the 8th of Henry IV., which forbade "gown or garment cut or slashed into pieces in the form of letters, rose-leaves, and posies of various kinds, or any such devices." The fantastic peaked shoes of the fifteenth century, sometimes only held up by a chain from the girdle, were fair mark for the lawgiver, and under Edward IV. no less person than a lord was allowed peaks exceeding two inches. An Act in the same reign banned the costly head-gear of women. Henry VIII. saw to men's garb as well as their beliefs. His first Parliament forbade costly apparel, and there is preserved in the Record Office a letter from Wolsey enclosing to the King, at his request, the Act of Apparel, with an abstract, for examination and correction. Exemptions were not unknown: thus, in 1517, Henry Conway of Bermondsey obtained license to wear "camlet, velvet, and sarcenet, satin and damask, of green, black, or russet colour in his clothing." Under Queen Mary common folk who wore silk on "hat, bonnet, girdle, scabbard, hose, shoes, or spur-leathers," were grievously amerced. Under Elizabeth the regulations were numberless: thus there is an act for "uttering of caps, and for true making of hats and caps." No one was to engage in this business unless he had been "a prentice or covenant servant" by the space of seven years. No one under the degree of knight was to wear a cap of velvet. But these were not pure sumptuary regulations: they were for protection of home industries. A statute of the previous reign had declared that no man was to buy more than twelve hats or caps, be it out of this realm; and a previous Act of Elizabeth had strangely provided that if anyone sold foreign apparel on credit for longer than eight days to persons not having £3000 a year he should be without legal remedy against his debtor.

On the 15th June 1574, an elaborate proclamation complained of "the wasting and undoying of a great number of young gentlemen" who were "allured by the vayne shewe of those thyngs." A schedule was appended in which the costumes prescribed for all sorts and conditions of men were set forth. In the Star Chamber on June 12th, 1600, my Lord Keeper gravely admonished the judges to look to all sorts of abuses--"Solicitors and pettifoggers," "Gentlemen that leave hospitality and housekeeping and hide in cities and borough towns," "Masterless men that live by their sword and their wit, meddlers in princes' matters and libellers," and last, but not least, "to the vanity and excess of woman's apparel." All was in vain, if we are to believe the fierce invective of Stubb's _Anatomie of Abuses_. "There is now," he groans, "such a confused mingle-mangle of apparel, and such preposterous excess thereof as every one is permitted to flaunt it out in whatever apparel he listeth himself, or can get by any kind of means." It was horrible to hear that shirts were sold at £10 a piece, and "it is a small matter now to bestow twenty nobles, ten pound, twenty pound, forty pound, yea, a hundred pound, of one pair of breeches (God be merciful to us!)" After this aught else were anti-climax, and so for the women he can only say they were worse than the men. A new order of things came in with the next reign, for the act Jac. I. c. 25, sec. 45, repealed at one stroke all statutes against apparel. In Scotland they kept up the game some time longer, but one need not pursue the subject there, though a curious statute of the Scots James II. (1457) must have a word. It provided that "na woman cum to Kirk nor mercat with her face mussled that she may nocht be kenn'd under the pain of escheit of the curchie" (forfeiture of the hood). In Ireland there was a law (says Spenser) which "forbiddeth any to weare theyre beardes on the upper lip and none under the chinn:" another "which putteth away saffron shirtes and smockes," and so forth; but these were of English importation.

In the North American colonies sumptuary legislation has a history of its own. In Massachusetts an edict of September 1639, declaims against the "much waste of the good creatures (not the tipplers, but the tipple) by the vain drinking of healths," which practice is straightway forbidden. Excess or bravery of apparel is condemned, and no one is to wear a dress "with any lace on it, silver, gold silk, or thread under the penalty of forfeiture." Again, it is provided that children or servants are not to have ornamental apparel. Here is an individual case. Robert Coles, in March 1634, for drunkenness is disfranchised and condemned for a whole year to "wear about his neck, and so to hang upon his outward garment a D made of red cloth and set upon white"--a very unromantic scarlet letter! These things, too, passed away, but in the Maine Liquor Law of 1851, one traces the revival of the old idea. In England the thing lived not again. Under the Commonwealth public opinion enforced a "sober garb." Charles II. had some idea of a national costume, but he was too wise or too careless to attempt legislation. In 1747 the wearing of the Highland dress was forbidden, but that was policy, just as centuries before the Jews had a special garb ordained for them. Also a number of laws were passed to promote home manufactures: so under Charles I. and Charles II. the entry of foreign bone-lace was prohibited, though the second monarch granted licence for importing same to John Eaton for the use of the royal family. It would also serve, he coolly remarked, for patterns. There is one other curious example. Too much foreign linen was used, and so the 30th of Charles II. c. 3 ordered the dead (save the plague-stricken) to be buried in woollen shrouds. The relatives must file an affidavit with the clergyman as to this, and £5 was the fine for _him_ if he neglected his part. Did the vision of that unseemly shroud really disturb poor Nance Oldfield's last moments, as Pope would have us believe?

"Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke!" Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke. "No: let a charming chintz and Brussels lace Wrap my cold limbs and shade my lifeless face!"

"Narcissa" had her wish: the "Brussels lace" of her head-dress, her "Holland shift," a "pair of new kid gloves on her cold hands," were the talk of the town; so they tricked her out for Westminster Abbey.

Almost up to Waterloo the Act lingered on the Statute Book, till some ingenious rascal brought an action against various clergymen for the £5 penalty, for that they had not certified to churchwardens the cases of non-compliance. And so, in 1814, the 54th George III. c. 108 swept away the strange provision.

PRINTED BY TURNBULL AND SPEARS, EDINBURGH

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

Text in italics is surrounded with underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, and hyphenation have been standardized.