During our later great
maritime wars, the official term applied to anyone recruited by
impressment was 'prest-man.' In the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, and part of the eighteenth century, this term meant
the exact opposite. It meant a man who had voluntarily engaged to
serve, and who had received a sum in advance called 'prest-money.'
'A prest-man,' we are told by that high authority, Professor Sir
J. K. Laughton, 'was really a man who received the prest of 12d.,
as a soldier when enlisted.' In the 'Encyclopaedia Metropolitana'
(1845), we find:-- 'Impressing, or, more correctly, impresting,
i.e. paying earnest-money to seamen by the King's Commission to
the Admiralty, is a right of very ancient date, and established
by prescription, though not by statute. Many statutes, however,
imply its existence--one as far back as 2 Richard II, cap. 4.' An
old dictionary of James I's time (1617), called 'The Guide into
the Tongues, by the Industrie, Studie, Labour, and at the Charges
of John Minshew,' gives the following definition:--'Imprest-money.
G. [Gallic or French], Imprest-ance; _Imprestanza_, from _in_
and _prestare_, to lend or give beforehand.... Presse-money. T.
[Teutonic or German], Soldt, from salz, _salt_. For anciently
agreement or compact between the General and the soldier was
signified by salt.' Minshew also defines the expression 'to presse
souldiers' by the German _soldatenwerben_, and explains that
here the word _werben_ means prepare (_parare_).
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