The Lords Commissioners
of that date could hardly--all of them, at any rate--have been so
thoroughly destitute of humour as not to suspect that seizing
a few score of men here and a few there when tens of thousands
were needed, was a very insufficient compensation for the large
correspondence necessitated by adherence to the system (and still
in existence). Their Lordships actively bombarded the Home Office
with letters pointing out, for example, that a number of British
seamen at Guernsey 'appeared to have repaired to that island with
a view to avoid being pressed'; that they were 'of opinion that
it would be highly proper that the sea-faring men (in Jersey as
well as Guernsey), not natives nor settled inhabitants, should
be impressed'; that when the captain of H.M.S. _Aigle_ had landed
at Portland 'for the purpose of raising men' some resistance
had 'been made by the sailors'; and dealing with other subjects
connected with the system. A complaint sent to the War Department
was that 'amongst a number of men lately impressed (at Leith)
there were eight or ten shipwrights who were sea-faring men, and
had been claimed as belonging to a Volunteer Artillery Corps.'
We may suspect that there was some discussion at Whitehall as to
the wisdom of retaining a plan which caused so much inconvenience
and had such poor results. The conclusion seems to have been to
submit it to a searching test.
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