enabling the mariners to board such ships as they shall attempt. The Council of State having used their best judgment in the selection of the commanders of their fleet, wisely leave to them the selection of officers who are to serve under them, as appears from the following minute: "That an order be sent to the Commissioners of the Navy, to enter such officers into the ships as shall be recommended to them by the generals at sea." "That directions be given to the Commissioners of the Navy to obey such orders as the generals for the command of the fleet at sea shall give them, concerning the particulars herewith sent unto them. for the setting out of the fleet to sea appointed for the summer's service." 2 The powers entrusted to the commanders at sea, or the "Commissioners' as they are sometimes styled, are further shown by such minutes as the following: "Whereas the commissioners that are to command in chief at sea have informed the Council that the Triumph, the George, and the Andrew are appointed to go to sea for the summer's service, it is ordered that the Committee of the Navy be desired to give orders that they may be fitted out with all possible expedition." Their care for the protection of commerce and of person and property generally is shown by many minutes, of which the following are examples: "That a letter be written to Vice-Admiral Moulton to convoy the ships that are going to Newfoundland to fish,-off beyond Ireland, till they shall be out of the danger of pirates. "That a letter be written to Vice-Admiral Moulton to let him know that a post barque was lately taken by the Irish rebels 1 Order Book of the Council of State, à Meridie, 26th March, 1649. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, 5th March, 1648, à Meridie. 3 Order Book of the Council of State, à Meridie, 24th Feb. 1648. MS. State Paper Office. passing between England and Ireland, and to desire him that he would beat up and down upon that sea, so they may be kept in from attempting anything upon those barques."1 "That a letter be sent to Capt. Moulton, to let him know that the merchants who are owners of the Rye, bound for Dublin, do not conceive the ship Satisfaction to be a sufficient convoy for their ship, to desire him therefore that a strong and sufficient convoy be appointed." "That a letter be written to Capt. Moulton to send about into the Irish seas such ships as shall he necessary for the convoying over a regiment of foot, which is to be transported from Chester water into Ireland.' "Memorandum.-That Mr. Frost is to enquire to whom a letter may be written into Turkey, who may be as an agent there to the Grand Seignior in the behalf of the prisoners at Algiers.' The prisoners at Algiers, however, had to wait for a more effective mission in their behalf than a letter, a mission in the shape of that fleet with Blake for its admiral, which made the name of England "famous and terrible over the world." 3 In the next volume of this history I shall have occasion to enter into some details respecting the energetic measures adopted by the Council of State for the manning of the navy. But I would here take the opportunity of correct 1 Order Book of the Council of State, à Miridie, 24th Feb., 1648. MS. State Paper Office. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, à Meridie, 27th Feb. 1648. Present-Lt.-Gen. [Fairfax], Lieut.Gen. Cromwell, &c. MS. State Paper Office. 3 Order Book of the Council of State, à Meridie, 6th March, 1648. MS. State Paper Office. • Order Book of the Council of State, 13th April, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. The ravages committed by the Barbary pirates are further shown by the following minute : "That the petition of the prisoners at ing a grave error, which has been adopted by historians on the authority of an assertion of Roger Coke, that the Long Parliament never pressed either soldiers or seamen in all their wars.1 In pursuance of this error, some modern writers have described the preamble of the 16 Car. I., c. 28, which is nothing more than a recital or declaration of the common law that, "none of his Majesty's subjects ought to be impressed or compelled to go out of his county to serve as a soldier in the wars, except in case of necessity of the sudden coming in of strange enemies into the kingdom, or except they be otherwise bound by the tenure of their lands or possessions " (the Act being "to raise, levy, and impress soldiers, gunners, and chirurgions" on the occasion of the Irish rebellion), as an Act passed by the Long Parliament against impressment. The above-cited preamble very accurately expresses the state of the case with regard to the pressing of soldiers, when it declares that "none of his Majesty's subjects ought to be impressed or compelled to go out of his county to serve as a soldier," seeing that there could be no question as to the existence of the practice of impressment, " even of soldiers (whatever the common law might be), from very early times," which if it be to be considered as an encroachment on the common law, must be admitted to be an encroachment of long continuance. The Honourable Daines Barrington in his "Observations on the More Ancient Statutes," a work not only of the most profound learning in the laws of England, but so rich in the learning of the laws, the literature, and the philosophy of all nations, ages, and tongues-states, on the authority of the Petyt MSS.2 that, in the 47th year of Henry III., an order issued to 1 Detection of the Court and State of England, vol. ii. p. 30, 4th edition, London, 1719. 2 Petyt MSS., vol. ix. p. 157, in the library of the Inner Temple. the sheriff of every county, that, taking to his assistance the Custos Pacis, he should collect out of every township at least four able-bodied men, who were to repair to London on a particular day.' And, even so late as 1596, Stowe mentions that a thousand men were pressed for the land service, though they were afterwards discharged instead of being sent to France, as intended.2 And the last clause of an ordinance of the 22nd of Feb. 1648, intituled "for encouragement to mariners and impresting 3 seamen," shows that the exemption of seamen and watermen from land service was then deemed a privilege :“And, lastly, for the better encouragement of seamen and 1 Barrington on the Statutes, pp. 337, 338, 5th edition, London, 1796. 2 Stowe, pp. 709, 769; and see Stat. 5 Eliz. c. 5, s. 41. "If one might be allowed," says Barrington, "to cite Shakespeare on a point of law, it may be supposed that in the time of Queen Elizabeth, shipwrights as well as seamen, were thus forced to serve : "Why such impress of seawrights ?" Hamlet, Act I. sc. i. If it be said that the scene of this play lies in Denmark, it must be recollected that Shakespeare generally transfers English manners and customs to every part of the globe in which he chooses his characters should act. Sir John Falstaff, in the first part of Henry the Fourth, says, "I have misused the king's press damnably," speaking of it as a known practice. In the second part of this play, indeed, when Falstaff brings his recruits before Justice Shallow, it should seem that there were sometimes temporary laws for raising men, as has been not unusual of late years. Rastel's statutes, however furnish no such instance during the reign of Henry the Fourth."—Obser : vations on the Statutes, pp. 335, 338, notes, 5th edition. 3 "This word," says Barrington, "being derived from the French emprester, seems to imply a contract on the part of the seaman, rather than his being compelled to serve. The first use that I have happened to meet with of the term press, as applied to mariners, is in a proclamation of the 29th March, in the fourth year of Philip and Mary, which recites that "divers shipmasters, mariners, and seafaring men, lately prested and reteyned to serve her Majesty, had withdrawn themselves from the said service," &c.-Coll. Procl., vol. ii. p. 144, Penes Soc. Antiq. The penalty by this proclamation is death. By a proclamation of the 15th of May, 1625, the word prested is applied to soldiers in the king's service; and by another of the 18th of June, 1626, the expression is every mariner receiving press money to serve the king." By a proclamation, likewise, of the 17th Feb. 1627, pressed seamen are ordered to be billeted in the neighbourhood of Ibid., Limehouse, Blackwall, &c. Observations on the Statutes, p. 334 [m]. 5th edition. 66 watermen to apply themselves the more willingly to this service, it is further enacted and ordained that all mariners, sailors, and watermen, who have served an apprenticeship of seven years, shall hereby be exempted and freed from being pressed to serve as soldiers in any land service." 1 With regard to the power of pressing mariners, Barrington observes that, "as it was the intention of the Legislature to circumscribe the admiral's jurisdiction by the 5th chapter of the statute 13 Ric. II., the total silence of the preamble with regard to the warrants for pressing mariners, seems very remarkable, as well as that of the judges in their arguments with the civilians, before James the First in Council." He adds, "I do not mean to intimate that the pressing of mariners is not supported by usage and precedents, as far back in our history as records can be found, many of which are referred to in the case of Alexander Broadfoot, who was indicted for murder at the gaol delivery for the city of Bristol in 1743. Mr. Justice Foster, who at that time was Recorder of Bristol, has published a very elaborate argument on this head, and has supported the opinions which he then gave by authorities chiefly from Rymer's most valuable collection." 2 Nathaniel Bacon, in his chapter on the Admiral's Court, says that "the lord admiral hath power not only over the 1 Scobell's Collection, part ii. p. 4; and see Commons' Journals, 20th and 22nd Feb. 1648. I give the following minute from the Order Book in illustration:- "That the militia of the hamlets be sent unto to send to the Council the names of such seamen, shipwrights, and chirurgians as plead exemption from bearing and finding of arms, together with what they plead for it."-Order Book of the Council of State, Die Luna, 20 Augusti, 1640. MS. State Paper Office. 2 Observations on the Statutes, p. 335, 5th edition. Barrington says that he has happened to meet with some authorities relative to the power of pressing, which have escaped the learned judge, and adds, in a note, that the most general pressing warrant which he has met with is in Carte's Rolles Gascognes, tom, ii. p. 151. |