'Mr Blockhead pressing sailors in a tavern', riotous scene; study for an illustration to 'The Life of a Midshipman' by Frederick Marryat, 1820 (British Museum). A crowd attacks Royal Marines and sailors, including Royal Navy officers, after they threaten the locals with impressment.
Merchant wages were high in wartime, and the press gang was often necessary to get men into the navy. Popular myth suggests that this terrorised whole districts, and dragged unwilling landsmen into the fleet. In practice the members of the gang often lived in fear of their own safety, and they usually took only experienced men for the navy. Some gangs were based in seaport towns such as London, Liverpool, Hull and Newcastle. Others operated off the coast, stopping merchant ships and taking part of the crew off. Some gangs were members of the crews of warships at sea, some were based permanently on shore. It was a hard life for the officers and men of the gang, and in 1814 Lieutenant Forbes in Greenock wanted to be replaced ‘in consequence of the repeated insults I meet with in the streets of Greenock, and the mob having proceeded even up the stairs to the door of my lodgings . . . It is hard to say what so ferocious a people might do.’
— Brian Lavery, Life in Nelson's Navy













