Draft and impressment were now required to obtain the services and the means, which, in the beginning, were lavishly proffered.
The unpatriotic practice of hoarding supplies--a temptation suggested by the rife spirit of speculation, arising from a redundant and depreciated currency--necessitated the passage of impressment laws.
Sir Matthew Decker, in a passage quoted by Mr. McCulloch, says, 'The custom of impressment put a freeborn British sailor on the same footing as a Turkish slave.
He began telling them a most horrible story of the impressment of himself and his friends by a British vessel and of their recent escape.
Their great need of men might have been some excuse for impressment of Americans; but there was a spice of hatred in their cruel treatment of the unfortunate sailors.
The impressment of seamen continued and was the source of daily increasing abuse.
Friends, relatives and neighbors, hearing of the sudden return of Fernando, all gathered on that evening, and the youth told the sad story of his impressment and slavery.
It looks as if those States, having built up a flourishing trade with Great Britain, cared little about the impressment of sailors, or the enslaving of their countrymen, so long as they filled their own pockets.
Nothing was said about the impressment of American seamen.
The practice of impressment continued to harass each succeeding administration.
The practice of impressment was an old grievance which seemed to Americans devoid of any justification.
In 1822 he also published Suggestions for the abolition of the present system of impressment in the Naval Service, a pamphlet which is said to have made him unpopular with Royalty.
Simpler people who refused were threatened with impressment into the Navy, which included being landed on shore to fight as marines and soldiers.
Those under 18 or over 55 were made exempt from impressment into the king's service.
Henry Coursey, in behalf of the colonists of Virginia.
Though, as was just said, these two objects might generally be harmoniously pursued, it was not always found easy or possible to keep them in amity, or to prevent sharp collisions between them.
Two days later they came upon other land, and tasting the dew upon the grass they found it sweet.
The people were morbidly sensitive about their slave property, and there was much discontent at the impressment of slaves, even though they were paid for.
Bishop-General Polk made a general impressment of negroes in north Alabama to work on the defences in his department, and many protests were made by the owners.
An act was passed to protect the people from "oppression by the illegal execution of the Confederate impressment laws.
Impressment The state quite early began to secure supplies by impressment.
Depreciated currency and the impressment laws made the producer wary of going to market at all.
There was much abuse of the impressment law, especially by unauthorized persons.
A conference of impressment commissioners met in Augusta, Ga.
Most of the impressment of blacks was done by the Confederate government.
A public meeting was held in April, 1864, in Talladega County to protest against further impressment of negroes.
The merchants of Mobile protested against the impressment of sugar and molasses, as it would cause prices to double, they said.
The unequal operation of theimpressment system may be seen in the case of Clarke and Monroe counties.
The Union element, it was said, suffered more from the operation of the impressment law.
In the spring of 1863, the Confederate Congress authorized the impressment of private property for public use.
That the evil of impressment into foreign service existed, no gentleman could doubt, and it was equally doubtless, that it was the duty of Congress, as far as they could, to provide a remedy for the evil.
The impressment of our seamen by the British is made use of as an objection to our carrying the Treaty into effect.
For this purpose he ordered an impressment of transportation in Nashville and the vicinity, making a clean sweep of every thing that ran on wheels.
It was very difficult to procure wagons, except by purchase or impressment from the citizens, and those so gotten were of course inferior.
He agitated the enlargement and extension of the political rights of the English people; and he endeavoured to effect the abolition of the impressment of seamen.
Boys voluntarily binding themselves to such sea service were exempt fromimpressment for the next three years.
Mr. Stephens believed that the next step after the Impressment Act would be the organization of all labor into a military system under government control.
Toombs in the field, the elder Stephens in Congress, and Linton Stephens in the Georgia Legislature, fought the Conscription and Impressment Acts.
It pathetically describes what many of them had experienced, the impressment of an American sailor boy, by a British man of war, the tearing up of his legal protection, and of his sinking under a broken heart.
Although our good natured captain laughed at this joke, I confess I could not; all the horrors of impressment rushed on my mind.
But the impressment of American citizens, massacres in the north, and outrages along the sea coast, so aroused the national indignation, that both words and efforts became powerless before it.
Her war ships stretched from Copenhagen to the Nile, and to supply these with seamen, she resorted to impressment not only on her own shores, amid her own subjects, but on American ships, among American sailors.
In 1803, with the renewal of the war between her and France, impressment was again practiced, though met at all times by remonstrance, which in turn was succeeded by negotiation.
The British Government would not consent to mingle it up with the subject of impressment generally, and refused to take any steps whatever towards reparation, until the President's hostile proclamation was withdrawn.
The public ear had become accustomed to the tales of impressmentand charges of the invasion of neutral rights.
The impressment of six or seven thousand seamen, most of them American citizens, the destruction of nearly a thousand merchantmen, and the insults every where heaped upon our flag, were wrongs which could not be justified.
Slidell and Mason is a parallel case to the instances of impressment of seamen out of which grew the war of 1812.
It expressed the two grievances which outweighed all others--the interference with American shipping and the ruthless impressment of seamen from beneath the Stars and Stripes.
It is not remarkable that a sailor in those days should have dreaded a "man-of-war" as the most fearful of evils, and would resort to desperate means to avoid impressment or escape from bondage.
But no questions were asked, as I was looked upon as one of the crew, which, without counting Strictland, consisted of only three individuals; and the idea of reducing that small number by impressment was not entertained.
The brig was deficient in her complement of men, and this deficiency was supplied by impressmentfrom crews of British vessels in port.
The boat returned on board the Ringdove, and I, as well as the others, rejoiced in having eluded impressment in a man-of-war.
About this time an excitement prevailed among the web-footed gentry in St. Bartholomew in relation to the impressment of seamen by British authorities.
