press gang at work Impressment military Royal Navy press-ganging
Impressment (colloquially, "the Press" or "press-ganging") is the act of compelling people to serve in the military, usually by force and without notice. Unlike "shanghaiing", impressment is carried out by law, or under color of law, and forces the impressed person into military rather than commercial sea service. It was used by the Royal Navy, beginning in 1664 and during the 18th and early 19th centuries, in wartime, as a means of crewing warships, although legal sanction for the practice goes back to the time of Edward I of England. The Royal Navy impressed many British merchant sailors, as well as some sailors from other nations. People liable to impressment were eligible men of seafaring habits between the ages of 18 and 45 years, though, albeit rarely, non-seamen were impressed as well. If they believed that they were impressed unfairly, pressed men were able to submit appeals to the Admiralty, and those appeals were often successful.[citation needed] The navy had little interest in impressing people who were not ordinary or able seamen, since they would be of no use on board ship. Impressment was strongly criticized by those who believed it to be contrary to the British constitution; unlike many of its continental rivals, Britain did not conscript its subjects for any other military service, aside from a brief experiment with army impressment in 1778 to 1780, and the public opposed conscription in general but, as impressment was deemed vital to the strength of the navy and, by extension, to the survival of the realm, it was repeatedly upheld by the courts. The impressment of seamen from American ships caused serious tensions between Britain and the United States in the years leading up to the War of 1812. After the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, Britain ended the practice, and never resumed it. The Impress Service was formed to force sailors to serve on naval vessels (there was no concept of joining the navy for non-officers at the time), based on the legal
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