That most reprehensible practice, the pressing of cripples for naval purposes, would appear to have had its origin in the unauthorised extension of an order issued by the Lord High Admiral, in 1704, to the effect that in the appointment of cooks to the Navy the Board should give preference to persons so afflicted. For the pressing of boys there existed even less warrant. Yet the practice was common, so much so that when, during the great famine of 1800, large numbers of youths flocked into Poole in search of the bread they could not obtain in the country, the gangs waylaid them and reaped a rich harvest. Two hundred was the toll on this occasion. As all were in a "very starving, ragged, filthy condition," the gangsmen stripped them, washed them thoroughly in the sea, clad them in second-hand clothing from the quay-side shops, and giving each one a knife, a spoon, a comb and a bit of soap, sent them on board the tenders contented and happy. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 579--Capt. Boyle, 2 June 1801.] These lads were of course a cut above the "scum of the earth" so vigorously denounced by Admiral Mostyn. Beginning their career as powder-monkeys, a few years' licking into shape transformed them, as a rule, into splendid fighting material.
The utter incapacity of the human refuse dumped into the fleet is justly stigmatised by one indignant commander, himself a patient long-sufferer in that respect, as a "scandalous abuse of the service." Six of these poor wretches had not the strength of one man. They could not be got upon deck in the night, or if by dint of the rope's-end they were at length routed out of their hammocks, they immediately developed the worst symptoms of the "waister"--seasickness and fear of that which is high. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1471--Capt. Billop, 26 Oct. 1712.] Bruce, encountering dirty weather on the Irish coast, when in command of the _Hawke_, out of thirty-two pressed men "could not get above seven to go upon a yard to reef his courses," but was obliged to order his warrant officers and master aloft on that duty. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1477--Capt. Bruce, 6 Oct. 1741.] Belitha, of the _Scipio_, had but one man aboard him, out of a crew of forty-one, who was competent to stand his trick at the wheel; [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1482--Capt. Belitha, 15 July 1746.] Bethell, of the _Phoenix_, had many who had "never seen a gun fired in their lives"; [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1490--Capt. Bethell, 21 Aug. 1759.] and Adams, of the _Bird-in-hand_, learnt the fallacy of the assertion that that _rara avis_ is worth two in the bush. Mustered for drill in small-arms, his men "knew no more how to handle them than a child." [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1440--Capt. Adams, 7 Oct. 1744.] For all their knowledge of that useful exercise they might have been Sea-Fencibles.