In the army and navy there were protests, many and powerful, against
the smallness of the pay, while the cost of living had vastly increased.
In more than one engagement on land England had had setbacks of a serious
kind, and there were those who saw in the blind-eyed naval policy, in
the general disregard of the seamen's position, in the means used for
recruiting, the omens of disaster. The police courts furnished the navy
with the worst citizens of the country. Quota men, the output of the
Irish prisons--seditious, conspiring, dangerous--were drafted for the
king's service.
The admiralty pursued its course of seizing men of the mercantile marine,
taking them aboard ships, keeping them away for months from the harbours
of the kingdom, and then, when their ships returned, denying them the
right of visiting their homes. The press-gangs did not confine their
activities to the men of the mercantile marine. From the streets after
dusk they caught and brought in, often after ill-treatment, torn from
their wives and sweethearts, knocked on the head for resisting, tradesmen
with businesses, young men studying for the professions, idlers, debtors,
out-of-work men. The marvel is that the British fleets fought as well as
they did.
Poverty and sorrow, loss and bereavement, were in every street, peeped
mournfully out of every window, lurked at street corners. From all parts
of the world adventurers came to renew their fortunes in the turmoil of
London, and every street was a kaleidoscope of faces and clothes and
colours, not British, not patriot, not national.
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