impressment

System of forced conscription, often of the poor or destitute, into the armed forces, particularly the Royal Navy, employed in the 18th and 19th centuries. In effect it was a form of kidnapping carried out by the services or their agents, often with the aid of armed men. This was similar to the practice of ‘shanghaiing’ sailors for duty in the merchant marine, especially in the Far East.

Until wages and conditions of service were of a level to attract recruits, a series of dubious 18th-century statutes permitted the use of ‘press gangs’, essentially gangs of thugs employed to force or cajole people to enlist. The army ceased to employ this method by 1815, but the navy continued to use press gangs until it was made to end the practice in the 1830s. Impressment was deeply unpopular and it was public hostility that forced the authorities to abandon the practice, but the legislation that permitted it is still in place and it is arguably still legal.