Every Man Will Do His Duty (11 page)

There was two livers of the place playing a game of draughts. I stood looking on and one beat the other till he gave it up, a pot of beer a game. The winer asked me if I would take a game. I told him I had no objections. For the good of the house we plaid. I beat him. The gang standing round, I told them to drink as it came in. The other trades man wished to try me. I beat him. The gang then begin, and I beat the whole gang which in the whole in the barroom was 12 and had all the bear [beer] in. “Wel,” said I, “as I have not been beat, I will have my pot in,” which made a purty hearty laugh amongst them all, but the gang thought that would not excuse me, expecting I might have no protection, but not being alowed to over hall me in the house, but when I bid them all good night, they follow’d me and wish’d to [k]now weather I had a protection. I went in again and showed it. They had no more to say. I went home. I then could go wherever I pleased. The gangs [k]nowing me, they seldom overhall’d me.

One evening, going up Ratlif [Ratcliffe] high way, I sept’d [stepped] into a public house and caled for something to drink, and sitting at the same table where two young girls were sitting, supposing they belonged to the house, I fell in discourse with one of them I supposed could not be more than thirteen. I asked hur if she was the landlords daughter. She said, “No,
Sir, but I live close by.” I had drink’d my beer and was going out. She asked me if I would see hur home. I was surprised, but I told hur I would if she would show me the way. She got up and we went out.

She took me up a lane and entered a house where there was an elderly woman sitting a mending some cloking. They asked me to sit down. I observed the old woman was droping a tear. I asked hur what troubled hur mind. She said she had lost hur husband about two months ago and she had no one to help hur but hur daughter and was comp[elle]d to do what could not be helped. I felt for hur and expected they ware in want.

I pretended I wanted something to drink and I felt hungry. I asked hur daughter if she would fetch me some. She said by all means. I gave hur a seven shilling peace and told hur to go to a cook shop and get some cook’d victuals. I told hur to bring a half pint of rum and a quart of beer and the rest in provisions. She took a cloth and some materiels with hur. In hur absence I had some conversation with the old lady in respect of London being so great and popular a city why there was not assistance given to the poor. She said there was in some cases, but it requird friends, and then there was many hundreds in London pereshing for want. By this time hur daughter return’d with all that was required. I took a glass of grog and eat a little, and gave me pleasure to see them eat.

After supper I ment to bid them good night, but the daughter would not purmit me, and likewise hur mother wish’d me to stop as it was late. We went up stairs and I laid down, when she pulled hur gown’d off, which was clean and deasent, but hur shift was nothing but rags. It hurt me to see so lovely a young girl so much in distress for the want of some assistance, and I found by discourse it was to support hur poor mother.

In the morning when rising, I gave hur a half a guinea and told hur to get a couple of shifts. She cried and took me round the neck. I went down stairs and the old ladie was there. I bid hur good morning and she return’d the complement with chearfulness. I presented hur a guinea and told hur it might be of service to hur. She seemed stagnated, and I told hur purhaps you may never see me any more and bid them both good morning. I always thought I never done a better job in my life for the good of my own soul.

When in London before, I got acquainted with a family [that] lived near Stepney Church, though they came from the Isle of White [Wight] abreast of Portsmouth Harbour. I took a liking to a daughter of Mr. Pitmuns, a lively hansome girl in my eye, and maried hur. She had three brothers that I was acquainted with before.

Being at her fathers house, we took a walk down street. Then I proposed walking up to Tower Hill to Mr. Goodalls. Coming along towards St.
Catherine, we saw the gang in chase of a sailor. Passing us in the dusk of the evening, the last of the gang purceiving me, came up to me, and asked me who I was and wanted to [k]now whether I had a protection. I told him I belonged to the
Gorgeon
at Woolage and my ticket was where I was going to on Tower Hill. He begin to make free with my wife and I nock’d him down, and a nother coming up, I made him stager, but a number gathering round me and a midshipman of the gang, I told him I would go where he pleased but not to allow his vagabons to insult my wife. He said they should not. Then I walked on with them, and my wife with me.

They took me to Iron Gate where the randevoos was.
⁴
As soon as I entered I sent my wife up to Mr. Goodalls to bring him down, as I hail for the
Gorgeon.
I was then brought up stairs before the pressmaster. There was several capt[ains] there and a number of ladies. The capt[ain] of the
Gorgeon
[Edward Tyrrell] being one of the company, desired the pressmaster to let him overhall me, as I hail’d for his ship, before I was brought up. I was well dressed in silk jacket, waiscoat, and India gingums. When I apeared they all took there vew of me, both ladies and officers.

“Well,” said the capt[ain] of the
Gorgeon,
” what ship do you hail for?”

“The
Gorgeon,
Sir, laying at Wollige.”

“Are you aquainted with the capt[ain]?”

“No, Sir, I would not know him if I met him in my dish.” There was a loud laugh with the ladies and gentlemen.

“Well, how came you to enter for the
Gorgeon
particularly, not [k]nowing the capt[ain]?”

“I can inform you, Sir. Mr. Goodall, I believe, is a friend to me, and I board in his house since I new London, and Mr. Burley, belonging to the
Gorgeon,
which boards there and I believe is pusser [purser] of the ship, informed me the capt[ain] was a fine man and by going in hur I could remain with me wife for a short time as she is not ready for see.”

By this time my wife return’d and told me Mr. Goodall was up in the citty. “Well,” said the capt[ain], “you must content yourself for the night on board the tender. I am capt[ain] of the
Gorgeon
and I will come and see you in the morning.”

“Sir,” said I, “will you tear me away from my wife no sooner than I am maried to hur, and she is here now, and if you send me on board the tender this night I wont go in your ship, I will go aboard the largest ship in the navy first.”

The ladies endeavoured to interceed for me, but the capt[ain] said he was afraid to trust me without security and Mr. Goodall not being at home. I desired my wife to go and stay with Mrs. Goodall for to night and come on b[oar]d the tender after breckfast.

Going down into the barroom, the gang being all there, I asked the landlady for a pint of beer. “No,” said the gang, “we cant wait, you must come a long. Dont bring any beer.”

I gumped on a table in a box next to a window fronting the street and drew my knife. “The first raskel that comes in reach of me I will be his death.” Some run out and bared the windows, came and locked the dore.

The midshipman run up stairs to the officers. Down came Capt[ain] Terrel. “What’s the matter?”

“These raskels,” said I, “wont allow me a pint of beer, and I am famishing with drought.”

“Madam, fetch him some beer. You raskels, how dare you refuse him that privilage!” The beer was brought.

I sat down and drank my beer. “Now I will go with you.”

After going out of the house towards Iron Gate Steps, there was one of each side of me, some a head and some behind me. The two that was a long side of me, I nocked them both backwards, but the fellow behind hit me with a club which stagerd me. The capt[ain], hearing the noise, hollowed out of the window, “You raskels, if you hurt that man I will flog every man of you.”

By this time they had all got close round me and got into the very [wherry], which is a boat in common in crossing the river or elsewhere. They placed themselves all a round me. My intention was to jump over board and dive amongst the ships in a strong tide. They could not have found me, but they kept fast holt of me till they got me on board.

The steward demanded me to give him somthing to put my days allowance in. I had nothing. He took my hat and put bisquit and chees into my hat, then on locked the bars and put me on a stair case that led me into the hole [hold]. Coming to the bottom there was a demand for a shilling to drink. There was about 14 prest men. They had a candle burning, and the liquor was soon got by a hailing line from the upper deck. I discovered an old shipmate that had run away from the
Brumswick
and was pressed again. I put my bisquit and cheese on a platform that was made to lay on,
having no apetite for eating, but in less than five minutes there was not a crum to be foun, and when I laid down to take a nap, they would be draging at my close [clothes], which were large Norway rats that ware so numerous and ravenous you could get no rest for them.
⁵

The next morning Capt[ain] Terrel came on board, and I was call’d up on the quarter deck. He asked me if I would go on board his ship. I told him through the treatment I had received I did not care where I went to, and I was American. He new he could not get me, as I was pressed on board the tender, unless I entered particularly for his ship, being a Kings transport, and I would be sent on board some line a battle ship. He told me he took a great liking to me, and if I would go on board his ship he would let me come up to London till the ship was ready for see. Likewise he would get me the large bounty which was then allowed for seeman. I new if I did not except of that offer, my portion was a three decker at the Nore, therefore I agreed. The whole sum amounted to 35 Ld. sterling.

The next day I went down in the tender that took all the prest men down to the Nore, but I was not put below as the rest ware. Coming to Wollige [Woolwich], we hail’d the
Gorgon
and a jolly boat was sent, and I came aboard and went on the quarter deck and enquired for the commanding officer. He came up and told me he had just received a litter from the capt[ain] to let me come up to London amediately. I received a ticket.

My wife being with me, the boatswain, being a Merican and his wife being on board, they invited us to dinner, and after dinner the leutenant maned the boat and took us on shore. Took stage and arrived in London, went to my boarding house, and from thence to hur fathers. Hur father was about moving to Portsmouth. His son being a ship carpenter, and he a boat builder, he thought he would do better there with his son.
⁶

By the time my liberty ticket was out, the capt[ain] send for me, and Mr. Goodall went with me, he boarding on Little Tower Hill. When we arived we ware introduc’d up stairs and a great number of capt[ains] in the navy ware there. My capt[ain] was much pleased with me and asked for my ticket. I gave it to him, and he backe my ticket, week after week, till I did
not wish to remain any longer, and every time he sent for me, he treated me very hansomely in whatever I chused to drink.

During this time Mr. Smith, that I came home with in the Indiaman, sent the pusser [purser] after me, he going capt[ain] of the same ship, that if I would desert, he would send me into the country till the ship was ready for sea and give me 10 Lb. sterling pr. month. I told the pusser I new the danger and death would be my portion if caught again, therefore I would not atempt it.
⁷
After being a month in London, I returned on board.

Nagle’s service on board the
Gorgon
would not be happy, nor would his subsequent service on board the frigate
Blanche
, which was commanded first by Captain Charles Sawyer, a homosexual who lost effective control of his crew, and later by Henry Hotham, an officer whose reputation for harsh discipline caused the crew to rebel when he came on board. It was apparently Nelson himself who appealed to the good senses of the crew of the
Blanche
and brokered their reluctant acceptance of Hotham. Nagle’s career eventually took a turn for the better aboard an experimental sloop that proved quite successful—despite its innovation; see “Mad Dickey’s Amusement, 1798–1800,”.

¹
The ships that bore down on the
Rose
on July 17 included the “
Poliphemus
64,
Apollo, Cerberus
&
Margretta
frigates &
Hazard
under Capt. Manly.” Log of Alexander Gray,
Rose,
L/MAR/59D, India Office Library, London.

²
A general history of the Quiberon Bay invasion fiasco, and the political and diplomatic background, can be found in John Ehrman,
The Younger Pitt: The Reluctant Transition
(London, 1983), 567–79. The troops that had assembled in the area were not raised to repel a French invasion but to be part of the French invasion themselves. Nagle’s group avoided the main roads until they got to Poplar. Although he notes that there were reportedly four press gangs in the village, it was essentially an East India Company town at this period, and the men felt relatively safe beyond this point.

³
The White Swan tavern was apparently very near the East India Company headquarters on Leadenhall Street, and from Nagle’s comments concerning arrangements for his voyages of 1795 and 1805–7, it appears that the company had an official or unofficial arrangement with the tavern for recruiting men. While the company had to be careful about the methods it used, the tavern and its landlord could and apparently did resort to whatever practices would raise men for the company and make money for themselves.

⁴
Although the eastern, riverside gate to the Tower of London was eliminated in the late eighteenth century, Irongate Stairs, giving access to the Thames, remained in Nagle’s day. The name was apparently used by a nearby tavern, where Captain Edward Tyrrell established the “rendezvous” for his press gang. Tyrrell was an interesting, resourceful man, and his correspondence to the Admiralty concerning the problems associated with impressment is interesting to read. Captain’s Correspondence “T,” ADM/1/2596 (1795) and ADM/1/2597 (1796–97), PRO; John Charlton,
The Tower of London
(London, 1978), 112–13.