The War of 1812: Stoking the Fires

Summer 2012, Vol. 44, No. 2

Impressment of Seaman Charles Davis by the U.S. Navy

By John P. Deeben

On the night of November 12, 1811, the 36-gun British

British o icers inspect a group of
American sailors for impressment
into the British navy, ca. 1810, in a
drawing by Howard Pyle. The
practice angered Americans and
was one cause of the War of 1812.
But American naval o icers
engaged in the same practice
against British sailors. (Library of
Congress)
frigate HMS Havannah lay anchored at Spithead, a
sheltered strait near the naval harbors of Portsmouth
and Gosport in Hampshire, England. Spithead served as
one of the principal bases for the Royal Navy along the
English Channel, and the Havannah, as a member of the
Channel Fleet, regularly patrolled the area, watching for
French vessels from Brest or Le Havre attempting to
infiltrate coastal waters.
In the darkness, the deck watch suddenly heard
splashing sounds and spotted a figure in the water
swimming frantically toward them. Dropping a longboat
from the gunwales, crewmen pulled aboard what they
initially thought was an American deserter from the
nearby frigate USS Constitution, which had recently put
into Spithead for a courtesy call or to take on supplies.
Instead, the drenched man identified himself as Irish
seaman Charles Davis; he claimed to have just escaped
from forced servitude in the United States Navy.

Davis subsequently recounted his ordeal to Capt. Robert Hall of the HMS Royal William, who
communicated the incident to Adm. Sir Roger Curtis, commander-in-chief of the naval station at
Portsmouth. In his report, Hall reiterated the pivotal assertion that Davis "never was in America
before . . . he has been detained by the commanding o icer of the Constitution.". It appeared to
be a clear case of foreign impressment; however, there is little evidence to suggest anything
further came of the incident in diplomatic circles, even though procedures were in place at that
time to lodge a formal complaint with the United States government. (Since 1796, an American
agent had been stationed in London to investigate impressment issues and secure the release
of American victims). But for the fact that a copy of Hall's report eventually found its way into
the general records of the U.S. State Department—along with a few other documents about
impressed seamen of British origin—the ordeal of Charles Davis might have faded into history.
The impressment or forcible seizure of American seamen by the British Royal Navy in the late
18th and early 19th centuries has traditionally been viewed as a primary cause of the War of
1812. Americans at that time regarded impressment as a deliberate and dastardly act
perpetrated by a foreign power against innocent men. Although modern scholars now question
the true extent and impact of the practice as a precursor to war—between 1789 and 1815, the
British impressed fewer than 10,000 Americans out of a total population of 3.9 to 7.2 million—
impressment nonetheless stoked popular outrage, provoking Congress into legislative action
and raising diplomatic tensions with Britain. The experience of Charles Davis, however,
illuminates a lesser known aspect about American culpability in the whole impressment issue.
To a certain extent (and apparently not widely admitted by American o icials), the United
States reciprocated impressment against the British, seizing unsuspecting seamen to serve
aboard American warships.

A British Maritime Tradition Collides with American

Ideals Learn more about:
Impressment constituted a longstanding maritime
tradition in Great Britain, a prerogative held by the Military service records from
Crown following centuries of development (reported the War of 1812
instances of impressment occurred as early as the A "duel of ships" during the
Anglo-Saxon period, followed by extensive usage from War of 1812
the Elizabethan era to the Commonwealth years under Getting copies of your or an
Oliver Cromwell). As Britain evolved into a strong ancestor's military records
seafaring nation, the Royal Navy gradually viewed
impressment as a legitimate method of recruitment.
When necessary, naval authorities orchestrated press
gangs in British ports under the guise of the "impress service." Headed by a naval recruiting
o icer, the service hired local ru ians to comb the surrounding countryside for suitable recruits
in exchange for traveling expenses and a fee for each conscript. Ostensibly, the gangs only
targeted British subjects, including Royal Navy deserters and inhabitants of coastal areas who
excelled in such necessary seafaring skills as rope and sail making, navigation, and ship
carpentry. By the 18th century, Britain came to regard impressment as a maritime right and
extended the practice to boarding neutral merchant ships in local waters and at sea.

In the 1790s, impressment became even more important as the outbreak of war between
Britain and France in the wake of the French Revolution spawned a dire need for a much larger
navy. Between 1793 and 1812, Parliament increased the size of the Royal Navy from 135 to 584
ships and expanded personnel from 36,000 to 114,000 seamen. By contrast, manpower in the
British merchant marine in 1792 already stood at 118,000, reflecting a noticeable preferment for
civilian over military service. The Royal Navy had a venerable and notorious reputation for long
voyages, harsh discipline, and poor compensation—sailors' wages were o en withheld for at
least six months to discourage desertions—which paled in comparison to the more humane
conditions in the civilian merchant fleet (where everyone's well-being hinged upon the success
and profitability of each voyage). In response to the recruiting disparity, impressment became a
vital tool.
The practice, however, immediately drew Britain into
ideological conflict with the recently established
government of the United States. Tempered by
generations of local self rule and individual freedoms—
reflected emphatically in the Declaration of
Independence, the recent cathartic experience of the
American Revolution, and the resulting Constitution
and Bill of Rights—the United States strenuously
disavowed impressment as an international right. The
whole nature and purpose of press gangs represented
an a ront to human rights and national sovereignty; the
act of forcing individuals to serve a foreign power
against their will was an "arbitrary deprivation" of Capt. Isaac Hull, famed master of
personal liberty devoid of the due process of law. the USS Constitution, engaged in
This perceived flouting of freedom on the part of the impressment of British sailors, as
British also clashed directly with America's emerging did many other American o icers.
attitude regarding the rights of neutrals on the high (Library of Congress)
seas. International maritime law at that time limited the
extent of national sovereignty to a country's warships
and territorial waters, which o en le civilian fleets vulnerable on the open seas. The sanctity
and authority of a nation's flag did not necessarily exempt its merchantmen from aggression by
belligerents engaged in the established rules of warfare, which allowed enemy goods,
contraband, and personnel to be seized wherever they might be found. Nations at war thus
asserted the right to stop and search neutral ships as a matter of course. Britain aggressively
pursued such a policy as it waged open warfare at sea with France in the 1790s, invoking the
right of impressment in the process.
Conversely, the United States, attempting to assert itself as an emerging naval power, not only
championed the right of neutrals to engage in free trade with belligerents at war but also
believed that neutrality protected all persons sailing under a sovereign flag regardless of
national origin. As Secretary of State James Madison observed in 1804 to James Monroe, who
was then serving as U.S. minister to Great Britain, "We consider a neutral flag on the high seas
as a safeguard to those sailing under it. . . . [N]owhere will she [Great Britain] find an exception
to this freedom of the seas, and of neutral ships, which justifies the taking away of any person
not an enemy in military service, found on board a neutral vessel." The right of visitation and
search, Americans maintained, should allow for a cursory examination of a vessel's papers or
manifest but preclude the seizure of neutral civilians.
U.S. opposition to impressment increased dramatically as Britain's growing need for able-
bodied sailors quickly exposed the apparent vulnerability of American seamen. Even though
they disavowed any desire to impress U.S. citizens, the British openly claimed the right to take
British deserters from American ships. (Quite o en, British seamen composed 35 to 40 percent
of U.S. naval crews in the early 19th century, enticed to serve by better pay and working
conditions). Obvious similarities in culture and language complicated e orts to distinguish
between American and British-born seamen as well, leading to frequent instances of wrongful
impressment. Acknowledging the problem in 1792, Secretary of State Thomas Je erson
observed, "The practice in Great Britain of impressing seamen whenever war is apprehended
will fall more heavily on ours, than on those of any other foreign nation, on account of the
sameness of language."

On May 28, 1796, Congress finally passed legislation (1 Stat. 477) to counteract the impressment
threat. Intended to identify and repatriate American victims, the act authorized the government
to appoint agents to investigate impressment incidents and pursue legal means to obtain the
release of the seamen. Masters of American ships at sea had to report incidents of impressment
to the customs agent at the nearest American port, or to lodge a "protest" with the U.S.
consulate if an impressment took place in a foreign port. An act of March 2, 1799 (1 Stat. 731),
also required the submission of annual reports to Congress regarding impressment activity. In
the midst of this o icial American reaction against the perceived horrors and injustice of
impressment, however, similar behavior on the part of the U.S. Navy apparently occurred with
little notice or comment. The e ort to document American impressment cases ironically
allowed the atrocities perpetrated against Charles Davis and other British seamen eventually to
come to light as well.
Turning the Tables: The Ordeal of Charles Davis

Charles Davis was born in the parish of St. Mary's in Dublin, Ireland, about 1786. In 1795, at the
age of nine, he was apprenticed to a Dublin mariner named Edward Murphy, the master of a
merchant vessel called the Valentine. Murphy taught the young lad the basic aspects of the
seafaring trade for two years and then sent Davis to sea on several merchant vessels for
practical experience. One voyage even drew Davis into the nefarious world of the Atlantic slave
trade, when he sailed on the slave ship Princess Amelia from Liverpool to the coast of Africa and
then to Santo Domingo and Grenada in the West Indies. While docked at the port of Antigua
with the merchant brig Ann in February 1807, Davis experienced impressment for the first time
when he was abducted by the HMS St. Lucia. That ordeal ended a er two French privateers
captured the British schooner. Davis finally returned to Liverpool in August 1807, where he
worked in the dockyards as a rigger for about three years.
 On August 5, 1810, Davis went back to sea on the
merchant ship Margaret for what would prove to be his
final civilian voyage. The Margaret brought Davis to
America (contrary to his claim in the Hall report) for the
first time on October 2, landing at the port of
Charleston, South Carolina. A er four days aboard ship,
Davis and three shipmates went ashore to a local
tavern. By his own admission, Davis imbibed too much
and could not recall what happened next, except that
"on the following morning he found himself on board
the American United States sloop of war Wasp . . . he
does not know by what means he was put on board
her." Suddenly finding himself addressed as seaman
Thomas Holland, Davis immediately applied to First
Lieutenant Ingles of the Wasp to be returned to the
Margaret, pointing out that he was British rather than
an American citizen. Ingles bluntly refused, stating that
he would see Davis "drowned first, 'for the English keep
the Americans and I will keep you.'"
Capt. Robert Hall of the HMS Royal
Thus began 13 months of forced labor in the U.S. Navy
William recorded the testimony of
under an assumed name. The Wasp cruised for a time
British sailor Charles Davis in
along the coast of Georgia and South Carolina, during
November 1811, a er Davis
which Ingles put Davis in irons on several occasions for
escaped impressment on board the
refusing to work and threatening to jump ship at the
USS Constitution. Hall recounted
first opportunity. On November 20, 1810, he finally
the incident in his report to Adm.
succeeded in slipping his chains a er the Wasp returned
Sir Roger Curtis, commander-in-
to Charleston harbor. Swimming to shore, Davis walked
chief of the naval station at
124 miles to Savannah where, unfortunately, another
Portsmouth. (General Records of
Charleston tavern keeper recognized him (his desertion
the Department of State, RG 59)
had been well publicized by the captain of the Wasp)
and caused Davis to be arrested. A er Davis returned to
the Wasp, the captain placed him in double irons for 72 days. For attempting to desert, Davis
was also court-martialed and sentenced to 78 lashes with a cat-o-nine tails, with the
punishment to be administered on board the USS John Adams in Hampton Roads, Virginia.
Around the time of his trial and punishment (Davis never explained the exact time frame of the
disciplinary action), the USS Constitution arrived at Hampton Roads in July 1811 to seek a dra
of new men for her crew. Capt. Isaac Hull of the Constitution boarded the John Adams twice to
requisition crewmembers while Davis was still on board. At first, Hull rejected Davis because of
his nationality, which suggested there was indeed some validity to the latter's claim of being
held illicitly on the naval ship. A er returning for a second look, however, Hull decided to take
Davis, reportedly commenting: "I do not care a damn let you be English or what you will. I will
run the risk of taking you." With Captain Hull's pronouncement, Charles Davis boarded the
Constitution on July 27 and began the voyage that finally ended with his dramatic escape at
Spithead on November 12, 1811.
Clues Revealed about U.S. Impressment Activities
Limited information about British victims makes it
di icult to estimate the full scope of impressments
perpetrated by the U.S. Navy. As one of the more
detailed surviving cases, however, the ordeal of Charles
Davis certainly suggests a few generalities about the
nature of American impressment activities. First, Davis's
experience indicates that some well-known American
naval commanders willingly engaged in the practice, in
particular Isaac Hull, who later helmed the Constitution The USS Constitution defeats HMS
to its famous victory against HMS Guerriere during the Guerriere, August 19, 1812. (127-N-
War of 1812. Hull's actions mirrored an earlier incident 302108)
involving another rising naval o icer, William
Bainbridge. As the young captain of a civilian merchant vessel in 1796—two years prior to his
appointment as a Navy lieutenant—Bainbridge retaliated against the impressment of one of his
crewmembers by the HMS Indefatigable by seizing an English sailor from the next merchant
vessel he came upon in open waters. This episode, enhanced even more when Bainbridge
openly announced his intentions to the English sea captain, cemented his later naval
reputation.
Second, American complicity in press gang activity appeared to be widespread, rivaling some of
the State Department's myriad evidence about American victims. Davis alluded to the existence
of many other British victims in his own testimony to Admiralty o icials, asserting "there are
about 60 or 70 H.B.M. [His Britannic Majesty's] subjects now on board the said ship Constitution
. . . he does not know their names but he believes they would come forward and own
themselves as such subjects if any o icer was to claim them." Davis noted in particular that
numerous "forecastle men have told him they were Englishmen," many of whom "expressed . . .
a desire to get away from the Constitution." Another British seaman, William Bowman, who was
pressed into the U.S. Navy in New York on or about June 4, 1811, likewise reported "there were
a great many English on board" the USS Hornet, "several of whom would be glad to quit her."
Not surprisingly, U.S. Navy records are su iciently vague about the exact nature of forced
recruitments. Muster rolls for the USS Wasp simply show that Charles Davis, aka Thomas
Holland, first appeared on board at Charleston on October 25, 1810, and later transferred to the
USS Constitution for detached service on July 27, 1811. Without knowing the other side of the
story, the records appear to document a typical enlistment. Likewise, the deck logs of the
Constitution noted the acquisition of new crewmembers on July 27—including 10 pursers, 2
quartermasters, 29 seamen, and 32 ordinary seamen—but suggested nothing contentious
about the nature of the transfers. The only specific reference to Davis's ordeal appeared in the
Constitution's log for November 13, 1811, when the deck o icer noted at "1/2 past 8 p.m. an
o icer came alongside from the Havannah frigate and said they had taken up a man which had
swam from the Constitution. It proved to be Thomas Holland, a seaman."
British sailors also apparently faced treatment of equal brutality at the hands of the Americans,
despite the prevailing perception of better conditions in the U.S. Navy. Davis aptly illustrated
several methods of harsh punishment in his own story, including placement in irons for long
periods of time for resisting authority and lashings with a cat-o-nine tails for attempting
desertion. Similarly, Bowman, a er being taken aboard the Hornet, faced the threat of
undetermined punishment for contacting his wife a er the American warship arrived at Cowes,
an English seaport on the Isle of Wight, near the port of Southampton. When Elizabeth Elinor
Bowman came to the Hornet to see her husband, the American o icers treated her with equal
roughness. At first, they refused to allow Elizabeth on board and then only granted her a half-
hour visit. A erward, the o icers denied Elizabeth permission to leave and detained her for
several days.
The manner in which Davis wound up in American custody suggests the U.S. Navy also engaged
in the tactic of "shanghaiing" potential victims for compulsory service at sea. Although the term
itself became more commonly associated with later maritime kidnappings along the California
coast in the 1850s, this allegedly popular method of impressment involved snatching
incapacitated victims from dives and hostels in local seaports (especially a er they had been
deliberately drugged or intoxicated). A er getting drunk at a Charleston tavern on the night of
October 6, 1811, and unable to explain how he later found himself aboard the USS Wasp, Davis
subsequently learned that the real Thomas Holland, the proprietor of the tavern, had in fact
delivered him to the crew of the Wasp soon a er Davis passed out. For unknown reasons,
Holland gave his own name to the crew when he presented his "recruit," causing Davis to serve
under the alias "Thomas Holland" during his entire time with the U.S. Navy. While it is
impossible to determine if Davis was intentionally drugged, his account still intimates the
possibility of collusion between the tavern keeper and American naval personnel and likewise
demonstrates that some U.S. o icers willingly took advantage of impaired sailors to bolster
their crews.
A final aspect of the Davis case suggests a similarity between British and American e orts to
document impressment incidents against each other. In a manner comparable to the U.S. State
Department's instructions to compile lists and depositions about American victims, the British
Board of Admiralty—the supervisory authority over the Royal Navy in the early 19th century—
made systematic attempts to solicit firsthand evidence and o icial correspondence regarding
the impressment of British sailors. Davis's detailed testimony and accompanying letters
between Adm. Sir Roger Curtis and John Wilson Croker, first secretary to the Admiralty,
demonstrated a methodical e ort to implement directives of the Lords Commissioners of the
 Admiralty and obtain timely information from British
sailors who escaped American warships. Curtis even
acquired evidence about the condition of William
Bowman (readily supplied by his wife, Elizabeth) while
the latter was still detained aboard the USS Hornet in
January 1812.
****

The experience of Charles Davis—filled with details of

questionable motives, tactics, and treatment—
highlighted American culpability as an equally ruthless
participant in the whole issue of naval impressment.
Although the United States took a decidedly high-
minded stance against the maritime practice, insisting
on the democratic rights of seamen and sovereign
vessels of all nationalities on the high seas—an ideal
that eventually drew the U.S. government into a second
war with Great Britain in 1812—evidence of duplicitous
behavior on the part of the American naval
The opening page of Charles Davis establishment certainly existed. In the end,
s deposition on November 16, 1811, impressment proved to be a commonly accepted
a er his escape from the USS practice, perhaps even a necessary evil, among
Constitution. (General Records of maritime powers in an age of routine warfare on the
the Department of State, RG 59) high seas. The ordeal of Charles Davis simply
highlighted the other side of a turbulent issue in
America's seafaring history, revealing useful insights
about ordinary seamen living through extraordinary times.

John P. Deeben is a genealogy archives specialist in the Research Support Branch at the
National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C. He earned B.A. and M.A.
degrees in history from Gettysburg College and Pennsylvania State University, respectively.

Note on Sources
Very few general studies about the history of impressment have been produced in scholarly
circles, the most useful being a 1960 reprint of a 1925 dissertation by James Fulton
Zimmerman, Impressment of American Seamen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1925),
which gives the figure of fewer than 10,000 Americans being impressed. A few general histories
of the War of 1812 also touch on the subject, including Bradford Perkins, Prologue to War:
England and the United States, 1805–1812 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968);
Reginald Horsman, The Causes of the War of 1812 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1962); and Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1989). Hickey has also dealt more recently with disputed facts and
misconceptions about impressment and other issues in Don't Give Up the Ship! Myths of the War
of 1812 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006). The episode about William Bainbridge's
impressment activities is recounted in Joseph Wheelan, Je erson's War: America's First War on
Terror, 1801–1805 (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2003).
The Charles Davis impressment deposition, dated November 15, 1811, is reproduced in
National Archives Microfilm Publication M1839, Lists and Miscellaneous Papers Relating to
Impressed Seamen, 1796–1814. This publication also includes related correspondence of the
British o icials who investigated the Davis case, including letters from Capt. Robert Hall, HMS
Royal William, to Adm. Sir Roger Curtis, commander-in-chief, Portsmouth, dated November 13,
1811, and Curtis to John Wilson Croker, secretary to the Board of Admiralty, dated January 25,
November 16, and December 20, 1811. Also quoted is a related deposition from Elizabeth Elinor
Bowman, wife of impressed seaman William Bowman, dated January 25, 1812. These records
are all part of the subgroup "Records Relating to Impressed Seamen, 1793–1815," in Record
Group 59, General Records of the Department of State. Muster rolls for the USS Wasp and USS
Constitution are reproduced in National Archives Microfilm Publication T829, Miscellaneous
Records of the O ice of Naval Records and Library, while the Constitution deck logs are located in
Microfilm Publication M1030, Logbooks and Journals of the U.S.S. Constitution, 1798–1934.
References to U.S. legislation about impressed seamen include "An Act for the Relief and
Protection of American Seamen," April 28, 1796, U.S. Statutes at Large, 4th Congress, 1: 477; and
"An Act to Revive and Continue in Force Certain Parts of the 'Act for the Relief and Protection of
American Seamen,' and to Amend the Same," March 2, 1799, U.S. Statutes at Large, 4th
Congress, 1: 731. Quotations from Thomas Je erson and James Madison regarding the negative
impact of impressment on American citizens and the rights of neutrals on the high seas are
from American State Papers, Foreign Relations, 1: 131 (Thomas Je erson to George Washington,
February 7, 1792) and 2: 730 (James Madison to James Monroe, January 5, 1804).

The author has previously researched aspects of impressment and available records at the
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). This research, including an assessment
of the Charles Davis case, appeared in the published articles, "The Flipside of Impressment:
British Seamen Taken by the U.S. Navy Prior to the War of 1812," The Journal of the War of 1812
10 (Spring 2006): 10–16, and "Taken on the High Seas: American Seamen Impressment Records
at the National Archives, 1789–1815," New England Ancestors 7:4 (Fall 2006): 17–22.
 

Articles published in Prologue do not necessarily represent the views of NARA or of any
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