Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 1.djvu/210

 me with his foot, desired me to rise and get on my sailor's clothes. I pretended not to understand him, and then the boatswain gave me the same orders in French. On my replying that I was not a sailor, since I had signed no agreement, he seized a rope's end to strike me with; on which, I grasped a knife belonging to a sailor, who was breakfasting at the foot of the main-mast, and, placing my back against a gun, I swore I would rip up the first man who should assault me. This occasioned much disturbance in the ship, and brought up the captain, who was a man about forty, of good appearance, and whose manners were free from that coarseness so usual with seafaring people. He listened to me with kindness, which was all he could do, for it was not in his power to change the maritime organization of his government.

In England, where the duty on board a man-of-war is more severe, less profitable, and, above all, less free than in the merchants' ships, the royal navy was manned, and is still manned by the press. In war time the press is carried into effect at sea, on board the merchants' ships, with whom they exchange useless or invalid sailors for vigorous and able-bodied men. On shore it is carried on in the midst of large cities, but it is customary only to press those individuals whose appearance and costume bespeak that they have not been unaccustomed to the sea. In Holland, on the contrary, at the period I now allude to, they acted in pretty nearly the same manner as at Turkey, where in time of need, they seize on and send to the ships of the line, masons, grooms, actors, barbers, &c. &c.; persons, as we may suppose, of the most useful kind. Thus, if on leaving port, a ship be compelled to engage with another, she fails in every manœuvre; and this circumstance may perhaps account for the number of Turkish frigates that have been captured or destroyed by the Greek pirates.

We had then on board men whose inclinations and habits of life were so totally foreign from naval service,