Nelson & His World

It's unsurprising that, in the days of the press gang, desertion was a problem aboard RN ships. It must have been easy, too, for a deserter to disappear, swallowed by the maw of great ports. Is there much known about how the problem was managed? Organised and systematic searches might have been almost impossible but was there a 'wanted' list published in newspapers or broadsheets, for example? Were rewards offered for tipping off the law about the whereabouts of a deserter? Was this a frequent occurrence? And what sort of consequences were there for the miscreant? The death penalty would seem counter-productive if you wanted your ships fully manned.

Anna,

I think there are a couple of factors which make it difficult to answer your question definitively.
The Articles of War, for example – although they were in many ways more lenient than the criminal code on land – were crude in their definitions. Thus, ‘mutiny’ was the only way that anything other than minor disobedience to a superior could be described, whether it was the violent takeover of a ship as with the ‘Hermione’, a general strike like the events at Spithead, or merely publicly questioning an order about sail plan or course. Likewise the only way to describe a seaman (or officer) who was not present when his ship sailed was as a ‘deserter’, whether he had deliberately absconded, been accidentally detained by illness or by transport delays when getting from his home to the port, or had got so drunk that he forgot! And once ‘R’ had been entered against a person’s name it was extremely difficult to have it removed. It was only in the 1820s that the term ‘straggling’ was widely adopted to cover the lesser offence of being inadvertently AWOL, and punished by a stoppage of pay. This problem of definition makes it difficult to find reliable statistics about desertion, the circumstances, or steps that were taken to find the miscreants. However, steps were certaintly taken to contain it. The military, for example, guarded all acess points to the island on which Portsmouth was built and apprehended every likely seaman, detaining any that had no certificate to justify their absence from their ship. And many Captains Clerks appended detailed physical descriptions of each crew member in the Muster Roll, presuably so that if they 'Ran' they could be recognised. I have never heard however of adverts in the broadsheets advertising for information on deserters. One suspects that such things would have been promptly burned by an enraged populace.
Another fsctor is that desertion was not confined to times of war when the press gang operated – although the maintenance of severe punishment was presumably designed to act as a deterrent when manpower was in short supply. It was also common (I might say normal) in times of peace when all men were volunteers. When ‘Doris’, for example, prepared for service in S America in 1821, of the 212 men raised in London and Chatham in April, 30 had managed to desert before the frigate finally sailed in July – some after only a few weeks service! Since they had all received the bounty, clothing and tobacco before they left, some officers concluded that there was a conspiracy among elements in the seafaring classes to falsely enlist and then do a bunk as soon as they had received the goodies. Significantly, the men clearly did not expect to be caught.
However, in S America, ‘Doris’ continued to lose men, often in the most ridiculous circumstance - like jumping ship in the port of Recife when it was under siege, there was nowhere to escape to, and where a British seaman would have stood out like a sore thumb and recapture was inevitable. It is also worth pointing out that, on ‘Doris’, there was no correlation between desertion and previous punishment or rank, in that as many ABs tried to jump ship as Landsmen. The captain’s wife, Maria Graham reported that it was thought that some of these men had been given masses of booze and detained by crimps who expected a reward by turning them in; but it is difficult not to conclude that one factor in desertion at this time at any rate was that a number of British seamen were pretty feckless, short-sighted and easily bored!

Brian

Thanks, as always, for that most interesting and informative response!

"Wanted" advertisements for deserters from both the army and the navy were most definitely posted in the newspapers.

(Along with apprentices who had run away and husbands who had abandoned their wives and families.)

The newspapers were usually in areas where the men had close connections. i.e. where their family lived and/or where they had previously worked.

As has been stated elsewhere the ships kept written descriptions of all the men on board which could be used on such occasions.

I am racking my brains as to whether I have an example here somewhere.

If I can turn something up I will post it later.

MB

I have read captain's letters to the admiralty describing deserters, and had wondered whether they did anything with them. Now I know, thanks!

Some captains went to considerable lengths to find deserters. I have read of midshipmen sent on horseback from Plymouth as far as Exeter - unsuccessfully!

Here we go folks!

I may not have a copy here but I remember seeing another ad once. It gave the details of a particular deserter but stated that if he surrendered himself he would suffer no punishment or recriminations. That quite surprised me.

Having said that there may be another quite unusual one coming later.

Here is where Wilson may have ended up if somebody "dobbed him in!"

(You can tell that the final of "Britain's Got Talent" hasn't got my full attention! )

As promised - here is another "spin" on this subject - from 1795.

Sorry the copy is not brilliant but hopefully you can see that this a bunch of "Quota Men" who had all "deserted".

I like the description of James Henry Flowers - "Sailor-like Appearance!"

Having said that I don't know whether they had even made it to their first ship!

It prompted a question from me a while back. i.e. whether Quota Men who had been paid their bounty were actually escorted to their Receiving Ship or allowed to make their own way.

These advertisements are very interesting, but - as Mark points out - none appear to be for people who deserted from their ships after having been entered on the muster roll. All are placed by officers of the impress service and are in search of men who took the bounty under the Quota Act, or normal arrangements, and then absconded with the money before they could be sent afloat and offically entered into the navy. As far as I understand it, the crime of desertion did not apply until they were officially (and literally) 'on the books' of a ship and thereby under military discipline - hence all the trouble taken to keep the press tenders in which men were sent from the variou Rendezvous (whether volunteers or pressed recruits) to the fleet totally secure with locks and bars. Legally the men in these adverts were fraudsters not deserters! I have no idea how Quota men reached their ships, particularly from inland counties.
I wonder if similar adverts were placed by ships' captains in relation to men on the muster roll who had deserted? Perhaps they relied on prevention ie keeping them from desertion by denying leave and rowing guard round anchored ships, rather than in cure by trying to catch them again.

Brian

Brian

I did take those 2 copies when I was doing a project on the Quota Acts and they were the first that came to mind.

But here is another example where men had specifically deserted from a ship.

That's a fair old reward by anyone's definition!!

That is a huge reward! And it seems to be a private reward offered by the captain in a private advertisement. Why on earth would he do that?

Tony

Especially William Howsell with his "sickly appearance and long dark hair." He sounds like an articled clerk out of a Dickens novel. And hardly a prime candidate for a hard physical job.

Oh to see the log of L'Aigle and see if there were some special circumstances behind this desertion and advertisement.

MB

Members might be interested to hear the story of a deserter made good. John Rome was press ganged into the navy, and hoisted Nelson's famous signal at the battle of Trafalgar but deserted soon afterwards and lay low for many years. Read the rest of his story in the link below:


http://www.twogreens.co.uk/wakeup/peopl ... andsmn.htm