press-gang

(prĕs'găng')
tr.v., -ganged, -gang·ing, -gangs.

1. To force into military or naval service.
2. To force or coerce: "press-ganging a consumer into buying something he doesn't want" (Feona McEwan).

A body of men employed to enlist men forcibly into service in the army or navy.

v. (press-gang) forcibly enlist (someone) into service in the army or navy.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

The British crown possessed an ancient right to seize for naval service ‘seamen, seafaring men, and persons whose occupations or callings are to work upon vessels and boats upon rivers’. Several attempts to replace this system of arbitrary conscription failed. A 1696 scheme for registering seamen for limited periods of service was abandoned in 1711. Press-gangs hunting seamen came either from individual warships or from the Impress Service which reached its peak during the Napoleonic War. With death rates in the navy very high, particularly in the West Indies, seizure by a press-gang was no light matter.

The British government never devised an orderly procedure for impressment, or conscription, for naval service. Instead, captains of shorthanded men-of-war sent armed details to scour British waterfronts or to board merchantmen to exercise direct and immediate conscription. Lieutenants commanding these "press gangs" were ruthlessly undiscriminating. Their use in colonial ports was only a minor cause of the American Revolution. However, Great Britain stepped up impressment efforts in the early nineteenth century to create a navy sufficiently large to fight France in the Napoleonic Wars. When British impressment was applied to American merchantmen after independence, impressment became a major cause of the War of 1812.

Bibliography

Stagg, J. C. A. Mr. Madison's War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American Republic, 1783–1830. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983.

Dansk (Danish)
v. tr. - preskommando

Nederlands (Dutch)
ronselen, ronselafdeling

Français (French)
v. tr. - racoler

Deutsch (German)
v. - pressen

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (ιστ., μτφ.) άγημα/απόσπασμα βίαιης ναυτολόγησης
v. - ναυτολογώ με τη βία

Italiano (Italian)
arruolare, forzare

Português (Portuguese)
n. - pelotão de recrutamento (m)
v. - recrutar à força

Русский (Russian)
вербовать, насильно заставлять

Español (Spanish)
v. tr. - reclutar, enganchar

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - tvångsvärvare, pressning
v. - tvångsvärva, pressa

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
强征入伍

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
v. tr. - 強徵入伍

한국어 (Korean)
v. tr. - 강제 징모대

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 水兵強制徴募隊
v. - 強制徴募する

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) كتيبه التجنيد (فعل) يكره على الالتحاق بالتجنيد‏

עברית (Hebrew)
v. tr. - ‮גייס בכפייה‬

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