The way the navy was treated was poor so they escaped the British navy to join the Americans but the British know this so the stopped ships to take back the escaped soldiers but took American sailors to.
They wanted to disable American navel power and to gain new sailors for their many ships.
impressment
They technically didn't attack the ships. What they did was impress the American sailors into the British Navy. This means that they captured American sailors and forced them to join the British Navy and fight the French (Napoleon).
The British navy used impressment as a method to forcibly recruit sailors into their service during the 18th and early 19th centuries. They would often press gang sailors from merchant ships or coastal towns, claiming them as British subjects or deserters. Impressment was a contentious practice that led to tensions between Britain and other nations, particularly the United States.
Jefferson did not want to raise taxes and did not want a large navy.
In Britian, a sailor who was kidnapped by a Press Gang for military service was said to have been impressed. The British Navy was often short of men to man their ships of war. They would muster a 'press gang' and take a trip into the seedier parts of ports. There they would 'impress' man to work on the ship. It was basically a matter of kidnapping. If they were lucky, they got seasoned sailors from merchant ships, or past service in the Navy. Sometimes they got bums that didn't have a clue what to do on a ship and had to be taught the ropes.
Conditions in the Royal Navy were awful, which lead some sailors to desert the British navy and join the American navy. Many American sailors were taken hostage by the British.
Conditions on American ships were far superior to that of British ships.
Americans were angered by the British practice of impressment which American sailors were forced into the British navy.
In the relatively brief interval between the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, Britain had not fully accepted that America had become an independent nation rather than a British colony, and it seized American sailors in order to impress them (or draft them, as we would say in more modern language) into the British navy, which was always in need of more sailors.
Impressment is forcing American sailors into joining the British Navy.
In the relatively brief interval between the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, Britain had not fully accepted that America had become an independent nation rather than a British colony, and it seized American sailors in order to impress them (or draft them, as we would say in more modern language) into the British navy, which was always in need of more sailors.
Impressment is forcing American sailors into joining the British Navy.
impressment
impressment
In the relatively brief interval between the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, Britain had not fully accepted that America had become an independent nation rather than a British colony, and it seized American sailors in order to impress them (or draft them, as we would say in more modern language) into the British navy, which was always in need of more sailors.
The British were seizing American sailors and making them serve in the British Navy.
Impressment of American sailors into the British navy