Erika Carbonara

Readers of Dianne Dugaw’s 113 broadside ballads will immediately pick up on the keywords “impressment,” “press gang,” and “pressed” that run throughout the catalogue. Despite the unfamiliar language used, readers are likely unaware that they are familiar with the concept: being forced into military or naval service without consent. Within Dugaw’s catalogue, this term appears limited chiefly to ballads that take place in Britain, as this draft-like procedure occurred primarily there. Though impressment bears similarities to both the draft and conscription, it does have some marked distinctions. Primarily, both the draft and conscription were performed and enforced by the government, whereas impressment in the seventeenth century was carried out by private, individual members of society, many times disgruntled fathers who were unhappy with their daughter’s betrothed or captains in need of seaman for upcoming voyages. As is evidenced by ballads such as “William and Harriet,” impressment is typically carried out by male figures to other unconsenting male figures. However, ballads such as “The Female Pressgang” provide a surprising, yet enlightening, view into just who could be pressed, by whom, and how. In this essay, I will first provide a brief foundation of the history of impressment. Secondly, I will turn to examples within Dugaw’s catalogue of ballads themselves, paying particular attention to ballads that reinforce the normative understanding of impressment, such as “William and Harriet,” and those that deviate, such as “The Female Pressgang.” Readers of Dugaw’s ballads will benefit from having a more well-rounded understanding of impressment, for it would have been a very real possibility and fear for men of the early modern period, which is why it looms so large over this collection of ballads.