Fourpenny Dark and Sixpenny Red

Abstract

One of Britain's persistent problems in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was to find sufficient men for the armed services. It required more than patriotic pleas to fill the places. The word 'crimp', which came into the English language in the 1630s, denoted a person actively associated with military and naval recruitment.1 The London crimp riots over a century later bear witness to its continued usage. In 1794 and 1795 mobs of several thousand attacked crimps, crimping houses and the constabulary. These riots were the most serious the capital had experienced since the Gordon Riots (1780) both in size and dura tion. They have been attributed to the post French Revolution influence of certain groups, especially radical societies, attempting to create dis order by catalysing the deep-seated hatred of impressment as a means of recruiting for the French Wars.2 By the middle of the nineteenth century crimping had become a civilian occupation. The crimp was now an agent who procured seamen for captains who needed crews. His rewards were numerous. He took the seaman's advance note,3 if the seaman was leaving port, and discounted it for him. Any debts the seaman had were paid (lodging, clothing, liquor etc.) and the crimp demanded a fee for himself. Sometimes the ship's captain also paid a fee (known as 'blood money') in order to obtain a crew. The crimp was often the runner of a boarding house proprietor, if not the boarding-house keeper himself, or a publican. He usually made a profit whether seamen were embarking, discharging or spending time ashore. Crimps boarded a vessel the moment it berthed. Often they used small boats to pull alongside incoming ships or those riding at anchor. In each case they would ply the crew with liberal quantities of cheap liquor and induce them to desert. The victims would be promised any thing and led off to the boarding house, or hotel, and provided with accommodation of a very suspect quality. Here the seaman would have his advance note cashed at a very high discount rate and whenever drunk he ran the risk of being robbed of both money and clothes. When the sailor sobered up again he might find himself in the crew of a strange vessel, probably penniless and only possessing the clothes he wore. The shipmaster would have paid a sum to get this sailor and there would