Impressment: Difference between revisions

Content deleted Content added
Canrocks (talk | contribs)
m reference to war of 1812
mNo edit summary
Line 1:
'''Impressment''' is the act of [[kidnapping]] people to serve as sailors[[sailor]]s. It was much used by the [[Royal Navy]] during the [[18th century]] and early [[19th century]] as a means of crewing warships[[warship]]s. The Royal Navy impressed many British and American sailors during the late 1700s and the early 1800s.
 
Conditions in the Royal Navy were very bad, not to mention the fact thatand the pay was not very much. So many British sailors decided to [[desertion|desert]] from the Royal Navy and join American merchant ships because the pay and the conditions were much better. As a result the Royal Navy started stopping American merchants and looking for British deserters. Since it was difficult to tell whether a sailor was British or American, the Royal Navy impressed over 6000 American sailors during the early 1800s. This was one of the many factors leading to the [[War of 1812]] in North America.