Word: pressgangs
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...served, he got a berth on a whaler, found that he could not return to New South Wales. An escaped convict told him that Sarah had gone to India. He tried to follow her, but was taken first to London, then to China. As he approached his goal, a pressgang from His Majesty's Navy caught him, and it was seven years before he was discharged. Although he still thought of Sarah, he "was too old to undertake any more love pilgrimages" and the desire he "at one time felt to repossess her was now softened into a curiosity...
...18th Century it was roughly true that Britannia ruled the waves, but the Britons who made that rule possible were in truth not much better than slaves. Shanghaied by a pressgang, crammed into noisome quarters, half-starved on verminous victuals, paid a pittance, rarely allowed shore liberty, liable to a flogging at an officer's whim, condemned to this servitude for years on end, a British tar's lot was not a happy one. "To be flogged was to be tortured. The first stroke laid on by a brawny boatswain's mate, as hard as he could...
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