pressgang

When you pressgang interpreters to explain it and they fail, you blame the readers.

Your art « Squares of Wheat 2009

When you pressgang interpreters to explain it and they fail, you blame the readers.

March « 2009 « Squares of Wheat 2009

Touchwood had scarcely extricated himself from this impediment, and again commenced his researches after the clergyman, when his course was once more interrupted by a sort of pressgang, headed by Sir Bingo Binks, who, in order to play his character of a drunken boatswain to the life, seemed certainly drunk enough, however little of a seaman.

Saint Ronan's Well 2008

Then comes the narrative of James Caton of Bristol, who writes to complain that while transacting his business on the Bristol Exchange he is violently seized by a pressgang, with oaths and imprecations.

Castle Rackrent 2006

Sturdy, Ralph, shot by the pressgang on the _Britannia_,

The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore

Another, a "parcel of fellows armed with cutlasses like a pressgang," appeared at Dublin in 1743, where they boldly entered public-houses on pretence of looking for sailors, and there extorted money and drink.

The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore

He was allowed quarter of an hour for pressgang work, and sure enough he came back within a very reasonable time with a few spare hands, and then -- paddling and poling for dear life -- we glided swiftly through the tangled lily-pads and the green rosettes of the Singhara, and soon were _in medias res_ and fairly committed to the deep.

A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil T. R. Swinburne

While woman was thus invading man's province at sea, that universal feeder of the Navy, the pressgang, made little or no appeal to her as

The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore

Sabz Ali and Satarah were promptly despatched on a pressgang foray, while I put to sea with the first-lieutenant to show that I meant business.

A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil T. R. Swinburne

The immense levies made in France, one after the other, had converted the conscription into a sort of pressgang.

Complete Project Gutenberg Collection of Memoirs of Napoleon Various