Sorry if this one’s been answered before, but I was reading a book about turn-of-the-century San Francisco talking about how THOUSANDS of sailors had been ‘shanghai-ed’ from waterfront bars to serve on ships that were short on crew. In fact, the book even cites someone they call ‘Shanghai Kelly’ known for the practice who was very successful at druging, or knocking unconscious, large numbers of men for this purpose.
So here’s the question…If I get shanghai-ed, presumably with many others who suffered the same fate, on to a boat, I’ll presumably wake up out-to-sea and very pissed off. Why wouldn’t we all mutiny?
O.K. so maybe I’m outnumbered at the moment by crew loyal to the captain, but wouldn’t I/ we do it the first time someone made a mistake, got lazy, fell asleep watching us, etc.? After all, I could sell the ship and/or cargo. Also, don’t any of the shanghai-ed people ever end up back at the same port and kill the guy who shanghai-ed them?
How could you really make a career of this practice unless you moved around a lot?
Read Stevenson’s **Kidnapped[/], or Cecil Scott Forester’s “Horatio Hornblower” novels. You expect the worst from your sailors, which is why discipline as so harsh. Some people eventually fall into line, since it’s the easiest way out. If you try slitting he captain’s throat, you’ll learn abut things like the cat, keelhauling, and the yardarm.
Don’t think the captains successor won’t make an xa,mple of you – he needs to estab;lish a rep for discipline, too.
The key is “short” on crew. Newly pressed sailors were nearly always carefully kept as a minority among a larger number of professional hands. They lacked the skills and the knowledge to successfully run a machine as complex as a sailing- or steamship, so a successful mutiny would be nearly impossible. And just like being in prison (I fortunately guess), the newly initiated eventually come to accept their fate and deal with it.
Aside from that, a good press gang generally tried to identify and capture those who had some sort of sea experience anyhow. I would imagine many of those folks, confronted with the harsh realities set before them thought to themselves, “well, I was running low on cash anyway.”
And unsurprisingly, considering the lowly and undisciplined fate from which many were extricated, some grew to enjoy the prospect of pay, the sense of professionalism, and the grog, which was often served up quite liberally. Thus the pressed became professionals, and lost their sense of comradeship with the next batch of lubbers.
There are no extenuating circumstances which would forgive mutiny.
The impressed (or shanghai’d) crewmen who attempted or succeeded in overthrowing the legal master of the ship would be facing a noose at their next port of call.
Not forgive in a legal sense, but if I were Spanish (by way of example) and I was impressed by a gang into the British Navy (IIRC, many press gangs weren’t really motivated to worry about things language or nationality), it might be mutiny to the British, but it would still be kidnapping to me.
It is true that they would be “facing a noose” but there were extenuating circumstances. According to this site 10 mutineers were tried and three of them hanged.