IMPRESSMENT, the act of seizing (goods, etc.) for the public service, or of forcibly conscripting individuals for work in connection with war. When men are taken for the army or navy this is usually termed con scription in the draft (q.v.). As an act of military necessity many persons are more or less forced into activities in a war in which they are not directly engaged, and their convey ance, vessels, etc., may be commandeered in a very high-handed manner. Impressment was especially common in the English navy in the 16th and 17th centuries and well into the 18th. The merchant marine imitated the method in picking up sailors in ports. The right of chang ing one's natural allegiance (see CITIZEN; Est mum) was not acknowledged as a legal right in the 18th and early 19th century by any nation but the United States, which lacked power to enforce it against the world. Great Britain denied it, and Chancellor Kent early in the 19th century admitted that the denial was common law. During the Napoleonic wars, that country
in its struggle for life, especially on the seas, demanded the help of all its citizens; and not only refused to recognize any ceremonies of naturalization, but seized its alleged subjects wherever it found them, searching neutral ves sels on the high seas and impressing into its service whoever were claimed as such. The naval officers were the reverse of particular whether they made mistakes and kidnapped born Americans, and many hundreds of the latter were impressed in this way. Not only this, but the right of search in itself, were rasping grievances which worked up the national temper to the pitch of explosion, resulting in the War of 1812; the right of search resulted in the bloody outrage of the Leopard on the Chespeake (q.v.), which was one of the chief agencies in bringing about the Embargo.