which were crowded with foreign ships in full employ; while British vessels covered the banks or filled the wet docks in a state of inactivity and decay.
Hardships of the pressing-system.
Apprentices.
Nor did their complaint stop here. The arbitrary
system of impressing sea-apprentices, a system which
acted with especial injury in the case of those of the
watermen on the river who, being liable to be
impressed in the fourth year of their apprenticeship,
were lost to their masters when their services
were becoming remunerative, was severely
and justly criticised; indeed it is on record that,
before this period, there had been no fewer than
thirty thousand watermen, etc., at work on the river
Thames, between Westminster-bridge and Gravesend,
exclusive of the British and foreign seamen on board
the shipping; but that in 1804 there was not a sixth
part of that number. The new dock regulations and
the employment of carts instead of lighters to carry
goods to the merchants' inland warehouses swelled
the general catalogue of grievances, while the erection
of the East India Docks, then in progress, was
looked on as the crowning act of mischief, and was
therefore viewed by the forlorn shipowners with
unmitigated horror.
Amid this numerous body of complainers, some of whose grievances were real, some insignificant, and others imaginary, there were happily men who had more enlarged views, and who were able to urge on the government[1] to take effectual steps to extend the foreign trade, and to devote more attention than
- ↑ See sensible remarks in Mr. Baring's pamphlet (p. 7) on Mr. Pitt's firmness in not giving way to the popular clamour on this occasion.
