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document called a protection, a certificate headed by the seal of the United States and bearing a declaration signed by a public notary or customs officer that stated the bearer was an American citizen and was “to be respected at all times by sea and land.” The name, age, and height of the bearer were included in order to identify him. In practice many American seamen found that a protection was no protection at all.
    The experiences of an American sailor who was on the receiving end of the press gang are recounted in the memoirs of Captain William Nevens. 17 Born in Danville, Maine, in 1781, he was trained as a carpenter, but at the age of seventeen he joined the crew of a brig from Liverpool and sailed to Boston. After several voyages to the West Indies in different merchant ships, he sailed from Boston on the whaling ship
Essex
under the command of Captain Kilby and arrived in Barbados in February 1800. The ship was in such a poor state that the crew were paid off and Nevens planned to sail home in a schooner bound for Boston. He went ashore one evening with some of his shipmates, and as a precaution against the press gangs they armed themselves with clubs. After an evening of merrymaking, four of them wandered down to the beach to enjoy the cool sea breeze and work off the effects of the tamarind punch they had been drinking. They were taken by surprise when an officer and ten or twelve armed sailors surrounded them and hauled them into a boat. There they found ten other impressed seamen. The boat put off from the shore, and they were rowed among the anchored vessels until they came alongside a British warship, the 18-gun
Cyane.
The next morning, Nevens was interviewed by the ship’s captain. When Nevens informed him that he was an American, the captain demanded to see his protection. Nevens produced the document from his pocket. The captain glanced at it and said, “You are an Irishman. What business have you with a protection? There are plenty of Nevenses in Ireland but there never was one born in America,” and with that he tore up the protection and threw it overboard. Nevens managed to get a message to Captain Kilby, who came on board the warship, confirmed that Nevens was American, and demanded his release. The British captain swore that he knew Nevens’s father in Ireland. He declared that Nevens was a damned Irish rebel and told Captain Kilby to get off his ship. Seeing his situation was hopeless, Nevens asked Kilby to take home his sea chest and bedding and if he did not return within a year to send them to his parents. “Having made these dispositions,” writes Nevens, “I bade adieu to my liberty, and settled myself to the consoling prospect of serving Great Britain a few years for nothing.” He noted that every vessel in the British Navy at this period had several Americans on board and though several escaped, the majority were compelled to serve under threat of flogging.
    William Nevens was determined to escape, and his opportunity came when the
Cyane
sailed to St. Kitts. To prevent the crew deserting the captain anchored her three miles offshore, but Nevens saw that there was an American sloop of war anchored between the
Cyane
and the shore. He slipped overboard at night and swam toward the American sloop. Unfortunately, the tide swept him past her, and he was forced to continue swimming for nearly two hours before he came alongside another ship. This was a Scottish brig,
Sally
of Greenock, which was bound for New York. Her captain agreed to take him, and he eventually got back to Boston, where he married an English girl from Liverpool.
    As with so much of maritime history, there are many accounts of men who were victims of the press gang but few accounts of what happened to the women whose husbands were taken from them. However, there were two women whose experiences were so unusual that they were recorded in some detail. They were Margaret Dickson, whose