I am like a man that is out of his mind

From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 53.

In London, James Monroe’s consulate was soon inundated with pleas from friends and families of American seamen who had been forcibly taken into British service. The American agent for seamen in London tallied 6,057 American sailors who had applied for release from the Royal Navy from 1803 to 1810, and the American secretary of state reported 200 more cases that had been filed directly with his office.41 Although the British government “professed itself willing to discharge American citizens who had been wrongfully impressed, a sailor trying to get his release from the Royal Navy faced a Kafkaesque series of obstacles. To start with, any impressed man who accepted pay was deemed to have “volunteered” and thus was ineligible for release. James Durand had been grabbed in his sleep belowdecks on a merchant brig in Plymouth harbor by a press gang that had come alongside in a boat from the frigate Narcissus and forced to leave behind all his clothes, money, and papers. A few days later the captain summoned him to the quarterdeck and offered him five pounds if he would enter the ship’s company. When Durand protested that he was an American, the captain replied, “If you will not work I’ll flog you until you’re glad to set about it. Go below, for I won’t hear another word out of you.” Below he found twelve other Americans who had been impressed earlier; one said he had been given four dozen lashes, and advised Durand to do as the captain bid him.

All manner of dodges were used to keep improperly impressed Americans from having their cases heard. Samuel Dalton of Salem, who was taken by the British in 1803, wrote letter after letter to his family and American consuls, desperately trying to have proofs of his citizenship forwarded to the Admiralty, and was thwarted at every turn. His mail was intercepted; when the American consul in London tried to file for a writ of habeas corpus, the magistrate kept rejecting it on technical grounds. First the magistrate said there was no evidence that Dalton actually was serving in His Majesty’s navy. The consul filed a deposition from a fellow seaman attesting that he had seen Dalton aboard the British ship of the line Namur. The magistrate rejected that petition because the seaman had not attested that Dalton had asked him to help secure his release. The consul obtained another deposition from the witness, only to have it rejected this time on the grounds that the man had not sworn that he believed Dalton was an American. “I am like a man that is out of his mind,” Dalton wrote his mother six years into what would be an eleven-year ordeal to obtain his freedom.”

Remembering that lifespans in that age might be only 40-50 years, particularly in a hard profession such as sailing. Spending 20-25% of your life to escape a wrongful imprisonment. And their prime years at that.