Press-ganging, the forcible recruitment of men into the Royal Navy against their will, was a feature of British maritime life throughout the slave trade era. Men walking along waterfronts could be seized by press gangs and forced onto Naval vessels. Once pressed, they had no legal recourse and no right to leave. They served in dangerous conditions, were subject to brutal discipline, and received wages that were frequently unpaid for years.
These were not free men exercising choices in a system that benefited them. They were working-class men subjected to a form of forced labour that, while not slavery, was very far from the picture of free and prosperous white Britons that the inherited wealth argument implies. Their descendants carry no inheritance of slavery’s gains because their ancestors had none to pass on.
