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ALIEN SEAMEN IN THE BRITISH NAVY, BRITISH LAW, AND THE BRITISH STATE, c. 1793 – c. 1815

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2018

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SARA CAPUTO*
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University of Cambridge
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Robinson College, Cambridge, cb3 9ansc914@cam.ac.uk
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Abstract

During the ‘long eighteenth century’, several thousands of sailors born outside British territories served in the Royal Navy. This phenomenon, and the peculiarities of their employment compared to that of British seamen, remain largely unstudied. This paper aims to show that, as far as disabilities or privileges were concerned, official legislation only played a very small part in making alien seamen's experiences in the navy distinct from those of their British colleagues. More broadly, this article argues that, whilst transnationalism can be overemphasized, there are specific contexts and groups of people for which the power of the state falters when it comes to obstructing movement, and indeed it is forced, for its very survival, to act strategically against the barrier to circulation that frontiers normally constitute. In similar circumstances, the origins of the individuals concerned, intended as official labels that states normally use to classify them, control them, and claim or disclaim ownership over them, can become all but meaningless. Thus, naval sailors, as useful state servants, can be an excellent case-study to understand the category of legal ‘foreignness’ as it developed in modern nation-states, and the tensions inherent to it.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 62 , Issue 3 , September 2019 , pp. 685 - 707
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Dr Renaud Morieux, my supervisor, and the two anonymous reviewers for detailed and precious feedback on earlier drafts of this article, and the editor of the Historical Journal Professor Emma Griffin for her assistance through the publication process. Dr Gareth Atkins, Cameron Holloway, and audiences at the Cambridge Faculty of History and Social History Society Conference also offered many helpful comments and suggestions. My Ph.D. research, of which this article is part, is jointly funded by Robinson College, Cambridge, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, through a Lewis-AHRC Studentship.

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23 Fahrmeir, Citizens and aliens, pp. 152, 154, 163–73, 196–7, 209–22.

24 Blackstone, Commentaries, p. 372; Craies, W. F., ‘The right of aliens to enter British territory’, Law Quarterly Review, 6 (1890), pp. 27–41Google Scholar; Fahrmeir, Citizens and aliens, pp. 193–4.

25 Blackstone, Commentaries, p. 372; Fahrmeir, Citizens and aliens, pp. 163–73, 178.

26 33 Geo. III c. 4; 38 Geo. III c. 50; 43 Geo. III c. 155; Margrit Schulte Beerbühl, ‘British nationality policy as a counter-revolutionary strategy during the Napoleonic Wars: the emergence of modern naturalization regulations’, in Fahrmeir, Faron, and Weil, eds., Migration control, pp. 55–70, at pp. 56–8; Morieux, Channel, pp. 296–300, 303–6.

27 Morieux, ‘Des règles’, pp. 130–7.

28 33 Geo. III c. 4 § v; 38 Geo. III c. 50 § viii; 43 Geo. III c. 155 § xi, xxvii.

29 Morieux, ‘Des règles’, pp. 145–6.

30 See e.g. Captain Burns to Evan Nepean, 24 Mar. 1800, TNA, letters from captains, surnames B, ADM 1/1524, 459a; Admiralty digest 1796 vol. 2, ADM 12/71, 16.

31 Captain Drury to Philip Stephens, 14 Jan. 1794, TNA, letters from captains, surnames D, ADM 1/1715; James Shaw to Evan Nepean, 1 Nov. 1802, letters from lieutenants, surnames S, ADM 1/3126.

32 At the battle of Camperdown, in 1797, enemies serving aboard 6 of the 18 British ships included 29 Dutchmen, 7 Spaniards, and 6 Frenchmen, whilst an 1807–13 sample of 3 musters returned 34 Swedes, 12 Danes, 10 Dutchmen, and 3 Frenchmen. See Sara Caputo, ‘Scotland, Scottishness and the British navy, c. 1793–1815’ (M.Sc. dissertation, Edinburgh, 2015), p. 14; Sara Caputo, ‘Foreigners in the British navy, 1793–1815: some initial notes towards a quantitative analysis, and its limitations’ (poster presented at the Economic History Society Annual Conference, Royal Holloway, London, 31 Mar. – 2 Apr. 2017), www.ehs.org.uk/dotAsset/2722e578-484b-4a1a-968f-5a6c8b31f679.ukn. At least 54 Frenchmen and 24 Spaniards fought for Britain at Trafalgar: Bruno Pappalardo, ‘Trafalgar ancestors’, TNA www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/trafalgarancestors/advanced_search.asp.

33 Fahrmeir, Citizens and aliens, pp. 163–4.

34 Blackstone, Commentaries, p. 372.

35 Harper, Lawrence A., The English Navigation Laws: a seventeenth-century experiment in social engineering (New York, NY, 1939), pp. 34–60Google Scholar.

36 Ibid., pp. 53, 55; Perl-Rosenthal, Citizen sailors, pp. 27–8.

37 Harper, English Navigation Laws, pp. 390, 414.

38 Ibid., pp. 68, 349.

39 16 Geo. III c. 20. Renewed: 17 Geo. III c. 34; 18 Geo. III c. 6; 19 Geo. III c. 14; 20 Geo. III c. 20 § i; 21 Geo. III c. 11; 22 Geo. III c. 16. For the French Wars period, see 33 Geo. III c. 26; 43 Geo. III c. 64. See also 34 Geo. III c. 68.

40 13 Geo. II c. 3 § i, iii.

41 34 Geo. III c. 68 § viii.

42 12 Car. II c. 18.

43 47 Geo. III sess. 1 c. 32 § cii.

44 47 Geo. III sess. 1 c. 36 § xvii. See also 47 Geo. III sess. 1 c. 32 § ciii.

45 Newman, Brooke N., ‘Contesting “black” liberty and subjecthood in the anglophone Caribbean, 1730s–1780s’, Slavery and Abolition, 32 (2011), pp. 169–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Morieux, ‘Des règles’, p. 144; Brown, Christopher L., ‘From slaves to subjects: envisioning an empire without slavery, 1772–1834’, in Morgan, Philip D. and Hawkins, Sean, eds., Black experience and the empire (Oxford, 2006), pp. 111–40, at pp. 117–20, 133–6Google Scholar; Muller, ‘Bonds of belonging’, pp. 32–51; Gould, Eliga H., ‘Zones of law, zones of violence: the legal geography of the British Atlantic, circa 1772’, William and Mary Quarterly, 60 (2003), pp. 471–510, at p. 505CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On different imperial contexts, see Sen, Sudipta, ‘Imperial subjects on trial: on the legal identity of Britons in late eighteenth-century India’, Journal of British Studies, 45 (2006), pp. 532–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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48 Cerutti, Étrangers. See also Morieux, ‘Des règles’, pp. 129, 138, 141.

49 See the question of blacks and subjecthood in ancien régime France, and the position of Jews: Rapport, Nationality and citizenship, pp. 18–20; Marzagalli, ‘Négoce’, pp. 48–9.

50 Rogers, Nicholas, The press gang: naval impressment and its opponents in Georgian Britain (London and New York, NY, 2007)Google Scholar; Dancy, J. Ross, The myth of the press gang: volunteers, impressment and the naval manpower problem in the late eighteenth century (Woodbridge, 2015)Google Scholar; Rodger, N. A. M., The wooden world: an anatomy of the Georgian Navy (2nd edn, London, 1988), pp. 164–82Google Scholar.

51 13 Geo. II c. 17. Apprentices, seamen in the coal trade, and some fishermen were also exempt: 13 Geo. II c. 28 § v; 2 Geo. III c. 15 § xxii–xxiv; 11 Geo. III c. 38 § xix; 48 Geo. III c. 110 § xxvii; 50 Geo. III c. 108; 51 Geo. III c. 34 § vi.

52 London Packet, or New Lloyd's Evening Post, 8–10 Sept. 1800.

53 Morieux, Renaud, ‘Patriotisme humanitaire et prisonniers de guerre en France et en Grande-Bretagne pendant la Révolution française et l'Empire’, in Bourquin, Laurent et al. , eds., La politique par les armes: conflits internationaux et politisation, XVe–XIXe siècles (Rennes, 2014), pp. 301–16Google Scholar. The parallel was also in contemporaries’ minds: that week, the Sun complained that, ‘upon the same principle with which the French Government mean to compel all Foreign Seamen resident in the Republic to enter into their Navy, they may oblige all the Foreign Military whom they take prisoners, to enter into the French Army’: Sun, 11 Sept. 1800.

54 There are hundreds of examples. See e.g. Navy Office to Evan Nepean, 10 Sept. 1801, Greenwich, National Maritime Museum, Board of Admiralty, in-letters, ADM/B/202; M. De Courcy to Admiral Milbanke, 26 Feb. 1802, TNA, commanders-in-chief Portsmouth, ADM 1/1052, n. 204; William Bradley to Admiral Milibanke, 9 Mar. 1802, n. 236; B. S. Rowley to Evan Nepean, 23 Aug. 1803, TNA, commanders-in-chief Nore, ADM 1/736, n. 266.

55 Noiriel, É tat, pp. 313–14.

56 38 Geo. III c. 46.

57 Wolf, Joshua, ‘“To be enslaved or thus deprived”: British impressment, American discontent, and the making of the Chesapeake–Leopard affair, 1803–1807’, War and Society, 29 (2010), pp. 1–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gilje, Paul A., ‘“Free trade and sailors’ rights”: the rhetoric of the War of 1812’, Journal of the Early Republic, 30 (2010), pp. 1–23, at pp. 9–17Google Scholar.

58 Zimmerman, James Fulton, Impressment of American seamen (New York, NY, 1925), pp. 21–6Google Scholar; Cockburn, Nationality, pp. 70–8; Perl-Rosenthal, Citizen sailors, pp. 140–53, 183, 186–7.

59 Zimmerman, Impressment, pp. 18, 25, though see p. 86; Perl-Rosenthal, Citizen sailors, pp. 10–11, 48, 82–3, 129–39; Cockburn, Nationality, pp. 71–2. See also David Lenox to Evan Nepean, 4 Oct. 1797, TNA, letters from foreign consuls, 1796–8, ADM 1/3850.

60 Zimmerman, Impressment, pp. 28–9, 36, 41–2; Perl-Rosenthal, Citizen sailors, pp. 140–53.

61 Thomas Simpson, journal of HMS Arethusa, 14 May 1805 – 14 June 1806, TNA, ADM 101/86/1, fo. 13.

62 Letters from foreign consuls, 1793–1820, TNA, ADM 1/3849 to ADM 1/3858.

63 TNA, ADM 101/86/1, fo. 14.

64 See e.g. muster book of HMS Arethusa, 1 Nov. – 31 Dec. 1805, TNA, ADM 37/280, fos. 3, 12, 13, 15. The examples are countless. See also McCranie, Kevin, ‘The recruitment of seamen for the British navy, 1793–1815: “Why don't you raise more men?”’, in Stoker, Donald, Schneid, Frederick C., and Blanton, Harold D., eds., Conscription in the Napoleonic era: a revolution in military affairs? (London and New York, NY, 2009), pp. 84–101, at p. 95Google Scholar.

65 Tim Hitchcock et al., The Old Bailey proceedings online, 1674–1913, version 7.0, www.oldbaileyonline.org (OBP), Oct. 1793, trial of Richard Tuart (t17931030–66).

66 See e.g. TNA, ADM 1/3850, containing nineteen examples between July 1797 and November 1798. There are occasional exceptions to this formula, especially when the papers were unmistakable: David Lenox to Evan Nepean, 5 Feb. 1798; Joshua Johnson to Evan Nepean, 11 Feb. 1796; David Lenox to Evan Nepan, 14 May 1798.

67 TNA, ADM 1/3850 contains twenty-seven examples (June 1796 – Nov. 1798).

68 George Wolff to Evan Nepean, 2 May 1796, TNA, ADM 1/3850.

69 Perl-Rosenthal, Citizen sailors, pp. 27–44; Noiriel, É tat, pp. 317–29, 339–40.

70 OBP, Apr. 1795, Lewis Bonnevento (t17950416–42); Courier and Evening Gazette, 18 Apr. 1795; The register of the times – volume 4 (London, 1795), p. 352Google Scholar.

71 Constable, Marianne, The law of the other: the mixed jury and changing conceptions of citizenship, law, and knowledge (Chicago, IL, and London, 1994), pp. 1–2, 96–111Google Scholar; Oldham, James C., ‘The origins of the special jury’, University of Chicago Law Review, 50 (1983), pp. 137–221, at pp. 164–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lockwood, Matthew, ‘“Love ye therefore the strangers”: immigration and the criminal law in early modern England’, Continuity and Change, 29 (2014), pp. 349–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 Benton, Law; Rapport, Nationality and citizenship, pp. 20–9.

73 Lockwood, ‘Immigration’, pp. 362–5.

74 Constable, Law of the other, pp. 112–27; Oldham, ‘Origins of the special jury’, pp. 169–71; Fahrmeir, Citizens and aliens, pp. 180–1.

75 Constable, Law of the other, pp. 137–48.

76 22 Geo. II c. 33 § xii, xiv.

77 39 & 40 Geo. III c. 100 § v.

78 Constable, Law of the other, pp. 4–5, 26–7, 67–95, 149–52.

79 Lorenz Hansen to the lords commissioners of the Admiralty, 17 May 1798, TNA, ADM 1/3850; Christopher Henry Martens to Evan Nepean, 13 Nov. 1798.

80 John Williams, TNA, law officers’ opinions, 1800–2, ADM 7/305/28–9.

81 Ibid.

82 Courier and Evening Gazette, 18 Apr. 1795.

83 Byrn, John D., ed., Naval courts martial, 1793–1815 (Farnham and Burlington, VT, 2009), pp. 427–36Google Scholar.

84 Ibid., p. 435.

85 Ibid., pp. 431–2, 435.

86 Ibid., p. 432.

87 Ibid., p. 435.

88 Eder, Markus, Crime and punishment in the Royal Navy of the Seven Years’ War, 1755–1763 (Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 2004), pp. 10, 81–5, 145–6Google Scholar.

89 Regulations and instructions relating to His Majesty's service at sea (13th edn, London, 1790), p. 47Google Scholar.

90 Byrn, ed., Naval courts martial, pp. 125–30.

91 Court martial of Alexander Vannetta, 31 Dec. 1808, TNA, law officers’ opinions, 1805–8, ADM 7/307/68.

92 See e.g. the cases of John Wheeler (1811), John Mose (1806), and James Seymonds alias Simmons (1808): Byrn, ed., Naval courts martial, pp. 288–93, 438, 450–1.

93 Francisco Falso and John Lambert, 18 Sept. 1798, TNA, courts martial papers, Aug.–Sept. 1798, ADM 1/5364. I found this case thanks to a mention in Adkins, Roy and Adkins, Lesley, Jack Tar: the extraordinary lives of ordinary seamen in Nelson's navy (2nd edn, London, 2009), p. 12Google Scholar. The juridical parallel between cultural extraneousness and ‘madness’ was also drawn in 1820s Australia: Benton, Law, p. 189.

94 For some of the relevant legislation, see 39 & 40 Geo. III c. 94; 48 Geo. III c. 96 § xxvii. These include specifications for the custody of ‘insane Persons charged with Murder’, ‘High Treason’ or ‘Felony’ – ordinarily all capital crimes.

95 Hay, Douglas, ‘Property, authority and the criminal law’, in Hay, Douglas et al. , Albion's fatal tree: crime and society in eighteenth-century England (London and New York, NY, 1975), pp. 17–63, at pp. 22–6, 40–63Google Scholar; King, Peter, ‘Decision-makers and decision-making in the English criminal law, 1750–1800’, Historical Journal, 27 (1984), pp. 25–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Langbein, John H., ‘Albion's fatal flaws’, Past and Present, 98 (1983), pp. 96–120CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eder, Crime and punishment, pp. 5–6, 133–4.

96 Watts, A. D., ‘The protection of alien seamen’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 7 (1958), pp. 691–711CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

97 Zimmerman, Impressment, pp. 17, 19–21, 25, 49–51.

98 Watts, ‘Protection’, p. 697; Perl-Rosenthal, Citizen sailors, pp. 121–2.

99 Wildman, Richard, Institutes of international law, ii: International rights in time of war (London, 1850), pp. 36–45Google Scholar.

100 Ibid., pp. 97–8; Perl-Rosenthal, Citizen sailors, pp. 121–2.

101 Fahrmeir, Citizens and aliens, pp. 71, 84–6, 92; Statt, Foreigners and Englishmen, pp. 34–7. For some figures, see Beerbühl, ‘British nationality policy’, pp. 58–66.

102 6 Ann. c. 37 § xx.

103 13 Geo. II c. 3 § ii.

104 See n. 40.

105 20 Geo. III c. 20 § iii; Parry, British nationality law, pp. 90–1.

106 ‘A proposed bill to prevent aliens, for a limited time, from becoming naturalized, or being made or becoming denizens; except in certain cases’ (June 1818), 19th Century House of Commons Sessional Papers, i, p. 579, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:hcpp&rft_dat=xri:hcpp:rec:1818-005403.

107 Fahrmeir, Citizens and aliens, p. 70; Zimmerman, Impressment, pp. 82–3; Chitty, Joseph, A treatise on the law of the prerogatives of the crown (London and Dublin, 1820), p. 14Google Scholar.

108 34 Geo. III c. 68 § vii; 42 Geo. III c. 61 § viii.

109 Cockburn, Nationality, pp. 29–34.

110 34 Geo. III c. 68 § viii.

111 Journals of the House of Lords, beginning anno tricesimo quarto Georgii Tertii, 1794, xl, 94a, 112b, 115b, 118b, 120a, 216a, 219a, 244a. For drafts of amendments, concerning other portions of the bill, see British Mariners Bill – Amendments and Clauses, 3 Apr. 1794, London, Parliamentary Archives, Records of the House of Lords: main papers, HL/PO/JO/10/7/965.

112 Lars Jansby, 8 Mar. 1808, TNA, law officers’ opinions, 1805–8, ADM 7/307/61, fo. 2.

113 Ibid., fos. 2–4.

114 Ibid., fo. 3.

115 Ibid., fo. 1.

116 Wm Schroeder, 6 Feb. 1810, TNA, law officers’ opinions, 1809–10, ADM 7/308/27.

117 Ibid., fos. 2, 5.

118 Debate on naturalizing foreign Protestants, 7 Nov. 1693, in The history and proceedings of the House of Commons, ii: 1680–1695 (London, 1742), pp. 415–45Google Scholar.

119 On seafarers’ strategic self-fashioning, see Land, War, pp. 27–8; Morieux, ‘Diplomacy’. For other examples of strategic use of, alternatively, belonging and extraneousness, see Cerutti, Étrangers, pp. 167, 214–17; Benton, Law, pp. 85, 99–100, 165–6.

120 Harper, English Navigation Laws, p. 389.

121 Cerutti, Étrangers, pp. 17–20, 63–9, 292–9.

122 House of Commons, 18 Feb. 1813, Hansard, 1st series, 24, cols. 630–2, 634–7.

123 Zimmerman, Impressment, pp. 21–9, 81–4; Cockburn, Nationality, pp. 70–8.

124 Cockburn, Nationality, p. 54.

125 For the subsequent history of contradictions inherent to naturalization and indelible allegiance, see Fahrmeir, Citizens and aliens, pp. 46–51, 63–4, 86, 91–3.

126 Ibid., p. 238.

127 Ibid., p. 93; Statt, Foreigners and Englishmen, pp. 186–92.

128 No officer named Camillo Corri ever passed the examination for lieutenant. See Pappalardo, Bruno, Royal Navy lieutenants’ passing certificates (1691–1902) (2 vols., Kew, 2001)Google Scholar.

129 On these, see Morieux, ‘Diplomacy’.