Pintel and Ragetti were pressed into service by the English Navy.
- "Darling, I am truly unhappy to have to tell you this, but...through an unfortunate and entirely unforeseeable series of circumstances that have nothing whatsoever to do with me, poor Will has been press-ganged into Davy Jones' crew."
- ―Jack Sparrow to Elizabeth Swann
Impressment, colloquially as pressed or press-gang, was the conscripting or taking of men into a military or naval force by coercion or compulsion, with or without notice. The related term referring specifically to the practices used by the merchant marines or pirate ships called shanghaiing; using trickery to coerce sailors into joining a crew. Most commonly associated with Great Britain and Ireland, it was used by the British Royal Navy during the 17th and 18th centuries as a means of crewing warships.
History[]
- "Before I was ’pressed by our estimable Royal Navy to be a powder monkey, I used to ride the horses on my father’s farm."
- ―Robert Greene to Jack Sparrow
Robert Greene was pressed into service by the British Royal Navy, but he escaped the ship and signed aboard the merchant ship.[1] Pintel and Ragetti were pressed into service by the English Navy, but jumped ship after a year of beatings, bad food, and boredom.[2] Davy Jones would send his pet leviathan, the Kraken, to destroy a ship, then press-gang the crew into service on the Flying Dutchman, with many sailors having met this end.[3] During the search for the Dead Man's Chest, Jack Sparrow claimed that Will Turner was press-ganged into Davy Jones' crew, though in reality Jack tricked Will into serving aboard the Dutchman.[4] Years later, a number of sailors in the Captain's Daughter tavern signed on to sail under Jack Sparrow, but would instead be press-ganged as crewmembers aboard Blackbeard's ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge.[5]
Behind the scenes[]
- Press-ganging would first be mentioned through Pintel and Ragetti being "pressed into service" in the reference books Pirates of the Caribbean: The Visual Guide and The Complete Visual Guide.[2] The term itself would first be used in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.[4]
Appearances[]
- The Price of Freedom
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
- Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
- Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (junior novelization)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Movie Storybook
- LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game (Non-canonical appearance)
Sources[]
- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Visual Guide
- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Complete Visual Guide
- The Secret Files of the East India Trading Company
