Manhood, Nationalism, and Sailor Narratives of British Captivity and the War of 1812

TL;DRAbstract

James M'Lean had an especially difficult time of it as a sailor in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Born in Hartford County, Connecticut, he shipped off to sea when he was only ten years old in the mid-1790s. In December 1797 M'Lean was impressed by the British man-of-war Madras in Grenada. He quickly learned that producing a seaman protection certificate carried no muster with the British. Captain John Dilkes dismissed M'Lean's document, claiming: “I could get one, if I was in America, for half a crown as good as that.” When he insisted that he was an American citizen, M'Lean was called a “Scotch rascal” and threatened with the lash (168–69). Although he escaped almost a year later, M'Lean was soon impressed again. British naval records corroborate what his narrative detailed: a repeated pattern of impressments and escapes. Often the British treated M'Lean harshly, seeming to single him out for punishment because he was an American. He recalled, for example, how onc

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