In the modern world, developed countries build militaries using voluntary recruiting practices or laws requiring service. Before the acceptance
of such practices, many countries relied on the forced tactic of impressment. Through impressment, militaries forced people to serve for them. Impressed men often came from prisons, taverns, and boardinghouses.
Brutal discipline maintained their presence and services as needed.
In the early nineteenth century, impressment became a challenging
diplomatic issue between the United States and Great Britain. The
English believed that one could not change citizenship or allegiance to a
country. This was contrary to the revolutionary American belief that an
individual had a right to choose allegiance. As a result, British naval vessels began the practice of boarding American ships to impress sailors who
they deemed to be British deserters.
The British rarely spent time checking whether the nationality of
those impressed was in fact British. Nine times out of ten, the sailors
taken were not British. It fell to the U.S. government, however, to prove
each case individually. As many as ten thousand men were impressed by
the British between 1787 and 1807.
The British practice of impressing American sailors soured relations
between the two countries. Though the United States attempted several
times to negotiate an agreement to end the practice, Great Britain refused to stop. Impressment was a leading issue that caused the War of
1812 (1812–15) between the two countries. Both the War of 1812 and
the need to acquire dependable service members led to the decline of impressment after 1815.