impressment

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im·press·ment

(ĭm-prĕs′mənt)

1. The act or policy of seizing persons and compelling them to serve in the military, especially in naval forces.

2. The act or policy of seizing property for public use, especially for military purposes.

3. The act of imposing a constructive trust or a lien upon property, as a matter of equity, to protect a person without legal title but with a legally recognized interest.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

impressment

(ɪmˈprɛsmənt)

(Government, Politics & Diplomacy) the commandeering or conscription of things or men into government service

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

im•press•ment

(ɪmˈprɛs mənt)

n.

the act of impressing people or property into public service or use.

[1780–90]

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Noun

impressment - the act of coercing someone into government service

impress

seizure - the taking possession of something by legal process

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I had come to London primarily to correlate Admiralty records concerning impressment of American seamen with events that my research had turned up in American sources.

Individual statements on E.P. Thompson

In this context, the War of 1812 appears to have been waged not so much against Great Britain's impressment of American seamen and its restriction of American neutral trade as it was against the polemics of such political economists and scientists as Thomas Malthus and the comte de Buffon, who doubted that North America could ever support a flourishing population that would constitute the basis for national greatness.

1812: War and the Passions of Patriotism

The policy of impressment of American seamen had not been abandoned, however, so the Madison administration saw no benefit to negotiations.