re: #226 doppelganglander

Britain … was kidnapping American sailors to serve in the Royal Navy.

The pretext was that they were looking for deserters from the RN and Army. Anyone on an American ship with an accent was grabbed. The problem was that the US was less than a generation from having been English—many Americans still had pronounced English accents—so that many were pressed into the RN at sword point and there was little a merchantman could do against a British man o’war.