Even when the pressed man had procured his substitutes and obtained his coveted discharge, his liberty was far from assured. In theory exempt from the press for a period of at least twelve months, he was in reality not only liable to be re-pressed at any moment, but to be subjected to that process as often as he chose to free himself and the gang to take him. A Liverpool youth named William Crick a lad with expectations to the amount of "near 4000 Pounds," was in this way pressed and discharged by substitute three times in quick succession. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 579--Rear-Admiral Child, 8 Aug. 1799.] Intending substitutes themselves not infrequently suffered the same fate ere they could carry out their intention. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1439--Lieut. Leaver, 5 Jan. 1739-40, and numerous instances.]
The discharging of a pressed man whose petition finally succeeded did not always prove to be the eminently simple matter it would seem. Time and tide waited for no man, least of all for the man who had the misfortune to be pressed, and in the interval between his appeal and the order for his release his ship, as already hinted, had perhaps put half the circumference of the globe between him and home; or when the crucial moment arrived, and he was summoned before his commander to learn the gratifying Admiralty decision, he made his salute in batches of two, three or even four men, each of whom protested vehemently that he was the original and only person to whom the order applied. An amusing attempt at "coming Cripplegate" in this manner occurred on board the _Lennox_ in 1711. A woman, who gave her name as Alice Williams, having petitioned for the release of her "brother," one John Williams, a pressed man then on board that ship, succeeded in her petition, and orders were sent down to the commander, Capt. Bennett, to give the man his discharge. He proceeded to do so, but to his amazement discovered, first, that he had no less than four John Williamses on board, all pressed men; second, that while each of the four claimed to be the man in question, three of the number had no sister, while the fourth confessed to one whose name was not Alice but "Percilly"; and, after long and patient investigation, third, that one of them had a wife named Alice, who, he being a foreigner domiciled by marriage, had "tould him she would gett him cleare" should he chance to fall into the hands of the press-gang. In this she failed, for he was kept. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1470--Capt. Bennett, 2 Dec. 1711.]