Manx people served out of all proportion to their numbers. John Quilliam, pressed from the fishing boats, rose to first lieutenant of HMS Victory at Trafalgar. But he is remembered because he succeeded. Hugh Bainbridge lost his arm at twenty-four. John Cockrane was twelve years old and wounded.

John Cawle served on HMS Temeraire. He lost his right arm. He came home to Kirk Bride and became a schoolteacher, teaching children to read with one arm because there was nothing to be done about it. The Navy paid him nothing. The children he taught grew up in the lowest depth of Manx misery.

The Douglas impressment of 1811 showed what happened when a naval officer broke his promise not to press the fishermen. The Admiralty punished the island for the fishermen’s refusal to be taken quietly. For forty-six years, Manx people had absorbed everything without significant violence. They had chosen a different strategy: endurance, petition, persistence.

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