She would not leave the port for some weeks; but he had seen the captain, who had agreed to take him as ship's boy.

Had the mayor been aware that his late apprentice was on the point of leaving he would not have interfered with his intention; but as he had peremptorily ordered that his name was not to be mentioned before him, and as Mrs.Anthony had no motive in approaching the forbidden subject, the mayor remained in ignorance that Jack was about to depart on a distant voyage.
One day, on going down to the town hail, he found an official letter waiting him; it was an order from government empowering justices of the peace to impress such men as they thought fit, with the only restriction that men entitled to vote for members of parliament were exempted.

This tremendous power had just been legalized by an act of parliament.

A more iniquitous act never disgraced our statutes, for it enabled justices of the peace to spite any of their poorer neighbors against whom they had a grudge, and to ship them off to share in the hardships of Marlborough's campaign in Germany and the Low Countries, or in the expedition now preparing for Spain.
At that time the army was held in the greatest dislike by the English people.

The nation had always been opposed to a standing force, and it was only now that the necessities of the country induced them to tolerate it.