Topics Archive

The Wretched Prison Ships

This article addresses a subject a bit before our time, but one that applies to our beloved series nonetheless. Many Napoleonic-Era prisoners of war were held in prison ships, and I cannot imagine that in the 30 years between the American War of Independence and the Napoleonic Wars conditions changed much! I suppose Jack and [...]
Read More
The Lure of Gold and Spanish Treasure Fleets

In May 2007 the American salvage and treasure hunting company, Odyssey Marine, found the Spanish treasure ship the Nuestra Señora de la Mercedes off the coast of Portugal and took from it 17 tons of silver bullion. She had sunk in 1804 following a battle between English ships and a Spanish treasure fleet of four [...]
Read More
A Brief History of Navigation in the 18th Century

Two major developments in the 18th century vastly improved navigation: the solution to the problem of finding longitude and the improved availability of printed guides and charts. But navigation tools for dead reckoning and piloting were not to improve until the 1900s. Guides for the Navigator The eighteenth century saw major improvements in publications for [...]
Read More
The Continental Navy

Americans first took up arms in the spring of 1775 not to sever their relationship with the king, but to defend their rights within the British Empire. By the autumn of 1775, the British North American colonies from Maine to Georgia were in open rebellion. Royal governments had been thrust out of many colonial capitals [...]
Read More
American Warships of the Age of Sail

Navies are born out of a spirit of independence and under the threat of war, nurtured into maturity by the urgent demands of defense and sharpened by conflict. So it was with the first American Navy. The story of American ships and sailors is an epic of blue water which seems singularly remote, almost unreal, [...]
Read More
The Strategic Failure of French Privateering

Clearly French privateering during the Revolutionary period failed in its perceived strategy: to cripple British marine trade.
Read More
Impressment and the British Merchant Service

An explanation to the discussion of the potential effects of the Impress on the skilled labor force of the British merchant marine.
Read More
British Naval Supremacy: Some Factors Newly Considered

“As for a man-of-war, it is either an autocracy or it is nothing, nothing at all – mere nonsense. You saw what happened to the poor French navy at the beginning of the Revolutionary War…” – Jack Aubrey to Stephen Maturin, The Yellow Admiral British Naval Supremacy: Some Factors Newly Considered By Mitch Williamson Strategic [...]
Read More
A Brief History of Royal Navy Uniforms

Officers’ Uniforms The British Royal Navy adopted a dark blue officers’ uniforms in 1748. This uniform would be the basis for of most of the world’ naval dress. The British were the main maritime power their uniforms influenced those adopted in other countries. [Broderick] The enlisted unform would also prove very influential, but it would [...]
Read More
The 1778 Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen and its Present-Day Implications

This article is somewhat different from what is usually posted here. It’s a political piece discussing current events, but it definitely relates back to our era and our areas of focus. Full disclosure: I’m of a liberal bent, and I think the following article makes a lot of sense. But I’m not posting it to [...]
Read More