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A Brief Guide to Men and Officers in Aubrey’s Royal Navy

Current scholarship (thanks in part to the title of N. A. M. Rodger’s influential book) often refers to the ships of Aubrey’s Royal Navy as “the wooden world”. This is a highly accurate description of a complicated self-contained society with strict rules of conduct and hierarchy. Entire articles can be and have been written about [...]
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Anatomy of a Man-of-War in Aubrey’s Royal Navy

Most if not every edition of every novel in our beloved series has a useful little diagram of a typical British man-of-war somewhere in the front or back. However, I thought it might be useful to have an online reference as well. In a way this doubles as a vocab list because it includes a [...]
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Paintings, Plans, Diagrams and History of the HMS Surprise

*SPOILERS* … He knew her through and through, as beautiful a piece of ship-building as any that had been launched from the French yards, a true thoroughbred, very fast in the right hands, weatherly, dry, a splendid sailor on a bowline, and a ship that almost steered herself once you understood her ways. - H.M.S. [...]
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An Introduction to Life at Sea in Aubrey’s Royal Navy

The full experience of life aboard a man o’ war in Aubrey’s Royal Navy is not something that can be easily summed up in a short article. It’s not something that can be easily summed up in 20 novels, though Patrick O’Brian gives us an incredible window into that world long past. However, this introductory [...]
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An Introduction to the Britain of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin

Obviously, the bulk of the Aubrey/Maturin series takes place on the high seas, but it is important to remember that our heroes are most definitely British (well, Stephen is half-Irish and half-Catalan, but he’s technically British at least). The period covered by the series, roughly 1800 – 1817, was very much one of transition for [...]
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An Introduction to Patronage and Promotion in Aubrey’s Royal Navy

“Oh ha, ha, ha, Stephen! I can’t tell you how happy it makes me: I can take care of Tom – he’ll never be made post else: this is his only chance.” - Jack Aubrey to Stephen Maturin, The Commodore Throughout the course of our beloved series, there are many characters who follow Captain Aubrey [...]
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Confusion to Robespierre and Napoleon: A Timeline of War With France

Throughout the majority of our beloved series (not to mention the majority of Jack and Stephen’s adult lives), England is at war with France. The series and real-life events intersect at some key points, but even when there is no overlap every character in the series is aware of and intensely interested in what progress [...]
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An Introduction to Pay and Prize Money in Aubrey’s Royal Navy

“The pay is contemptible for a learned man – five pounds a month – and I am ashamed to mention it; but there is the chance of prize-money… For even Aristotle would have been moved by prize-money. Doubloons, sir: they lie in soft leather sacks, you know, about so big, and they are wonderfully heavy [...]
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An Introduction to Ship Types During the Age of Sail

You can mouse over terms in red for further clarification… Cool, huh? There were many different types of ships during the Age of Sail, and all were defined based on their size, the number of masts they had, the shape of their hull and their rigging (the size and shape of sails arranged on however [...]
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An Introduction to Life, Death and Health in Aubrey’s Royal Navy

Food Supplying the fleets was an immense undertaking, and was controled by the Victualing Board. The purser on each ship was in charge of supplying the food and consumables; like candles, coal, clothes (or slops as they were known) and tobacco. The food was of variable quality, corruption amongst naval suppliers was not uncommon. To [...]
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All To Seek: Cross-Reference

Subjects Commonly Addressed