Latest addition to the bookshelves of the leading book shop in Peasedown St. John!
Category: Military Naval
Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail: War At Sea 1756-1815 by Bernard Ireland
St. Helens: Ted Smart, 2000
Hardback with Dust Jacket over boards with titling to
Illustrated by way of: Facsimiles; Black & White Drawings; Colour Drawings;
From the cover: The long reign of King George III extended from 1760 to 1820, an era of almost continuous war during which the Royal Navy was to achieve the highest reputation in its history. Successive wars snapped up colonies from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, all of which had to be defended in the next conflict. Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail reveals how ships were built, sailed and fought in the era made popular today by the novels of Patrick OBrian, C. S. Forester, Alexander Kent, Dudley Pope and others. Naval fiction sustains the legend that the seamen were impressed against their will and, for a pittance, sent to serve in damp and unhealthy conditions, subjected to discipline verging on the inhuman until, incapacitated or with health broken, they were cast ashore and forgotten. It is no credit to the nation that this was, all too often, the case. But then we have the paradox. How was such a body of men, apparently bereft of education, status or prospects, motivated to form a service respected the world around? Much credit must lay with their officers, themselves recruited almost casually at an age when todays lads are still at school. Some from the aristocracy, some from the professional classes, they were virtually apprenticed to their captains and learned their trade from the bottom up. This was the age when the man counted, rather than technology.
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