# Questions about the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 14, 2013, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892 "2013-03-14T04:58:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2013, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/61 "2013-03-17T22:36:15Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > I’ve read two series, other than Hornblower, and am familiar with others - which one do you have in mind? On this board, it seems to be either Hornblower, or Aubrey/Maturin. Since the OP mentioned Hornblower, I identified the other one as my source. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2013, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/62 "2013-03-17T23:01:01Z")
There’s a line in one of the O’Brian books that cracked me up — and I’m laughing thinking about it, and it’s been a decade or more since I read it. Maturin is visiting his favourite squeeze somewhere in India but has to return to the ship (or something), so tells her or a servant: “Call me an elephant.” Too bad O’Brian didn’t follow it up with the reply. (Nor did he have anyone say “Walk this way.”) ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2013, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/63 "2013-03-17T23:31:51Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Don’t know what they had in mind, but besides the O’Brien series (Aubrey/Maturin) there’s Alexander Kent’s series about Richard Bolitho and Adam Hardy’s Fox series, in addition to the classic Francois Marryat books. And Forester wrote other Napoleonic stories besides Hornblower, mostly ashore, such as _the Gun_, _Rifleman Dodd_, and (for another naval story) _The Captain from Connecticut_. There are also the Thomas Kydd (by Julian Stockwin), Nathaniel Drinkwater (by Richard Woodman), Alan Lewrie (by Dewey Lambdin) and Nicholas Ramage (by Dudley Pope) series. > [@Quercus](#): > > On this board, it seems to be either Hornblower, or Aubrey/Maturin. Since the OP mentioned Hornblower, I identified the other one as my source. I’ve always liked the Bolitho stories much better than Aubrey/Maturin. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2013, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/64 "2013-03-17T23:44:10Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > There’s a line in one of the O’Brian books that cracked me up — and I’m laughing thinking about it, and it’s been a decade or more since I read it. > > Maturin is visiting his favourite squeeze somewhere in India but has to return to the ship (or something), so tells her or a servant: > > “Call me an elephant.” > > Too bad O’Brian didn’t follow it up with the reply. (Nor did he have anyone say “Walk this way.”) My favorite O’Brien scene: Jack: This coffee has an odd taste. Stephen: I attribute that to the excrement of rats, my brother. Jack: I thought is was familiar. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2013, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/65 "2013-03-18T01:24:52Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > There are also the Thomas Kydd (by Julian Stockwin), Nathaniel Drinkwater (by Richard Woodman), Alan Lewrie (by Dewey Lambdin) and Nicholas Ramage (by Dudley Pope) series. > > I’ve always liked the Bolitho stories much better than Aubrey/Maturin. I had hopes that Lewrie would be a Naval Flashman, but he cleans up his act and tries for Hornblower status. He keeps cats.. Edwin Thomas’ Martin Jerrold almost makes Flashman status. There are only three books; his publisher didn’t like them. Alexander Kent wrote WWII stories as Douglas Reeman as well. Both his naval series seemed to me to become the same Bonanza plot; the Good Bad Guy is bad, but saves the day at the last. Who wrote the sail to steam transition? I recall an eighty year old Admiral sitting in a chair on the quarterdeck, bitching “Twenty five ships, and not a sail among them!”? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2013, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/66 "2013-03-18T02:52:51Z")
Oh, and how could I forget the Richard Delancey series by C. Northcote Parkinson\*. If you’re having a severe Forester/Hornblower jones, look into this series – it’s really the closest in feel to the Hornblower books. Parkinson also wrote _The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower_, which is well worth reading. \*yes, the same guy who wrote **Parkinson’s Law** , which was all I knew about him when I picked up his naval books. He was a Naval Historian, so the Parkinson’s Law book was the aberration, not his naval books. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2013, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/67 "2013-03-18T03:45:40Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Parkinson also wrote _The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower_, which is well worth reading. I’ll second that. Don’t pass it up if you’ve read the Hornblower series. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2013, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/68 "2013-03-18T16:15:48Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Who wrote the sail to steam transition? I recall an eighty year old Admiral sitting in a chair on the quarterdeck, bitching “Twenty five ships, and not a sail among them!”? 🙂 I remember reading three or four of a series set in the pre-dreadnought era. The hero was an insanely insubordinate lieutenant, who was hated by all his superiors. The climax of one story, as I recall, was a new island emerging from the ocean directly under a Russian battleship, grounding it permanently. :dubious: Fairly well written, but not Forrester or O’Brien calibre. If I remember, I’ll poke around tonight and try to find out the author’s name. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2013, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/69 "2013-03-18T16:26:02Z")
Maybe the island was [Ferdinandea](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinandea)! ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/70 "2013-03-18T16:49:35Z")
Concerning “prize” ships: suppose Captain Jack Aubrey manages to capture a French warship-which contains a paymaster ( thousands of gold francs on board). Does he have to split with his commanding officers? Aubrey (and captains like him) were motivated by patriotism-but a little prize cash was welcome. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2013, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/71 "2013-03-18T17:28:59Z")
Thousands of francs or not, there is a [system](http://www.nelsonsnavy.co.uk/broadside5.html) of sharing. The captain gets the biggest share, but by no means a majority stake, and a full quarter of it gets shared among the crew. The gold francs are nice, but the warship itself is worth a packet and the Navy will “buy it in”, admittedly for less than a new ship would have cost them but not for chump change either, and to a crewman getting paid in shillings even ten or twenty pounds would be a hell of a bonus for a job well done. If they don’t piss it away on their next shore leave, a few prizes could set a man up in a retirement cottage when the war was over. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2013, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/72 "2013-03-18T18:01:43Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > There’s a line in one of the O’Brian books that cracked me up — and I’m laughing thinking about it, and it’s been a decade or more since I read it. > > Maturin is visiting his favourite squeeze somewhere in India but has to return to the ship (or something), so tells her or a servant: > > “Call me an elephant.” > > Too bad O’Brian didn’t follow it up with the reply. (Nor did he have anyone say “Walk this way.”) Wouldn’t the reply be “Truly you overestimate your endowment, sahib!” * * * [QUOTE=Malacandra] … The gold francs are nice, but the warship itself is worth a packet and the Navy will “buy it in”, admittedly for less than a new ship would have cost them but not for chump change either,… [/QUOTE] This would I think be another reason for the meritocracy and need for demonstrable ability for naval officers. A small mistake by a Cardigan might lose a few men, but a stupid mistake by a naval officer can lose an expensive ship, even when there’s no warfare involved. Bad weather and rocks are always a risk. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2013, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/73 "2013-03-18T20:35:41Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I had hopes that Lewrie would be a Naval Flashman, but he cleans up his act and tries for Hornblower status. He keeps cats.. Edwin Thomas’ Martin Jerrold almost makes Flashman status. There are only three books; his publisher didn’t like them. > > Alexander Kent wrote WWII stories as Douglas Reeman as well. Both his naval series seemed to me to become the same Bonanza plot; the Good Bad Guy is bad, but saves the day at the last. > Who wrote the sail to steam transition? I recall an eighty year old Admiral sitting in a chair on the quarterdeck, bitching “Twenty five ships, and not a sail among them!”? 🙂 I don’t know if this is who you had in mind, but V.A. Stuart wrote a series of novels about captain Philip Hazard set in the period where steamships started taking over. I’ve only read one of them. the “V”, it turns out, stands for “Vivian”, making this a rare case of a naval series writtehn by a woman (I don’t count Honor Harrington) > **[Vivian Stuart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Stuart)** > > Violet Vivian Stuart ( née Finlay; 2 January 1914 – 18 August 1986) was a British writer from 1953 to 1986. She published under different pen names: her romantic novels as Vivian Stuart, Alex Stuart, Barbara Allen, Fiona Finlay, and Robyn Stuart, her military sagas as V.A. Stuart, and her historical saga as William Stuart Long. > In 1960, she was a founder of the Romantic Novelists' Association, along with Denise Robins, Barbara Cartland, and others; she was elected the first chairman. In 1970,... ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2013, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/74 "2013-03-18T23:12:14Z")
> [@Pacific420](#): > > I’m always relying on my wife to provide my reading material which is usually fictional novels but I’m going to find a few of the books mentioned here. > > Iron men for sure Daylate, Hearts of Oak for sure > > Hearts of oak are our ships, > Hearts of oak are our men, > We always are ready, steady boys, steady, > To charge and to conquer again and again. A nit-picky correction to a common mistake. The title and lyric of this song is “Heart of Oak,” singular, not Hearts. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/75 "2013-03-19T07:09:10Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Wouldn’t the reply be “Truly you overestimate your endowment, sahib!” That would work, too. Why an elephant was in my pyjamas. . . . Nope. That one doesn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/76 "2013-03-19T18:03:53Z")
> [@Rocketeer](#): > > I remember reading three or four of a series set in the pre-dreadnought era. The hero was an insanely insubordinate lieutenant, who was hated by all his superiors. > > The climax of one story, as I recall, was a new island emerging from the ocean directly under a Russian battleship, grounding it permanently. :dubious: > > Fairly well written, but not Forrester or O’Brien calibre. If I remember, I’ll poke around tonight and try to find out the author’s name. Found it! The Halfhyde series by Philip McCutchan. > **[Halfhyde Adventure Series by Philip McCutchan](https://www.goodreads.com/series/71212-halfhyde-adventure)** > > Halfhyde at the Bight of Benin (Halfhyde Adventure #1), Halfhyde's Island (Halfhyde Adventure #2), Halfhyde and the Guns of Arrest (Halfhyde Adventure #... The volcano one is _Halfhyde’s Island_. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/77 "2013-03-19T19:17:45Z")
Thanks, Rocketeer! ---
**Author:** ![swampyankee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/0ea827/32.png) [@swampyankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampyankee)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/78 "2014-03-16T23:52:29Z")
If I understand correctly (from a very limited reading of RN history), one of the requirements for an RN officer was literacy. This put commissions out of reach of most of the people below the middle class, like farm laborers, as few would have access to schools. For many of the continental European navies, the officers had to have multiple generations of nobility (iirc, in _ancien regime_ France, it was four generations since ennoblement); this applied to both the navy and the army. The Revolution made the French Army and Navy much more egalitarian, although I’m sure that limited literacy (probably more limited than in Britain; France had a smaller middle class) and influence still counted. The limitation to the nobility was probably most severe in Spain, Prussia, and Russia (these were probably the countries with the smallest middle classes) ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/79 "2014-03-17T00:16:43Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > 2/ As mentioned above the crew included many young boys maybe from 11 to 12 there may have been a high turnover bearing in mind the hardships of such work on kids The officers all started as midshipmen and captain’s servants, from an equally young age — if they failed to make lieutenant, some remained midshipmen for their lives at sea. On further reading… make that 8 and above sometimes. However, I hold an admittedly unprovable and heretical opinion, probably unique, that a four-year-old boy is too young to be sent to sea to become an officer. Which happened. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892/80 "2014-03-17T00:59:25Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > On further reading… make that 8 and above sometimes. However, I hold an admittedly unprovable and heretical opinion, probably unique, that a four-year-old boy is too young to be sent to sea to become an officer. Which happened. There was the custom of putting a child on the ship’s book when he was quite safe at home in order to give him time at sea when he did later join as Midshipman. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-british-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars/652892.md?page=5)