But he had a problem with Gallipoli.
That is, in fact, one of the books from which I got this knowledge. Another is “Six Frigates” which goes into how the US navy was so good because of the immense pool of top rate mariners created in the US by the fishing industry.
The British merchant navy and the fishing trawler fleet also provide ships and experienced mariners during times of war.
In the Napoleanic era it was more like ten and there was at least one case of a seven year-old middy. That was highly unusual, if not unique, and due to connections.
A Midshipman at seven, or a ship’s boy?
A midshipman. Dunno how that worked for the first several years nor how he turned out.
Perhaps an officer’s child.
Thanks SanVito. It looks interesting. I’ll order it.
A great example of how holding on to number one status not only requires political will but also requires you to make other strategic considerations subordinate to this overarching goal.
Yes, although this natural resource had to be (or at least, was) harvested through the mechanism of the press gang as well as patriotic volunteering - again, keeping the Royal Navy at peak effectiveness was too important to be left to chance. (And, speaking of sub-ordinate strategic considerations, the War of 1812 was at least in part due to Britain’s aggressive press-ganging policy vis-a-vis “Britons” on American ships.)
Of course, the Admiralty would have a good many classical scholars who had read Voltaire: *“it is necessary, now and then, to put one admiral to death in order to inspire the others to fight.”
*
I thought it was, “The British occasionally kill an Admiral to encourage the others.”
At that time it was not unusual to sign the infant son of a fellow captain on as a Midshipman as a favour. The child would not generally go to sea, but would be able to draw a salary and take a share of prize money.
In hindsight the importance of petroleum not just to ships but also to motor vehicles and airplanes meant this was the right choice.
In one of his Honor Harrington novels, James Weber recycled the name for a stupidly arrogant Solarian League admiral.
Voltaire wrote that line in response to Admiral Byng’s execution. Byng was a friend of Voltaire. So those scholars would not have been able to read Voltaire’s line beforehand.
No, in fact GB had to import lumber.
There wasn’t enough heavy timber in all of Britain to supply the fleets. As C.S. Forester related in his novel Horatio and the Hotspur, the mainmast for a first-rate was a hundred feet long and three feet thick.
Timber was to the British Navy in the 18th century what coal and later oil become on the 19th and 20th centuries. Wood for building ships was imported from the Baltic, Norway and even the colonies in the Americas (despite a little local difficulty). The size and availability of trees suitable for the largest warships was of strategic importance. New England supplied the best quality masts.
http://rogerknight.org/pdf/New%20England%20Forests%20and%20British%20Seapower.pdf
Here’s an extensively bookmarked scanof a book called The Elements and Practice of Rigging And Seamanship, 1794, by David Steel. An incredible resource showing just went into the making masts, sails, rigging and other parts of warships. One way for shipmakers to get around not having enough large trees for a mast was to create what was called a “made-mast” (a mast created out of a single piece of wood was called a pole-mast). A large made-mast would be made out of four smaller trees squared off and fitted together with tongue and groove surfaces (“Coak and Plane” in their terms) with smaller strips of wood used to fill it out into a round cross-section. The mast would be wrapped tight with rope to further hold it together. And by tight I mean they used a special frame that allowed them to crank the rope tighter than mere human strength would allow after each turn round the mast. The rope would be secured with a nail and a leather washer at each turn. Smaller pieces of ships such as yard arms might be made out of two pieces of wood with raised checkerboard surfaces on the mating faces to create a more solid join. Here’s a diagramshowing the cross section of such a mast.
Dammit, I’m bumping this thread just to get you all to click that link:David Steele