A brilliant telling of the history of the common seaman in the age of sail, and his role in Britain’s trade, exploration, and warfare.
British maritime history in the age of sail is full of the deeds of officers like Nelson but has given little voice to plain, “illiterate” seamen. Now Stephen Taylor draws on published and unpublished memoirs, letters, and naval records, including court-martials and petitions, to present these men in their own words.
In this exhilarating account, ordinary seamen are far from the hapless sufferers of the press gangs. Proud and spirited, learned in their own fashion, with robust opinions and the courage to challenge overweening authority, they stand out from their less adventurous compatriots.
Taylor demonstrates how the sailor was the engine of British prosperity and expansion up to the Industrial Revolution. From exploring the South Seas with Cook to establishing the East India Company as a global corporation, from the sea battles that made Britain a superpower to the crisis of the 1797 mutinies, these “sons of the waves” held the nation’s destiny in their calloused hands.

The Indian Ocean was the final battleground for Nelson’s navy and France. At stake was Britain’s lifeline to India and its strategic capacity to wage war in Europe.

In one fatal season, the natural order of maritime power since Trafalgar was destroyed, when Britain lost fourteen of her great Indiamen, either sunk or taken by enemy frigates. Many hundreds of lives were lost, and the East India Company was shaken to its foundations. The focus of these disasters, military and meteorological, was a tiny French outpost in mid-ocean, the island known as Mauritius. This is the story of that season and the terrifying ordeal of men, women, and children caught at sea in hurricanes and those who survived to take up the battle to drive the French from the Eastern seas. Mauritius must be taken at any cost!