Seamen on Late Eighteenth-Century European Warships

Abstract

SUMMARY: For hundreds of thousands, the naval wars of the 1790s meant shock proletarianization at sea. Unprecedented numbers of men -many without previous experience of the sea, many of them foreign-born -were forced into warships and made to work under the threat of savage violence. Desertion rates reached previously unimaginable levels as men fled ships and navies. The greatest wave of naval mutiny in European history followed in their wake. Hundreds of crews revolted, sometimes paralyzing whole fleets in the midst of the annual fighting season. This article considers the struggles in the French, Dutch, and British navies, concluding that the key development that precipitated the sudden explosion of mutiny was the internationalization of Europe's lower decks.When the inter-imperial arms race accelerated in the late eighteenth century, European navies entered a three-decade long period of vast expansion.

Threat, Deterrence, and Penal Severity: An Analysis of Flogging in the Royal Navy, 1740–1820

“…But the live-and-let-live attitude toward the lower-deck that characterized the officers of the mid-century Georgian navy appears to have been replaced with a new sternness at the end of the century. Other historians observe similar changes in social relations, including nascent class-conflict and growing severity by commanders (Frykman 2009; Neale 1985) and an increasing moralism among officers (Blake 2008).…”

“…The traditional depiction of life at sea in general, and in the Royal Navy in particular, focuses on adversarial relations between officers and seamen and the routine violence that putatively backed the exercise of command (Claver 1954; Frykman 2009, 2010; Neale 1985; Rediker 1987). The eighteenth-century navy was the most important arm of the British state and the kingdom’s largest employer.…”

“…But the naval career was also open to talented members of the middle classes who tended to emphasize duty and service to the nation over aristocratic honor (Rodger 2002). In spite of differences in their social backgrounds, officers as a whole feared the radicalization of seamen and were shocked by mutinies and insurrections (Frykman 2009; Pfaff et al 2016).…”

“…Commanders may have regarded “British” crews as more cooperative and loyal. Distrust for “foreigners”—which in the British mind included the Irish (Colley 2003; Hechter 1998)—was widespread among the officers of the Royal Navy, who commonly regarded Irishmen and other foreigners as sources of opposition and disorder (Frykman 2009). Coethnicity has also been found to be an important source of obedience and military cohesion such that commanders may have felt more secure with crews that were predominantly British (Costa and Kahn 2008).…”

Connections between Mutinies in European Navies

“…Deep-sea crews, whether employed in the civilian or military industries, were notoriously multinational, with average proportions of foreign-born men on board warships ranging from about 20 to 70 per cent, depending on the navy. 31 At any one time, in other words, there were tens of thousands who served under a flag that was not their own.…”