Letters of seamen in the wars with France, 1793-1815

Resource Information

The work Letters of seamen in the wars with France, 1793-1815 represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of San Diego Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Letters of seamen in the wars with France, 1793-1815

Statement of responsibility

helen Watt; Anne Hawkins

Creator

• Watt, Helen, (Archivist)

Contributor

• Hawkins, Anne

Subject

• Electronic books
• Great Britain
• HISTORY / Europe / Western
• HISTORY / Military / Naval
• Napoleonic Wars (1800-1815)
• Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815 -- Naval operations, British -- Sources
• Records and correspondence
• 1800-1815
• Sailors -- Great Britain -- Correspondence
• Sources
• Sailors

Genre

• Electronic books
• Records and correspondence
• Sources
• Correspondence

Language

eng

Summary

Letters of seamen below the rank of commissioned officer are rare, both in original form and in print. This edited collection of 255 letters, written by seamen in the British Navy and their correspondents between 1793 and 1815, gives voice to a group of men whose lives and thoughts are otherwise mostly unknown. The letters are extremely valuable for the insights which they give into aspects of life below decks and the subjects close to the writers' hearts: money matters, ties with home and homesickness. They also provide eye-witness accounts of events during a tumultuous and important period of British and European history. One group of letters, included as a separate section, comprises the letters of seamen and their family and friends which were intercepted by the authorities during the mutinies of 1797. These letters shed a great deal of light on the extraordinary events of that year and of seamen's attitudes to the mutinies. The editors' introductory material, besides highlighting what the letters tell us about seamen's lives and attitudes, also discusses the extent of literacy amongst seamen, setting this into its wider contemporary popular context. The letters are supported by a substantial editorial apparatus and two detailed appendices containing biographies of seamen and information on select ships which took part in the mutinies of 1797

Cataloging source

N$T

Index

no index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

dictionaries