The Sea Warriors: Fighting Captains and Frigate Warfare in the Age of Nelson - Review

Contemporary Review, Oct, 2001

The Sea Warriors: Fighting Captains and Frigate Warfare in the Age of Nelson. Richard Woodman. Constable. [pound]18.99. 384 pages. ISBN 1-84119-183-3. The author is a well established writer on naval subjects, both as a novelist and as an historian. This account of those Royal Navy captains who commanded in the last years of the eighteenth and first years of the nineteenth century is the story of 'the real Hornblowers, Aubreys, Bolithos, Ramages and Drinkwaters'.

Many have been overshadowed by the fame of Nelson yet their lives answer one great question: why did the Royal Navy fight so well and so determinedly for over twenty-five years to defeat the threat that France posed to world order. It did so despite the fact that it was 'riddled with corruption and jobbery' and 'slack in its pursuance of its objectives'. The Navy had to protect Britain and Ireland against invasion, to blockade the enemy's ports, to strangle the French Empire's maritime trade, to protect British shipping, to impress foreigners with B ritish might and, finally, to supply ships and support to the British army wherever it was sent. Describing how the Royal Navy and its captains accomplished all that was Set before them is the aim of this book. It opens the door on a hitherto neglected part of this country's great naval history. (J.M.)