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REVOLUTIONARY AND NAPOLEONIC WARS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2010

Edited by
Harold Winter Hodges  and
Edward Arthur Hughes
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Summary

In the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars Great Britain speedily regained the prestige lowered so dangerously in the previous war.

As in the preceding sections, no attempt is here made to traverse the whole period historically. The documents selected illustrate partially two crises—the outbreak of the naval mutinies, and the invasion schemes of 1803–5. The selection aims primarily at presenting problems as they appeared to the chief contemporary actors.

Though administration remained far from perfect and abuses survived, British superiority not only in the quality of officers and men but in the number of ships available for service was apparent throughout this period. Only in the black year of mutinies (1797) was public confidence in the service shaken, and even that year witnessed two of our greatest naval victories.

THE COPPERING OF SHIPS

Memoranda of Advice. Forethought and Preparation. (By Sir Charles Middleton, almost certainly intended for Lord Melville, on his appointment as First Lord, May, 1804. N.R.S. xxxix, p. 24.)

From every information I could pick up for guarding iron bolts in ship's bottoms against the corrosive effects of copper, I was convinced in my own mind that we might with safety copper the bottoms of every ship in the fleet and by that means increase our activity, as far as doubling our force in numbers. The measure to be sure was not only bold, but arduous.

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Chapter
Information
Select Naval Documents , pp. 192 - 224
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009
First published in: 1922

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