Drawing on many contemporary sources and eyewitness accounts, this book examines the lives of the ordinary sailors of the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815).

The popular image of the British sailor of this time is of a press-ganged wretch living off weevil-infested food, motivated only by prize money and facing constant hazards aboard a floating hell, where discipline was maintained by the lash.

The extent to which this enduring image accords with reality is revealed here, detailing their attitudes, duties, comforts, hardships, vices and virtues.