Pirates and Privateers

From two friends who scamper off a warship to hunt polar bears on an iceberg, to a fifteen-year-old’s account of the Battle of Northpoint, to HMS Victory’s appearance at the Battle of Trafalgar, to a seaman who becomes a marine artist, the twenty-sixth yearbook of The 1805 Club offers a cornucopia of topics for every reader. Some, like Horatio Nelson, HMS Victory, and J. M. W. Turner, are well-known; others, such as Nicholas Biddle, Frédéric Rolette, and the Duguay-Trouin, may only be familiar to a few.

This volume of The Trafalgar Chronicle contains a new series of essays whose primary objective is to shed light on the relationship between the Royal Navy and the United States Navy. Peter Hore, the editor and a former naval officer, provides an outstanding collection of seventeen articles that shed light on new research about people and events from before the American Revolution through the conclusion of the War of 1812 and the Napoleonic Wars. They are written by experts in their fields and avid researchers. These men and women include current and former military personnel, historians, curators, educators, and archivists.

While there is no index, the titles of the articles make it easy for readers to locate information.

• Nicholas Biddle: America’s Revolutionary War Nelson by Chipp Reid
• The Earliest Known ‘Stars and Stripes’ by Peter Hore
• Nelson in Troubled Waters by Joseph F. Callo
• The Chesapeake--Leopard Affair, 1807 by Anthony Bruce
• Impressment: Politics and People by Kathryn Milburn
• A Boy in Battle by Charles A. Fremantle
• The Rocket’s Red Glare: Francis Scot Key and the Star-Spangled Banner by Charles Neimeyer
• Frédéric Rolette: Un Canadien héros de la guerre de 1812 by Samuel Venière and Caroline Girard
• Pathfinders: Front-line Hydrographic Data-gathering in the Wars of American Independence and 1812 by Michael Barritt
• Charting the Waters: The Emergence of Modern Marine Charting and Surveying during the Career of James Cook in North American Waters, 1758-67 by Victor Suthren
• Captain Archibald Kennedy, an American in the Royal Navy by Byrne McLeod
• Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin: Nelson’s American Pallbearer by Peter Turner
• What Did HMS Victory Actually Look Like at the Battle of Trafalgar? by John Conover
• Thomas Butterworth: A Biographical Note of a Sailor Turned Artist by Kathryn Campbell
• Port Mahon under Admiral Fremantle 1810-11 by Tom D. Fremantle
• Sir Richard Stachan by Mark West
• Samuel Brokensha, Master RN by Nigel Hughes

Black-&-white photographs and drawings accompany all the articles, some of which also direct readers to particular illustrations in the center section of color plates. Notes listing source material or providing additional information for each article are collected at the end of the book, as are brief biographies of the contributors.

The Trafalgar Chronicle offers a tantalizing look into forgotten or overlooked subjects. Its contents will enlighten all readers, and sometimes entertain them. When the back cover closes, each will have their own favorites for many different reasons, myself included. For example, Rear-Admiral Callo’s article allows me to glimpse the history behind a novel I recently read. Charles Freemantle’s offering not only introduces me to his ancestor, but also allows me to see Baltimore and its environs in the past through the eyes of a stranger during a time of war. These are but two of mine, although all the contributions taught me things I didn’t know. The next yearbook, whose emphasis will be on Royal Marines and the US Marine Corps during the Georgian Ear, sounds equally intriguing.

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Review Copyright ©2017 Cindy Vallar




The Trafalgar Chronicle New Series 2
edited by Peter Hore
Seaforth, 2017, ISBN 978-1-4738-9976-6, UK £20.00 / US $32.95

The Royal Marines, whose history traces back to 1664, and the United States Marine Corps, first founded in 1775, gains distinction when the world is at war between 1792 and 1815. Past histories often have given short shrift to these sea soldiers, but here The 1805 Club allows them to take center stage. The various essays chosen for inclusion demonstrate the vital roles they play and illustrate why they participate in “every important action of fleet, afloat and ashore during the Great War.” (5) The contributors include navy and marine personnel, academics, researchers, writers, and historians.

The book opens with Julian Thompson’s “The Marines: The Early Days,” which explores the origins of the British Marines, how they become the Royal Marines, who they are, and what they do during their first 151 years. Anthony Bruce focuses on “The Marines in Boston, 1774-75,” with particular emphasis on the events leading up to and including the Battle of Bunker Hill, while Britt Zerbe examines their participation in the Battle of Trafalgar and their marginalized treatment in the age of sail in “That Matchless Victory: Trafalgar, the Royal Marines and Sea Battle in the Age of Nelson.”

In “Leathernecks: The US Marine Corps in the Age of the Barbary Pirates,” Charles Neimeyer discusses the origins of their contemporary nickname and their activities in America’s war with Tripoli, which is immortalized in the “Marines’ Hymn.” Benjamin Armstrong also looks at this war, but his focus is on Commodore Edward Preble and naval diplomacy in “‘Against the Common Enemies’: American Allies and Partners in the First Barbary War.”

Two other essays discuss the naval officers who also hold commissions in the Marines, even though they never serve as marines themselves. John D. Bolt’s “The ‘Blue Colonels’ of Marines: Sinecure and Shaping the Royal Marine Identity” explains this practice and how Royal Marines view it, as well as how it affects their ability to advance through the ranks. David Clammer focuses on one particular officer, who is charged with defending England’s coastline from a French invasion in “Captain Ingram, the Sea Fencibles, the Signal Stations and the Defence of Dorset.”

“The Royal Marines Battalions in the War of 1812” by Alexander Craig looks at raids and encounters in the Chesapeake Bay and Canada, while Robert K. Sutcliff’s “The First Royal Marine Battalion’s Peninsular War 1810-1812” examines their activities in Portugal and Spain. Tom Fremantle explores the thirty-six-year career of “Captain Philip Gidley King, Royal Navy, Third Governor of New South Wales,” an ancestor who serves on several ships before being sent to Botany Bay to establish a base for the convict colony.

Larrie D. Ferreriro discusses the French and Spanish navies in “The Rise and Fall of the Bourbon Armada, 1744-1805: From Toulon to Trafalgar,” while Jann M. Witt explores “Smuggling and Blockade Running during the Anglo-Danish War of 1807-14.”

Another author, Allan Adair, also writes about his ancestors. He focuses on two brothers – one a captain in the Royal Marines, the other a fourteen-year-old master’s mate – who participate in Trafalgar in “Loyal Au Mort: The Adairs at the Battle of Trafalgar.” Sim Comfort, on the other hand, turns his attention to a weapon and the man who wields it in “The Royal Marine Uniform Sword by Blake, London, Provenanced to Captain Richard Welchman, Royal Marines.”

Two additional entries in this book provide glimpses into two men who are veterans of Trafalgar: “Marine Stephen Humphries 1786-1865” and “Captain James Cottell: The Pictorial Life of a Trafalgar Veteran.” Humphries’s account of Trafalgar, his first fight, his time as a prisoner of the French, and his participation in the march on Washington are from his memoir, one of the few written by a marine that has survived to the present day. In the other offering, John Rawlinson provides background to tie together Cottell’s life with the many sketches and watercolors that he makes while at sea.

For me, these last two offerings are the most intriguing and absorbing, but all the essays enlighten readers and illuminate men who deserve more recognition but rarely receive it. Excerpts from primary documentation are included in some, while resources consulted and other materials are listed in the endnotes. Recruiting posters, maps, portraits, paintings, and tables are among the illustrations included with the contributions. A center section of color plates, including Geoff Hunt’s painting of marines aboard a ship, further enriches the text. There is also a list of contributors with short biographies. As always, the yearbook shines a spotlight on tantalizing new naval research in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and this edition with its focus on the marines makes this a praiseworthy contribution to any library or historian fascinated with the Georgian Navy.

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Review Copyright ©2018 Cindy Vallar

The Trafalgar Chronicle New Series 3
edited by Peter Hore
Seaforth, 2018, ISBN 978-1-4738-9976-6, UK £20.00 / US $32.95
Also available in other formats

The Trafalgar Chronicle explores new research about the Georgian navy (also known as Nelson’s Navy). Since the articles support a central theme for each edition, this latest issue focuses on women and the sea during this time period. As Margarette Lincoln points out in the opening essay, “Women and the Sea,” this topic is often overlooked until 1990 when women in the Royal Navy are finally permitted to serve at sea and Jo Stanley’s Bold in Her Breeches: Women Pirates across the Ages is published in 1995. This latest volume of The Trafalgar Chronicle “is an important step in furthering our understanding of women’s myriad connections with the sea.” (12)

The eighteen remaining articles cover a wide range of topics. Peter James Bowman’s “A Real-life Jane Austen Heroine and her Naval Hero” discusses the love story of Katherine Bisshopp and George Pechell. “Questing for Cuba Cornwallis, Nelson’s Afro-Caribbean Nurse” is Jo Stanley’s hunt to learn more about the woman who tends Horatio Nelson during his illness in Jamaica in 1780, and to understand why her minor role in his life has “been elevated into almost a heroine, and been so widely interpreted on the basis of so very little evidence.” (28) Kevin Brown examines prostitution and the navy in “Portsmouth Polls and Spithead Nymphs: Sexual Health in Nelson’s Navy.”

Using letters and correspondence, Heather Noel-Smith and Lorna M. Campbell explore the lives of three women – two mothers of midshipmen and Susan Pellew, their commander’s wife – in “‘I Shall be Anxious to Know . . .’: Lives of the Indefatigable Women.” Ellen Gill also references letters to show how women deal with hardships and separation during war in “Letters Home: Trauma and the Cost of Conflict in Eighteenth-Century Naval Families.” During this period, soldiers are often transported overseas to fight and David Clammer examines the journeys that their wives experience when traveling with their husbands in “Women All at Sea: Soldiers’ Wives aboard Naval Transports during the Napoleonic War.” Lucie Dutton’s “Utterly Charming and Adorable: Lady Nelson of the Silent Screen” takes a close look at why actress Ivy Close is chosen to play Fanny Nelson in Nelson: The Story of England’s Immortal Naval Hero (1918) and how Maurice Elvey crafts a love story with tense undercurrents.

Lily Style discusses “Four Female Ancestors: Life in Trade, Foreign Courts and Domesticity,” two of whom are Kitty Matcham (Horatio Nelson’s favorite sister) and Emma Hamilton (Nelson’s paramour). The latter and her mother are the focus of Geoff Wright’s “Emma, Lady Hamilton: The Untold Story,” where he explores how Emy Lyon becomes Lady Hamilton. Charles Fremantle’s “Lady Bentinck and the Tunis Slaves” is about a woman, dressed as a Royal Marine, participates in a mission to North Africa to recover Sicilian slaves. “Did Nelson Know Mary Anne Talbot? The Strange Story of Mary Anne Talbot” by Peter Turner demonstrates why this tale of another woman who dresses as a man cannot be true.

Marianne Kindgren and Birgitta Tingdal focus on a female smuggler who becomes entangled in Gotheburg’s last case of piracy in “Johanna Hård: The Story of a Swedish Piratess.” The Bank of England prosecutes a number of women whose punishment involves serving their sentences in Australia, which is the topic of Deirdre Palk’s “‘Going to the Bay in Utmost of Distress’: Women Convicts Being Transported to Australia 1803-1824.” Karen McAulay and Brianna Robertson-Kirkland demonstrate that Georgian women know what is happening in politics and that they use the medium of music to convey this knowledge to others in “‘My Love to War is Going’: Women and Song in the Napoleonic Era.”

Each reader of The Trafalgar Chronicle will have their own favorite essays within this collection and I am no different. No matter a man’s rank or rating, men want to give their sweethearts mementos of their love. While officers can afford to bestow miniature portraits, those with lesser means leave their women engraved coins, both of which are discussed in Sim Comfort’s “When You See Thee, Remember Me, Forget Me Not.” Particularly unique in the telling is Joe Callo’s “Television Interview with Emma, Lady Hamilton.” The question-and-answer format allows readers to gain a better understanding of this woman from her perspective, rather than how others tend to portray her. Normally, men go to sea and the females in their lives stay home, but from 25 June 1796 to 1 September 1797, Betsey Fremantle lives at sea on several different ships. Tom Fremantle’s “The ‘Kidnap’ of Betsey Fremantle: A Captain’s Romance” tells the story of how this young refugee ends up on Inconstant, marries the captain, and lives aboard warships until after she becomes pregnant and he is wounded.

The book includes one final essay – Sea Surgeons and the Barbers’ Company of London by Peter Willoughby – which doesn’t fit into the theme of women and the sea, yet it is equally interesting and important. Black-&-white images are found throughout the collection, and about one third of the way into the book is a color section of illustrations.

While this edition isn’t as absorbing as earlier volumes, the fact that it focuses on women makes this an important contribution to maritime and naval history.

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Review Copyright ©2019 Cindy Vallar

The annual journal of The 1805 Club shares the latest research into Vice Admiral Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson and his era. Each issue has a central theme, and this, the twenty-ninth such offering, focuses on his friends and contemporaries. The majority of those depicted in this volume come from families that remain loyal to the British Crown, during and after the American Revolution, even though their members live in the American colonies at the outbreak of hostilities. Others opt to follow the road toward independence. These twenty-one essays also cover a breadth of distance, extending from Honduran islands to Australian shores and several places in between.

John Lehman’s “The Decaturs, the Lehmans and the Privateers” examines the American privateers during the Revolutionary War with particular emphasis on Captain Stephen Decatur, Senior of the Fair American, and his ship’s surgeon, George Lehman.

“The Summer Before Trafalgar” is Susan K. Smith’s survey of Benjamin Silliman, a college professor from America, who visits England in 1805. He keeps a journal of his travels and special events, such as his opportunity to see Admiral Nelson and what happens when news of his final victory and death reach London. Tom S. Iampietro shares the story of “Admiral George Augustus Westphal,” who lives longer than any other officer who serves with Nelson at Trafalgar. Wounded himself in the battle, he is with the admiral when he dies. T. Jeremy Waters, on the other hand, looks at Westphal’s brother, “Admiral Philip Westphal,” whose career is overshadowed by his younger sibling. Also present at Nelson’s death, “Lieutenant Richard Bulkeley” is immortalized in Benjamin’s West’s depiction of the admiral’s death, as discussed in John R. Satterfield’s essay. Bukeley is a midshipman aboard Victory, where he speaks with Nelson before he dies. His own life is cut short at the age of twenty-five.

With numerous connections to Irish officers, some of whom are mentors and others who are friends and colleagues, one may almost claim “Nelson Was an Irishman,” as Des Grant explains in his essay.

Since seamen face many perils, it is no wonder that religion plays a role in the everyday lives of the crew. Not all naval chaplains adhere to the stereotypical preacher, as The Reverend Lynda Sebbage discusses in “Sin Bo’suns in Nelson’s Ships.” One of her atypical examples is a chaplain who often finds himself one step ahead of the authorities. While men fight the conflicts, women also play their parts. Derek Morris and Kenneth Cozens look at what women of this era can and do do in “The Role of Women in London’s Sailortown in the Eighteenth Century.”

Harold E. ‘Pete’ Stark discusses “North America’s Seafaring Cities” in his essay of ports and how they evolve in North America, the Atlantic, and the Caribbean. Not all serve the same purpose. Nor are they equal in importance to the Royal Navy. But all play a role in Britain’s maritime economy. Anthony Cross analyzes the development of hot air balloons and their use during times of war in “Bringing Up Franklin’s Baby.” Anthony Bruce assesses another weapon in warfare, the navy’s use of “The Carronade.”

The man who holds the record for longest naval service is “Admiral of the Fleet Sir Provo William Parry Wallis.” Jeremy B. Utt outlines this man’s career from when Wallis’s name first appears in a muster book when he is four years old to his time as Queen Victoria’s naval aide-de-camp. Andrew A. Zellers-Frederick contributes two offerings in this volume. The first is about one of Nelson’s Canadian friends, “Admiral Sir Manley Dixon, KCB.” The second discusses “Rear-Admiral Thomas Tudor Tucker” of Bermuda, who survives the wreck of HMS Sceptre, participates in the navy’s experiment of adding citrus to grog rations, and is present when the Royal Navy captures USS Essex, during the War of 1812. Anna Kiefer reviews the career of “Captain William Gordon Rutherford, CB” of North Carolina, who enlists in the Royal Navy more than once and also serves with the Honourable East India Company. Barry Jolly reconsiders the career and life of “Rear-Admiral John Peyton” since he has often been confused with other family members.

“Loyalist Mariners during the American Revolution” is Thomas B. Allen’s offering. He covers the often-neglected Whaleboat War and includes the perspective of the common sailors – such as Jacob Nagle, one of the few sailors who shares their experiences – who fights. Rui Ribolhos Filipe’s “The Beach of the English Dead” considers the actions of Captain Conway Shipley, the first British officer to die in action during the Peninsular War. Rather than focus on a particular person, Mark West delves into the “Russians on the Tagus” and their connection to Portsmouth and the naval hospital at Haslar.

The final two essays return to the Caribbean. Rear-Admiral Michael Harris investigates the “Battle of St. George’s Cay, 10 September 1798,” which also has ties to British seafarers and buccaneers. Douglas Hamilton probes the extraordinary career of “Captain John Perkins,” a black officer and former slave assigned to protect British colonies involved in slavery.

In addition to these articles, black-&-white illustrations, tables, and maps are found throughout the book. There is also a section of color plates depicting ships, campaigns, and commentary involving the Royal Navy. While notes are included, no index is provided.

This latest offering of The Trafalgar Chronicles educates, clarifies, and demystifies the Nelson Era. Its focus is broader than some previous issues, but this serves to immerse readers in a wider swath of topics that might otherwise be missed. The fourth volume in the new series is a compelling review of the variety and depth of research being conducted, and readers will meet people and visit places that are more often than not forgotten in history books.

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Review Copyright ©2020 Cindy Vallar

 The Trafalgar Chronicle New Series 5
edited by Judith E. Pearson, Sean Heuvel, and John Rodgaard
Seaforth, 2020, ISBN 978-1-5267-5962-7, US $39.95 / UK £20.00

Do visual portrayals of Horatio Nelson do him justice? Are they realistic, or do they stem from their creators’ imagination and interpretation of him? How authentic is literature’s depiction of the Georgian navy and the men and women who serve in one capacity or another? These are themes explored in the latest yearbook of The 1805 Club.

Using his medical expertise, Gerald Stule opens with “Representations of Horatio Nelson in the Visual Arts: Heroic Portraiture Versus Historical Reality from a Medical Perspective.” He examines the visual depictions of Nelson, his ailments, and his battle injuries in various mediums to show whether the portrayals are correct, how they may have affected Nelson, and how they shaped his image as a flawed, courageous hero who deserves his countrymen’s veneration.

Andrew Venn utilizes eyewitness accounts of Nelson’s tragic demise and compares them to two paintings of the admiral’s final moments in “William Beatty, Arthur Devis and the Death of Lord Nelson in Early Nineteenth-Century Literature and Art.” This allows Venn to demonstrate how this event impacts the legend surrounding Nelson’s death and how we perceive these events today.

“Nelson has more faces than a clock factory, but nobody today can be certain about what he really looked like.” (45) He has long been a favorite subject to portray, whether these depictions be fulsome or disparaging. This is the subject of cartoonist Pete Turner’s “Nelson in Caricature and Cartoon.”

In 1748, an author and former sailor pens a novel that becomes a big success. Its contents and his descriptions of the Georgian navy influence many subsequent writers of the 18th century, even if those depictions aren’t as authentic as historical accounts show. Anthony Bruce discusses The Adventures of Roderick Random in “Tobias Smollet and the Early Georgian Navy.”

In spite of the fact that women play significant roles in the lives of Georgian navy men, historical novelists often portray them as peripheral entities. As Linda Collison points out in “Beyond Lady Barbara: Women as Portrayed in British Naval Fiction,” this often misleads readers into thinking that women play less than significant roles both at home and at sea.

It is during the Georgian era that the fouled anchor is introduced on the uniforms naval officers wear. Its popularity as a decorative item blossoms thereafter. Lily Style, an expert on Emma Hamilton and a direct descendant of her union with Horatio Nelson, explores the use of this symbol in “The Rise of the Fouled Anchor: The Visual Codification of the Royal Navy During the 1700s.”

France is often depicted as the ally who comes to the aid of the American colonists in their bid to gain their freedom from Great Britain, but Chipp Reid reveals that Spain also plays a significant role in the revolution. He also explains why few people are aware of this connection in “Spain and American Independence: The Best-Kept Secret of the Georgian Age.”

In addition to these thematic essays, the new editors of The Trafalgar Chronicle have chosen to include biographical portraits and three historic papers pertaining to the navy during the Georgian era. These include:

• “Sir Andrew Pellet Green: Vice Admiral Thomas Fremantle’s Protégé” by Charles Fremantle
• “Commander Sir James Pearl” by Sean Heuvel
• “Captain John Houlton Marshall” by John Rodgaard and Lisa Heuvel
• “Captain Ralph Willett Miller” by Gerald Holland
• “The Popham Code Controversy” by Chris Coehlo
• “Cornwallis, a Woman Named Cuba, and the Caribbean” by Barry Jolly
• “A Second Naval War: The Immediate Effects of the American War on Royal Navy Operations, June 1812-July 1812” by Samantha Cavell

When combined with black-&-white illustrations, a few graphs and tables, and a center section of color plates, these essays are entertaining and, at times, fascinating. All the contributors are eminently qualified and, as always, The Trafalgar Chronicle provides informative glimpses into new research that leaves indelible impressions on readers.

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Review Copyright ©2021 Cindy Vallar




The Trafalgar Chronicle New Series 8
edited by Judith E. Pearson and John A. R. Odgaard
Seaforth, 2023, e-book ISBN 978-1-3990-3901-7, US $19.99 / UK £8.99
Also available in other formats

The 1805 Club annually publishes The Trafalgar Chronicle, a collection of articles about the age of sail between 1714 and 1835. Each issue focuses on a particular subject; this time around the “The Navies of the Georgian Era – An International Perspective” is the theme. Thirteen contributors from six countries showcase different navies prominent during this time period. What they share allows readers to see how fighting at sea is only one aspect of gaining the upper hand in each nation’s desire for naval superiority.

Anthony Bruce writes about “The Battles of Cape Finisterre, 1747.” The Western Squadron has a three-pronged mission during its cruises: protect commercial ships, defend against invasion, and keep watch over the French. In this particular year, the Royal Navy engages the enemy twice at Cape Finisterre. Vice Admiral George Anson is in command during the first encounter while Rear Admiral Edward Hawke, the second.

Nicholas James Kaizer examines sea engagements involving individual vessels, particularly sloops, in “Hornet versus Peacock: The Lost Historical Significance of the Single-Ship Actions of the War of 1812.” These engagements may have lacked critical impact during the conflict, but the losses point out key weaknesses in competency and command. Change becomes inevitable because of these defeats and the resultant inquiries.

The East India Company can’t fully control the regions in which its ships sail. To compensate for this, a fleet of ghurabs and galivats is formed to assist the Royal Navy in protecting English commerce in the Indian Ocean. Saikat Mondal explores the “Bombay Marine, the Vanguard and Precursor of the Royal Indian Navy.” He also talks about Kanhoji Angre, a man of great importance in the Indian Navy’s history but whom the English see as a pirate. Also discussed is the Bombay Marine’s fight against piracy during the 19th century.

When Peter the Great decides to bring Russia into the 18th century, one of his reforms results in the formation of the Russian Navy. As time passes, the fleet deteriorates. Catherine the Great provides the necessities to make the Russian navy a force to be reckoned with. Kenneth Flemming examines this history and the roles Russia’s Navy plays during various conflicts of the period in “Russian Naval Power during the Eighteenth Century.”

Although Vice Admiral James Saumarez fights when necessary, armed engagements aren’t necessarily the best way to handle volatile situations. Andrew Venn demonstrates this in “Diplomacy, Restraint and Protection: The Actions of Saumarez’s Baltic Fleet 1808-1812.”

While the above essays pertain specifically to the book’s theme, the second set of chapters are from The Baltic Cauldron: Two Navies and the Fight for Freedom. This book was published in celebration of the Royal Swedish Navy’s 500th anniversary. Peter Hore, a previous editor of The Trafalgar Chronicle and a retired officer of the British Royal Navy (RN), talks about “The Baltic Fleet 1715-1727 and Sir John Norris” and “Swedes at Trafalgar.” Christopher Hägg, a retired officer of the Royal Swedish Navy (RSN) and marine artist who did the cover art for this annual, discusses “Vice Admiral Lord Nelson Threatens the Swedish Fleet in Karlskrona 1801.” These chapters not only look at the history of the RSN but also its interactions with the RN in different capacities. Among topics covered are the Battle of Copenhagen, Swedes who serve on RN ships during the Battle of Trafalgar, and the privateers commissioned by Swedish monarchs.

The third section concerns biographical portraits. Andrew Field writes about Captain Charles Cunningham and how he extricates his ship and his men from the Nore Mutiny in “‘An Officer of Great Merit’.” Hilary L. Rubenstein examines two admirals who serve during the reign of George III in “Rodney and Kempenfelt: How They Were Related.” Judith Pearson, one of the book’s editors, shares a discovery of remains found during the renovation of a church in Bermuda and her search to learn more in “A Dead Captain and a Sunken Ship: The Fates of Sir Jacob Wheate and HMS Cerberus in Bermuda.”

The last section of this annual concerns articles of general interest to readers. First up is Mark Barton’s “Duke of Clarence Swords,” the presentation swords awarded to RN officers and how the duke (and future King William IV) decides who is worthy of such honors. George R. Bandurek traces what happens to the first British vessel captured during the War of 1812 in “HM Schooner Whiting After Her Capture in 1812: The Cartagena Privateer San Francisco de Paula.”

One quote often associated with Horatio Nelson is ““The conduct of all privateers is, as far as I have seen, so near Piracy, that I only wonder any civilized nation can allow them.” Ryan C. Walker analyzes what Nelson truly thought of pirates and privateers and where the quote originates in the last essay of the collection, “‘I only wonder any civilised nation can allow them’: Nelson’s Actual Opinion of Privateers.”

In addition to the notes that accompany the various articles, the reprinted chapters from The Baltic Cauldron include titles of books for further reading. There are illustrations, both black & white and color, found throughout the book, as well as a section of color plates. These include portraits, paintings, maps, and informational charts.

I usually prefer to read the print book of this annual, but review copies are only available in electronic format this time. For readers unfamiliar with reading the e-book format, I do caution where you press to turn pages. There are links to the endnotes and if your finger lands on one of these numbers, the book automatically pages to the specific endnote. This can be disconcerting initially, but there is usually a way to easily return to where you left off reading. The e-book is remarkably well done in layout, formatting, and editing. The only exception to the editing came when I noticed that words beginning with “d,” such as "Danes" or "Dr" (abbreviation for doctor in front of a name), were uniformly not capitalized.

Always informative, this edition of The Trafalgar Chronicle will be of interest to readers who enjoy naval history as well as piratical or privateering history. All are captivating reads, while a few particularly held my attention. Many English histories present Kanhoji Angre in the negative light of piracy. Saikat Mondal skillfully shows the flipside of that coin, that Angre is a great Indian admiral. The inclusion of how the Bombay Marine helps suppress piracy in later years is equally compelling. Having read several fictional portrayals of the Nore Mutiny, I am wonderfully surprised to learn about how one captain keeps his crew and ship safe despite the overwhelming odds for his men to join the mutineers. Walker’s analysis of Nelson’s quote is also very revealing and makes an interesting case for not taking things at face value. The Trafalgar Chronicle New Series 8 is highly recommended, entertaining, and enlightening.

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Review Copyright ©2024 Cindy Vallar

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