undefined | Better HN

0 pointsBoxOfRain4y ago0 comments

>Even so, if you read the resources and the ship's logs they reference, there was a LOT of petty crime, crimes of passion like assaults, murders, etc during those blockades.

Hardly surprising given a lot of the men before the mast were impressed (ie effectively kidnapped) merchant sailors and sometimes criminals offloaded out of prisons so that counties could fill their quota of seamen the government demanded. Having said that, apparently there were lots of volunteers despite the harsh conditions as the Navy was still better than some of their lives on land!

0 comments

sillyquiet4y ago

Right, I think for the most part the 'harshness' of life in the Royal navy during the age of sail is overblown, as all the things that are brutal or harsh to us (the discipline, the poor food, etc) was not much different than life for that same set of people on land, and as you say, in a lot of ways even better - your food for the most part was at least certain as the clock.

BoxOfRainOP4y ago

Yeah the harshness is definitely relative, I'd rather have been an ordinary seaman in the Royal Navy than say a miner of that era for example.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsBoxOfRain4y ago0 comments

>Even so, if you read the resources and the ship's logs they reference, there was a LOT of petty crime, crimes of passion like assaults, murders, etc during those blockades.

0 comments

sillyquiet4y ago

BoxOfRainOP4y ago

Yeah the harshness is definitely relative, I'd rather have been an ordinary seaman in the Royal Navy than say a miner of that era for example.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse