More than six per cent of sailors in Nelson's navy, were amputees, many of whom died as a result of operations that went wrong Photo: ALAMY
More than six per cent of sailors in Nelson's navy, were amputees, many of whom died as a result of operations that went wrong Photo: ALAMY
Nelson was an amputee.
bump ya scurvy cag!
:p
The ship was unheated save for one cook stove so it is no surprise that respiratory diseases were rampant among the crew and I would think that it was a far more debilitating cause of casualties than battle with the French or battle against the French disease (syphilis). Once impregnated with salt, the crew's clothes simply never got dry.
As one descends the decks he sees that the headroom shrinks at each level and probably explains why young boys were used as "powder monkeys", described in the article, because they could run at full speed without ducking to retrieve shot and powder from below during battle.
I recommend a visit To HMS Victory to anyone who has the opportunity.
Rum, sodomy and the lash.
I’ll be the first man to admit I could have NEVER made it as a sailor back in those days. Tough bastards all.
They thought they had scurvy, but then discovered they were just british.
Maybe the lower class sailors that were pressed into service were buried at sea?
Just doesn’t seem proper to disturb “Royal Navy Graveyards” for such..... Sort of like digging up veterans at Arlington two hundred years from now isn’t it ?
“Firstly you must always implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your own regarding their propriety. Secondly, you must consider every man your enemy who speaks ill of your king; and thirdly you must hate a Frenchman as you hate the devil.”
Vice Admiral of the White The Right Honourable Horatio, Viscount Nelson, Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Baron Nelson, of the Nile and of Burnham Thorpe in the County of Norfolk, Baron Nelson, of the Nile and of Hillborough in the County of Norfolk, Duke of Bronte in the nobility of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of St Ferdinand and of Merit and a Knight of the Ottoman Empire’s Order of the Crescent,Knight Grand Commander of the Order of St Joachim, Colonel of the Marines, Freeman of Norwich, Bath, Yarmouth, London, Salisbury and Exeter.
Geeze. They needed to paw through bones to learn that? A casual search through a good research library would have revealed that.
Seafaring in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries was a dangerous trade. So dangerous that serving in the navy was probably safer than serving on a merchant vessel. With larger crews they were more likely to survive the hazards of the sea.
John Paul Jones got his first command (of a merchantman) when every officer aboard the ship he was sailing back to Britain on died of disease. No one else in the crew could navigate. Jones was a passenger, and he knew how to navigate, so the crew had him sail the ship back to Britain, and the owners made him captain when he arrived.
Who said something about Sodomy, rum and the lash being the three great traditions of the Royal Navy again???
Great thread!
News flash! Skeletons reveal people living in 18th and 19th century suffer from 18th and 9th century conditions!
bump
The worst part of being in Nelson's navy would have had to be the weekly octopus or squid attack.
Lord Nelson
God bless you...you saved us from being less than we are
