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The sinking of the slave ship Phoenix, 1762
One well-known image above all symbolises the evil of the Atlantic Slave trade. Some two and a half centuries later it still has the power to outrage and to move. It is a diagram that was published by...
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War in the North Sea, 1864 - The Battle of Heligoland
TegetthoffIn the later 19th and early 20thCenturies the “K.u.K” – “Royal and Imperial” – Navy was probably the most efficient and well-equipped part of the Austro-Hungarian armed services. Operating...
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Passing by on the other side at sea? 1876
The Good Samaritan has had a deservedly good image over the last two millennia. An equally well-deserved degree of obloquy has been heaped on two others who had previously seen the unfortunate...
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The French Navy in Korea, 1866
The most recent Dawlish Chronicles novel, Britannia’s Spartan, is set in Korea in 1882 when internal pressures and great-power interventions plunged the country into riot and chaos. A malign role is...
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Capturing a Slaver—1845
Classic PantaloonIn my blog of 27th November 2015 (link provided at end of article) I outlined the duties – and the attendant hazards – of the Royal Navy’s Anti-Slavery Squadron off the West African...
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A Forgotten Hero of Exploration: Vitus Bering
Soviet Stamp: 300th Anniversary of BeringWhen thinking of the exploration of the Pacific the name that most immediately comes for mind is that of Captain James Cook (1728 – 1779) whose three voyages in...
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The US Navy's Sumatran Expeditions 1832 & 1838
The US Navy’s role in the suppression of Barbary piracy in the Mediterranean is deservedly well known but few today are aware that in the 1830s two American expeditions were launched against pirates in...
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Rescue against all odds: Pellew and the Dutton 1796
We’ve met Edward Pellew (1757 – 1833) on this blog before (see link at end of article) and it’s probable that we’ll meet him again as he ranks just below Nelson, and certainly with Cochrane, as one of...
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The Loss of HMS Dædalus, 1813
We have met Captain Murray Maxwell (1775 –1831) on this blog in an article dealing with his adventures in the frigate HMS Alceste in the Far East and her subsequent shipwreck in the East Indies in...
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The Captains’ War: Bulgaria and Serbia 1885
There is something intensely sad when reading about forgotten conflicts, often fought over issues that were trivial even at the time, and which were memorable only to the families whose happiness was...
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Guest Blog: “SO WHY PIRATES?” by Helen Hollick
Today’s blog is from a guest, Helen Hollick, whose novels range from Arthurian Britain, via Saxon England, to sea adventures which she says are “not meant to be taken seriously”. Invariably witty and...
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HMS Hector 1782 – an epic of leadership
Inman in his later yearsIn a recent blog (click here) we met Captain Henry Inman (1762 –1809), a noted frigate commander who was in overall command of operations off Dunkirk in 1800 in which the French...
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Hit and Run at Sea 1876
A blog last month dealt with an 1876 case of a ship “passing by on the other side” and not rendering assistance to a wrecked vessel (click here to read this article). An even more extreme case occurred...
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A liner turned hunter: Prinz Eitel Friedrich
In the late 19th and early 20thCentury the French and German navies became fixated on the idea of “Cruiser Warfare” – the individual ships operating far from home on the world’s oceans and striking at...
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The Loss of HMS Sceptre 1799
When thinking about war at sea in the Age of Fighting Sail one’s attention is immediately drawn to the ferocity of battle when ships engaged at close quarters. In actuality however combat was...
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Naval Brigades of the Victorian Era
(This is a much-expanded revision of a blog published two years ago).Throughout the nineteenth century the Royal Navy had a strong tradition of landing “Naval Brigades” in trouble spots – invariably...
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Prehistoric Seafaring along the Atlantic Coasts
A Guest Blog by Richard AbbottWe're honoured today to welcome the novelist Richard Abbott as a guest blogger and he brings us back some millennia earlier than the eras normally covered in this blog....
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Creasy’s 15 Decisive Battles of the World – and 10 suggested additions
This item was originally posted in 2013 when I was first starting blogging and few readers saw it at the time. On looking at it again I thought it might be of interest for the wider audience that I now...
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An epic last stand – HMS Arrow and Acheron, 1805
This article deals with the most notable naval “last stands” of the Napoleonic era.In an earlier blog article we encountered the innovative sloop, HMS Dart, when she went into attack on the heavily...
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Stranger than fiction: Privateer action off Madagascar 1806
Though mention warfare in the Age of Fighting Sail so often conjures up images of major fleet actions such as Camperdown, The Nile, and Trafalgar, single-ship actions between small vessels represented...
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