JACK TAR: LIFE IN NELSON’S NAVY

The command of the seas, it may be argued, was the greatest triumph of the Napoleonic Wars. True, the victories in Spain and at Waterloo could not go unchallenged in terms of the heroism of Britain's fighting forces. But without Nelson’s navy, which crushed Bonaparte’s armada, there would have been no safe haven in the British Isles.

Roy Adkins’s book on Trafalgar reflected this with a riveting account of the colossal duel at sea.

But what was the life of the seaman who fought in the battles that defeated the Emperor? With his wife Lesley — also an archaeologist by training — he has written a new thunderstorm of a book, penetrating every aspect of the sailor’s existence in ships of war.

In Jack Tar, we learn that the honourable man who fought so courageously at Cape St Vincent, the Nile, Copenhagen and at Trafalgar could be equally dishonourable in time of leisure.

Many had been press-ganged into service and crews would be kept on board for months least they deserted.

However, in shore their wives and “women of pleasure” were allowed to visit and scenes of drunkenness and debauchery were traditional.

Disease was the principal enemy of the seaman.

The work was hard for hard men having to contend with swaying sails in storms and the food was often uncreative and catastrophic, often with the danger of scurvy. And, of course, in the heat of battle, surgery was not exactly of NHS quality.

Homosexuality was punished by hanging and there was always the lash for thieves and troublemakers. The Adkinses have unfolded here a rich and questing canvas of life in the wooden warships of the day. This is a treasure chest of incident in masterly hands, described in great broadsides of action above and below decks.