HMS Bellerophon, known to sailors as the "Billy Ruffian", was a ship of the line of the Royal Navy. A third-rate of 74 guns, she was launched in 1786. Bellerophon served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, mostly on blockades or convoy escort duties. She fought in three fleet actions: the Glorious First of June (1794), the Battle of the Nile (1798) and the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). While the ship was on blockade duty in 1815, Napoleon boarded Bellerophon so he could surrender to the ship's captain, ending 22 years of almost continuous war between Britain and France.
Grog is a term used for a variety of alcoholic beverages.
Fiddler's Green is an after-life where there is perpetual mirth, a fiddle that never stops playing, and dancers who never tire. In 19th-century English maritime folklore, it was a kind of after-life for sailors who had served at least fifty years at sea.
Impressment, colloquially "the press" or the "press gang", is a type of conscription of men into a military force, especially a naval force, via intimidation and physical coercion, conducted by an organized group. European navies of several nations used impressment by various means. The large size of the British Royal Navy in the Age of Sail meant impressment was most commonly associated with Great Britain and Ireland. It was used by the Royal Navy in wartime, beginning in 1664 and during the 18th and early 19th centuries as a means of crewing warships, although legal sanction for the practice can be traced back to the time of Edward I of England. The Royal Navy impressed many merchant sailors, as well as some sailors from other, mostly European, nations. People liable to impressment were "eligible men of seafaring habits between the ages of 18 and 55 years". Non-seamen were sometimes impressed as well, though rarely. In addition to the Royal Navy's use of impressment, the British Army also experimented with impressment from 1778 to 1780.
Samuel Leech was a young sailor in the Royal Navy and the United States Navy during the War of 1812. He became notable as one of very few who wrote an account of his experiences, titled, in the manner of the time, Thirty Years from Home, or a Voice from the Main Deck; Being the Experience of Samuel Leech, Who Was Six Years in the British and American Navies: Was Captured in the British Frigate Macedonian: Afterwards Entered the American Navy, and Was Taken in the United States Brig Syren, by the British Ship Medway.
White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War is the fifth book by American writer Herman Melville, first published in London in 1850. The book is based on the author's fourteen months' service in the United States Navy, aboard the frigate USS Neversink.
Pine tar is a form of wood tar produced by the high temperature carbonization of pine wood in anoxic conditions. The wood is rapidly decomposed by applying heat and pressure in a closed container; the primary resulting products are charcoal and pine tar.
HMS Royal George was a ship of the line of the Royal Navy. A first-rate with 100 guns on three decks, she was the largest warship in the world at the time of her launch on 18 February 1756. Construction at Woolwich Dockyard had taken ten years.
William Brown was a Black woman who joined the Royal Navy in the early nineteenth century. It is undisputed that she was a sailor of HMS Queen Charlotte, but historians have reached varying conclusions about her service record.
Bloody Jack: Being An Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary “Jacky” Faber, Ship's Boy is a historical novel by L.A. Meyer, published by Harcourt Children's Books in September 2002. It is centered on an orphaned girl in London in the early 19th century.
"Splice the mainbrace" is an order given aboard naval vessels to issue the crew with an alcoholic drink. Originally an order for one of the most difficult emergency repair jobs aboard a sailing ship, it became a euphemism for authorized celebratory drinking afterward, and then the name of an order to grant the crew an extra ration of rum or grog.
The jolly boat was a type of ship's boat in use during the 18th and 19th centuries. Used mainly to ferry personnel to and from the ship, or for other small-scale activities, it was, by the 18th century, one of several types of ship's boat. The design evolved throughout its period in service.
Under the Jolly Roger: Being an Account of the Further Nautical Adventures of Jacky Faber is a young adult historical fiction novel by L.A. Meyer and is the third book in the Bloody Jack series set in the early 19th century.
There are many customs and traditions associated with the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom. Many of these traditions have carried on to other Commonwealth navies, such as Canada, India, Australia and New Zealand. These include formal customs such as separate crests associated with ships, ensigns and fleet reviews. There are also several less formal customs and traditions, including Naval slang commonly referred to as Jack Speak and the traditional games of Uckers and Euchre.
Louis A. Meyer was a Maine author. Writing under the name L.A. Meyer, he was best known for his young-adult historical series The Jacky Faber Adventures, also known as the Bloody Jack series. He also wrote two children's picture books and was a painter. He and his wife owned an art gallery called Clair de Loon in Bar Harbor.
Jolly Roving Tar is a traditional Newfoundland folk song. In its 19th-century version, the song relates the story of Susan, lamenting the wanderings of her beloved "tar", or sailor, William, who is at sea, and deciding to follow him in her father's boat. The title is also applied to the folk song* "Get up, Jack! John, sit down!", a reel of unknown provenance in which some, but not all, versions includes the line, "Come along, come along, my jolly brave tars, there's lots of grog in the jars."
"Go to Sea Once More" or "Off to Sea" is a sea shanty and folk song originating from the English Merchant Navy, likely from the period of 1700 - 1900.
The action of 6 May 1801 was a minor naval engagement between the 32-gun xebec-frigate El Gamo of the Spanish Navy under the command of Don Francisco de Torres and the much smaller 14-gun brig HMS Speedy under the command of Thomas, Lord Cochrane. El Gamo was captured despite being four times as large, with much greater firepower and a crew six times the size of Speedy, which had a reduced crew of 54 at the time of the engagement.
A Greenwich Pensioner was the Naval equivalent of a Chelsea Pensioner.
The Callao affair occurred in November 1820, during the Peruvian War of Independence. It began when a Spanish fort opened fire on the United States warship USS Macedonian. Though the ship was damaged, the Americans did not violate their neutrality by counterattacking. On the following day, a boat filled with United States Navy sailors was attacked, resulting in the deaths of two seamen and the wounding of eight others. Two days after that, an American merchant ship was attacked and her crew had to abandon ship. Ultimately, there was no significant response by the United States to the attacks on their shipping and their citizens, though the Spanish government vowed to punish the perpetrators.
