Foreign Jack Tars
The British Navy and Transnational Seafarers during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

Explores foreign seamen's employment in the British Royal Navy of the French Wars, and deconstructs the meanings of 'foreignness' itself.

Sara Caputo (Author)

9781009199797, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 November 2022

320 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.2 cm, 0.6 kg

'This book shows the signal importance of foreign sailors to the British Navy in the Age of Revolutions, while offering original interpretations of wartime manning policies, the impressment debates, race and ethnicity on the ships, and the meaning of national belonging. This is one of the best transnational histories I have read.' Margaret R. Hunt, Uppsala University

The British Royal Navy of the French Wars (1793–1815) is an enduring national symbol, but we often overlook the tens of thousands of foreign seamen who contributed to its operations. Foreign Jack Tars presents the first in-depth study of their employment in the Navy during this crucial period. Based on sources from across Britain, Europe, and the US, and blending quantitative, social, cultural, economic, and legal history, it challenges the very notions of 'Britishness' and 'foreignness'. The need for manpower during wartime meant that naval recruitment regularly bypassed cultural prejudice, and even legal status. Temporarily outstripped by practical considerations, these categories thus revealed their artificiality. The Navy was not simply an employer in the British maritime market, but a nodal point of global mobility. Exposing the inescapable transnational dimensions of a quintessentially national institution, the book highlights the instability of national boundaries, and the compromises and contradictions underlying the power of modern states.

Introduction
Part I. The State: 1. Countable 'foreigners': birthplace and demographic profiles
2. 'Sacred and indestructible' bonds: alien seamen, subjecthood, and the Navy
Part II. The Nation: 3. A Babel and a Gehenna: languages and religions
4. 'Complexions of every varied hue': racial beliefs, biopower, and acclimatisation
5. 'They cannot keep the sea beyond a passage': the Royal Navy and recruitment in the Two Sicilies
6. 'From among the Northern nations alone': Dutchmen, Danes, and Norwegians in the fleet
Part III. Displacement: 7. Mercenaries, migrants, and refugees: Navy crews as 'motley crews'
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Naval forces & warfare [JWF], Maritime history [HBTM], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], British & Irish history [HBJD1], General & world history [HBG]