Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Note on the text
- Introduction
- 1 Letters, love and duty
- 2 Family from afar: pregnancy, childbirth and raising young children
- 3 ‘Children of the service’
- 4 Men of war
- 5 Women of war
- 6 Prest to volunteer: reluctant sailors and the naval community
- 7 Negotiating with the nation: petitions and the language of appeal
- Conclusion
- Appendix: Cast of characters
- Bibliography
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Note on the text
- Introduction
- 1 Letters, love and duty
- 2 Family from afar: pregnancy, childbirth and raising young children
- 3 ‘Children of the service’
- 4 Men of war
- 5 Women of war
- 6 Prest to volunteer: reluctant sailors and the naval community
- 7 Negotiating with the nation: petitions and the language of appeal
- Conclusion
- Appendix: Cast of characters
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This first society is called a Family. It is the root of every other society. It is the beginning of order, and kind affections, and mutual helpfulness and provident regulations … My child, love your family. Its strength is your strength, its interests are your interests; one stream of life flows through every member of it … East and West, and North and South, reaching on every side to the great Ocean, and all these together make up that large society call a State; so large is it, that you must stretch your imagination to conceive properly of its extent; it contains thousands of families whom you have never seen, nor probably will ever see; yet of all this you are a part, and joined to it in a most intimate and binding connection, like a limb to the body, or a single shoot to a large tree. These are all governed by the same rules; they speak the same language; they make war or peace together. My child, love your Country! it contains all you love …
Anna Barbauld, Civic Sermons to the People, 1792In his Life of Nelson, Robert Southey records Horatio Nelson's early call to duty. ‘I felt impressed … [that] I could discover no means of reaching the object of my ambition. After a long gloomy reverie … a sudden glow of patriotism was kindled within me, and presented my king and country as my patron. “Well, then,” I exclaimed, “I will be a hero! and, confiding in Providence, I will brave every danger!”’2 Nelson's patriotic display was elaborate, engaging and convincing enough to capture the attention of an ‘imaginary patron’ along with the admiration of the nation.3 However, not all naval men nurtured this level of patriotism or the desire to risk everything to be a hero. For some, family was more important than ambition. Philip Broke wrote to his wife:
… not all the fame of Nelson, or Lord Wellington would reconcile me to destroying the happiness of an affectionate wife, and whom duty has already compelled me to desert so long and so cruelly.
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- Information
- Naval Families, War and Duty in Britain, 1740-1820 , pp. 1 - 14Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2016