Masefield starts in the mould-lofts of the royal dockyards, where master-shipwrights drew warships at full size on the floor, and goes on deck by deck through the finished vessel down to the orlop and hold. Later chapters turn to the people aboard: captains, lieutenants, carpenters and boatswains, the seamen and their pressed shipmates, their food, punishments and conditions in action.
A vivid social history of the Georgian navy by the poet who later became Poet Laureate. Download the free EPUB.