Identity and mentalité: British naval sailors and encounter during the ‘scientific’ voyages, 1764–1803

ABSTRACT

This article examines the identities and mentalités of British sailors that took part in the ‘scientific' voyages of the Royal Navy between 1764 and 1803. The ‘scientific' voyages were a distinct type of late-eighteenth-century naval activity, and this article explores the ways in which the unique socio-cultural experiences of these voyages altered the identities and mentalités of British sailors. In the eighteenth century, sailors travelled almost everywhere in the known world, but not everywhere were their experiences, identities and mentalités the same. Therefore, although this article recognizes that a sailor's rank was a major cause of variation, by incorporating all members of the professional community on board a ship within its definition of ‘sailors', it explores the intersection between general factors - such as rank or social background - and the specific circumstances and experiences of this type of voyage. Fundamentally, it contributes an additional layer of complexity to the current views of naval sailors as a more homogenous entity, by instead demonstrating how the identities and mentalités of a number of sailors, particularly their understandings of status, race, and class, were discernibly influenced, if somewhat temporarily, by their unique socio-cultural experiences of encounter during the ‘scientific’ voyages.

KEYWORDS:

• Sailors
• Royal Navy
• Identity
• Mentalité
• Voyages
• Scientific
• Exploration
• Discovery
• James Cook

When I came to England; I was a perfect stranger to all the world as if I had never been known there.¹

1. Introduction

1.1. The British naval sailor

Epitomised by N.A.M. Rodger’s analysis of the eighteenth-century sailor’s ‘wooden world’, naval scholarship has in recent times painstakingly examined the social world of the British seafarer.² Nevertheless, much of the scholarship detailing naval sailors, such as that of John Laffin and Brian Lavery, has investigated the cultural depiction of ‘Jack Tar’, and subsequently, in order to analyse the ‘typical’ British sailor, many of those who manned naval ships in the long eighteenth century have been attributed with some degree of social and cultural uniformity.³ However, it is not the intention here to argue that scholars have completely underestimated the extent of socio-cultural differences between sailors of the Royal Navy, but that many of the examinations that do detail the variations between British seafarers tend to consider the differences between ranks rather than differences as a result of individual experience.⁴ Even the works of N.A.M. Rodger and Marcus Rediker, which offer diametrically opposing views on the question of whether the naval and merchant services were oppressive or cruel to sailors, have mostly separated sailors by rank.⁵ Consequently, a rather different focus will be adopted here, aiming to demonstrate how the identities and mentalités of British naval sailors were not just defined by rank or social background, but also were responsive to a sailor’s socio-cultural experiences of the naval service.⁶

From the perspective of Pacific historians, an analysis of cross-cultural encounter during the eighteenth-century voyages of exploration and discovery is not a new line of enquiry.⁷ For one, the academic literature produced by anthropologists and historian-anthropologists, such as Douglas Oliver, Gananath Obeyesekere and Marshall Sahlins, has facilitated a valuable shift away from Eurocentrism through investigations of ‘how natives think’.⁸ However, alongside assessments of how these voyages were ‘bound to change the nature of the Indigenous society’, it remains valuable to consider the reverse acculturative impact of these voyages upon British sailors.⁹ As outlined in the work of Robin Fisher, the cross-cultural encounters that occurred on these voyages were not simply clashes of unequal opposites, but also moments of mutual influence and cross-cultural exchange.¹⁰ This article thus aligns itself with the more recent scholarship of Scott Ashley and Anne Salmond, who have investigated the impact of Pacific encounters upon the culture of the exploratory Europeans.¹¹ Whereas in 1995 Sahlins investigated ‘how natives think’, in 2007 Scott Ashley investigated ‘how navigators think’, reversing the consideration of Cook’s death, in order to examine the rivalries and jealousies of naval officers aboard the Resolution and Discovery.¹²

Understandably, the non-Europeans encountered by naval sailors during the ‘scientific’ voyages did not possess any inexplicable power or martial superiority that required explanation, but these cross-cultural encounters resulted in moments of acculturation on both sides.¹³ Alongside rank and other general factors, it was therefore a naval sailor’s experiences of the world that also developed and altered his understandings about his own place in the scheme of things. Thus, as a result, this article has adopted an approach that purposefully omits rank as a category and broadly incorporates all members of the professional community aboard a ship within its definition of ‘sailors’, so that the socio-cultural experiences and circumstances of the ‘scientific’ voyages may constitute the primary category of analysis.

1.2. Identity and mentalité

This article defines the mentalité of an individual as the implicit beliefs and understandings that a person held at a specific point in time and space of themselves, others, and the world around them.¹⁴ As outlined by Stuart Schwartz, the understandings that formulated a person’s mentalité ‘were often implicit in the sense of being unstated or assumed, a kind of common knowledge or common sense that did not have to be articulated or codified but that permeated the way in which people thought and acted’.¹⁵ It was then these unstated outlooks and beliefs that defined and structured the identities of an individual, be that race, ethnicity, rank, status, nation, class, etc. The formation of identity and mentalité were also ongoing processes that occurred throughout an individual’s life. Both the identities and mentalité of an individual were by no means fixed, but an ever-changing phenomenon, constantly being defined and redefined by new experiences, and a continuous internal–external dialectic.¹⁶

Take, for example, the widely held belief of eighteenth-century Europeans, espoused by Johann Forster, that ‘treated cats and dogs as unclean animals, unfit to eat’.¹⁷ As a result of extended contact with Polynesian societies during Cook’s first voyage, Robert Molyneux and other sailors aboard the Endeavour appeared to alter their implicit beliefs that governed their tendencies to eat certain animals but not others.¹⁸ In this case, not eating dog because of the ‘European’ notion that it was ‘unclean’ or ‘unfit’ to eat. Following their acculturative experiences in Tahiti, Molyneaux would eventually recount that ‘as we grow more acquainted with the customs of the country [Tahiti], we fare better [and] we have found that dogs’ flesh is excellent eating and the natives prefer it to pork’.¹⁹ In fact, it is James Cook himself that most poignantly reflects upon this apparent change in mentalité when he describes how ‘a favourite dog belonging to Mr Forster fell a sacrifice to [his] tender stomach’, and thus he ‘received nourishment and strength from food which would have made most people in Europe sick’.²⁰

Hence, reflecting upon this well-documented example and the malleable nature of culture, identity, and mentalité, it is the hypothesis of this article that the identities and mentalités of British sailors forged and defined by conflict with France were in all likelihood significantly different to those exhibited by British sailors during their contacts, collisions and relationships with the Indigenous populations of the Pacific.²¹ For example, the mutinous naval sailors of the Nore, who in 1797 were described as ‘revolutionaries’ by the authorities, were conceivably more conscious of their political identities, compared to the sailors who embarked on George Vancouver’s voyage during the same period, who themselves, through their interactions with the diverse populations of the Pacific, were probably more aware of their own ethnic and racial identities.²²

As every naval sailor inevitably had differing understandings of the world around him, it should not be expected that a single, monolithic or archetypal cross-cultural reaction from British sailors will be revealed in their encounters in the Pacific. For this reason, this study does not aim to paint a general picture of the mentalité, and identities of the ‘typical’ naval sailor embarked on the ‘scientific’ voyages but demonstrate how the identities and mentalités of a number sailors, particularly the understandings of status, race, and class, were influenced by their unique socio-cultural experiences of the ‘scientific’ voyages. Thus, as aptly asserted by Isaac Land in his analysis of the British sailor, ‘if the resulting portrait is fragmented, inconsistent, and even at times reveals hypocrisy, this should not be seen as a loss’.²³

In order, therefore, to examine how the encounters with Pacific societies altered the identities and mentalités of British naval sailors, this article will begin with a contextual analysis outlining why the voyages in question can be grouped together and should be perceived as a distinct type of naval voyage. Indeed, it is critical for an article whose analysis rests upon the significance of variation within a sailor’s experience of naval service to first justify why it has grouped together several voyages that occurred over a period of forty years.²⁴ Following on from this contextual and theoretical framing of the study, this article will explore the first of two key themes: sailors’ understandings of rank, status and class during the ‘scientific’ voyages, and the wider themes of hierarchy, gentility and ‘pedigree’. The final section will then explore the themes of nationhood and race; namely sailors’ reflections upon British nationality, notions of ‘Europeanness’ and conceptions of race.

2. Context

2.1. A distinct ‘branch’ of naval service

By the time the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1763, European maps of the world had largely begun to assume the form with which we are presently familiar. Nevertheless, in the year following the culmination of the Seven Years War, the embarkation of the Dolphin and the Tamar under the command of John Byron marked the beginning of a sustained forty-year undertaking by the British government aimed at investigating and mapping the remaining oceanic mysteries of the world.²⁵ Although in previous centuries English vessels had already entered the Pacific, and searched in vain for an imagined North-west Passage, the voyages of James Cook, George Vancouver and their contemporaries formed not so much the climax of a steady process, but a unique outburst of naval activity that had few precedents, and which was underpinned by some of the new ‘scientific’ principles typically associated with the Enlightenment.²⁶

The late-eighteenth-century voyages of exploration by the Royal Navy were state-sponsored, and the motivations behind the voyages, most discernibly those of Byron and Bligh, were often overtly imperialist, but in some respects they can also be classified as ‘scientific’.²⁷ For instance, the ships of exploration were lavishly provided for, with James Cook’s Endeavour costing the Crown something in the order of £13,000, of which about a third was given to the Royal Society for the purchasing of scientific equipment and the payment of astronomers and naturalists.²⁸ Indeed, the presence of these ‘experimental gentlemen’ was also another supposedly ‘scientific’ element that constituted a unique dynamic within shipboard society.²⁹ Throughout their voyages to the Pacific, British sailors were accompanied by men such as Joseph Banks and Archibald Menzies, whose sole responsibility on board was to categorise, record, measure and survey much of what was encountered.³⁰ Eighteenth-century naval sailors were certainly familiar with members of their ‘floating society’ that were not directly involved in the professional requirements of sailing a ship, but unlike marines, these astronomers, naturalists and botanists were traditionally gentlemen of a much higher social status, whose education and role on board differed greatly to that of the archetypal ‘Jack Tar’.³¹

Alongside these novel and supposedly ‘scientific’ characteristics, the voyages were distinct from other British naval operations due to the unique environment in which they occurred. Although there were some similarities with naval cruising or patrolling, these long, predominately peaceful voyages operated uniquely in the Pacific Ocean and brought interactions with the Indigenous populations of Polynesia, Australia, and the west coast of America. Ordinarily, vessels of the Royal Navy ‘spent as much as 57 percent of their time in port’, whereas these exploration ships – though they spent months and weeks anchored off coasts to acquire victuals or survey land – spent the majority of their time away from European or colonial ports, among Indigenous populations of less familiar nations.³²

In terms of duration, these voyages were again markedly distinct from other naval operations. The average length of the ‘scientific’ voyages that did not prematurely end in disaster, be that natural (Broughton, Flinders) or mutinous (Bligh), was 1050 days, or approximately 2 years 10 months.³³ Additionally, the shipboard communities that formed consisted of fewer members, and occurred in smaller ships, when compared to other naval vessels in large squadrons on combative duties.³⁴ Indeed, the expedition ships, typically sloops-of-war or converted merchant colliers, were significantly smaller (375-ton average for a lead vessel and 245-ton average for a consort) than many other naval ships, with none of the vessels involved exceeding the classification of a sixth-rate.³⁵ Even more unusual was that many of the West Indiamen or Whitby colliers utilised were also specifically converted for the purpose, with the great cabin or other officer quarters altered to make space for the ‘scientific gentlemen’ and their equipment.³⁶

Thus, in summary, although the ‘scientific’ voyages of the late-eighteenth century were authorised and undertaken by the Royal Navy, it is important to emphasise that as a result of numerous shared specificities they should be categorised as a distinct type of voyage within the naval service. In fact, as Matthew Flinders himself highlighted, these ‘scientific’ voyages of exploration and discovery were even perceived by contemporaries as a distinct and irregular ‘branch’ of naval service:

In the regular service of the navy there are too many competitors for fame. I have therefore chosen a branch which, though less rewarded by rank and fortune, is yet little less in celebrity.³⁷

2.2. Sailor journals and travel writing

Over the course of 40 years and ten voyages, British sailors on voyages of exploration interacted, collided, and formed relationships with countless societies that appeared even more profoundly strange and unfamiliar to them, than sailors often did to their own societies ashore. These encounters were not just the symbolic meetings of two societies, but occasions where many sailors of all ranks came into direct and close contact with other cultures on an individual basis. On the coasts of Australia, America and Polynesia, sailors and Indigenous peoples not only fought each other, but ‘dined’, ‘slept’, ‘performed’, ‘danced’, ‘sung’, ‘boxed’, ‘surfed’, ‘toured’ and ‘traded’ with one another.³⁸ However, British naval sailors not only encountered and interacted with diverse ‘others’ on these voyages, but in the mode of the Enlightenment also observed, measured and recorded their interactions.³⁹

Typically accompanied by ‘experimental gentlemen’, the sailors on the ‘scientific’ voyages mapped and surveyed coastlines, and helped to collect, classify and measure countless ‘undiscovered’ plants, animals and peoples. In fact, this desire for the gathering of empirical knowledge was clearly evident in the ‘secret instructions’ issued by the Admiralty, as well as the ‘hints’ produced by ‘scientific gentlemen’ for the commanders of these voyages.⁴⁰ For example, in 1766, Samuel Wallis was encouraged to ‘obtain a complete knowledge of the lands and islands supposed to be situated in the Southern Hemisphere’, and to get the best information he could ‘of the genius, temper and inclinations of the inhabitants of such land or islands’.⁴¹ Similarly, in 1768, Cook was asked ‘to observe the genius, temper, disposition and number of the natives’, while in 1801 Flinders was required to note ‘the manners and customs of the inhabitants of such parts as you may be able to explore’.⁴² It was therefore a recurrent theme among the official instructions of these voyages that sailors were to take part in what Mary Louise Pratt has termed the ‘systematising of nature’, as well as the active observation and categorisation of Pacific populations; an extremely unusual request for naval sailors that caused their journals and logbooks to increasingly measure and classify the world outside of the ship, as well as within it.⁴³

As scholars such as Tim Youngs have noted, the ‘other’ produced in travel writing was more of ‘a textual construction, an interpretation’, rather than ‘a reflection of reality’.⁴⁴ Consequently, the accounts and journals produced by sailors are not only interesting because of what they tell us, but also what they reveal about the writers. However, before delving into such systematising records of interaction in order to recover elements of the identities or mentalités of individual sailors, it is beneficial first to consider the nature and limitations of these written accounts.

It is worth emphasising that the journals and logbooks produced by sailors were often influenced by their peers and the dominant structural protocols and traditions of travel writing at the time.⁴⁵ Throughout the late-eighteenth century, directives for voyagers had begun to be published, and subsequently a sailor’s observations within logbooks, journals, and travel accounts often assumed a very familiar, taxonomic and empirical organisation, in which people, landscapes and artefacts were organised under subheadings such as ‘Terrain’, ‘Climate’, ‘Colour’, ‘Features’, ‘Government’ and ‘Religion’.⁴⁶ Furthermore, some of the sailors, particularly those of the higher ranks, also brought to sea with them and read in preparation of their own voyages the journals of previous expeditions.⁴⁷ To give but a few examples, the journal of Samuel Wallis explicitly mentions the voyage accounts of George Anson and John Byron, and that of Philip Carteret acknowledges the accounts of John Narborough, Lionel Wafer and William Dampier.⁴⁸ One remarkable example of the impact that such an engagement with previous narratives may have had upon a sailor’s own version of events is demonstrated by Edward Riou, a midshipman on board the Discovery in 1777, who went as far as to refrain entirely from writing his own description of New Zealand because ‘the world already has so good an account in Hawkesworth’s Voyages’.⁴⁹

In a similar vein, there were also occasionally similarities and congruencies between journals produced by those on the same voyage. Indeed, it is rather naïve to imagine that sailors solely conducted the retrospective writing up of events while alone, and that they never received any additional input from their companions. As highlighted by John Beaglehole about the journals of Banks and Cook on the Endeavour voyage, ‘each man’s journal was open to the other’.⁵⁰ Thus unsurprisingly, and possibly given the limited private space on board such ships, anyone that consults the journals and logbooks of these sailors will begin to notice that entire entries produced by sailors in the same ships, such as that of Francis Wilkinson and John Douglas on 17 December 1766, were sometimes identical.⁵¹ Very often, the sailors producing logbooks and journals had access to both the journals of previous expeditions and those of their shipmates. It is therefore unsurprising that similarities and congruencies do emerge, and thus there are limits to the possibility of recovering the ‘true’ mentalité of an individual sailor.

Furthermore, despite Admiralty orders to seal and seize all material at the end of a voyage, as expeditions of this type surged into the popular consciousness, the number of sailors hoping to publish and circulate their accounts upon their return increased.⁵² Whereas Samuel Wallis was the only sailor in the Dolphin to have a version of his account published by the end of the eighteenth century, William Ellis, John Ledyard and John Rickman all had their own accounts anonymously published upon their return in 1780.⁵³ As the ‘scientific’ voyages became more renowned, it is highly likely that naval sailors also became more aware of the exceptional character of the voyage they were embarked on.⁵⁴ Indeed, an awareness of a future audience was plausibly responsible for the recurrence of recognisable motifs and ‘popular’ tropes within some of the accounts and journals produced by sailors. The theme of cannibalism was often given excessive attention, and as scholars such as Helen Wallis have discussed, the myth of the ‘Patagonian giants’ was another well-documented instance in which the previous accounts appeared to alter the realities presented by later sailors.⁵⁵

Nevertheless, despite such congruencies, it is also interesting to evaluate how the journals and logbooks produced by sailors differed greatly from the accounts written by the non-naval personnel present on these voyages. For example, a good proportion of the accounts cited in this article are in fact the logbooks and journals written by order of the Admiralty, as opposed to private voyage narratives written for publication.⁵⁶ Consequently, some of the unpublished journals produced by sailors occasionally appeared less inclined to adopt the conventional motifs and widely accepted tropes and ideas of ‘enlightened’ travel writing, when compared to the published accounts of the ‘scientific gentlemen’ and other sailors.⁵⁷ Such tendencies have even resulted in scholars like Neil Rennie claiming that some sailor journals were ‘more objective’ than those produced by their civilian counterparts.⁵⁸ In terms of structure, one of the clearest differences is that most of the unpublished material included briefer descriptions of encountered populations, and contained a greater number of professional comments relating to coastlines, shipboard activities, and windspeed.⁵⁹ Moreover, unlike the published accounts of the ‘scientific gentlemen’, many sailor journals and logbooks did not give excessive attention to the time spent ashore.⁶⁰

Naturally, the unpublished logbooks and journals of sailors were still composed for an audience, which in turn impacted the content and form in a different way. There are numerous instances within the Admiralty journals of sailors, such as those produced by Francis Wilkinson and James Burney, where the authors appeared keen to emphasise the culpability of a ‘native’ in causing outbreaks of conflict, and thus illustrate to the naval authorities that they had endeavoured to follow the ‘secret instructions’ of the voyage.⁶¹ Even in the published journal of Philip Carteret, the awareness that his account was to be read by the Admiralty can also be seen shaping the narrative through his extended justification of why he chose a specific disciplinary action that did not follow an official precedent outlined by the Articles of War.⁶² Indeed, despite claims of greater ‘objectivity’, even the unpublished journals and logbooks should not be misconstrued as the private writings of sailors reflecting reality, but still as written interpretations produced by individuals that were self-aware of prospective audiences.

Considering all these factors, it must therefore be recognised that an important role in the constructs of reality put forth by sailors was played by intertextual exchange and an awareness of a prospective audience.⁶³ These external influences of course limit one’s ability to recover a ‘true’ reflection of an individual, but the accounts, logbooks, and journals of sailors that deal with encounter and observation still provide an opportunity for at least a partial reconstruction of the identities and mentalités of the eighteenth-century sailors that took part in these voyages. After all, as outlined by Tim Youngs, travel writing ‘is the most socially important of all literary genres [because] … it throws light on how we define ourselves and on how we identify others’.⁶⁴ In fact, reflecting upon the aim of this article set out earlier, although examples of intertextual exchange may in some ways lead away from a ‘true’ reconstruction of an individual’s identity or mentalité, the emergence of consistent motifs and ideas within such journals is itself testament to the unusual and unique influence of the ‘scientific’ voyages.

2.3. The British sailor and the ‘Enlightenment’

Lastly, wholly to understand the change in mentalité and identities of British naval sailors during the ‘scientific’ voyages, it is crucial to recognise the extent to which the new supposedly ‘enlightened’ ideas and debates occurring in Britain influenced a sailor’s personal experiences in the Pacific, irrespective of a sailor’s physical and metaphorical distance from them. Like the professional community of the British naval sailor, the Enlightenment, as a historical concept, was not a singular homogenous entity possessive of a coherent ideology.⁶⁵ Furthermore, as scholars such as David N. Livingstone and Charles W.J. Withers have shown, by embracing ‘the sites and practices in which enlightenment, as a process, a set of ideas, was produced, debated, and consumed’, this notion of a coherent ‘British’ or ‘European Enlightenment’ movement can again be tempered.⁶⁶ Nevertheless, at the time of the ‘scientific’ voyages there were certain ideas, debates and intellectual networks that have been typically associated with the Enlightenment that exerted a greater influence upon the activities and operations of these voyages when compared to other naval operations of the period.

Alongside the empirical instructions and taxonomic organisation previously mentioned, the influence of key enlightenment ideas was also tangible through the accommodation of ‘scientific gentlemen’ and their equipment in the vessels. In fact, the presence of important enlightenment figures, such as Joseph Banks, Archibald Menzies and the Forsters, has caused some scholars to label the vessels of Cook, Flinders and Vancouver as a ‘travelling sideshow of the Enlightenment’.⁶⁷ The company of such significant savants caused sailors on the voyages to encounter the local and national networks of intellects associated with some of the key debates and ideas of the Enlightenment.⁶⁸ As these ‘scientific gentlemen’ typically messed with the officers and captains, and spent years in close proximity to sailors, it would therefore be no surprise if a number of these ideas influenced some of the activities and understandings that sailors held of the world around them.⁶⁹

Although there were countless occasions in which cross-cultural violence occurred during the ‘scientific’ voyages, it is important to acknowledge that there was often a prevalent desire to keep the majority of interactions, encounters and relationships between the crews and Indigenous populations free from conflict.⁷⁰ For instance, the captains of these voyages were typically advised to ‘check the petulance of the sailors, and restrain the wanton use of firearms’, and often issued ‘orders for the establishment of an amicable intercourse with the natives’.⁷¹ It is worth mentioning that such instructions were not unique to these voyages, as the instructions of East India Company ships had for decades encouraged sailors to maintain amicable relations with those they met, in order to preserve commercial relationships.⁷² Indeed, it easy to recognise the discernible benefits of avoiding conflict when considering the lack of contact that such ships had with settlements that could provide supplementary European sailors or victuals.

Nevertheless, although it is likely that most sailors, particularly those of the lower deck, were unaware of specific enlightenment principles, it is plausible that some of the intellectual concepts associated with the Enlightenment were partially responsible for these instructions, and as such trickled down from the top of society to the bottom of the ship. Despite the practical benefits of avoiding conflict, it was no coincidence that during a forty-year period where Rousseauian ideals of a ‘noble savage’ advocated that ‘someone from an unfamiliar culture, was [to be] characterised as naturally simple and good’, the sailors who embarked on voyages to unknown worlds were also ordered to prioritise the maintenance of peaceful relations with those they encountered.⁷³ It was of course peaceful relations that then allowed for more freedom to achieve the other ‘enlightened’ objectives of observation and classification. Thus, in the very action of obeying or contesting directives forbidding violence towards ‘natives’ or encouraging sailors to record their interactions, even members of the lower deck can be seen to have engaged with some of complex ideas and maxims associated with the Enlightenment.⁷⁴

3. Rank, status and class

3.1. Rank, hierarchies and status symbols

As noted above, all individuals have a multitude of identities, such as gender, occupational, racial, or national. Nevertheless, due to the strict hierarchical nature of their occupational community, many sailors of the late-eighteenth-century Royal Navy had a finely honed understanding of status and rank that allowed them to define and interpret their own positions within that community. Indeed, given the often-solitary environment of the hierarchical naval ship, which itself consisted of people of similar ages, sex, and who worked as part of the same occupational and national community, it is unsurprising that status and rank on board was typically one of the primary identities that defined a British naval sailor.⁷⁵

In the small and often cramped environment of a ship, where men of all backgrounds were expected to work together successfully and with the utmost discipline, hierarchy, status and boundaries were often expressed and maintained through the etiquette, rituals and ceremonies of the naval ship.⁷⁶ Daily life in naval vessels of the late-eighteenth century was typically marked by the regularities of ceremonies and customs that affirmed status and rank: sailors cheered and saluted governors and admirals; and commissioned officers (as well as warrant officers from 1787) wore uniforms.⁷⁷ Men of the same rank also typically dined together, and the quarterdeck and wardrooms were solely utilised by the upper echelons of shipboard society.⁷⁸

Consequently, it is unsurprising that as the visible theatricality of naval ritual and ceremony marked status and privilege on board a naval vessel and was ‘the cement of discipline’ of a ship, it was also ceremonies and physical manifestations that often occupied a significant place within sailors’ broader understandings of status.⁷⁹ For example, during the ‘scientific voyages’, Carteret criticised a young man who dressed in an ‘un-officer like manner’, and one of the first actions of the Bounty mutineers following their insurrection was to make ‘themselves uniform jackets by cutting up the royals’ so as to reflect their new equal status to each other.⁸⁰ In fact, over the course of these voyages, particularly in the instances where successful communication was difficult, these physical manifestations of status and rank also featured heavily in their own interpretations of their Pacific encounters.

When reflecting upon sailor accounts of encounter, it must be emphasised that many of the sailors that described and categorised the Pacific inevitably viewed new societies and cultures through ‘British eyes’, and accompanied by the cultural baggage of their mentalités.⁸¹ Descriptions of the structure of Indigenous societies and their governments were often the most discernible examples of this, with many sailors immediately declaring who the ‘King’ was, and rarely detecting the nuances of the stratified society that they described.⁸² For instance, although on occasion sailors such as James Burney acknowledged that the encountered societies were often ‘too difficult and intricate for us to unriddle’, the majority of sailors’ descriptions of Indigenous societies can be typified as a ‘crude application of a European model’.⁸³ The heads of societies in many journals and logbooks were depicted as ‘Lords’, ‘Kings’ and even on one occasion as a ‘Prime Minister’, while middling sorts became ‘Lords of the Manor’, ‘Barons’, or ‘Esquires’, and the people of the lowest status ‘Citizens’ or ‘Servants’.⁸⁴

As a result of their understandings of hierarchy within their own societies, many sailors also appeared to search for the conspicuous displays of rank and status that were familiar to them. For example, Flinders was baffled to conclude, upon reflection of a cave drawing in Australia, that the ‘superior magnitude of the leader to be indicative of his consequence only, not seeing how they could otherwise express authority or rank in a distinct manner, since they wear no kind of clothing’.⁸⁵ This search for physical identifiers of status was common among many of the journals and logbooks of sailors. John Marra declared tattoos and a specific ‘manner of tying the hair’ as both ‘conspicuous mark[s] of distinction’, and Robert Molyneux and William Ellis considered the ‘dress’ of Indigenous populations as reflective of rank.⁸⁶ Therefore, although the visible displays of status recorded by sailors certainly differed between Indigenous populations and sailors, on many occasions it appeared that their encounters in the Pacific did little to alter their implicit understandings of rank and status, but simply reaffirmed the significant role of physical symbols. On board, a uniform and sword marked those of a higher rank, and similarly onshore in the Pacific, many sailors searched for a specific tattoo or clothing that marked those of a superior status.

3.2. The naval gentleman and gentility

It is a reductive representation of the complex hierarchy on board a ship of the Royal Navy that advocates for just one social boundary between the lower deck and the quarterdeck, as there were certainly numerous divisions between commissioned officers, warrant officers, different messes, different watches, waisters, topmen, etc.⁸⁷ In fact, from the perspective of the modern scholar, an eighteenth-century naval ship very much resembles an encountered society that cannot be entirely ‘unriddled’ within the journal of a sailor. As is often the case, it is somewhat ironic that sailors implicitly understood the fine grades of their hierarchies and ceremonies, but typically ‘flattened’ those of the Pacific Islanders they encountered.

Nevertheless, one notion that appeared anchored within the understandings of many officers of the period concerning shipboard hierarchy and their own social status was the idea of ‘gentility’.⁸⁸ Thus, although not the sole boundary within shipboard societies, the idea of gentility discernible within officer identities is one notion within sailor mentalités that does in fact imply a significant boundary between those of the quarterdeck and those of the lower deck, in which warrant officers occupied a somewhat grey area between both camps. Throughout a number of the journals and logbooks, while ordinary sailors are referred to as the ‘people’ or the ‘men’, officers are referred to as ‘gentlemen’, and the midshipmen, who were traditionally commissioned officers in training, were termed ‘young gentlemen’.⁸⁹ It is worth emphasising, however, that in the Royal Navy of the late-eighteenth century, this notion was on many occasions more reflective of a gentility of ‘behaviour’ than a gentility of birth. As summarised by Evan Wilson, ‘few officers were born gentlemen; most were from middling backgrounds’, but ‘they still identified as gentlemen, seeing themselves as similar to other men who displayed characteristics of gentility’.⁹⁰

Although naval officers were not typically gentlemen as a result of social background, as stressed by Horatio Nelson, ‘you cannot be a good officer without being a gentleman’, and many commissioned officers’ understandings of their status were explicitly linked to ideas of the gentility of their behaviour.⁹¹ Indeed, over the course of the ‘scientific’ voyages, one of the major criticisms by officers of other officers or Pacific Islanders concerned what they perceived to be ‘ungentile’ behaviour. For instance, George Robertson’s criticisms of Lieutenant William Clarke, whom he frequently referred to as ‘Old Grould’ or ‘Lieut. Knowall’, were directed at his ‘ungentile behaviour’.⁹² Clarke likewise spent time ‘growling’ at a chief ‘for being so very undelicate’ at dinner, and James Burney praised ‘Old Towah’ for being ‘the most gentleman-like character of any of the Otaheite Chiefs’.⁹³ However, while many officers appeared to realise that a gentility of behaviour was an important facet of their social status within shipboard society, it would be naïve to advocate that sailors were not also comfortably familiar with the social stratifications of societies that prioritised a gentility of birth or ‘class’, over actions, occupation, or disposable property.

3.3. ‘Pedigree’ and class

Over the course of the ‘scientific’ voyages, many sailors, in their descriptions of Pacific societies, quickly determined the different ‘classes’: William Ellis stated that ‘the lowest class of people are kept in great subjection by the chiefs’; while Bligh understood that ‘these people are below the middle class’; and John Marra described ‘a superior class to the common rank’.⁹⁴ At this point, it is worth briefly iterating that although this article employs the somewhat problematic term of ‘class’, it does not suggest that a Marxist-style class conflict was at work in this period, but instead uses the term simply to represent the social relationship between two groups, in which ‘class identity’ indicates how individuals understand their place within such a relationship.⁹⁵ In the situation of the ‘scientific’ voyages, it was the confrontation with a set of different cultural codes outside of the sailor’s everyday community that revealed how others acted differently, and subsequently caused a number of sailors to have a heightened sense of awareness regarding the fundamentals of their understandings, which in this case was the unstated acceptance of hierarchies structured by ‘pedigree’ and ‘class’. However, what is of greater interest is how a sailor’s own ‘floating class’ identity was also conceivably altered by their experiences with Indigenous societies.

During the ‘scientific’ voyages, many of the encounters were with Pacific societies that displayed a much more severe class-based hierarchy than the naval ship or even ashore in Britain. As a result, there was occasionally a widening gulf between the social status of officers and lower-deck sailors as voyages progressed. Officers of the same rank messed with each other on all naval voyages, but during these particular voyages, officers and captains also dined and interacted with the ‘scientific gentlemen’, as well as the aristocracy of Indigenous societies.⁹⁶ In Tonga, James Burney informs us that the Polynesian leader ‘Finow’, ‘dined with the Commodore’, and similarly the ‘upper classes’, of both shipboard and Pacific societies, frequently presented each other with presents, and arranged displays of ‘fireworks or ‘heivas’, in which the captain and ‘chief’ occupied pride of place.⁹⁷

In contrast to these interactions, lower-deck sailors typically associated with the ‘lower classes’ of Pacific societies on these voyages. For example, as described by William Bligh, there existed a Tahitian custom of bond-friendship, or ‘taio’, in which the major ‘criterion of taio-ship was social class’.⁹⁸ Thus, unlike the commissioned officer George Tobin, whose ‘Tayo’ was the high-ranking queen-like ‘Eddea’, the lower-deck sailors typically established ‘Tayos’ with members of the lowest classes within Indigenous societies.⁹⁹ Of course, both commissioned and warrant officers were able to ‘move freely within [the] genteel society’ of Britain, but in their interactions with Pacific cultures, many commissioned officers and captains interacted with the upper-echelons of a more severe hierarchical society.¹⁰⁰ Thus, given this new equation of ranks, and the polarisation of the social status of sailors around their Pacific counterparts, it is unsurprising that these experiences occasionally altered sailors’ understandings of their own social status and rank in a naval vessel.

Most naval sailors of the period were certainly aware of their rank and status on board a vessel. But the interactions and encounters with the different cultural codes of Pacific societies heightened many sailors’ self-awareness of the social boundaries within their own societies, and also further developed their understandings of their own class identity as defined by ‘pedigree’. For instance, returning to the subject of gentility, George Robertson – after a couple of months ashore within Tahitian society – no longer criticised solely the ‘ungentile behaviour’ of other officers in his journal, but also declared that the gunner, despite his position as a warrant officer and most likely due to his social background, was ‘not at all capable of commanding gentlemen’ (the midshipmen).¹⁰¹ Furthermore, John Rickman’s published account noted that Omai, a Pacific Islander who accompanied the Adventure to Britain, seemed to ‘be one of the common people’, as he ‘did not aspire to the Captain's company, but preferred that of the armourer and common seamen to those of superior rank’.¹⁰² Indeed, by the time of Cook’s death, James King even expressed that he viewed Cook ‘as a kind of superior being’, and given such an extended period of time among such hierarchical societies it appeared that in the minds of many sailors, the death of Cook was not just the death of their captain, but also the death of their ‘chief’.¹⁰³ Following the weeks and months spent amongst Pacific communities, in which class and ‘pedigree’ were the fundamental principles structuring society, many sailors appeared more aware and sensitive of their own class and ‘pedigree’, as well as the class and ‘pedigree’ of those around them.

Although there were numerous occasions where the cultural differences between British sailor and Pacific Islander broke down into conflict, there were also times when the prescribed peaceful collaboration between shipboard and Pacific societies resulted in a degree of trans-cultural class solidarity, which in turn led to occasions where it appeared that the mentalité of a ‘chief’ and the mentalité of a naval captain had begun to imitate one another. For instance, it was no coincidence that George Vancouver’s description of the Hawaiian aristocracy was discernibly similar to his own role on board the ship: ‘The unremitted attention in the superior classes, [is] to preserve good order, and ensure the faithful discharge of every service undertaken by the subordinate description of the people.’¹⁰⁴ Furthermore, it is unsurprising that by the time of his third voyage James Cook had accepted without question that the Hawaiian people ‘fell prostrate with their faces to the ground’ whenever he walked past.¹⁰⁵

In fact, in terms of James Cook, other scholars such as Anne Salmond have emphasised the ‘impact of Polynesia’ and the concepts of ‘mana’, ‘utu’ and ‘tapu’ in causing a shift in his behaviour away from the calm detachment and peaceful means of an ‘enlightenment’ leader.¹⁰⁶ On his final voyage, Cook brutally cropped the ears and burnt the homes of the lower-class Indigenous peoples that committed felonies against him, much to the criticism of his crew and in contrast with the supposedly ‘enlightened’ actions of his first voyage.¹⁰⁷ Such actions were much in the spirit of Polynesian precedents that emphasised the necessity of utu (similar to revenge) in the maintenance of a leader’s mana (similar to prestige). Indeed, on his previous voyage Cook’s peaceful response to the infamous Grass Cove massacre had resulted in further contempt from the Maori, as he was seen to have acted as a man without mana.¹⁰⁸ As Cook spent more time among Polynesian societies, it appeared that he treasured his mana as much as any exemplary Polynesian ‘chief’. For example, as outlined by one of his men:

He was born to deal with savages, and he was never happier than in association with them. He loved them and understood the languages of the different islanders and had the art of captivating them with his engaging manner. This was probably the reason that they honoured and at times even worshipped him, and also further reason that when they ceased to honour him, or sometimes even ridiculed him, he burned with rage.¹⁰⁹

The working relationships that occurred between the hierarchies of indigenous and shipboard societies were most effective when each group had a rough understanding of each other’s culture and mentalité. But, as both groups sought a common ground and spent more time together, cultural bridges started to form that in turn altered and influenced sailor identities and mentalités.

Thus, in terms of sailor understandings of status, rank, and class identities, many of the important notions within sailor mentalités expressed over the course of these voyages, such as the primacy of physical manifestations of status, and notions surrounding the gentility of behaviour and birth, were undoubtedly familiar to naval sailors. However, on some occasions, cross-cultural encounters with Indigenous societies, and the equation of the hierarchical structure of the ship to the more severe hierarchies of the Pacific, caused many sailors further to develop their understandings of their own place and role within ‘class’ systems. Due to the perceived primacy of ‘pedigree’ in the Pacific and the need for co-operation with Indigenous societies, there were occasions where men such as George Robertson and James Cook began to incorporate some of the fundamentals of Polynesian cultures into their own conceptions of self, whether that be Robertson’s recent sensitivity to the gentility of birth over a gentility of behaviour, or Cook’s appreciation of utu and mana.

4. Nationhood and race

4.1. Nationality and the British nation

It is a slight misconception that due to the isolation of the maritime profession from land-based society, the eighteenth-century sailor was rebelliously detached from official structures, and less aware of his national identity.¹¹⁰ In fact, the naval sailor, unlike many other professions of the late-eighteenth century, was almost always in perpetual contact with some conception of nation and the nation-state. For sailors of the Royal Navy, Britain was his employer and ideas of nationality and nationhood were in many ways the raison d’être of his profession.

As Sara Caputo has argued in her article ‘Alien seamen in the British Navy, British law and the British state’, it is worth emphasising that the situation ‘on deck’ was often a great deal more complex than this, with sailors of varying national backgrounds serving different navies.¹¹¹ Nevertheless, an understanding of nationhood traditionally determined who the sailor fought against or allied with, and who was to be impressed and employed by a captain. Similarly, many of the ceremonies that occurred aboard naval ships expressed notions of national identity: sailors ‘saluted’, ‘celebrated’, and gave ‘several loyal toasts’ to mark ‘his majesty’s birthday’, ‘coronation’, or ‘restoration’; and on many occasions during the ‘scientific’ voyages sailors performed rituals that ‘took possession’ of their new discoveries ‘in his Majesties name’.¹¹² Thus, although it should not be forgotten that a multitude of differing nationalities resided in a ‘British’ naval ship, the initial point emphasising that naval sailors were often brought into close contact with conceptions of the nation-state is a justifiable one.

Although many of the nationalist rituals that occurred on board naval ships were most likely reflexive actions that did not necessarily constitute a direct and conscious consideration of nationality, sailor interactions and contacts with ‘others beyond their shores’ often led to more overt expressions of national identity.¹¹³ For instance, in contact with Dutch sailors at Batulaki, Carteret wrote of ‘the English nation’ and how the actions of the Dutch were ‘prejudicing these nations against us’.¹¹⁴ In Tahiti, Francis Godolphin Bond declared that ‘it certainly gave me great satisfaction to find their confidence so great in Englishmen for we had many instances of their high opinion of our entirety’.¹¹⁵ Indeed, for many sailors of the late-eighteenth-century Royal Navy, ideas relating to an understanding of British nationality and nationhood were extremely prevalent in their views of their own personal and collective identities, particularly in the instances in which they came into contact with other Europeans.

4.2. ‘Europeanness’

Over the course of the ‘scientific’ voyages, many British sailors spent long periods of time away from other European nations, in which their most common and sustained encounters and interactions were with non-European populations. This was not unusual for sailors taking part in other aspects of maritime industry, such as the ‘country trade’ in the Indian Ocean, but maritime service under the banner of the Royal Navy often revolved around the actions and activities of other Europeans. After all, for 74 of the 115 years between 1700 and 1815, the Royal Navy was officially at war with at least one other European or American nation, which does not even take into account undeclared periods of hostility and conflict that also occurred in this period.¹¹⁶ Therefore, as the formulation of identity typically ensues in contradistinction to an ‘other’, it should not be forgotten that throughout the ‘scientific’ voyages the encountered ‘other’ was more commonly the culturally and ethnically distinct Pacific islander, rather than other European sailors.

Throughout the Pacific expeditions, a number of sailors appeared to place significantly less emphasis upon their ‘British’ national identity, and more upon a trans-national and ethnic idea of themselves as ‘Europeans’.¹¹⁷ Thus, although Carteret considered the characteristics of ‘a Frenchman’ when he came in to contact with Bougainville many of the sailors, in their encounters with Pacific populations typically considered the differences between themselves as ‘Europeans’ and these new ‘others’.¹¹⁸ For example, James Cook on his first voyage noted that the ‘natives of New-Holland’ were ‘far more happier than we Europeans’, and George Vancouver, upon hearing of the murder of Lieutenant Hergest, made sure to seek retribution as ‘pusillanimous conduct’ would ‘not fail to sink the character of Europeans into the lowest contempt’.¹¹⁹ As most famously outlined by Edward Said in Orientalism, a shared European identity was of not uncommon in this period, and as we discussed previously the majority of travel accounts relied ‘on European as a constant parallel, either through explicit analogy or implied reference’.¹²⁰ Nevertheless, it is worth considering that both examples, are a far cry from the traditional representations of the patriotic and distinctly British ‘Jack Tar’ depicted in caricatures of the period, such as Monsieur Sneaking Gallantly in Brest’s Sculking Hole (1778) or The French Admiral on Board the Euryalus (1803).¹²¹

The notion of a ‘European’ identity exhibited in some sailor journals was hardly a trans-national idea of ‘Europeanness’ comparable to that in some modern political discourse, but instead was a more racial and ethnically orientated identity. For instance, this ethnically-based understanding of a ‘European’ identity is testified by descriptions of Indigenous peoples that declared them ‘as white as Europeans’, or emphasised how ‘his colour distinguished him from a European’.¹²² Nevertheless, in many cases, the experiences of cross-cultural encounters with Pacific populations appeared to reduce, at least temporarily, the significance of ‘Britishness’ within many naval sailors’ understanding of their collective and personal identities, in favour of a more explicit racial and ethnic conception of being ‘European’. Indeed, it is worth considering how these developments within the mentalités of sailors embarked on ‘scientific’ voyages, compared to the expressions of identity by sailors embarked on combative voyages against other European powers.¹²³ Identity is typically formed as an expression of perceived differences to an ‘other’, and thus when the ‘other’ was different, it is clear that a sailor’s own expressions of self were also altered.¹²⁴

4.3. Race and racism

Although many scholars, such as Martin Daunton and Rick Halpern, have argued that ‘during the eighteenth century, race was an important but not the primary category of identity within Britain’, in terms of the naval sailors embarked on ‘scientific’ voyages, understandings of racial and ethnic variations between themselves and the societies they encountered were often the primary category that distinguished ‘self’ from ‘other’.¹²⁵ Of course, it goes without saying that ‘race’ in the eighteenth century was often a much more inclusive category than the later nineteenth century restriction to physical traits and differences.¹²⁶ Nevertheless, a survey of the written accounts and journals indicates that the physical characteristics, ethnicity or race of individuals, prior to any classification of class, nationality or cultural customs, were the fundamental determinations used by sailors to group individuals together, and to differentiate themselves from those they encountered. In fact over the course of these voyages, there were even occasions, as recorded by Nathaniel Portlock, where the sightings of a ‘white’ islander ‘perplexed our seamen considerably’, and ‘nor was it without much persuasion [that] they were convinced he was not a European settled on the island’.¹²⁷ Indeed, the most common description by sailors of the societies they encountered resorted to conventional ethnocentrism and racial stereotyping that described the local people in relation to ‘Europeans’, or ‘Polynesians’ and ‘Americans’.¹²⁸

Throughout the ‘scientific’ voyages there were many instances where the ‘most wretched’ or most ‘hostile’ Indigenous populations were referred to as ‘savages’, or ‘more like wild beasts’ than ‘any of the human race’.¹²⁹ Undoubtedly, many of the descriptions, which characterise Indigenous populations as an ‘apish nation’ that ‘handled and examined [items] as a monkey would do’, or as ‘a poor wretched sort of people very little superior to brutish creation’ are extraordinarily problematic.¹³⁰ However, as emphasised by J.G.A. Pocock, ‘scientific racism was a child of the Enlightenment’, and consequently it is the duty of the historian to outline and explore such provocative elements within the understandings of these often much-celebrated explorers.¹³¹ Indeed, it is crucial that maritime historians place such damning examples of racial intolerance alongside the contrasting work of Rediker and Linebaugh that has previously outlined the interracial alliances of eighteenth-century sailors.¹³²

The descriptions and portrayals of Indigenous populations produced by sailors were often coloured by the prejudice and instinct rooted deep in their consciousness, and subsequently there was often a prevalent notion of racial arrogance and superiority within their accounts. For instance, Francis Wilkinson declares that the ‘great eagerness’ in which Tahitian men presented women to the sailors was because of their desire for ‘a breed of English men amongst them’.¹³³ Moreover, on many occasions the most critical and damning descriptions of Indigenous populations written by sailors were reinforced by comparisons with ‘Guinea negros’ and ‘African blacks’.¹³⁴ Thomas Edgar’s critical portrayal of New Zealanders emphasised that they were ‘of the negro kind’, and also that they had ‘much less [an] idea of decency than a dog’.¹³⁵ Similarly, John Elliott, an able seaman of the Resolution, stated that the inhabitants of the New Hebrides Islands were ‘similar to those of Guinea’ and ‘so far inferior to any we have ever met with in personal vicinity’.¹³⁶ Such examples highlight the importance of interracial solidarity among British sailors in other scenarios, but indicate, moreover, that people of African origin were a common reference point, thus suggesting the presence of well-established racist tropes, presumably related to slavery.¹³⁷

Many sailors also drew comparisons between ‘natives’ and ‘Europeans’ in making positive appraisals of Indigenous populations. For example, George Vancouver declared himself ‘much pleased’ with the behaviour of a ‘young prince’, and then proceeded to emphasise that ‘on closely observing his features, they had infinitely more resemblance of a European, that those which generally characterises these islanders’.¹³⁸ Edward Riou, on the coast of North America, observed that ‘the people were in general a set of as well-made men as any we have seen, tall, stout’, which was quickly followed up by the statement that they were ‘more of a European face than any Americans we have yet been amongst’.¹³⁹ Indeed, it appears that sailor encounters with Indigenous societies rarely wavered from an ingrained aversion of the inferior ‘negro’, with many of the white sailors not depicting Polynesians or Americans as their equals. On the occasions when the Polynesians or Americans displeased the sailors, they would suddenly become blacker, whereas on alternative moments when their behaviour satisfied the sailors, they would suddenly become whiter.

Understandably, sailors have not been considered the primary driving force behind developments in intellectual and philosophical thought concerning race and ethnicity. However, it is worth considering that even at the lowest social level, as sailors were often the most widely travelled people of their day, they may have played an important, if somewhat undocumented, role in the circulation of ideas surrounding race and ethnicity. For instance, when exploratory sailors, such as George Vancouver and Thomas Edgar, arrived home and published or recounted their interactions with this European-like ‘young prince’ of the Pacific or New Zealanders ‘of the negro kind’, they would have undoubtedly contributed in some way to the entrenchment of racial stereotypes and prejudices in this period.¹⁴⁰

4.4. The ‘noble savage’

Alongside the burgeoning ideas of racial superiority of the period, it is particularly interesting to reflect upon an aspect mentioned earlier in this article by considering how the new ‘enlightenment’ ideas that underpinned these voyages shaped sailors’ understandings of race. Throughout the ‘scientific’ voyages, some of the sailors, such as George Tobin, bemoaned ‘the westerner’s corruption of’ Indigenous societies; a notion which demonstrated clear parallels with the views of Voltaire and Rousseau that emphasised the ‘superiority of natural man uncorrupted by civilisation’.¹⁴¹ Such ‘enlightened’ ideas were certainly familiar to men like William Anderson, a naturalist on Cook’s third voyage, who described ‘people following the dictates of nature’ that were yet to be ‘corrupted by an intercourse with more polished nations’.¹⁴² However, what is particularly noteworthy are the occasions where sailors iterated comparable sentiments. For example, John Rickman, who was a shipmate of Anderson, advocated a similar notion where he stated: ‘It is not uncommon for voyagers, to stigmatise these islanders with the name of savages, than which no appellation can be worse applied, for a more civilised people does not exist under the sun.’¹⁴³ Furthermore, James Cook during his first voyage, which he conducted alongside Joseph Banks, also wrote:

From what I have said of the natives of New-Holland they may appear to some to be the most wretched people upon Earth, but in reality, they are far more happier than we Europeans; being wholly unacquainted not only with the superfluous but the necessary conveniences so much sought after in Europe, they are happy in not knowing the use of them.¹⁴⁴

Occasionally, it appeared that because of their interactions with ‘enlightenment’ ideals and the ‘scientific gentlemen’, certain sailors gained some form of self-awareness regarding the racial prejudices of their shipmates. For example, Peter Puget in the Chatham, wrote:

I should be extremely sorry to form from appearances only a bad opinion of any of these people and am always ready to make any allowance for their ignorance and difference of manner and custom from civilised nations for I am certain in many cases too hasty opinions are formed solely from prejudice.¹⁴⁵

Whereas, William Bligh even went as far as to criticise ‘the ethnic prejudice’ of two Tahitians that accompanied him to Coupang.¹⁴⁶ In fact, it appears that it was not only encounters with Pacific societies that altered a sailor’s beliefs during these voyages, but also potentially their encounters with the so-called ‘experimental gentlemen’.

At this point, it is worth emphasising that all occasions where sailors appeared to oppose traditional racial stereotyping, originated from the highest ranks of shipboard society. It is therefore perhaps worth tempering the significance of these voyages through a broader conception of the Enlightenment. As outlined earlier those of the highest ranks on board were typically of the middling classes and thus most likely to have been active in a Habermasian public sphere, which in turn may have resulted in encounters with such ideas prior to the voyages.¹⁴⁷ Nevertheless, it is certainly no coincidence that those most in contact with the ‘experimental gentlemen’, being messmates, were also those evidencing the greatest awareness of these new ideas. After all, it was the exploratory journals and accounts of the highest shipboard ranks, which in turn were those individuals on the ship with the greatest access to the ‘scientific gentlemen’ and their journals, that appeared to advocate some of the attitudes and views often associated with the ‘Enlightenment’.

Throughout the ‘scientific’ voyages it appeared that for many sailors racial and ethnic, rather than national, identities were at the forefront of their understandings. On many occasions, sailors demonstrated the traditional racial prejudices of the period in their understandings of ethnicity and racial identity, but contrastingly, there were also other instances where certain officers appeared to illustrate that the belief in the superiority of one’s own social, political and religious mores was not always the inbred assumption within sailor mentalités. Indeed, in many cases, faced with a different ‘other’ and accompanied by ‘scientific gentlemen’ and distinctive ‘enlightenment’ instructions and modes of travel writing, there was a greater consideration of ethnic and racial identities by sailors, in which new ideas such as the ‘state of civilisation’ and the ‘noble savage’ occasionally perforated a sailor’s understanding.¹⁴⁸

5. Conclusion

The ‘scientific’ voyages of the late eighteenth century resulted in numerous cross-cultural encounters between sailors and Indigenous populations, who were typically the most culturally distinct ‘others’ that British sailors had ever encountered. Irrespective of how generalised a sailor’s understanding of ‘self’ was in the eighteenth century, these contacts and interactions with ‘newly discovered’ Indigenous populations instigated a number of adjustments and alterations within many sailors’ mentalités. In the face of a new ‘other’ and societies of different cultural codes, countless sailors on voyages of exploration rethought and reformulated their own identities and conceptions of ‘self’. Therefore, although there were occasions where the understandings of status, class, and race were built on similar foundations as other sailors, there were equally several instances where a sailor’s implicit understandings of themselves and the world around them were changed by the specific experiences of encounter during these voyages.

Faced with unfamiliar and ethnically different populations, some sailors employed racial categorisations and interacted with ‘enlightenment’ ideals, occasioning a new understanding of their ethnic and racial identities. In many cases, the notion of being a white ‘European’ appeared to supersede any notion of ‘Britishness’ in the minds of sailors, and the drawing of boundaries between ‘self’ and ‘other’ were largely defined by their understandings of race and ethnicity. Similarly, in the interactions and peaceful co-operation between shipboard societies and the strict hierarchies of the Pacific, many sailors also expressed new conceptions of class identity, as the perceived Polynesian prioritisation of ‘pedigree’ disseminated into the ship. Indeed, many of the officers tasked with describing and outlining the new encountered cultures appeared to also have a greater understanding of new enlightenment ideas, such as the ‘noble savage’ or ‘state of civilisation’, as well as new Polynesian principles, such as ‘utu’ and ‘mana’. Thus, although it is worth emphasising that there were other identities and understandings that this article has not investigated, such as gender or religion, when confronted with the new cultures, societies, and peoples of the Pacific, many sailors re-evaluated, re-thought, and re-understood their own identities, and in doing so occasionally altered, their mentalité.

In conclusion, this article argues that on a number of occasions a sailor’s experiences of the ‘scientific’ voyages, whether that that be their encounters with Indigenous populations, or the new enlightenment concepts that diffused their vessels, notably altered their mentalité and identities. Invisibly but inexorably, the new ideas introduced to the British sailor not only moulded his identities but occasionally altered his mentalité. Nevertheless, it is worth emphasising that as a sailor’s identity was not fixed at the end of a ‘scientific’ voyage, it would continue to develop throughout his subsequent experiences.¹⁴⁹ For example, although a naval sailor on a voyage of exploration may have returned to England with a new comprehension of his ethnic ‘European’ identity, if he was suddenly turned over into a ship that was to engage the French he would have almost certainly begun to reconsider and reidentify more strongly with a ‘British’ identity.

However, although this study has not sought to determine the longevity of such developments among sailors of the Royal Navy, it has shown that on occasion a sailor’s experiences of the British voyages of exploration and discovery indubitably altered elements of his mentalité and identity. The professional community of British naval sailors was by no means as culturally or socially uniform as it has sometimes been portrayed. It is important therefore to recognise that the identity and mentalité of the eighteenth-century naval sailor was not simply the sum of factors such as rank or social background, but also that it was responsive to the sited socio-cultural experiences and circumstances of each individual. Indeed, when recognised, the socio-cultural experiences of an individual present a much broader and more diverse vision of British sailors. A vision that takes into consideration the local, global, and connected nature of their profession, and allows our understanding to move beyond homogenous and monolithic representations of a community of archetypal ‘Jack Tars’.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, vol. 1, 261.

2 Rodger, Wooden world.

3 Laffin, Jack Tar; Lavery, Royal tars.

4 Rediker, Between the Devil and the deep blue sea; Rodger, Wooden world; Wilson, Social history.

5 Rodger, Command of the ocean; Rediker, Between the Devil.

6 It is worth emphasising that, although this study adopts a broad categorisation of ‘sailors’, the majority of written evidence was produced by officers. When reflecting on individual cases, therefore, this study does in some ways focus on officers who kept records of these voyages.

7 Sahlins, How ‘natives’ think; Obeyesekere, Apotheosis of Captain Cook; Salmond, Two worlds.

8 Oliver, Ancient Tahitian society; Obeyesekere, Apotheosis of Captain Cook; Sahlins, How ‘natives’ think.

9 Williams, ‘Seamen and philosophers’: 21.

10 Fisher, ‘George Vancouver’, 198. This idea is also evident in the work of Nicholas Thomas, see Thomas, Islanders.

11 Ashley, ‘How navigators think’; Salmond, Trial of the cannibal dog.

12 Sahlins, How ‘natives’ think; Ashley, ‘How navigators think’.

13 For a further discussion of this idea, see Bitterli, Cultures in conflict, 27. For a more extended discussion of what is meant by ‘acculturation’, see Herskovits, Man and his works, 523.

14 For a further discussion of mentalité, see Schwartz, ‘Introduction’, 2–3.

15 Ibid.

16 For a further discussion of identity as a process, see Edensor, National identity, 24.

17 Salmond, ‘Tute’, 82.

18 This change in the eating habits of exploratory sailors is well documented by Anne Salmond, see Salmond, Trial of the cannibal dog.

19 TNA, ADM 55/39, Logbook of the Master of the Endeavour, 26 May 1769.

20 Cook, Voyage of the Resolution and Adventure, 333-34.

21 For a discussion of the British identities exhibited during conflict with the French, see Colley, Britons.

22 The 1797 mutiny at the Nore was dubbed a ‘floating republic’ by newspapers, see Dobrée and Manwaring, Floating republic, 183.

23 Land, War, nationalism, 28.

24 The ten voyages surveyed in this article are as follows: John Byron (1764–66); Samuel Wallis (1766–69), the three voyages of James Cook (1768–71, 1772–75, 1776–80); the two breadfruit expeditions of William Bligh (1787–89, 1791–93); George Vancouver (1791–95); William Broughton (1795–98); and Matthew Flinders (1801–03).

25 Although the voyage of Byron in 1764 was a symbolic beginning for a new era of exploratory voyages, it also shared significant similarities with that of George Anson in 1740, see Williams, ‘To make discoveries’: 17.

26 Previous British voyages into the Pacific and North-west Passage include that of Dampier and Hudson: Dampier, New voyage round the world; Asher (ed.), Henry Hudson.

27 The authorities instructed Byron to contest Spanish ownership of the Falklands, and Bligh’s voyages had the intention of locating a new sustainable food source for enslaved Africans on the plantations of the West Indies.

28 Sorrenson, ‘Ship as a scientific instrument’: 224.

29 For use of the term ‘experimental gentlemen’, see Forster, Resolution journal, vol. 2, 310.

30 Joseph Banks took part in James Cook’s first voyage, whereas Archibald Menzies accompanied George Vancouver.

31 For a further discussion of the social status of men like Joseph Banks, see McLynn, Captain Cook, 91.

32 Dening, Mr Bligh’s bad language, 114.

33 Start and end dates were taken from the journals and logbooks of the captains of the lead vessels, except for Wallis’s voyage, where this study classified Carteret as a separate voyager because the Dolphin and the Swallow spent a significant proportion of their voyage apart.

34 Average complement size at the start of the voyage was 98.1 men.

35 All data about the construction or type of ships are taken from Winfield, British ships in the age of sail, 1793–1817; idem., British ships in the age of sail, 1714–1792.

36 Banks famously did not accompany Cook on his second voyage because his proposed modifications of the Resolution were not accepted, see McLynn, Captain Cook, 173. Both Cook and Bligh gave up their great cabin for scientists, see Banks, Endeavour journal of Joseph Banks, vol. 1, 24; Dening, Mr Bligh’s bad language, 20.

37 Flinders, Australia circumnavigated, vol. 1, 55.

38 Dined: TNA, ADM 55/39, Logbook of the Master of the Endeavour, 5 June 1769. Slept: Morrison, After the Bounty, 312. Performed and danced: Vancouver, Voyage of George Vancouver, 413. Sung: BL, Egerton MS 2591, Journal of David Samwell of the Discovery, 98r. Boxed: TNA, ADM 51/4560, Journal of William Anderson of the Resolution, 18 June 1777. Surfed: Gilbert, ‘Cook’s final voyage’, 72. Toured: Forster, Resolution journal, vol. 3, 517. Traded: ibid., vol. 4, 55.

39 For a more extensive reflection on the drive for empirical and ‘scientific’ classification, see Pratt, Imperial eyes, 15–36.

40 For secret instructions, see TNA, ADM 2/1322, Samuel Wallis’s secret instructions, 16 August 1766; ibid., James Cook’s secret instructions, 30 July 1768; Flinders, Voyage to Terra Australis, 7–12. Hints: Banks, Indian and Pacific correspondence, vol. 1, 20–21.

41 TNA, ADM 2/1322, Wallis’s secret instructions, 16 August 1766.

42 TNA, ADM 2/1322, Cook’s secret instructions, 30 July 1768. Flinders, Voyage to Terra Australis, 9.

43 Pratt, Imperial eyes, 29.

44 Youngs, Travel writing, 13.

45 Examples of this influence: TNA, ADM 55/122, Logbook of James King of the Resolution, description of King George’s Sound. Salmond, Tears of Rangi, 41. TNA, ADM 51/4541, Logbook of Francis Wilkinson of the Dolphin, 17 December 1766; Logbook of John Douglas of the Dolphin, 17 December 1766.

46 Directives for voyagers: Royal Society, ‘Directions for sea-men’. Subheadings: TNA, ADM 55/122, Logbook of James King of the Resolution, description of King George’s Sound. Salmond, Tears of Rangi, 41.

47 For example, Patel (ed.), Exploration of the South Seas, 343, 375. Carteret, Voyage round the world, vol. 1, 118, 147, 186.

48 Patel (ed.), Exploration of the South Seas, 343, 375. Carteret, Voyage round the world, vol. 1, 118, 147, 186.

49 TNA, ADM 51/4529, Logbook of Edward Riou of the Discovery, 24 February 1777.

50 Banks, Endeavour journal, vol. 1, 35.

51 TNA, ADM 51/4541, Logbook of Francis Wilkinson of the Dolphin, 17 December 1766; Logbook of John Douglas of the Dolphin, 17 December 1766.

52 Seizure of journals: Cook, Voyage of the Resolution and Discovery, 171. Anon., Journal of a voyage round the world, iii.

53 Hawkesworth, Account of the voyages; Ellis, Authentic narrative; Ledyard, Cook’s last voyage; Rickman, Cook’s last voyage.

54 For a further discussion of this awareness, see Thomas, ‘Introduction’, 19. One could also point to the number of sailors that appeared to be collecting mementos and ‘curiosities’ during the later voyages: Barnett, Neville and Williams (eds.), Cook’s final voyage, 39; Oliver (ed.), Return to Tahiti, 167.

55 Cannibals: Obeyesekere, ‘British Cannibals’. ‘Patagonian giants’: Byron, Journal of his circumnavigation, 185–86.

56 For example: TNA, ADM 55/39, Logbook of the Master of the Endeavour, 1768-9. TNA, ADM 51/4541, Logbook of Francis Wilkinson of the Dolphin, 1766–67. TNA, ADM 51/4529, Logbook of Edward Riou of the Discovery: 1776–69.

57 For example, the journals of many sailors, particularly those of the lower deck, demonstrated traditional racial prejudices in their portrayal of some islanders, as opposed to the tropes and motifs depicting a ‘noble savage’ often espoused in the work of the ‘experimental gentlemen’: TNA, ADM 55/21, Logbook of Thomas Edgar of the Discovery, remarks on Van Diemen’s Land, 1777. TNA, ADM 51/4556, Logbook of John Elliott of the Resolution, 23 July 1774.

58 Rennie, Far-fetched facts, 93.

59 Descriptions of punishments issued to members of the crew, even those that occurred because of some form of interaction with Pacific islanders, is one example of a shipboard activity that featured heavily in the logbooks and journals of sailors but was almost entirely absent from the accounts of non-sailors: TNA, ADM 51/4559, Logbook of George Gilbert of the Resolution, 23 June 1777. TNA, ADM 55/151, Logbook of Captain William Bligh of the Bounty, 29 December 1788.

60 For instance, the journals of Thomas Willis and Charles Loggie aboard the Resolution are just two examples of many sailor accounts that featured little to no descriptions of encounters ashore: TNA, ADM 51/4554, Journal of Thomas Willis of the Resolution; Journal of Charles Loggie of the Resolution.

61 TNA, ADM 51/4551, Logbook of Francis Wilkinson of the Providence, 19 June 1777. James Burney, in Cook, Voyage of the Resolution and Discovery, 751–52.

62 Carteret justified why he did not punish a set of deserters in line with the Articles of war, see Carteret, Voyage round the world, 109–11.

63 For a further discussion of intertextual exchange in travel writing, see Youngs, Travel writing, 13–14.

64 Ibid., 1.

65 For further discussion of this less homogenous view of the Enlightenment, see Outram, Enlightenment, 3; Livingstone and Withers (eds.), Geography and Enlightenment, 1–19.

66 Ibid., 4.

67 These gentlemen include Joseph Banks, Archibald Menzies, George Forster, to name but a few. Quote: Salmond, Tears of Rangi, 34.

68 The extensive personal network of Joseph Banks has been explored in the work of John Gascoigne, see Gascoigne, Science in the service of empire, 247.

69 Messed with officers: Forster, Voyage round the world, vol. 2, 531.

70 For a further discussion of this remarkable peacefulness, see Bitterli, Cultures in conflict, 172–74.

71 Banks, Indian and Pacific correspondence, vol. 1, 20. TNA, ADM 51/4550, Logbook of George Holwell of the Providence, 8 April 1792.

72 Many East India Company officials were encouraged to adopt ‘peaceable methods’ and keep seamen within ‘the due bounds of sobriety and civil deportment’ during dealings with Indigenous populations: BL, IOR/E/3/51, Sir John Gayer and Council at Bombay to the Company, 29 December 1695. BL, IOR/E/3/92, Instructions for Captain John Heath of the Amity, 8 December 1696.

73 Wilson, James Cook, 158.

74 For a larger study of Rousseau’s theory of the ‘noble savage’. see Fairchild, Noble savage.

75 There has been much discussion over this idea of the ship as a ‘total environment’, see Frykman, ‘Wooden world turned upside down’, 8.

76 For an extended discussion of naval etiquette and rituals, see Dening, Mr Bligh’s bad language, 81–83.

77 Cheered: Smith, Sailing with Flinders, 29. Saluted: TNA, ADM 51/4558, Logbook of William Lanyon of the Discovery, 23 September 1779. Uniforms: Rodger, Command of the ocean, 393.

78 Dined: TNA, ADM 55/39, Logbook of the Master of the Endeavour, 5 June 1769. Space: Byrn, Crime and punishment, 100.

79 ‘Cement of discipline’: Dening, Mr Bligh’s bad language, 27.

80 Carteret, Voyage round the world: 1766-1769, vol. 2, 267. Dening, Mr Bligh’s bad language, 88.

81 British eyes: BL, Add. MS 17522, Letters of Captain George Vancouver relating to the yoyage of the Discovery and the Chatham: remarks on Chile. Gascoigne, Captain Cook, xiii–xiv. For further discussion of this notion of ‘British eyes’ or an ‘imperial gaze’, see Pratt, Imperial eyes.

82 Ellis, Authentic narrative, vol. X, 210. Barnett, Neville and Williams (eds.), Cook’s final voyage, 57.

83 Ibid., 66. Maxton, ‘Introduction’, 20.

84 King: Ellis, Authentic narrative, vol. X, 210. Lord, Baron, Citizen: TNA, ADM 55/151, Logbook of Captain William Bligh of the Bounty, 13 November 1788. Prime Minister: Oliver (ed.), Return to Tahiti, 114. Lord of the Manor, Servant, Esquire: Morrison, After the Bounty, 158.

85 Flinders, Australia circumnavigated, vol. 2, 243.

86 Marra, Resolution’s voyage, 162–63. TNA, ADM 55/39, Logbook of the Master of the Endeavour, 28 April 1769. Ellis, Authentic narrative, vol. X, 94.

87 These divisions are further outlined in Dening, Mr Bligh’s bad language, 81.

88 For a further discussion of gentility in relation to officers, see Wilson, Social history, 185–86.

89 People: TNA, ADM 51/4563, Logbook of unknown sailor of the Swallow, 15 August 1767. Banks, Endeavour journal, vol. 1, 33. Men: Robertson, Discovery of Tahiti, 175. Gentlemen: BL, Egerton MS 2591, Journal of David Samwell of the Discovery, p.213r. Young gentlemen: TNA, ADM 51/4553, Logbook of William Harvey (II) of the Resolution, 27 August 1772. Flinders, Australia circumnavigated, vol. 2, 5.

90 Wilson, Social history, 186.

91 Rodger, ‘Introduction’, 20.

92 Robertson, Discovery of Tahiti, 219.

93 Ibid., 188. Barnett, Neville and Williams (eds.), Cook’s final voyage, 81.

94 Ellis, Authentic narrative, vol. X, 115. TNA, ADM 55/151, Logbook of Captain William Bligh of the Bounty, 5 March 1789. Marra, Resolution’s voyage, 58.

95 For further discussion of ‘class’ as a term signifying a social relationship, see Smith, National identity, 5.

96 For example: TNA, ADM 55/39, Logbook of the Master of the Endeavour, 5 June 1769. Patel (ed.), Exploration of the South Seas, 268.

97 Barnett, Neville and Williams (eds.), Cook’s final voyage, 62. TNA, ADM 51/4531, Logbook of John Henry Martin of the Discovery, 19 June 1777. Morrison, After the Bounty, 25.

98 Oliver (ed.), Return to Tahiti, 59.

99 Ibid., 58.

100 Wilson, Social history, 183.

101 Robertson, Discovery of Tahiti, 175.

102 Rickman, Cook’s last voyage, 4.

103 Lloyd (ed.), Memoir of James Trevenen, 23. Scott Ashley further expands this idea about the ‘death of their chief’, see Ashley, ‘How navigators think’: 111.

104 Vancouver, Voyage of discovery, vol. 3, 59.

105 TNA, ADM 51/4531, Logbook of John Henry Martin of the Discovery, 21 January 1778.

106 Salmond, Trial of the cannibal dog, xxii.

107 Barnett, Neville and Williams (eds.), Cook’s final voyage, 77, 91.

108 Salmond, Trial of the cannibal dog, 316.

109 Ibid., xxii.

110 This view of rebelliously detached sailors is epitomised by the work of Marcus Rediker, see Rediker, Between the Devil and the deep blue sea. For a further discussion of Rediker’s view, see Caputo, ‘Alien seamen in the British Navy’: 688.

111 Ibid., passim.

112 Saluted the Restoration: TNA, ADM 51/4526, Logbook of John Elijah Campbell of the Assistant, 5 June 1792. Celebrated his Majesty’s birthday: Forster, Resolution journal, vol. 2, 292. Loyal toasts: Anon. Journal of a voyage round the world, 60. Coronation: TNA, ADM 51/4558, Logbook of William Lanyon of the Discovery, 23 September 1779. Possession: TNA, ADM 51/4549, Logbooks of Thomas Walker of the Providence, 17 September 1792. His Majesty’s name: Robertson, Discovery of Tahiti, p.159.

113 ‘Other beyond their shores’: Morgan, ‘Encounters’, 45. More on reflexive performances, see Edensor, National identity, 89.

114 Carteret, Voyage round the world, vol. 1, 209.

115 TNA, ADM 55/96, Logbook of Francis Godolphin Bond of the Providence: description of Tahiti.

116 One example of a period of informal hostilities occurred in the late 1720s when Spain attempted to capture Gibraltar and Menorca.

117 Examples of sailors depicting themselves as ‘Europeans’: Cook, Voyage of the Endeavour, 417. Vancouver, Voyage of discovery, vol. 2, 395.

118 Carteret, Voyage round the world, vol. 1, 269.

119 Cook, Voyage of the Endeavour, 1768-1771, 399. Vancouver, Voyage of discovery, vol. 2, 179.

120 Said, Orientalism. For the quote and further discussion, see Teltscher, India inscribed, 14.

121 NMM, PAD4791, Monsieur Sneaking Gallantly into Brest’s Sulking Hole after Receiving a Preliminary Salutation of British Jack Tar: 17 July 1778. NMM, PAF4006, The French Admiral on Board the Euryalus: 11 December 1803.

122 Cook, Voyage of the Resolution and Adventure, 536, 577.

123 Consider this notion of Europeanness compared to the ideas presented by Linda Colley, see Colley, Britons.

124 For a further discussion of identity as perceived differences, see Duncan Redford, ‘Introduction’, 5.

125 Daunton and Halpern (eds.), Empire and others, 4.

126 For rise of ‘scientific racism’ in the period, see Pocock, ‘Nature and history’.

127 Oliver (ed.), Return to Tahiti, 88.

128 For a further discussion of the ethnocentrism within sailor logbooks, see Barnett, Neville and Williams (eds.), Cook’s final voyage, 112.

129 Most wretched: TNA, ADM 51/4555, Logbook of Bowles Mitchell of the Resolution, 23 July 1774. Hostile: TNA, ADM 55/20, Logbook of William Bayly of the Discovery, 23 April 1777. Savages: Byron, Journal of his circumnavigation, 95–96. Wild beasts: Robertson, Discovery of Tahiti, 175.

130 ‘Apish nation’: Cook, Voyage of the Resolution and Adventure, 466. ‘Monkey would do’: Oliver (ed.), Return to Tahiti, 262. ‘Brutish creation’: TNA, ADM 51/4562, Logbook of Alex Simpson of the Swallow, 30 January 1767.

131 Pocock, ‘Nature and history’, 36.

132 Linebaugh and Rediker, Many-headed Hydra, 162.

133 TNA, ADM 51/4541, Logbook of Francis Wilkinson of the Dolphin, 3 July 1767.

134 BL, Egerton MS 2591, Journal of David Samwell of the Discovery, 9v. Rickman, Cook’s last voyage, 38.

135 TNA, ADM 55/21, Logbook of Thomas Edgar of the Discovery: remarks on Van Diemen’s Land, 1777.

136 TNA, ADM 51/4556, Logbook of John Elliott of the Resolution, 23 July 1774.

137 Interracial solidarity: Linebaugh and Rediker, Many-headed Hydra, 162.

138 Vancouver, Voyage of discovery, vol. 1, 181.

139 TNA, ADM 51/4529, Logbook of Edward Riou of the Discovery, 10 August 1778.

140 Vancouver, Voyage of discovery, vol. 1, 181. TNA, ADM 55/21, Logbook of Thomas Edgar of the Discovery: remarks on Van Diemen’s Land, 1777.

141 Tobin, Bligh’s second chance, 11.

142 TNA, ADM 51/4560, Journal of William Anderson of the Resolution, 3 April 1777.

143 Rickman, Cook’s last voyage, 104.

144 James Cook, Voyage of the Endeavour, 399.

145 TNA ADM 55/17, Logbook of Peter Puget of the Chatham, 6 February 1794.

146 Oliver (ed.), Return to Tahiti, 25.

147 Habermas’s model: Habermas, Structural transformation.

148 ‘State of civilisation’: TNA, ADM 51/4550, Logbook of George Holwell of the Providence, 9 August 1792. ‘Noble savage’: Rickman, Cook’s last voyage, 104.

149 The impact of the intrinsic fluidity of naval employment on lasting socio-cultural variations within the Royal Navy is also worth considering. For instance, concerning cultural exchanges, it is worth noting how the Polynesian practice of tattooing became synonymous within naval professions and also how Polynesian words such as taboo and tattoo diffused more widely into the English vernacular.