Wetherell of H. M. S. Hussar the Recollections of an Ordinary Seaman of the Royal Navy During the Napoleonic Wars

This is a book which will delight the many enthusiastic readers of accounts both true and fictional of the Royal Navy in the great days of sail-the days of Nelson and other great captains who fought the navy of Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. This is the story of a very ordinary seamen-extraordinarily written by his own hand-who was pressed from the merchant trade into a fighting ship of the Royal Navy-HMS Hussar. Captained by a tyrant-even by the standards of the day-this is an account of hardship, cruel punishment, battle action before the mast and ultimately shipwreck. The crew of the Hussar are eventually taken as prisoners of war by the French and there follows a further harrowing account of endurance which only ends as the crew meet the advancing British Army in the South of France in the days leading to the abdication of the Emperor.