"Royal Navy at Trafalgar" Topic

21st October 1805 saw the Battle of Trafalgar England's greatest victory over the Frenchies:

18000 Sailors and Royal Marines in total ….
3573 Irish
361 American
31 Canadian
78 Swedes
25 Norwegian
23 Prussian
9 Russian
25 Maltese
115 Italian
17 Africans
123 West Indies
20 French
8 Spanish
5 Austrian

… so does immigration work?

Any English?

Any English?

Presumably not all the 13587 not accounted for above could have been Scots, so yes.

so does immigration work?

Don't know, but clearly the press did.

Only 17 Africans surprises me.

I'm guessing that 123 West Indians may originally fit that category.
The 20 French is interesting….

The French matelots must have been royalists.

I wonder if the 5 Austrians were actually Austrian, or from the Empire.

Not much call for a Maintop Man in Austria itself, I'd of thought. Maybe that's why they left!

1) The Irish were all UK citizens, so don't count as immigrants; you'd also need to check if any of the 400 "North Americans" were originally born in the British Isles – pretending to be a US citizen was a favourite dodge among deserters (hence the problem with seizing American crewmen from some ships).

2) Not sure what "…so does immigration work?" has to do with anything. For a start, there's no indication any of them were actually immigrants, merely that they served aboard His Majesty's warships – not the same thing. I suspect many/most never set foot in the UK, given how long British ships spent at sea. However, assuming they all did, then 843 non-UK – including the 400 North Americans – is about 4.5% of the total (depending on whose figures you accept for illegals, about 15-20% of current UK residents were born overseas). Thus, over 95% of the fleet was British or Irish – more a vote for homogeneity, I would have said.

3) Foreigners could not be impressed, unless they had married a British woman, or served on a British merchant ship for at least two years. Aside from the Americans, it would be more likely the others volunteered in their home ports, or from captured ships to avoid becoming PoWs.

No.