This edition, containing 255 letters of men in the Royal Navy and Marines, written between 1793 and 1815 while Britain was at war with France and also America, has aimed to present as many of this type of document as could be readily found following a survey of holdings of repositories in England and Wales. Given the fact that there were many thousands of seamen serving in the Royal Navy during the period of the wars, it may be surprising that so few of their letters have survived. It is always possible that there are many more such letters waiting to be discovered, particularly at The National Archives among the Prize Papers of the High Court of Admiralty in series HCA 30 and HCA 32. Also, considering that a few collections of letters of those seamen who served in the wars with France, such as James Hyslop, were especially cherished in the family, handed down to descendants, preserved to the present day and published by them, perhaps there may yet be more remaining in private hands. Any further surveys of letters of seamen carried out in future might include appeals for such material and reveal an even larger body of material to be examined and give invaluable insights into the lives and thoughts of these men.

Having drawn the results of the survey together, the aim was then to examine the letters more closely and set them in context. In the first place, all the letters were taken together, not only from the historical perspective, but also from the perspective of letters as a genre of writing. Recent studies have analysed eighteenth-century letters written by various groups in society, but little attention has yet been paid to letters of servicemen, officers or men; therefore, it is hoped that the present edition will add to knowledge of letterwriting of that period and, among that group, particularly the men. Considering the epistolary literacy of servicemen concerned with the letters edited in this volume, we see a wide range of ability in writing, sometimes, but not always, according to whether the writers were destined to be officers or to stay on the lower decks.