Trading in war : London's maritime world in the age of Cook and Nelson / Margarette Lincoln.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed April 11, 2018).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

A vivid account of the forgotten citizens of maritime London who sustained Britain during the Revolutionary Wars In the half-century before the Battle of Trafalgar the port of London became the commercial nexus of a global empire and launch pad of Britain's military campaigns in North America and Napoleonic Europe. The unruly riverside parishes east of the Tower seethed with life, a crowded, cosmopolitan, and incendiary mix of sailors, soldiers, traders, and the network of ordinary citizens that served them. Harnessing little-known archival and archaeological sources, Lincoln recovers a forgotten maritime world. Her gripping narrative highlights the pervasive impact of war, which brought violence, smuggling, pilfering from ships on the river, and a susceptibility to subversive political ideas. It also commemorates the working maritime community: shipwrights and those who built London's first docks, wives who coped while husbands were at sea, and early trade unions. This meticulously researched work reveals the lives of ordinary Londoners behind the unstoppable rise of Britain's sea power and its eventual defeat of Napoleon.

Cover page; Halftitle page; Title page; Copyright page; CONTENTS; PLATES; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; NOTE ON CONVENTIONS; Map; Images; INTRODUCTION Forgotten Histories; 1 LONDON'S RIVERSIDE; Churches; Civic buildings; Wapping residents; Crossing the river; Deptford dockyard; Living in Deptford; To Greenwich; River and identity; 2 OPPORTUNITIES AND PRESSURES OF A WORLD CITY; Civil disturbance; Rivalries to the south; Politics in Surrey and Kent; An inquiring spirit; Officials and regulation; 3 WAR WITH AMERICA; War and poor families; Divided opinions; Dockyard reforms; Manning the navy.

A war of survivalPortraying dockyard work; War's aftermath; 4 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT; Rising crime rate; Fighting crime; Highway robbery; Convict hulks; Securing a conviction; 5 SPIRITED WOMEN; Seamen's wives; Elizabeth Cook; The labouring poor; Women in business; Cross-dressing women; Respectability and reputation; Defending absent husbands; Widows and charity; 6 MONEY AND PLEASURE; Ship launches; Theatres; Shopping and other diversions; Charitable giving; River pleasures and dangers; 7 WAR WITH FRANCE; Preparations for war; Waving the flag; Militia and volunteers; Crisis and mutiny.

Labour issuesThe fortunes of war; 8 GRAND DESIGNS; Approval for the dockyards; Funding the marine police; Building the docks; London and the slave trade; Rebellion thwarted; The effect of the docks; CONCLUSION London Against Napoleon; War and society; The longer-term impact of war; NOTES; BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEX.

In English.

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