Introduction: A Sailor’s Progress?

The common nineteenth-century cultural motif of the ‘sailor’s progress’ depicted the journey of the sailor from boy to man against the backdrop of the sights, sounds, and demands of the maritime world. In George Cruikshank’s widely disseminated 1819 etching of that name (Fig. 1) the British sailor’s life was one of dancing, drinking, fghting, and ‘exercising his authority’ on wooden decks, as he moved from inexperienced landlubber to raconteur pensioner