Notwithstanding battles, a napoleonic era British Royal Navy Man-o-war with ~750 sailors would expect to lose something like 1 man a fortnight to accidents and

Notwithstanding battles, a napoleonic era British Royal Navy Man-o-war with ~750 sailors would expect to lose something like 1 man a fortnight to accidents and disease for the duration of the voyage. To make up the numbers they would press-gang fishermen wherever they happened to be around the globe. As a result the Royal Navy was surprisingly multi racial in that era. The BBC had a series called ‘who do you think you are’ where they analysed people’s DNA and some of the best episodes were right wing figures finding out they were 25% polynesian or whatever, I always wondered if this was partly due to the press-gang on-the-hoof practices of the Navy.