Again, too, to take another case. Captain T. Byam Martin (afterwards Sir Thomas and Admiral of the Fleet), of the _Implacable_, in May, 1808, checked the composition of his ship’s company man by man, and sent the results of his investigation to his brother. “I have just now,” he wrote, “been amusing myself in ascertaining the diversity of human beings which compose the crew of a British ship of war, and as I think you will be entertained with a statement of the ridiculous medley, it shall follow precisely as their place of nativity is inserted in the ship’s books: English 285, Irish 130, Welsh 25, Isle of Man 6, Scots 29, Shetland 3, Orkneys 2, Guernsey 2, Canada 1, Jamaica 1, Trinidad 1, St. Domingo 2, St. Kitts 1, Martinique 1, Santa Cruz 1, Bermuda 1, Swedes 8, Danes 7, Prussians 8, Dutch 1, Germans 3, Corsica 1, Portuguese 5, Sicily 1, Minorca 1, Ragusa 1, Brazils 1, Spanish 2, Madeira 1, Americans 28, West Indies 2, Bengal 2. This statement does not include officers of any description, and may be considered applicable to every British ship, with the exception that _very few of them have so many native subjects_.”
Of those who fought on board the _Victory’s_ special companion-in-arms at Trafalgar, the “Fighting” _Téméraire_, Ireland contributed just two-fifths of the total ship’s company—220 men out of 550.[14] They came from all parts, according to the ship’s books, mostly from Waterford, Belfast, Limerick, and Wexford; and about a third from Dublin, Newry, Kildare, Galway, Kilkenny, and Cork. Scotland supplied the _Téméraire_ with 58 men; hailing, the greater number of them, from Aberdeen, Inverness, Dundee, Greenock and Glasgow, Leith and Edinburgh. Wales contributed 38 men all told; from Swansea, Cardiff, Pembroke, and Milford, for the most part. Of all the Englishmen on board the “Fighting” _Téméraire_ at Trafalgar, one county by itself contributed practically a third of the number—Devonshire. They counted 52 men, drawn from all over the county: Bideford and Barnstaple, Exeter, Tavistock, Dorlish [_sic_], Ilfracoome [_sic_], Tiverton, and Dartmouth and Paignton. From London came 30 men in all. Lancashire had as many representatives in the ship as all Wales, 38—all except three hailing from Liverpool or Manchester. Somerset had 24, Cornwall 20, Yorkshire 13, Northumberland and Durham 10 each. These are the numbers from the other English counties: Norfolk 8 men, Hampshire 7, Kent 6, Cumberland and Gloucestershire each 5; Essex, Dorset, Chester each 4; Middlesex 3; Derbyshire, Warwick, Sussex, Cambridge, Worcester, and Suffolk each 2; Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Shropshire, Leicester, Surrey, Hereford, and The Isle of White [_sic_] 1 man each. There were 8 Manxmen at Trafalgar on board the “Fighting” _Téméraire_; 2 Jerseymen, and 1 man from Guernsey. Jamaica had 1 man on board, and Newfoundland 2 men. As usual, a number of foreigners figure on the books—66 altogether. They included: 28 Americans, 9 Germans (mostly from Hamburg and Emden), 6 Swedes, 5 Portuguese, 3 Frenchmen, 3 Spaniards, 1 Dutchman, 1 Cape-Dutchman, 1 from “Sclavonia” (Peter Valentine by name), 1 Viennese (Emil Joaquim), 1 from Old Calabar (a negro named Ephraim) and the remainder from Santa Cruz and other non-British islands in the West Indies.