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Accurate intelligence in the age of sail was a scarce commodity. Accurate intelligence is, of course, scarce at all times but the sea, in the years before radar and radio, let alone satellite surveillance, was an arena of the unknown. The horizon was an impenetrable barrier, the man-of-war, breasting the waves at six knots or […]

The Westminster Magazine covered the events at one such camp held at Coxheath, near Maidstone, Kent, during the summers of 1778 and 1779. By all accounts, this camp was on a massive scale involving 17,000 troops as well as civilians, many representing the 700 retailers who had come from London to service the soldiers. The […]

Capture of HMS Ardent by the frigates Junon and Chantil. Early on the 17th, when the French and Spanish ships were still off Plymouth, another alarm was sounded: ‘At four o’clock the alarm guns on the citadel were fired, on discovering a number of ships entering the Sound, which were at first taken for transports […]