5 - ‘They Cannot Keep the Sea beyond a Passage’

Summary

Chapter 5 is a case study, further pursuing the conclusions of Chapters 3 and 4, and analysing an example of ‘hard-to-integrate’ foreigner: southern Italian sailors were imagined by British officers and policymakers through the lens of substantial racial stereotypes, compounded by cultural, linguistic, and religious differences, mutual unfamiliarity, and the Mediterranean’s geographical distance from the British world. This did not mean that it was deemed impossible to turn these seamen into useful and respected crew members. However, it did mean that, if this was to happen, they needed to be completely removed from the structures of their own state, and particularly from the influence and perceived corruption and inefficiency of Neapolitan and Sicilian officers. The imbalanced power dynamic between Britain and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which during the French Wars came to depend entirely on the Royal Navy, led to frequent manpower exchange, and affected the interactions between British and Neapolitan officers. Collaboration and patronage flourished, but so did acrimony and rivalry. This tense undercurrent offered British officers a chance of separating the seamen whom they were reclaiming as perfectly good recruits from the stereotypes of corruption and unreliability that they associated with those seamen’s country.