Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2022
The conclusion draws together the main themes discussed in the book, and briefly examines what happened after the end of the war, in 1815. Suddenly, with the decommissioning of the fleet, most (though not all) ‘foreign’ seamen were no longer needed, and many of them were reduced to beg in the streets. The utilitarian system of ‘pragmatic inclusiveness’ that had directed naval recruitment collapsed, and displacement was the trigger for legal and cultural forms of discrimination which had been suppressed by the Navy during the war. Thus, its exceptional bubble eventually burst. Different types of labels and demarcations, which had been treated as, and proven to be, utterly unimportant, all of a sudden became a convenient framework for both individuals and the state to harken onto, crystallising ‘foreign Jack Tars’ into a group. The legal categories that were twisted in one direction during wartime now further proved their flimsiness by being twisted in the opposite direction. Caught in between states, the same men who were previously wanted by all were now rejected by all.
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