General information on the Napoleonic era for beginners.

Here is a quick source containing a few facts and data.

https://www.napoleon.org/en/history-...avy-1793-1802/

Rob.

One to start you off on the History of ships of the line.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_the_line

Factoid.

A sailor in the Royal Navy in 1805 would have served aboard one of 136 ships of the line – that is to say ships of 50 guns or more – or one of 160 cruisers; he would have been one of 114,012 sailors entered into British ships’ books. He could have been stationed in the North Sea, English Channel, Western Approaches, eastern or western Mediterranean, the Windward or Leeward Islands in the Caribbean, the East Indies or somewhere off the coast of North America.
Such a sailor would have been very lucky indeed to witness one battle, let alone more. Officers, especially talented ones, were more likely to witness fleet battle because they had a greater chance of being sent to trouble zones, and yet only three senior naval officers witnessed as many as three fleet battles in this period: Horatio Nelson, Cuthbert Collingwood and Edward Berry.