This is a vivid social and economic history of the lives of English merchant seamen in the 17th and 18th centuries, a period during which England rose to dominance in global commerce and became the greatest naval power in the world. Drawing on primary documents, public records, and private memoirs, acclaimed historian Peter Earle explores every aspect of the sailor's life: conditions of service, wealth and possessions, life aboard ship, the perils of the sea, discipline and punishment, sickness, desertion, mutiny and mortality, and the role of the sailor in times of war. Evocative, scholarly, and colorful, this story of England's "bravest and boldest" reveals how life on the waves was not all storms and conflict, tyranny and revolt, but also one of comradeship, adventure, and "the wonder how any can be such a lubber to stay on land."