Jack Aubrey on Midshipmen

In the Royal Navy in Jack Aubrey’s day, there was no naval academy. Boys from naval families went to sea at a young age as “midshipmen”, also known as “young gentlemen”. They were treated as officers—of a sort—so as to learn both seamanship and the art of command, and might with luck and skill ultimately “pass for lieutenant” and become real officers. But as they came to sea before showing any affinity for it, and because they were often quite young, the midshipman’s birth on a man-of-war was often a shockingly squalid place. Or as Jack Aubrey put it:

After dinner – they had eaten alone – he said to Jack, ‘At breakfast yesterday, when you were telling me about your first days at sea, I quoted Hobbes.’

‘The learned cove that spoke of midshipmen as being nasty, brutish and short?’

‘Well, in fact he was speaking of man’s life, unimproved man’s life: it was I that borrowed his words and applied them to the young gentlemen.’

‘Very well applied too.’

— Patrick O’Brian, The Truelove

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