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love a lighthouse love a tall rocky coastline

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I was reading Utmost Gallantry by Kevin D. McCranie and came across an intriguing line. When Captain Isaac Hull of USS Constitution was fleeing a British squadron in 1812, he passed within gunshot range of a British frigate, but the enemy held her fire. Hull later wrote that the frigate "did not fire on us, perhaps for fear of becalming her as the wind was light."

I immediately remembered that Frederick Marryat wrote something very similar about a ship's guns somehow stopping the wind, and found it in The King's Own: "wind lulled by the percussion of the air from the report of the guns."

This was apparently a genuine sailors' superstition!

Action at Sea: an English and a French Frigate Engaging by Robert Dodd c. 1802 (ArtUK).

I searched Google Books for more references and found one in a late 18th century dispatch to the Admiralty quoted in Memoir of Robert, Earl Nugent: "their guns had so lulled the wind as to leave us little prospect of getting nearer to them."

I can see how, in an era long before smokeless powder, it might seem like firing large guns made the wind die down as the combatants were enveloped in clouds of smoke.

@ltwilliammowett have you heard this one?

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The 1821 gold sovereign by Benedetto Pistrucci. The portrait was reviled by George IV, who hated its “bloated expression” and “its full features implying something of the appetites of the monarch”. Similar difficulties were encountered with Pistrucci’s designs for the coronation medal. He also refused to copy Francis Chantrey’s bust of George IV (which the King preferred), with the result that his work is absent from British coinage from 1825 to 1830.

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And there was only one tent for two officers' beds...

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Le jour de l'an, by Paul Gavarni, 1835.

New Year's day gifts, like les étrennes? Another 1830s doll, and a bust of Napoleon on the mantel.

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The zoological keepsake. 1830. Book cover.

Internet Archive

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Detail of an 1839 advertisement for George Delas's invention for measuring the body for clothing, the 'somatometer.'

Guillaume Compaing was not only the first Frenchman to systematize "the application of geometry to the cutting of clothes" in his 1828 treatise on L'art du tailleur, he was also one of the first to propose calculations for modifying a pattern according to the stature, posture, and stance of a given client. Many other "methods" appeared, sometimes accompanied by instruments including Beck's 1819 "costumometer", Sylvestre's 1829 "mechanical bust", Barde's 1834 anthropometric trinity of "shouldometer, backometer, bodimeter", and Delas's 1839 "somatometer."

— A History of Men's Fashion, Farid Chenoune

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I hope you guys are ready for

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Good to see that they were aware of the Hat Crisis at the dawn of the century.

Light Summer Hat and Fashionable Walking Sticks for the Year 1801. July 10, 1801. Credit line: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/392710

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I will take a cheeky butt over what looks like suing me for child support.

HEY DUOLINGO WHY BUTT????

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I was reading Utmost Gallantry: The U.S. and Royal Navies at Sea in the War of 1812 last night, and really struck by the global scale of the naval war. It makes sense, of course, with Britain as the premier sea power of the day, with something like half of total world tonnage, and the United States determined to Annoy the Enemy with commerce raiding and targeting distant shipping lanes. USS Essex targeting British whalers in the Pacific is said to be the inspiration behind The Far Side of the World by Patrick O'Brian.

But you would never know this from the popular artwork and historical memory, which is 99.9% USS Constitution, or, if you're rooting for the other guys, HMS Shannon. And I love both of these ships!!! I love Captain Broke, and I love that USS Constitution is both a museum ship and still a commissioned ship in the US Navy. I am just a little tired of hearing about ONLY these two ships. I am tired of every US museum site or archive having 99% pictures of USS Constitution and nothing else. PLEASE can we get some cool naval artwork about some other frigate duels or battles.

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Yaquina - Oregon

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Captain Philip Bowes Vere Broke, NMM collection.

Philip Broke was a talented officer, dedicated to the service and driven by a sense of duty to his country. He was also a loving husband and affectionate father. His correspondence with his wife Sarah Louisa, ‘Loo’, provides a fascinating insight into the man who rekindled hope and restored British naval pride during the war of 1812. [...]

It is through correspondence that we get a glimpse of how Broke saw his family and his duty, both afloat and ashore. Broke’s sense of family continued onto his ship, with Shannon playing the role of his ‘wooden wife’ and the young midshipmen and lieutenants his ‘sea children’. This familial approach to ship and crew shows through his letters, reflecting the importance of family and paternalism in the life of Broke and his contemporaries.

— Ellen Gill, "Letters to his Wife ‘Loo’" in Broke of the Shannon and the War of 1812 ed. Tim Voelcker.

Part of the 15-star United States naval ensign of USS Chesapeake, captured in action with HMS Shannon on 1 June 1813. (NMM)

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'A smuggler shown at different stages and points of his chosen profession', 19th century coloured etching (Wellcome Collection).

Odd choice to depict "The Smuggler's Death" at bottom centre followed by "The Smuggler's Return," when reading left to right. No matter what direction you go, death is but a temporary obstacle in his career.