The Santisima Trinidad y Nuestra Señora del Buen Fin, a 2,200-ton 60-gun Manila galleon, makes a bad journey from Manila to Acapulco. Having 435 persons aboard initially, she has lost 74 ones of typhus during her 221-day long journey. Three hundreds and ten or twenty more are lying, unable to move, near death. ¤ A standard journey takes five or six months. A seven-month one is long but not surprising. What is surprising is that a few men achieved to handle this quite big s

Pierre Arnoul A distinguished naval administrator, Pierre Arnoul, aged 28, is held responsible for a shipwreck so ousted from his...

A new ordinance by Jean-Baptiste Colbert creates the Caisse des Invalides meant to rescuing the wounded mariners. Simultaneously, a...

Jean-Baptiste Colbert The late steep rise of the French navy requires hands aboard the warships in unheard-of quantities. The French...