The Billy Ruffian: The Bellerophon and the Downfall of Napoleon

Not a new book (2004), but I just finished reading it last night.

Unique in the sense that it is the biography of the ship instead of person - - from its launch in 1787 through the historic battles on the first of June, the Nile, and Trafalgar, and more.

The chapters dealing with the time Napoleon spent on board before his exile were especially interesting.

Some odd facts from this welll-written volume will stick in my brain for a long time, I think. In 1807, its captain undertook a survey of his 387 crewmen (excluding officers). He found that the average height of his sailors was 5ft. 5 in. He also found that 49% were English, 24% Irish, 12% Scot, 7% Welsh and the remaining 8% were orignally from a wide variety of homelands, from Africa to the West Indes to Denmark and Sweden.

Looks like my wish list just got longer