Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The sailors in the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars are largely unknown to us. This thesis explores their worldview, as revealed through songs, memoirs, plays and broadsides. Through interactions with women and working-class men on shore and officers at sea, these men developed a collective identity rooted in working class masculinity. Ultimately, this thesis refutes the idea that sailors occupied a world completely removed from land and were, rather, actively influenced by ideologies and culture on shore.