ABSTRACT
An unusual navy trial from 1775 concerned the relationship between two officers from HMS Raven, master William Robinson and marine lieutenant John Halsted. The exact nature of their connection is not entirely clear, but Robinson himself publicly accused Halsted of a longstanding sexual interest in him. Shipmates told the court that they had heard speech that they felt went beyond what was normal between fellow officers, suggesting “unnatural” desire and perhaps a romantic bond. The naval authorities scrupulously avoided bringing officers to trial for sexual relationships with other officers, but observers had no doubts that such relationships sometimes developed. When Tobias Smollett sketched a pair of naval lovers in The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748), he made the couple a captain and surgeon, not lower-deck men or an officer and a rating (Document 3). The trial papers also clearly record efforts by their peers and superiors to help Robinson and Halsted return to England from the Mediterranean rather than stand trial. Like Francis Dunne and George Maltby’s trials (Document 4), Robinson and Halsted’s trial therefore grants a valuable view into a hidden corner of the sexual cultures of the navy: erotic and romantic intimacy within the officer class.
