ABSTRACT
The first major crackdown on sexual relationships between sailors had died down by the early 1720s. Naval courts tried no cases between 1721 and the late 1730s, around the start of the War of Jenkins’ Ear (1739–48). Yet sailors and the public had no doubt that men continued to engage in “unnatural” relationships at sea. In fact, the press sometimes reported on it, as in this 1735 item that claimed that the Admiralty – the branch of the government in charge of the navy – had discharged two officers for crimes against a ship’s boy rather than prosecuting them. Reports of this sort told the public that the navy’s ban on same-sex acts did not mean that every offender would face trial.
