] (That, btw, is why most fiction about the Royal Navy in this period deals with officers in command of smaller vessels -- there's just not enough blood and thunder in endless routine cruising off Brest or Toulon. Both Forrester and O'Brien find ways to get Hornblower and Aubery out of the command of a ship of the line to which their seniority would ordinarily entitle them, and Forrester has Hornblower spend much of his time in that command on detached service.)

... it also depended where you served. The West Indies were a horribly dangerous place to be on land, but if you could keep out of the ports as much as possible, and out to sea, then the possibilities for prize money were far greater. Lots of privateers, plus the possibility of catching the odd Spanish ship carrying gold or precious gems from the Spanish Main (which I think is Venezuela) to Spain. Plus French vessels of course near places like Martinique.

O'Brien and Forrester write rattling good yarns, but another set of novels - the 'Ramage' series by Dudley Pope - give great detail on Nelson's navy. Like Forrester, Pope was a naval historian. They are well worth reading just for their historical accuracy.