Pistolet Royal Navy Sea Service Mdle 1756

Pistolet Royal Navy Sea Service Mdle 1756
English Translation
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Si, au début du XVIIIème siècle, les marins de la Royal Navy étaient équipées d'armes relativement disparates, la seconde moitié du siècle voit se répandre un modèle standard de pistolet de marine, dit "Sea Service". Son canon fut réduit à neuf pouces à la fin du siècle, pour le rendre plus maniable en mêlée.
From this website

In the age of fighting sail, all navies were famous for the patchwork of weapons used on board their ships.  The Royal Navy was no different.  However by the second half of the 18th century a model of sea service pistol began to dominate amongst the tars of Britain's navy.   While there were earlier versions of the sea service pistol, Britain at the time of the Seven Years War began to produce naval pistols and muskets like never before.

The sea service pistols offered here (12 inch barrel) saw extensive use during the the French and Indian War, the American Revolution and the Nelson's adventures during the Napoleonic Wars.  During the 1790s, the barrel was shortened to 9 inches making it more convenient in the tangled mêlées experienced by boarding parties.  The shortened version is often referred to as the East India Co. Sea Service Pistol because they were the first to shorten it.   By time of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and the War of 1812 there would have been a mixture of lengths of barrel on board ship.

In the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, the props master took this approach by mixing old and new models of these weapons (see our film credits here).  After the Napoleonic Wars, a vast number of pistols were sold to the Mexican Army.   The new film Alamo (release date April 2004) illustrates this fact and uses our Sea Service pistols in a number of the scenes.  Some even wandered "on board" of  Pirates of the Caribbean and pistols on the Hornblower series are from the same manufacturer.

During the War of 1812, the American navy would have had these pistols available to them, from their capture of a number of British ships especially after the Battle of Lake Erie.