Royal Navy
TRADITIONAL TOASTS
Royal Navy — TRADITIONAL TOASTS — United Kingdom
| DAY | TOAST |
|---|---|
| Sunday | "Absent friends and those at sea" |
| Monday | "Our ships at sea" |
| Tuesday | "Our men" ("Our sailors" since 2013) |
| Wednesday | "Ourselves" (usually with the informal reply "for nobody else will concern themselves with our well-being!") |
| Thursday | "A bloody war or a sickly season" |
| Friday | "A willing foe and sea-room" |
| Saturday | "Our wives and sweethearts" (usually with the reply "May they never meet!") ("Our families" since 2013) |
| Loyal Toast | "His Majesty, the King" (or "the Queen") |
"The toasts are typically given by the youngest officer present at the mess dinner. By tradition, these toasts are proposed immediately after the Loyal Toast, on the relevant day of the week. The Navy makes the Loyal Toast seated. This was a special dispensation granted by William IV, who had narrowly missed cracking his head several times on low deck heads when serving in the Royal Navy..."
WIKI
The Loyal Toast
Toasting aboard HMS Elephant the night before the Battle of Copenhagen (1801)
SHIPS OF WAR — MURKY WATERS (Book One)
1791 — England's cannon remain ever silent as her shipping is ruthlessly preyed upon, a detestable state of affairs, though soon to be remedied...
England is ill prepared, Europe is in turmoil and the French Revolution is readying to sweep across the continent. A tedious uneasy peace poises on a knife's edge. Brittana rules the...
About "Ships of War" — a Naval Adventure Fiction Series
The Traditional Toasts are referred to in the "Ship of Wars" series. The naval adventure fiction series "Ships of War" by Bradley John often refers to the Articles (and the subsequent penalties). The full list of the Articles of War (1749) are above, including a link to Wiki.
The first instalment of the series is set in England in 1791, titled "Ships of War — Murky Waters". The reigning monarch of England is George III. Louis XVI is the monarch of France, but he is not exactly reigning, his authority somewhat diminished within the rising revolution. War is nigh and eventually is declared by France on 1 February 1793 (following the execution of Louis XVI on 21 January 1793).
Bradley John's series commences in 1791 in the prelude to war. It seems a solution must be found by the English Admiralty to resolve the piracy preying upon their merchant shipping. In doing so, they select a complete unknown, someone wholly dispensable, in particular, an unknown officer who had served under one Captain Horatio Nelson.