Who was Jack Tar?

Discover more about the sailor with a nation in his calloused hands. Jack Tar was a patriot and a prisoner, a delegate and a drunk. So, did the common seaman drive progress in the age of sail? Author and biographer, Stephen Taylor, tells us in Aeon magazine the story of "the most successful fighting man Britain produced which, with its taste for booty, pugilism and foreign adventure is saying quite something."