Until Patrick O'Brian came about, Forester's Hornblower was the nonpareil of historical fiction covering the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic era. Forester's Hornblower was so good, and the field so rich (even when based on actual events), that others wanted to write similar material. But they had terrible shoes to fill; all but O'Brian are well back in the pack. You don't have to be militaristic or an Anglophile (I'm neither) to be fascinated by the things the Royal Navy would go through to get things done back then.