England may have expected, but it wasn’t just England who answered the call.
The crew of HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar by nationality from Janes’s Naval History – 441 English, 64 Scots, 63 Irish, 18 Welsh, 22 Americans, 7 Dutch, 6 Swedes, 4 Italians, 4 Maltese, 3 Frenchmen, 3 Norwegians, 3 Germans, 3 Shetlanders, 2 Swiss, 2 Channel Islanders, 2 Portuguese, 2 Danes, 1 Russian, 1 African, 1 Manxman, and 9 men from the West Indies. So that’s a third of the crew of the Victory not classified as English.