]The attitude toward war seems odd to me. Where is the worry over loss of life or limb? Of hardship and danger? Of the real possibility that they could die? It all seems very cavalier.

I have to agree with you here. I also agree with you that the Admiral looked at it as a job. I think it's the way everybody looked at it. It seems to me that the way the Wentworth family is set up, the brother who is the curate and Captain Wentworth are most likely younger sons and their sister married a younger son as they are in occupations generally relegated to younger sons. Each family probably had an older brother who inherited the estate, whatever it might have been. I imagine since younger brothers were used to a certain lifestyle, they were always trying to find ways within/without of their chosen profession to improve their income to reach at least an acceptable lifesytle as they had known it when growing up. Even more, they hoped, I would think, to find or happen upon ways to elevate their status beyond that if possible.