History

Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, KB (29 September 1758 – 21 October 1805), also known simply as Admiral Nelson, was a British flag officer in the Royal Navy.

Before the time of the internet, telephones and fax machines, ships would use a coded signal flag system. In 1799 Admiral Home Popham published his own telegraphic signal codes book. 

In theory the Navy, like the Army, was a volunteer force, but with the Navy's worldwide commitments always increasing and its ship-building programme seemingly perpetual,

Perhaps surprisingly instructions to commanders-in-chief were not issued upon appointment, but rather, in lieu of a new set of orders, the new commander inherited the standing or unexecuted orders of his predecessor. 

The Sea Fencibles were a British naval militia, mostly volunteers, that was formed in 1793 to act as an anti-invasion force in coastal waters.

The Sea Fencibles were active during the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802) and Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815). They were usually fishermen or local residents along the coast, under the command of retired or serving naval officers.

In addition to its ordinary crew, every warship from sloops through frigates and ships of the line was supplied with a contingent of marines, who comprised about a fifth of a ship's company.

No vessel could operate properly without an adequate system for the organisation of its crew. Ships often carried considerable numbers of men, who could not be expected to perform usefully as a single entity.

From the mid-16th century until the Napoleonic Wars the function and design of guns changed very little, with ordnance consisting of a simple metal tube down the muzzle of which was rammed a charge and round ball. The charge was then ignited by a fuse that communicated with the powder down a vent at the breech, at the top rear of the gun.

Types of Ships in Nelson's Navy

The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) was a naval engagement between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition (August–December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815).

The Battle of Copenhagen of 1801 (Danish: Slaget på Reden), also known as the First Battle of Copenhagen to distinguish it from the Second Battle of Copenhagen in 1807, was a naval battle in which a British fleet fought and defeated a smaller force of the Dano-Norwegian Navy anchored near Copenhagen on 2 April 1801.

The Battle of the Nile (also known as the Battle of Aboukir Bay; French: Bataille d'Aboukir) was a major naval battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the Navy of the French Republic at Aboukir Bay on the Mediterranean coast off the Nile Delta of Egypt from the 1st to the 3rd of August 1798.

The Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife was an amphibious assault by the Royal Navy on the Spanish port city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Launched by Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson on 22 July 1797, the assault was defeated, and on 25 July the remains of the landing party withdrew under a truce, having lost several hundred men. Nelson himself had been wounded in the arm, which was subsequently partially amputated: a stigma that he carried to his grave as a constant reminder of his failure.

The Battle of Cape St. Vincent (14 February 1797) was one of the opening battles of the Anglo-Spanish War (1796–1808), as part of the French Revolutionary Wars, where a British fleet under Admiral Sir John Jervis defeated a larger Spanish fleet under Admiral Don José de Córdoba y Ramos near Cape St. Vincent, Portugal.

All it took was 33 ships. On October 21st 1805, those Royal Navy ships, under the command of the legendary Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson, smashed a larger French-Spanish fleet off Cape Trafalgar on the Atlantic coast of Spain.

The highest form of operational organisation in the Navy was the fleet. Under normal circumstances, a fleet was formed into a single line before action commenced, and in some instances broke apart in the course of the fighting into duels between individual ships.

In 1652 the Admiralty introduced a naval code of conduct, the Articles of War. This was produced following a heavy defeat by the Dutch at the Battle of Dungeness, which was attributed to the 'baseness of spirit' displayed by its captains and admirals in the battle.

British naval strategy imparted numerous responsibilities upon the Royal Navy, including the seizing of the enemy's colonial resources, the defence of the nation from invasion and the protection of British supplies from overseas.

The Siege of Calvi was a combined British and Corsican military operation during the Invasion of Corsica in the early stages of the French Revolutionary Wars.

The Battle of Genoa (also known as the Battle of Cape Noli and in French as Bataille de Gênes) was a naval battle fought between French and allied Anglo-Neapolitan forces on 14 March 1795 in the Gulf of Genoa, a large bay in the Ligurian Sea off the coast of the Republic of Genoa, during the French Revolutionary Wars.