This article examines the operational history of the Royal Navy during the military and geopolitical progress of the Napoleonic Wars, from the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October to 27 August when Lord Exmouth suppressed the Algiers slave trade.
This decade begins after Nelson and Collingwood smashed the invasion threat at Trafalgar, subsequent Franco-Spanish sea power thus reduced to mere squadrons, desperately rebuilding at bases scattered around the globe.
During these tumultuous years the United Kingdom persistently made war on Napoleonic France and captured the fleets and colonies of those nations which were allied to Bonaparte, such as Spain, Denmark, Russia and Italy. In the Royal Navy overcame the intervention of the United States, a growing power that had won dramatic naval victories against the United Kingdom.
Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor on December 2nd He was 35 years old. Painted by the studio of Francois Gerard. Convoying merchants and hunting privateers were vital trade protection responsibilities that regional commanders needed to master. Paris and its environs represent the largest economic concentration. The Royal Navy expanded exponentially after when Revolutionary France declared war upon the United Kingdom and Holland, the latter whom the British were obliged to defend by the treaty of This level was maintained until the peak of , was reached in Another , seamen manned the merchant marine in up from , in Nor do these figure include the Royal Marines: 5, in , 30, by , when the art of amphibious warfare had been finely honed.
Displacement tonnage of European fleets during 17th and 18th centuries. Numerical size of fleets during 18th century, ships of the line and frigates. The combined fleets of France and Spain were nearing parity with the Royal Navy when the Revolution broke out. Chatham Dockyard, c. London Docks at Wapping, , by William Daniell. The generation of Royal Navy officers prominent in emerged from a long tradition of admirals, beginning in the hard school of the Elizabethan age.
