Robert Hilton was a 21-year-old surgeon's mate on HMS Swiftsure, a 74-gun ship that played its part in the destruction of the French and Spanish fleets and of Napoleon's dream of invading England.

Originally L'Invincible, the 74-gun ship was built in south west France on the banks of the River Charente at Rochefort in 1744. It was designed to fight all around the world, protecting France's ...

HMS Implacable, formerly the French Duguay-Trouin, in Portsmouth Harbour in the 1930s. Picture: The News PP688 HMS Implacable was a 74-gun third rate of the Royal Navy.

HMS Bellerophon, a 74-gun ship of the line, ... Bellerophon roughed it through the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, taking part in many of the greatest battles of that bloody era.

An enormous French flag measuring 16x8.3 metres, captured by Admiral Lord Nelson from the French Témèraire-class 72-gun ship of the line Le Genereux during the Battle of the Malta Convoy ...

The 74-gun ship was lost when its rudder jammed and it ran aground on a sandbank between Langstone Harbour and the Isle of Wight, capsizing three days later. No lives were lost.