To such a pass had the loss of her supremacy at sea reduced Great Britain in the closing year of our fourth _Dreadnought’s_ career. Our fifth _Dreadnought_ fought at Trafalgar. She was a 98-gun ship, one of the same set as the famous “fighting” _Téméraire_. The newspapers of the day made a good deal of her launch, which took place at Portsmouth Dockyard, on Saturday, the 13th of June, 1801. Here is an extract from one account:— “At about twelve o’clock this fine ship, which has been thirteen years upon the stocks, was launched from the dockyard with all the naval splendour that could possibly be given to aid the grandeur and interest of the spectacle. She was decorated with an Ensign, Jack, Union, and the Imperial Standard, and had the marine band playing the distinguished martial pieces of ‘God save the King,’ ‘Rule Britannia,’ etc. etc. A prodigious concourse of persons, to the amount, as is supposed, of at least 10,000, assembled, and were highly delighted by the magnificence of the ship and the beautiful manner in which she entered the watery element. But what afforded great satisfaction was, that, in the passage of this immense fabric from the stocks, not a single accident happened. She was christened by Commissioner Sir Charles Saxton, who, as usual, broke a bottle of wine over her stem. Her complement of guns is to be 98, and she has the following significant emblem at her head; viz.—a lion couchant on a scroll containing the imperial arms as emblazoned on the Standard. This is remarkably well timed and adapted to her as being the first man-of-war launched since the Union of the British Isles.” [Illustration: WHEN GEORGE THE THIRD WAS KING. OFFICERS AT AFTERNOON TEA ASHORE. _Thomas Rowlandson. 1786._] [Illustration: MANNING THE FLEET IN 1779. A WARM CORNER FOR THE PRESS GANG. _James Gillray. Oct. 15, 1779._] For twelve months before Trafalgar, the _Dreadnought_ was Collingwood’s flagship in the Channel Fleet. Collingwood passed most of the time cruising on blockade duty in the Bay of Biscay, where he used to spend his nights pacing on deck to and fro restlessly, expecting the enemy at any moment, and snatching intervals of sleep lying down on a gun-carriage on the quarter-deck. Collingwood only changed from her into the bigger _Royal Sovereign_ ten days before the battle. Under the eye of the former captain of our first _Excellent_ man-of-war, the _Dreadnought’s_ men had been trained to fire three broadsides in one minute and a half—a gunnery record for that day. At Trafalgar the _Dreadnought_ fought as one of the ships in Collingwood’s line, and did the best with what opportunity came her way.