Trafalgar', CAPE

Trafalgar', CAPE, a low promontory on the south coast of Spain, about 29 miles west-north-west of Tarifa (q.v.), on the Straits of Gibraltar. It is memorable for the great naval victory obtained (October 21, 1805) by the British fleet under Nelson over the combined fleets of France and Spain under the French admiral Villeneuve and two Spanish admirals. The British force consisted of 27 sail of the line, 4 frigates, 1 schooner, and 1 cutter; the force of the French and Spaniards united amounted to 33 sail of the line, 5 frigates, and 2 brigs. Villeneuve formed his fleet in a double line in close order, Nelson attacked in two lines, Collingwood leading the first. His own ship, the Victory, ran on the Redoutable with the intention of breaking the line, and soon forced her to strike, but not before Nelson had been mortally wounded by the fire kept up from her tops. Nelson lived long enough to know that twenty of the enemy had struck. The English loss was 1587 men. See NELSON; and Professor Laughton's Story of Trafalgar (1890).