I fight for my king and country. I will not stop fighting untill I die or the enemy of Great Britian is destroyed. Long live the king and long live England. The Royal Navy is the oldest of HM Armed Forces (and is therefore known as the Senior Service). From the beginning of the 19th century until well into the 20th century it was the most powerful navy in the world, playing a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power from 1815 until the early 1940s.

The Napoleonic Wars saw the Royal Navy reach a peak of efficiency, dominating the navies of all Britain's adversaries, which spent most of the war blockaded in port. The Navy achieved an emphatic early victory at the Glorious First of June (1794) Napoleon, now ruling France as emperor, attempted to assemble a large enough fleet from the French and Spanish squadrons blockaded in various ports to cover an invasion of England. The Navy frustrated these efforts and, following the abandonment of the invasion plan, the combined Franco-Spanish fleet which had been smashed by Nelson in the Battle of Trafalgar. This victory marked the culmination of decades of developing British naval dominance, and left the Navy in a position of uncontested hegemony at sea which endured until the first half of the twentieth century.
"England expects that every man will do his duty" famous quote by Admiral Horatio Nelson