The Battle of Trafalgar took place during the Regency and Pitt's second short ministry. In 1788 the illness of George III created a situation which could well have terminated Pitt's career because the Prince of Wales, holding no brief for Pitt, supported the Whigs - all due, no doubt, to the fact that Pitt refused to pay the Prince's debts, and drew up an act to restrain the new Regent from creating peers and granting pensions.           

Pitt, attempting to balance the books at home, drew up a commercial treaty with France not thinking that the French Revolution would affect Britain. But after the monarchy fell, the French declared war on Austria and Prussia changing the commercial face of Europe.       

The French then threatened Holland, and Britain was bound by treaty to support the Dutch. It soon became evident that Napoleon intended to take the whole of Europe and annexe Britain. Part of Napoleon's Grand Design had been to raise havoc among the British possessions in the West Indies enticing the British Fleet into the troubled area thereby depriving Britain of naval protection.

For many months 175,000 French soldiers had been assembled near Boulogne with (according to some reports) at least 2,000 flat-bottomed boats to carry them across the Channel. All Napoleon needed was a period of grace. Two or three days grace would have given him control of the Channel. 

Year after year Pitt had managed to sustain coalitions with other European powers but these melted away under the onslaught of Napoleon, an ex-corporal who crowned himself Emperor. Britain's continental allies were powerless and Britain was left, as later in 1939, expecting imminent invasion.  

Pitt was insistent that Nelson, whose methods had often been an embarrassment to the establishment, and who from 1789 -1793 had been beached on half pay without a ship, should be brought in to mastermind the destruction of the French Fleet. Pitt's wisdom and Nelson's brilliance in battle saved England.