The small human scale is also a response to de Loutherbourg’s painting, since both in different ways contrast a mass of vulnerable figures with the great floating fortresses in which they are contesting national dominance on a mutually hostile sea.

In 'The Harbours of England' Ruskin grasped this elemental component when he likened the uncontrollability of the ship’s sails, as Turner shows them, to ‘as many thunderclouds’, most of 'Victory’'s falling with her foremast and at the same time as Nelson. Also symbolically, the falling mast bears his white vice-admiral’s flag, while the code flags spelling ‘d-u-t-y’ – both the last word of his famous Trafalgar signal and the last coherent thought he spoke (‘Thank God I have done my duty’) – are coming down from the mainmast.

On the right is the French 'Redoutable', from which Nelson was shot, surrendered and sinking, although she in fact went down in the storm after the battle. Below the surface loom fragments of Nelson’s motto, ‘Palmam qui meruit ferat’. This can translate as ‘Let him who has earned it bear the Palm’, or, in the circumstances, ‘the price of glory is death’.