The last stage of the battle, with the French and English ships engaged in a general melée. By then 25 French ships were already out of action and trying to make for Cadiz.
The Victory was then towed to Gibraltar, with Nelson's body on board preserved in a barrel of brandy. Upon his body's arrival in London, Nelson was given a state funeral and entombment in St. Paul's Cathedral. According to legend, the rum ration used to preserve his body was given to naval men and came to be known as "Nelson's Blood", a possibly deliberate echo of the Communion ritual. Above, beneath the setting sun, his fleet was lying in two groups with the shattered hulks of the enemy ships all around them. The British losses had been heavy; 449 killed and 1,241 wounded. But of the 27 ships of the British fleet, not one had been sunk or captured. Trafalgar was the decisive battle of the Napoleonic Wars. It had always been essential to Napoleon’s master plan to control the world that he should have command of the seas. With his Allied fleet now ruined as a fighting force the dream had been destroyed forever. Trafalgar, moreover, established England’s supremacy at sea for nearly a century and a half, during which time her navy remained the bedrock on which her control of the far-flung British Empire rested through the age of steam and into the 20th century. Nelson would go down a hero, and the most famous square in England, Trafalgar Square, would be named for the victory. Without France to challenge her -- Germany was not yet unified, and Russia was no naval power -- England would rule the World's oceans for 100 years.
Nelson was noted for his considerable ability to inspire and bring out the best in his men, to the point that it gained a name: "The Nelson Touch". Famous even while alive, after his death he was lionized like almost no other military figure in British history (his only peers are the Duke of Marlborough and Nelson's contemporary, the Duke of Wellington). The monumental Nelson's Column and the surrounding Trafalgar Square are notable locations in London to this day, and Nelson was buried in St. Pauls Cathedral. The Victory is in existence, and is in fact still kept on active commission in honour of Nelson -- it is the flagship of the Second Sea Lord; she can be found in Number 2 Dry Dock of the Portsmouth Naval Base, in Portsmouth, England.