"This is the story of Admiral Sir John Balchen, his life and career, and HMS Victory, the largest, finest ship-of-the-line in the Royal Navy at the time, which was his flagship when both were lost, along with more than 1,000 crew, in an October storm in the English Channel in 1744. This is not the Victory of Trafalgar fame, however, but the First Rate built some thirty years earlier, the last Royal Navy three-decker to carry bronze cannon, and a ship whose poor design may well have contributed to her loss. And the story of both the ship and her commander, their individual and remarkably parallel lives, are revealed as fundamental catalysts to the revolutionary reforms in naval shipbuilding, design and dockyard administration that transformed the Royal Navy after 1745. The exciting discovery of the wreck of HMS Victory in 2008, the subsequent and continuing public and political wrangling over possible salvage and the 2019 display at Portsmouth of a mighty 42-pounder bronze gun retrieved from the wreck, are all described in this compelling history of the admiral and his ship; anyone with an interest in naval and maritime hiostry, whether academic or popular, will be fascinated by the story of this hitherto almost unknown predecessor of Nelson's great flagship."--PRovided by the publisher.