With his longtime compatriot and co-pilot Edmund Nelson (whom he befriended as a child living in New York's Plaza Hotel where Nelson worked the elevator) at his side, the Marquis dominated the event.

Accompanied by his father, the Rev Edmund Nelson, the young boy set off from King’s Lynn on a stagecoach for London. On arrival at the capital, Edmund put his son on a coach for Chatham ...

In March 1771,12-year-old Horatio Nelson received a letter from his uncle, Captain Maurice Suckling RN, directing him to report to his ship, ...