French ship Rivoli

Some historians claim the French actually surpassed the Royal Navy in this particular aspect of maritime warfare.

This new ship would eventually be christened the Rivoli, after one of Napoleon's legendary victories from the First Italian Campaign.

With its modern design, the Rivoli would be relatively small and maneuverable for a ship with so many guns.

It would have almost twice as much firepower as any other vessel operating in the Adriatic at that time.

Under the right circumstances, a ship like the Rivoli could change the balance of power in this entire theater of the war.

By late summer of 1810, major construction work on the Rivoli was finished.

The ship still had a long way to go before it would be ready for combat.

It had to undergo what are known as sea trials, small test voyages near the shipyard, to ensure everything was ready and expose any potential flaws in the construction so they could be corrected before the ship left on its first mission.