Admiral Sir Henry William Bayntun GCB (1766 – 16 December 1840) was a senior officer in the Royal Navy, whose distinguished career in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars was a catalogue of the highest and lowest points of the Navy during the conflict. His record includes extensive operations in the West Indies followed by shipwreck, the battle of Trafalgar and the disastrous expedition to Buenos Aires in 1807. Early career Born in 1766 in Algiers, where his father was Consul general, Bayntun joined the navy at a young age and received his lieutenancy at just seventeen on 15 April 1783. When war broke out with Revolutionary France in 1793, Bayntun was sent to the West Indies under Admiral Sir John Jervis and, after taking part in the capture of Martinique, he was given command of the sloop . Bayntun was also present during the invasion of Guadeloupe and on 4 May 1794, he was appointed post captain of HMS Undaunted, the former French frigate, La Bienvenue, captured during the Battle of Martinique. Bayntun was subsequently given command of the 36-gun HMS Reunion, which was wrecked in December 1796. In January 1799, he was appointed to . He then commanded ships of the line, including and , with which he won acclaim during a successful blockade of the French Caribbean islands following their return to France under the terms of the Treaty of Amiens. In 1803 he captured the French frigate Créole, along with her convoy and hundreds of troops aboard returning to France. Trafalgar campaign In 1804 Bayntun returned to England after ten years in the West Indies, and was given command of the fast third rate . She joined Nelson's fleet off Brest and subsequently sailed to the West Indies again in pursuit of the French fleet. After learning that the French had returned to European waters, Leviathan sailed to Gibraltar before arriving off Cádiz on 8 October 1805. Bayntun was in this way unusual amongst Trafalgar captains, many of whom had only just arrived on station for the blockade. At the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October, Bayntun in Leviathan was fifth in Nelson's weather column, after , , and HMS Conqueror. Leviathan raked the French flagship before engaging the massive . Seeing the distant approach of Rear-Admiral Dumanoir's squadron from the north, Captain Thomas Hardy ordered Leviathan and other ships to close with the enemy. Leviathan