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On the 21st October 1805 the British defeated a combined French and Spanish fleet. It signaled the end of Napoleon's plan to invade Britain and cemented Britain's position as the dominant naval power for more than a century. The British admiral Nelson was killed during the battle and his statue dominates London's Trafalgar Square completed in 1845 The six British ships dispatched earlier to Gibraltar had not returned, so Nelson would have to fight without them. He was outnumbered and outgunned, nearly 30,000 men and 2,568 guns to his 17,000 men and 2,148 guns. The Franco-Spanish fleet also had six more ships of the line, and so could more readily combine their fire. There was no way for some of Nelson's ships to avoid being "doubled on" or even "trebled on".