Cayetano Valdés y Flores

In 1797 Valdés was in command of the ship of the line Pelayo at the Battle of Cape St Vincent when a British fleet under Sir John Jervis defeated the Spanish.

By the terms of the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso the Pelayo was given to the French Navy and Valdés was given command of the Neptuno, then stationed at Brest, France.

In 1801 he conveyed the commander of Spanish forces in Hispaniola on a joint Franco-Spanish operation against the rebellious slaves in Haiti during the Haitian Revolution.

In 1805, Valdés and the Neptuno were based in Cadiz as commodore of a squadron of ships, and so they were called on to fight when the French fleet attempted to make the open sea during the Trafalgar campaign.

Although his ship was wrecked in the storm which followed the battle, Valdés and many of his shipmates survived, and thus he was in England when the Peninsular War broke out in Spain in 1808.

[5] He was appointed captain-general of Cadiz, but on the return of Ferdinand VII of Spain, he was imprisoned during the repression which followed the restitution of an absolute monarchy.

Released in 1820, following Riego's 1820 revolt, Valdés was again appointed governor of Cadiz during the Trienio Liberal, seeing active service again defending the city during the siege that followed the Battle of Trocadero.