HMS Lion or Lyon was a 60-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Chatham Dockyard to the 1706 Establishment and launched on 20 January 1709.

[3][4] On 22 March 1711, Lion was with other Royal Navy vessels in Vado Bay on the Italian coast when four French enemy ships were sighted.

Forty of Lion's crew were killed, and Walpole was so badly injured that his right arm was amputated by the ship's surgeon John Atkins.

[5][6] Walpole's sword from the time of this engagement was subsequently gifted to a young Horatio Nelson and was still in his possession when he too lost his right arm in the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife on 15 July 1797.

They cruised between Ushant and Cape Finisterre in an attempt to intercept a large merchant fleet that was sailing from San Domingo to France.

After a month at sea they encountered the convoy, which consisted of some 170 ships carrying a cargo of cochineal, cotton, indigo and other valuable commodities.