The location of the wreck of HMS Victory, precursor to Admiral Nelson’s flagship, has remained a mystery since she sank without trace off Alderney with the loss of all 1,100 officers and ratings.

So too has the reason that the wooden man-of-war became separated from escorting vessels as they returned from fighting the French fleet off Portugal in the autumn of 1744. Now a salvage company claims to have found the wreck of what was once described as the finest ship in the world.

More than 260 years after HMS Victory sank, having hit Black Rock off Alderney in the Channel Islands, the company plans to prove its discovery by exhibiting some of the items uncovered from the seabed. These include two brass cannon that, if from that era, should have a distinctive arrow marking on the casing.

The company involved, Odyssey Marine Exploration, based in Tampa, Florida, has taken part in many deep-ocean salvage operations and has discovered hundreds of shipwrecks.

With reports emerging over the weekend of the discovery, the Ministry of Defence warned: “Assuming the wreck is indeed that of a British war-ship, her remains are sovereign immune. This means that no intrusive action may be taken without the express consent of the United Kingdom.”

The salvage company, which said that it was negotiating with the MoD over collaborating on the project, has not yet found the 100,000 gold coins believed to have been on board HMS Victory when it sank in the Channel.

Odyssey is understood to have found the wreck in May. Greg Stemm, its co-founder, said that it had been found 330ft beneath the surface. “This is a big one just because of the history.

Very rarely do you solve an age-old mystery like this,” he said.

The 175ft sailing ship was separated from the rest of the fleet during a storm and sank on October 4, 1744. The lighthouse keeper on Alderney was prosecuted subsequently for failing to switch on the lights.

The ship, which had been the largest in the fleet and armed with 110 cannon, provided the inspiration for the ship commanded by Admiral Nelson several decades later.

The disastrous sinking damaged the reputation of the ship’s commanding officer, Sir John Balchin, who had had an unblemished record.

The discovery of the wreck may cast a new light on the sinking. Robert Balchin, 66, a direct descendant of Sir John, said: “As far as the family is concerned, it is an astonishing revelation. It’s as if he has sort of come alive again.”

Mr Balchin has already seen one of the recovered cannon and confirmed that it bore the coat of arms of George III. “It brought a very special communion with the past,” he said.

The company had been searching for other shipwrecks when divers came across HMS Victory, Mr Stemm said. “We found it more than 50 miles from where anybody would have thought it went down.”

US federal court records filed by Odyssey, seeking exclusive rights, describe the site as 25 to 40 miles from the English coast, outside UK territorial waters.

Two years ago the company announced that it had brought up 500,000 silver coins from the wreck of a Spanish galleon that sank off Portugal in 1804. Spain sued Odyssey over ownership of the coins and the case is still pending. In 2003 the company found the wreck of the SS Republic, a vessel of the American Civil War, and recovered more than 50,000 coins and 14,000 artefacts.

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