At a press conference in London, the head of the company's sea exploration team, Greg Stemm, said the wreckage of the HMS Victory had been found in the depths of the English Channel last year. A close examination of 41 bronze cannons photographed on the sand beneath the seas has now confirmed its identity, he said.

He said Odyssey was searching for other valuable shipwrecks in the English Channel when it came across the Victory, but insisted that the ship was located far away from where it had been expected.

"We found this more than 50 miles from where anybody would have thought it went down," Mr Stemm said.

According to the Discovery Channel website, which will air a documentary about the find this week, US Federal court records filed by the Odyssey company in Tampa Florida demand exclusive salvage rights in a site described to be 25 to 40 miles from the English coast, conveniently outside of its territorial waters.

Discovery quotes a Ministry of Defence spokesman stating that the government was aware of Odyssey's claim to have found the Victory.

"Assuming the wreck is indeed that of a British warship, her remains are sovereign immune," he said on condition of anonymity. "This means that no intrusive action may be taken without the express consent of the United Kingdom."

However at the press conference, Mr Stemm, who described the find as "momentous", thanked the British authorities for their cooperation with the company "in the face of complicated issues relating to wreck handling and disposition".

According to their proposed agreement, Odyssey would get either a percentage of the value of the artifact collection or a percentage of the coins or other duplicate artifacts deemed "surplus" by the British government.

The company argues that it has a history of collaboration with the British and has a deal to recover the Sussex, a British warship that sank in the Mediterranean in 1694, also with a cargo of coins worth billions of dollars.

Mr Stemm, who was asked when the team might return to the site, said that depended on the British Defence ministry.

Odyssey had released a 46-page analysis of the wreckage, arguing that the cannons, which are decorated with Royal arms and a crown reveal their nationality and date of manufacture, and gave proof of the wreck's identity. The powerful guns, the analysis added, made Victory "the preeminent warship of the age".

At the wreck site, the Odyssey team also found human bones, but none were recovered and the team's under sea robot carefully reburied any that had been uncovered.

Odyssey is keeping secret the exact location of the wreck, but said Victory was found beyond the territorial waters of the United Kingdom and nearly 100 kilometres, or 62 miles, from where the ship was believed to have gone down near the Channel Islands.

The Victory was known to have been armed with up to 110 bronze cannons, making it one of the most fierce ships of its age.

The Spanish government is attempting to sue Odyssey in federal court in Tampa to claim the treasure from another ship, the Spanish galleon, Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes y las Animas, arguing that the shipwreck was never abandoned by Spain and this case has yet to unfold.

The company has been called 21st-century pirates in Spain, and twice in 2007 ships from Spain's Civil Guard seized Odyssey ships off the Spanish coast. Both ships and their crews were released within a week.