ly by the accident that at that moment
Wellington was struck by a spent ball and was disabled, so that his
swift and imperious will no longer directed the pursuit.

Orthez may be described as the last and not the least glorious fight in
the Peninsular war. Toulouse was fought ten day afterwards, but it
scarcely belongs to the Peninsular campaigns, and was actually fought
after a general armistice had been signed.

THE BATTLE OF THE BALTIC

"Let us think of them that sleep
Full many a fathom deep
By thy wild and stormy deep,
Elsinore!"
--CAMPBELL.

"I have been in a hundred and five engagements, but that of to-day is
the most terrible of them all." This was how Nelson himself summed up
the great fight off Copenhagen, or the battle of the Baltic as it is
sometimes called, fought on April 2, 1801. It was a battle betwixt
Britons and Danes. The men who fought under the blood-red flag of
Great Britain, and under the split flag of Denmark with its white
cross, were alike the descendants of the Vikings. The blood of the old
sea-rovers ran hot and fierce in their veins. Nelson, with the glories
of the Nile still ringing about his name, commanded the British fleet,
and the fire of his eager and gallant spirit ran from ship to ship like
so many volts of electricity. But the Danes fought in sight of their
capital, under the eyes of their wives and children. It is not strange
that through the four hours during which the thunder of the great
battle rolled over the roofs of Copenhagen and up the narrow waters of
the Sound, human valour and endurance in both fleets were at their very
highest.

Less than sixty years afterwards "thunders of fort and fleet" along all
the shores of England were welcoming a daughter of the Danish throne as

"Bride of the heir of the kings of the sea."

And Tennyson, speaking for every Briton, assured the Danish girl who
was to be their future Queen--

"We are each all Dane in our welcome of thee."

What was it in 1801 which sent a British fleet on an errand of battle
to Copenhagen?

It was a tiny episode of the long and stern drama of the Napoleonic
wars. Great Britain was supreme on the sea, Napoleon on the land, and,
in his own words, Napoleon conceived the idea of "conquering the sea by
the land." Paul I. of Russia, a semi-lunatic, became Napoleon's ally
and tool. Paul was able to put overwhelming pressure on Sweden,
Denmark, and Prussia,