m the mainmast forward, a
district containing eight guns a side, some of which were run out
ready for firing, others lay dismounted, and others remained as they
were after recoiling.... I hastened down the fore ladder to the
lower deck and felt really relieved to find somebody alive." The
slaughter on the Danish ships was even greater. More than one-fifth
of their entire strength of a little over five thousand men were
slain or wounded. Of the eighteen hulls they lost thirteen, but only
one were the British able to take home with them. The rest were
literally shot to pieces and were burned where they lay. As one
after another was silenced, those yet alive on board spiked their
last guns, if indeed there were any left worth the trouble, threw
their powder overboard and made, for the shore. Twice the Danish
Admiral abandoned his burning ship, the last time taking up his post
in the island battery Tre Kroner. Each time one of the old hulls was
crushed, a Briton pushed into the hole made in the line and raked
the remaining ones fore and aft until their decks were like huge
shambles. The block-ship _Indfoedsretten_ bore the concentrated fire
of five frigates and two smaller vessels throughout most of the
battle. Her chief was killed. When the news reached head-quarters on
shore, Captain von Schroedersee, an old naval officer who had been
retired because of ill health, volunteered to take his place. He was
rowed out, but as he came over the side of the ship a cannon-ball
cut him in two. _Proevestenen_, as it was the first to fire a shot,
held out also to the last. One-fourth of her crew lay dead, and her
flag had been shot away three times when the decks threatened to
cave in and Captain Lassen spiked his last guns and left the wreck
to be burned. All through the fight she was the target of ninety
guns to which she could oppose only twenty-nine of her own sixty.

Nelson had promised Admiral Parker to finish the fight in an hour.
When the battle had lasted three, Parker signalled to him to stop.
Every school-boy knows the story of how Lord Nelson put the glass to
his blind eye and, remarking that he could see no signal, kept right
on. In the end he had to resort to stratagem to force a truce so
that he might disentangle some of his ships that were drifting into
great danger in the narrow channel. The ruse succeeded. Crown Prince
Frederik, moved by compassion for the wounded whom Nelson threatened
to burn with the captured hul