roadside to
the Danes. The distance between each was about half a cable. The action
was fought nearly at the distance of a cable's length from the enemy.
This, which rendered its continuance so long, was owing to the ignorance
and consequent indecision of the pilots. In pursuance of the same error
which had led the BELLONA and the RUSSELL aground, they, when the lead
was at a quarter less five, refused to approach nearer, in dread of
shoaling their water on the larboard shore: a fear altogether erroneous,
for the water deepened up to the very side of the enemy's line of
battle.

At five minutes after ten the action began. The first half of our fleet
was engaged in about half an hour; and by half-past eleven the battle
became general. The plan of the attack had been complete: but seldom has
any plan been more disconcerted by untoward accidents. Of twelve ships
of the line, one was entirely useless, and two others in a situation
where they could not render half the service which was required of them.
Of the squadron of gun-brigs, only one could get into action; the rest
were prevented, by baffling currents, from weathering the eastern end of
the shoal; and only two of the bomb-vessels could reach their station
on the Middle Ground, and open their mortars on the arsenal, firing over
both fleets. Riou took the vacant station against the Crown Battery,
with his frigates: attempting, with that unequal force, a service in
which three sail of the line had been directed to assist.

Nelson's agitation had been extreme when he saw himself, before the
action began, deprived of a fourth part of his ships of the line; but no
sooner was he in battle, where his squadron was received with the fire
of more than a thousand guns, than, as if that artillery, like
music, had driven away all care and painful thoughts, his countenance
brightened; and, as a bystander describes him, his conversation became
joyous, animated, elevated, and delightful. The Commander-in-Chief
meantime, near enough to the scene of action to know the unfavourable
accidents which had so materially weakened Nelson, and yet too distant
to know the real state of the contending parties, suffered the most
dreadful anxiety. To get to his assistance was impossible; both wind
and current were against him. Fear for the event, in such circumstances,
would naturally preponderate in the bravest mind; and at one o'clock,
perceiving that, after three hours' endurance, the enemy's f