edily agreed that there should
be a suspension of hostilities for four-and-twenty hours; that all the
prizes should be surrendered, and the wounded Danes carried on shore.
There was a pressing necessity for this, for the Danes, either from too
much confidence in the strength of their position and the difficulty
of the channel, or supposing that the wounded might be carried on shore
during the action, which was found totally impracticable, or perhaps
from the confusion which the attack excited, had provided no surgeons;
so that, when our men boarded the captured ships, they found many of
the mangled and mutilated Danes bleeding to death for want of proper
assistance--a scene, of all others, the most shocking to a brave man's
feelings.

The boats of Sir Hyde's division were actively employed all night in
bringing out the prizes, and in getting afloat the ships which were
on shore. At daybreak, Nelson, who had slept in his own ship, the St.
George, rowed to the ELEPHANT; and his delight at finding her afloat
seemed to give him new life. There he took a hasty breakfast, praising
the men for their exertions, and then pushed off to the prizes, which
had not yet been removed. The ZEALAND, seventy-four, the last which
struck, had drifted on the shoal under the Trekroner; and relying, as
it seems, upon the protection which that battery might have afforded,
refused to acknowledge herself captured; saying, that though it was
true her flag was not to be seen, her pendant was still flying. Nelson
ordered one of our brigs and three long-boats to approach her, and
rowed up himself to one of the enemy's ships, to communicate with the
commodore. This officer proved to be an old acquaintance, whom he had
known in the West Indies; so he invited himself on board, and with that
urbanity as well as decision which always characterised him, urged his
claim to the ZEALAND so well that it was admitted. The men from the
boats lashed a cable round her bowsprit, and the gun-vessel towed her
away. It is affirmed, and probably with truth, that the Danes felt more
pain at beholding this than at all their misfortunes on the preceding
day; and one of the officers, Commodore Steen Rille, went to the
Trekroner battery, and asked the commander why he had not sunk the
ZEALAND, rather than suffer her thus to be carried off by the enemy?

This was, indeed, a mournful day for Copenhagen! It was Good Friday; but
the general agitation, and the mourning which wa