flag, and went on shore, to the battery of the Three Crowns, from whence I commanded the north wing; which was slightly engaged with the division of Admiral Parker, till about four o’clock, when I received orders from your royal highness to put an end to the engagement.

“Thus, the quarter of the line of defence, from the Three Crowns to the frigate Hielperen, was in the power of the enemy; and the Hielperen, finding herself alone, slipped her cables, and steered to Stirbfeir.  The ship Elven, after she had received many shots in the hull, and had her masts and rigging shot away, and a great number killed and wounded, retreated within the Crowns.  The gunboats, Nyebrog and Aggershuus—­which last towed the former away, when near sinking—­ran ashore, and the Gurnarshe floating-battery, which had suffered much, together with the block-ship Dannebrog, shortly after the battle, blew up.

“Besides the visible loss the enemy have suffered, I am convinced, their loss in killed and wounded is considerable.  The advantage the enemy have gained by their victory, too, consists merely in ships which are not fit for use, in spiked cannon, and gunpowder damaged by sea-water.

“The number killed and wounded cannot yet be exactly ascertained; but I calculate it, from sixteen to eighteen hundred men.  Among the former, it is with grief that I mention the captains of the block-ship Infoedstratten and the frigate Kronbrog, Captain Thura and First-Lieutenant Hauch, with several other brave officers:  among the wounded, the commander of the Dannebrog; who, besides other wounds, has lost his right hand.

     “I want expression, to do justice to the unexampled courage of the
     officers and crews.  The battle itself can only enable you to form
     an idea of it.

     “Olfert Fischer.”

The honourable mind of Lord Nelson indignantly revolted at the meanness conspicuous in this account; and he was resolved to chastise the pusillanimous malignity which it was so clumsily adapted to cover, by addressing the following letter, through General-Adjutant Lindholm, to the Crown Prince of Denmark, that his royal highness might see his lordship’s sense of such a wretched attempt to deprive our hero of the honour of a victory, and screen the Danish commander in chief, himself, from the dreaded shame of a defeat not in itself by any means disgraceful.

     “St. George, at Sea,
     22d April 1801.

     “MY DEAR SIR,

“Commodore Fischer having, in a public letter, given an account to the world of the battle of the 2d, called upon his royal highness as a witness to the truth of it.  I, therefore, think it right to address myself to you, for the information of his royal highness; as, I assure you, had this officer confined himself to his own veracity, I should have treated his official letter with the contempt it deserved, and allowed