the world to appreciate the merits of the two contending officers.  I shall make a few, and very few, observations on this letter.  He asserts the superiority of numbers on the part of the British; it will turn out, if that is of any consequence, that the Danish line of defence, to the southward of the Crown Islands, was much stronger, and more numerous, than the British.  We had only five sail of seventy-fours, two sixty-fours, two fifties, and one frigate, engaged; a bomb vessel, towards the latter end, threw some shells into the arsenal.  Two seventy-fours, and one sixty-four, by an accident, grounded; or the Crown Islands, and the Elephanten and Mars, would have had full employment:  and, by the assistance of the frigates—­who went to try, alone, what I had directed the three sail of the line who grounded to assist them in—­I have reason to hope, they would have been equally successful as that part of the British line engaged.  I am ready to admit, that many of the Danish officers and men behaved as well as men could do, and deserved not to be abandoned by their commander.  I am justified in saying this, from Commodore Fischer’s own declaration.  In his own letter, he states that, after he quitted the Dannebrog, she long contested the battle.  If so, more shame for him to quit so many brave fellows! Here was no manoeuvering, it was downright fighting; and it was his duty to have shewn an example of firmness becoming the high trust reposed in him.  He went in such a hurry, if he went before she struck—­which, but for his own declaration, I can hardly believe—­that he forgot to take his broad pendant with him, for both pendant and ensign were struck together; and it is from this circumstance, that I claimed the commodore as a prisoner of war.  He then went, as he says, on board the Holstein—­the brave captain of which did not want him—­where he did not hoist his pendant.  From this ship, he went on shore, either before or after she struck, or he would have been again a prisoner.  As to his nonsense about victory, his royal highness will not much credit him.  I sunk, burnt, captured, or drove into the harbour, the whole line of defence to the southward of the Crown Islands.  He says, he is told that two British ships struck.  Why did he not take possession of them?  I took possession of his as fast as they struck.  The reason is clear, that he did not believe it.  He must have known the falsity of the report, and that no fresh British ships did come near the ships engaged.  He states, that the ship in which I had the honour to hoist my flag fired, latterly, only single guns.  It is true; for steady and cool were my brave fellows, and did not wish to throw away a single shot.  He seems to exult, that I sent on shore a flag of truce.  Men of his description, if they ever are victorious, know not the feel of humanity.  You know, and his royal highness knows, that the guns fired from the shore could only fire through the Danish ships which had surrendered; and that, if