of the British.  I must confess, that I am now, as I have always been, of opinion, that the squadron with which your lordship attacked our southern line of defence, say all those ships and vessels lying to the southward of the Crown Battery, was stronger then than that line.  I will say nothing about our not having time sufficient to man our ships in the manner it was intended:  they being badly manned, both as to number and as to quality of their crews, the greatest part of which were landmen; people that had been pressed, and who never before had been on board a ship or used to the exercise of guns.  I will not mention our ships being old and rotten, and not having one-third of our usual complement of officers; I will confine myself to the number of guns, and from the ships named in your lordship’s official report:  and there I find, that your squadron carried one thousand and fifty-eight guns, of much greater calibre than our’s; exclusive of carronnades, which did our ships so much injury; also, exclusive of your gun-brigs and bomb-vessels.

“Now, I can assure your lordship, upon my honour, that to my certain knowledge the number of guns on board of those eighteen ships and vessels of our’s which were engaged (including the small ship the Elbe, which came into the harbour towards the end of the action) amount to six hundred and thirty-four, I have not included our eleven gun-boats, carrying each two guns, as a couple of them only had an opportunity of firing a few shot.  Nor need I to mention the Crown Battery, on which sixty-six guns were mounted, as that battery did not fairly get into action, and only fired a few random shot.

“When Commodore Fischer left the Dannebrog, that ship was on fire, had many killed, several of it’s officers wounded, and otherwise suffered much.  It was, I conceive, the duty of the commander, to remove his broad pendant to another ship; and he went on board the Holstein, from whence he commanded the line of defence; and where he remained two hours, his broad pendant flying on board the said ship.  When this ship was mostly disabled, the Commodore went to the Crown Battery, which also was under his command.  He would, in my humble opinion, have been justified, from the wound he received on his head, to quit the command altogether, when he left the Dannebrog; and no blame could ever have attached, for it, to his character as a soldier.  I have given myself every possible pain, to be informed whether Commodore Fischer’s pendant has been removed before or after the ship struck; and the officers all agree, in declaring, that the broad pendant has been replaced by a captain’s pendant, both on board the Dannebrog and the Holstein, previous to those ships hauling down their ensign.  It is even remarkable that, on board the Dannebrog, the man who had taken down the broad pendant, and hoisted the captain’s pendant, was killed when coming down the shrouds, and fell upon deck with the commodore’s pendant in his hand.