imself, heartbroken with having to abandon the fight, had just
exclaimed, "What will Nelson think of us!" when a chain-shot cut him in
two, and with him a sailor with something of Nelson's own genius for
battle perished.

By two o'clock the Danish fire began to slack. One-half the line was a
mere chain of wrecks; some of the floating batteries had sunk; the
flagship was a mass of flames. Nelson at this point sent his boat
ashore with a flag of truce, and a letter to the Prince Regent. The
letter was addressed, "To the Danes, the brothers of Englishmen." If
the fire continued from the Danish side, Nelson said he would be
compelled to set on fire all the floating batteries he had taken,
"without being able to save the brave Danes who had defended them."
Somebody offered Nelson, when he had written the letter, a wafer with
which to close it. "This," said Nelson, "is no time to appear hurried
or informal," and he insisted on the letter being carefully sealed with
wax. The Crown Prince proposed an armistice. Nelson, with great
shrewdness, referred the proposal to his admiral lying four miles off
in the _London_, foreseeing that the long pull out and back would give
him time to get his own crippled ships clear of the shoals, and past
the Three-Crown Batteries into the open channel beyond--the only course
the wind made possible; and this was exactly what happened. Nelson, it
is clear, was a shrewd diplomatist as well as a great sailor.

The night was coming on black with the threat of tempest; the Danish
flagship had just blown up; but the white flag of truce was flying, and
the British toiled, as fiercely as they had fought, to float their
stranded ships and take possession of their shattered prizes. Of
these, only one was found capable of being sufficiently repaired to be
taken to Portsmouth. On the 4th Nelson himself landed and visited the
Crown Prince, and a four months' truce was agreed upon. News came at
that moment of the assassination of Paul I., and the League of Armed
Neutrality--the device by which Napoleon hoped to overthrow the naval
power of Great Britain--vanished into mere space. The fire of Nelson's
guns at Copenhagen wrecked Napoleon's whole naval policy.

It is curious that, familiar as Nelson was with the grim visage of
battle, the carnage of that four hours' cannonade was too much for even
his steady nerves. He could find no words too generous to declare his
admiration of the obstinate coura