exhilarate our
sailors, and afford them matter for jest, as the shot fell in showers
a full cable's length short of its destined aim. A few rounds were
returned from some of our leading ships, till they perceived its
inutility: this, however, occasioned the only bloodshed of the day, some
of our men being killed and wounded by the bursting of a gun. As soon as
the main body had passed, the gun vessels followed, desisting from their
bombardment, which had been as innocent as that of the enemy; and,
about mid-day, the whole fleet anchored between the island of Huen and
Copenhagen. Sir Hyde, with Nelson, Admiral Graves, some of the senior
captains, and the commanding officers of the artillery and the troops,
then proceeded in a lugger to reconnoitre the enemy's means of defence;
a formidable line of ships, radeaus, pontoons, galleys, fire-ships and
gun-boats, flanked and supported by extensive batteries, and occupying,
from one extreme point to the other, an extent of nearly four miles.

A council of war was held In the afternoon. It was apparent that the
Danes could not be attacked without great difficulty and risk; and some
of the members of the council spoke of the number of the Swedes and the
Russians whom they should afterwards have to engage, as a consideration
which ought to be borne in mind. Nelson, who kept pacing the cabin,
impatient as he ever was of anything which savoured of irresolution,
repeatedly said, "The more numerous the better: I wish they were twice
as many,--the easier the victory, depend on it." The plan upon which he
had determined; if ever it should be his fortune to bring a Baltic
fleet to action, was, to attack the head of their line and confuse their
movements. "Close with a Frenchman," he used to say, "but out manoeuvre
a Russian." He offered his services for the attack, requiring ten sail
of the line and the whole of the smaller craft. Sir Hyde gave him two
more line-of-battle ships than he asked, and left everything to his
judgment.

The enemy's force was not the only, nor the greatest, obstacle with
which the British fleet had to contend: there was another to be overcome
before they could come in contact with it. The channel was little known
and extremely intricate: all the buoys had been removed; and the Danes
considered this difficulty as almost insuperable, thinking the channel
impracticable for so large a fleet. Nelson himself saw the soundings
made and the buoys laid down, boating it