upon this exhausting service,
day and night, till it was effected. When this was done he thanked God
for having enabled him to get through this difficult part of his duty.
"It had worn him down," he said, "and was infinitely more grievous to
him than any resistance which he could experience from the enemy."

At the first council of war, opinions inclined to an attack from the
eastward; but the next day, the wind being southerly, after a second
examination of the Danish position, it was determined to attack from the
south, approaching in the manner which Nelson had suggested in his first
thoughts. On the morning of the 1st of April the whole fleet removed to
an anchorage within two leagues of the town, and off the N.W. end of
the Middle Ground; a shoal lying exactly before the town, at about three
quarters of a mile distance, and extending along its whole sea-front.
The King's Channel, where there is deep water, is between this shoal and
the town; and here the Danes had arranged their line of defence, as near
the shore as possible: nineteen ships and floating batteries, flanked,
at the end nearest the town, by the Crown Batteries, which were two
artificial islands, at the mouth of the harbour--most formidable works;
the larger one having, by the Danish account, 66 guns; but, as Nelson
believed, 88. The fleet having anchored, Nelson, with Riou, in the
AMAZON, made his last examination of the ground; and about one o'clock,
returning to his own ship, threw out the signal to weigh. It was
received with a shout throughout the whole division; they weighed with
a light and favourable wind: the narrow channel between the island of
Saltholm and the Middle Ground had been accurately buoyed; the small
craft pointed out the course distinctly; Riou led the way: the whole
division coasted along the outer edge of the shoal, doubled its further
extremity, and anchored there off Draco Point, just as the darkness
closed--the headmost of the enemy's line not being more than two miles
distant. The signal to prepare for action had been made early in the
evening; and as his own anchor dropt, Nelson called out, "I will fight
them the moment I have a fair wind!" It had been agreed that Sir Hyde,
with the remaining ships, should weigh on the following morning, at the
same time as Nelson, to menace the Crown Batteries on his side, and the
four ships of the line which lay at the entrance of the arsenal; and to
cover our own disabled ships as they