The Boys' Nelson

by Harold Wheeler

“The Action now continued with unabated vigour. About two P.M., the greater part of the Danish Line had ceased to fire: some of the lighter Ships were adrift, and the carnage on board of the Enemy, who reinforced their crews from the Shore, was dreadful. The taking possession of such Ships as had struck, was, however, attended with difficulty; partly by reason of the batteries on Amak Island protecting them, and partly because an irregular fire was made on our Boats, as they approached, from the Ships themselves. The Dannebrog acted in this manner, and fired at our boat, although that Ship was not only on fire and had struck, but the Commodore, Fischer, had removed his Pendant, and had deserted her. A renewed attack on her by the Elephant and Glatton, for a quarter of an hour, not only completely silenced and disabled the Dannebrog, but, by the use of grape, nearly killed every man who was in the Praams, ahead and astern of that unfortunate Ship. On our smoke clearing away, the Dannebrog was found to be drifting in flames before the wind, spreading terror throughout the Enemy’s Line. The usual lamentable scene then ensued; and our Boats rowed in every direction, to save the crew, who were throwing themselves from her at every port-hole; few, however, were left unwounded in her after our last broadsides, or could be saved. She drifted to leeward, and about half-past three blew up. The time of half-past two, brings me to a most important part of Lord Nelson’s conduct on this day, and about which so much discussion has arisen: his sending a Flag of Truce on shore. To the best of my recollection, the facts were as follow. After the Dannebrog was adrift, and had ceased to fire, the Action was found to be over, along the whole of the Line astern of us; but not so with the Ships ahead and with the Crown batteries. Whether from ignorance of the custom of war, or from confusion on board the Prizes, our Boats were, as before mentioned, repulsed from the Ships themselves, or fired at from Amak Island. Lord Nelson naturally lost temper at this, and observed, ‘That he must either send on shore, and stop this irregular proceeding, or send in our Fire-ships and burn them.’ He accordingly retired into the stern gallery, and wrote, with great dispatch, that well-known Letter addressed to the Crown Prince,[56] with the address, ‘To the Brothers of Englishmen, the brave Danes, &c.’:[57] and this Letter was conveyed on shore through the contending Fleets by Captain Sir Frederick Thesiger, who acted as his Lordship’s Aid-de-camp; and found the Prince near the Sally-port, animating his people in a spirited manner.

“Whether we were actually firing at that time in the Elephant or not, I am unable to recollect; it could only have been partially, at such of the farther Ships as had not struck. The three Ships ahead of us were, however, engaged; and from the superiority of the force opposed to them, it was by no means improbable that Lord Nelson’s observing eye pointed out to him the expediency of a prudent conduct. Whether this suggested to him the policy of a Flag of Truce or not, two solid reasons were apparent, and were such as to justify the measure: viz., the necessity of stopping the irregular fire from the Ships which had surrendered—and the singular opportunity that was thus given, of sounding the feelings of an Enemy, who had reluctantly entered into the war, and who must feel the generosity of the first offer of amity coming from a conquering foe. If there were a third reason for the conduct of the noble Admiral, and some of his own Officers assert this, it was unnecessary that it should have been expressed; it was certainly not avowed, and will for ever remain a matter of conjecture.[58] While the Boat was absent, the animated fire of the Ships ahead of us, and the approach of two of the Commander-in-chief’s division, the Ramilies and Defence, caused the remainder of the Enemy’s Line to the eastward of the Trekroner to strike: that formidable Work continued its fire, but fortunately at too long a range to do serious damage to any one except the Monarch, whose loss in men, this day, exceeded that of any Line-of-Battle Ship during the war. From the uninjured state of this Outwork, which had been manned at the close of the Action with nearly 1500 men, it was deemed impracticable to carry into execution the projected plan for storming it; the Boats for this service had been on the starboard side of each Ship during the Action. The firing from the Crown Battery and from our leading Ships did not cease until past three o’clock, when the Danish Adjutant-General, Lindholm, returning with a Flag of Truce, directed the fire of the battery to be suspended. The signal for doing the same, on our part, was then made from our Ship to those engaged. The Action closed after five hours’ duration, four of which were warmly contested.

“The answer from the Prince Regent was to inquire more minutely into the purport of the message. I should here observe, that previous to the Boat’s getting on board, Lord Nelson had taken the opinion of his valuable friends, Fremantle and Foley, the former of whom had been sent for from the Ganges, as to the practicability of advancing with the Ships which were least damaged, upon that part of the Danish Line of Defence yet uninjured. Their opinions were averse from it; and, on the other hand, decided in favour of removing our Fleet, whilst the wind yet held fair, from their present intricate Channel. Lord Nelson was now prepared how to act when Mr Lindholm came on board, and the following answer was returned to the Crown Prince by Captain Sir Frederick Thesiger: ‘Lord Nelson’s object in sending the Flag of Truce was humanity’; etc.[59] His Lordship, having finished this letter, referred the Adjutant-General to the Commander-in-chief, who was at anchor at least four miles off, for a conference on the important points which the latter portion of the message had alluded to; and to this General Lindholm did not object, but proceeded to the London. Lord Nelson wisely foresaw, that, exclusive of the valuable opportunity that now offered itself for a renewal of Peace, time would be gained by this long row out to sea, for our leading Ships, which were much crippled, to clear the shoals, and whose course was under the immediate fire of the Trekroner. The Adjutant-General was no sooner gone to the London, and Captain Thesiger despatched on shore than the signal was made for the Glatton, Elephant, Ganges, Defiance, and Monarch, to weigh in succession. The intricacy of the Channel now showed the great utility of what had been done; the Monarch, as first Ship, immediately hit on a shoal, but was pushed over it by the Ganges taking her amid-ships. The Glatton went clear, but the Defiance and Elephant ran aground, leaving the Crown Battery at a mile distance; and there they remained fixed, the former until ten o’clock that night, and the latter until night, notwithstanding every exertion which their fatigued crews could make to relieve them. Had there been no cessation of hostilities, their situation would certainly have been perilous; but it should be observed, on the other hand, that measures would in that case have been adopted, and they were within our power, for destroying this formidable Work.

“The Elephant being aground, Lord Nelson followed the Adjutant-General, about four o’clock, to the London, where that negotiation first began, which terminated in an honourable Peace. He was low in spirits at the surrounding scene of devastation, and particularly felt for the blowing up of the Dannebrog. ‘Well!’ he exclaimed, ‘I have fought contrary to orders, and I shall perhaps be hanged: never mind, let them.’ Lindholm returned to Copenhagen the same evening, when it was agreed that all Prizes should be surrendered, and the suspension of hostilities continue for twenty-four hours; the whole of the Danish wounded were to be received on shore. Lord Nelson then repaired on board the St George, and the night was actively passed by the Boats of the Division which had not been engaged, in getting afloat the Ships that were ashore, and in bringing out the Prizes. The Desirée frigate, towards the close of the Action, going to the aid of the Bellona, became fast on the same shoal; but neither these Ships, nor the Russell, were in any danger from the Enemy’s batteries, as the world has frequently since been led to suppose.”

In sending a copy of Nelson’s Report to the Admiralty, Sir Hyde Parker paid a worthy tribute to the conduct of his second-in-command and of his “entire acquiescence and testimony of the bravery and intrepidity with which the Action was supported throughout the Line. Was it possible,” he continues, “for me to add anything to the well-earned renown of Lord Nelson, it would be by asserting, that his exertions, great as they have heretofore been, never were carried to a higher pitch of zeal for his Country’s service.

“I have only to lament that the sort of attack, confined within an intricate and narrow passage, excluded the Ships particularly under my command from the opportunity of exhibiting their valour; but I can with great truth assert, that the same spirit and zeal animated the whole of the Fleet; and I trust that the contest in which we were engaged, will on some future day afford them an occasion of showing that the whole were inspired with the same spirit, had the field been sufficiently extensive to have brought it into action.”

Sentiments so ably expressed are delightful reading. Nelson, if less dignified in his language, never failed to show his warm appreciation of those who worked under him. Caring little for literary form, he invariably blurted out the naked truth. His despatches were marked by the same forcible characteristics exhibited in his conduct when engaging the enemy. “The spirit and zeal of the Navy,” he tells a correspondent who had congratulated him on the victory, “I never saw higher than in this Fleet, and if England is true to herself, she may bid defiance to Europe. The French have always, in ridicule, called us a Nation of shopkeepers—so, I hope, we shall always remain, and, like other shopkeepers, if our goods are better than those of any other Country, and we can afford to sell them cheaper, we must depend on our shop being well resorted to.”

An armistice for a term of fourteen weeks was agreed upon on the 9th April 1801. This period would allow Nelson to settle with the Russian fleet and return to Copenhagen, as he himself bluntly admitted during the negotiations. Unused to such “straight talk” in diplomatic overtures, one of the Danish Commissioners began to speak of a renewal of hostilities. It merely added fuel to Nelson’s fire, and drew from him the comment, made to one of his friends who was standing near, “Renew hostilities! Tell him we are ready at a moment; ready to bombard this very night.” The remark was quite sufficient to silence the man who talked thus lightly of war.

An opportunity to teach the Russians a lesson did not come in Nelson’s way. Scarcely more than a week passed from the time the signatures had dried on the parchment when to Parker was sent news of the murder of Paul I. With the death of the monarch Russian policy underwent a complete change so far as Great Britain was concerned. The castles in the air for the overthrow of the British rule in India, which the Czar and Napoleon had hoped to place on solid foundations, melted away as mist before the sun. Paul’s successor, Alexander I., knowing full well the enormous importance of the British market for Russian goods, lost no time in coming to terms with England. Shortly afterwards Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia followed his example. The much-boasted Maritime Confederacy was quietly relegated to the limbo of defeated schemes for the downfall of the great Sea Power.

Meanwhile Sir Hyde Parker had been recalled from the Baltic, and had placed his command in the hands of Nelson on the 5th May. The latter proceeded from Kiöge Bay, his station since the birth of amicable arrangements with the Danes, to Revel, where he hoped to meet the Russian squadron he had been so anxious to annihilate before the battle of Copenhagen.