[49] Lady Hamilton’s mother.
[50] Miss Knight and Mrs Cadogan sailed on one of the frigates, commanded by Captain Messer, an Englishman.
[51] She was the daughter of a domestic servant, and at the age of thirteen became a children’s nurse.
[52] Afterwards increased to eighteen.
[53] Subsequently Lord Bexley.
[54] Parker’s flag-ship.
[55] This incident is bereft of much of its romance by the knowledge that Sir Hyde Parker sent a verbal message to the effect that the question of discontinuing the action was left to the discretion of Nelson.
[56] To the Government of Denmark. Elephant, 2nd April, 1801: Lord Nelson’s object in sending on shore a Flag of Truce is humanity: he, therefore, consents that hostilities shall cease till Lord Nelson can take his prisoners out of the Prizes, and he consents to land all the wounded Danes, and to burn or remove his Prizes. Lord Nelson, with humble duty to His Royal Highness, begs leave to say, that he will ever esteem it the greatest victory he ever gained, if this Flag of Truce may be the happy forerunner of a lasting and happy union between my most gracious Sovereign and his Majesty the King of Denmark.
[57] To the Brothers of Englishmen, the Danes. Lord Nelson has directions to spare Denmark, when no longer resisting; but if the firing is continued on the part of Denmark, Lord Nelson will be obliged to set on fire all the Floating-batteries he has taken, without having the power of saving the brave Danes who have defended them. Dated on board his Britannic Majesty’s ship Elephant, Copenhagen Roads, April 2nd, 1801.
[58] Nelson afterwards found it necessary to address the Rt. Hon. Henry Addington, then Prime Minister, on the subject. In a letter written on the 8th May 1801, he refers to those who thought the sending of a flag of truce a ruse de guerre, to others who “attributed it to a desire to have no more fighting, and few, very few, to the cause that I felt, and which I trust in God I shall retain to the last moment, humanity.”