"Yet the scale, if not equal, did not decline far to the disadvantage of Denmark. The ships that were first and most obstinately attacked, even surrounded by the enemy, the incomparable Provesteen, Wagner, and Jutland, fought till almost all their guns were dismounted; but these vessels were obliged to give way to superior force, and the Danish fire ceased along the whole line from north to south.
"At half past eleven, the Dannebrog ship of the line, which, lay along-side Admiral Nelson, was set on fire. I repaired, with my flag, on board the Holstein, of the line, belonging to the north wing; but the Dannebrog long kept her flag flying, in spite of this disaster. At the end of the battle, she had two hundred and seventy men killed and wounded.
"At half past two, the Holstein was so shattered, and had so many killed and wounded, and so many guns dismounted, that I then carried the pendant to be hoisted instead of my flag, and went on shore, to the battery of the Three Crowns, from whence I commanded the north wing; which was slightly engaged with the division of Admiral Parker, till about four o'clock, when I received orders from your royal highness to put an end to the engagement.
"Thus, the quarter of the line of defence, from the Three Crowns to the frigate Hielperen, was in the power of the enemy; and the Hielperen, finding herself alone, slipped her cables, and steered to Stirbfeir. The ship Elven, after she had received many shots in the hull, and had her masts and rigging shot away, and a great number killed and wounded, retreated within the Crowns. The gunboats, Nyebrog and Aggershuus—which last towed the former away, when near sinking—ran ashore, and the Gurnarshe floating-battery, which had suffered much, together with the block-ship Dannebrog, shortly after the battle, blew up.
"Besides the visible loss the enemy have suffered, I am convinced, their loss in killed and wounded is considerable. The advantage the enemy have gained by their victory, too, consists merely in ships which are not fit for use, in spiked cannon, and gunpowder damaged by sea-water.
"The number killed and wounded cannot yet be exactly ascertained; but I calculate it, from sixteen to eighteen hundred men. Among the former, it is with grief that I mention the captains of the block-ship Infoedstratten and the frigate Kronbrog, Captain Thura and First-Lieutenant Hauch, with several other brave officers: among the wounded, the commander of the Dannebrog; who, besides other wounds, has lost his right hand.
"I want expression, to do justice to the unexampled courage of the officers and crews. The battle itself can only enable you to form an idea of it.
"Olfert Fischer."
The honourable mind of Lord Nelson indignantly revolted at the meanness conspicuous in this account; and he was resolved to chastise the pusillanimous malignity which it was so clumsily adapted to cover, by addressing the following letter, through General-Adjutant Lindholm, to the Crown Prince of Denmark, that his royal highness might see his lordship's sense of such a wretched attempt to deprive our hero of the honour of a victory, and screen the Danish commander in chief, himself, from the dreaded shame of a defeat not in itself by any means disgraceful.
"St. George, at Sea, 22d April 1801.