On the 25th the wind was too strong to allow the ships to lift their anchors.  On the 26th the fleet weighed, and proceeded for a few hours in the direction of the Great Belt, which Parker had decided to follow.  Captain Otway of the “London,” Sir Hyde’s flagship, chanced to have local knowledge of that passage, which had not come before the council, because he was not a member.  When he ascertained the intention, he explained the difficulties and risks to the admiral, upon which the latter concluded that the batteries of Cronenburg and Elsinore presented fewer dangers.  He accordingly directed the fleet to return toward the Sound, and sent Otway to tell Nelson he should take that route.  “I don’t care a d—­n by which passage we go,” replied the latter, “so that we fight them.”  “Sir Hyde Parker,” he wrote the same day to Lady Hamilton, “has by this time found out the worth of your Nelson, and that he is a useful sort of man on a pinch; therefore, if he ever has thought unkindly of me, I freely forgive him.  Nelson must stand among the first, or he must fall.”  Side by side with such expressions of dauntless resolve and unfailing self-confidence stand words of deepest tenderness, their union under one cover typifying aptly the twin emotions of heroic aspiration and passionate devotion, which at this time held within him alternate, yet not conflicting, sway.  In the same letter he tells her fondly, “You know I am more bigoted to your picture—­the faithful representation of you I have with me—­than ever a Neapolitan was to St. Januarius, and look upon you as my guardian angel, and God, I trust, will make you so to me.  His will be done.”  From the time of leaving he wrote to her practically every day.  “Mr. S. is quite right,” he says to her on one occasion, “that through the medium of your influence is the surest way to get my interest.  It is true, and it will ever be, whilst you hold your present conduct, for you never ask anything that does not do honour to your feelings, as the best woman, as far as my knowledge goes, that ever lived, and it must do me honour the complying with them.”

The fleet anchored again on the evening of the 26th of March, six miles from Cronenburg, and was there detained three days by head winds and calms.  In this interval, Nelson’s general plan of operations having been adopted, he shifted his flag to a lighter ship, the “Elephant,” seventy-four, commanded by Captain Foley, the same who had led the fleet inside the French line in Aboukir Bay.  On the 30th, the wind coming fair from northwest, the ships weighed and passed Cronenburg Castle.  It had been expected that the Swedish batteries would open upon them, but, finding they remained silent, the column inclined to that side, thus going clear of the Danish guns.  “More powder and shot, I believe, never were thrown away,” wrote Nelson, “for not one shot struck a single ship of the British fleet.  Some of our ships fired; but the Elephant did not return a single shot.  I hope to reserve them for a better occasion.”