That afternoon they anchored again, about five miles below Copenhagen.  Parker and Nelson, accompanied by several senior officers, went at once in a schooner to view the defences of the town.  “We soon perceived,” wrote Stewart, “that our delay had been of important advantage to the enemy, who had lined the northern edge of the shoals near the Crown batteries, and the front of the harbour and arsenal, with a formidable flotilla.  The Trekroner (Three Crowns) Battery”—­a strong work established on piles, whose position will be given—­“appeared, in particular, to have been strengthened, and all the buoys of the Northern, and of the King’s Channels had been removed.”  Nelson, however, was, or feigned to be, less impressed.  “I have just been reconnoitring the Danish line of defence,” he wrote to Lady Hamilton.  “It looks formidable to those who are children at war, but to my judgment, with ten sail-of-the-line I think I can annihilate them; at all events, I hope to be allowed to try.”  This is again the same spirit of the seaman “determined to attack” at Aboukir; the same resolution as before Bastia, where he kept shut in his own breast the knowledge of the odds, feeling that to do nothing was as bad as failure—­and worse.  A like eagerness does not seem to have prevailed on board the flagship.  Parker had allowed himself to be stiffened to the fighting-point by the junior he had before disregarded, but that he looked to the issue with more than doubt may be inferred from the words of his private secretary, the Rev. Mr. Scott, who afterwards held the same relation to Nelson.  “I fear,” he wrote on the day of the council, “there is a great deal of Quixotism in this business; there is no getting any positive information of their strength.”

Nelson’s general plan of attack is set forth in main outlines in the letter already given, but it is desirable to give a somewhat more detailed description.  It will be seen, by the annexed chart, that there are before Copenhagen two channels by which the city can be passed.  Between the two lies a shoal, called the Middle Ground.  The inner, known as the King’s Channel, lay under the guns of the defences which had been hurriedly improvised for the present emergency.  These consisted of a line of hulks, mostly mastless, ranged along the inner side of the King’s Channel, close to the flats which bordered it, flanked at the northern end by the permanent work, called the Trekroner[29] Battery.  Westward of the latter lay, across the mouth of the harbor proper, two more hulks, and a small squadron consisting of two ships-of-the-line and a frigate, masted, and in commission.  This division was not seriously engaged, and, as a factor in the battle, may be disregarded.