exertion shall be wanting from your most attached and affectionate
friend."

He was accompanied to Parker's flagship by Lieutenant Layman, who went
in the boat to steer for him. "On board the London," according to
Layman, "the heads appeared very gloomy. Mr. Vansittart, who arrived
at the same moment Nelson did, said that if the fleet proceeded to
attack, it would be beaten, and the attempt was in danger of being
relinquished. The Captain of the Fleet said to Layman that the Danes
were too strong to attack, and a torpor verging to despondency
prevailed in the councils. While others were dismayed, however, Lord
Nelson questioned those just arrived from Copenhagen not only as to
the force, but as to the position of the enemy. Such interrogatories
he called 'bringing people to the post.' Having learned that the great
strength of the enemy was at the head of the line, supported by the
Crown Battery, his Lordship emphatically observed that to begin the
attack there would be like taking a bull by the horns, and he
therefore suggested the attempt by the tail."[27] In order to avoid
the formidable works at Cronenburg, and yet come up in rear of
Copenhagen, according to this proposition of Nelson's, it was proposed
in the council to go by the Great Belt. That passage is more
intricate, and therefore, from the pilot's point of view, more
hazardous than the Sound. Nelson was not much deterred by the alarming
reports. "Go by the Sound, or by the Belt, or anyhow," he said, "only
lose not an hour."

The minutes of the council have not been transmitted, but it is
evident from Nelson's own letter of the following day, soon to be
quoted in full, and also from one written to him by Mr. Vansittart,
after the latter reached London, that he urged upon Parker, and