686 



BRITAIN. 



Britain. 



D 



Negotia- 

 tion with 

 Denmark. 



forward as a plan of amicable arrangement with us. 

 Our government repelled the proposal, and the Danes 

 '" forbore to press it, being yet unprepared to come to 

 a rupture. But the bare proposal shewed a degra- 

 dation of national independence, from which we had 

 a right to conclude that the basest acquiescences to 

 France would yet arise, when she should be obliged 

 to break with us. Such was the situation of the 

 north of Europe, when, even before the signing of 

 the peace of Tilsit, it was known that Bonaparte 

 was likely to accomplish, as the first fruits of his con- 

 quests, the formation of a maritime confederacy 

 against Britain. The result was, a determination, on 

 the part of the British government, to send a power- 

 ful military and naval force, amounting to 20,000 sol- 

 diers, and 27 sail of the line, to strike a blow upon 

 Copenhagen. 



The command of the military was given to Lord 

 CathCart ; and Admiral Gambier commanded the fleet. 

 To conduct the negotiation, his majesty's mini- 

 sters selected Mr Jackson, who had for several years 

 resided at the court ot Berlin. Upon the ground of 

 Bonaparte's design to shut the ports of Holstein 

 against the British flag, and forcibly to employ the 

 Danish navy against this country, Mr Jackson was 

 instructed to repair to the residence of the Prince 

 Royal of Denmark, and to call upon his royal high- 

 ness for an unequivocal declaration of the intentions 

 of Denmark, and for an infallible pledge of the exe- 

 cution of those intentions, if they were not hostile to 

 Great Britain. This pledge was the delivery of the 

 Danish fleet into the possession of the British admi- 

 ral, under the most solemn stipulation, that it should 

 be restored at the conclusion of the war between this 

 country and France. Should this be refused, and 

 should the British negotiator have in vain exhausted 

 every argument and effort to obtain the prince royal's 

 consent to it, as the foundation of a treaty of alliance 

 and general co-operation between the two countries, 

 he was directed to announce, that it would be en- 

 forced by the British armament assembled in the 

 Sound. In presenting this alternative, every pos- 

 sible stipulation was to be advanced, by which the 

 present and future interests of the crown of Den- 

 mark were to be fostered by the resources of the 

 British empire. Permanent alliance ; guarantee, and 

 even aggrandisement, of their actual possessions ; eve- 

 ry thing was promised that the fleets, and armies, and 

 the treasury of England could afford. 



Mrjackson Mr Jackson left England on the 1st of August, 

 sets out for an j arr i ve d on t h e 6th at Kiel. In case impediments 



Copen- 

 hagen. 



should be thrown in the way of his communication 

 with the British mission at Copenhagen, or with the 

 British commanders, a periud was fixed, beyond which 

 the latter was not to wait, to hear from Mr Jackson, 

 but to suppose that a constraint had been put upon 

 his person, and to proceed in the execution of their 

 instructions. On the day after his arrival, Mr Jack- 

 son announced the purport of his instructions to 

 Count Bernstorff, and applied for an audience of the 

 Prince Royal. The Danish minister is said to have 

 received the proposals with the warmest indignation. 

 The prince remained calm and unaffected during a 

 long interview with Mr Jackson, and rejected the 

 proposals with a dignified but determined declaration, 

 that Denmark would adhere to the neutrality she 



had hitherto observed. Next day Mr Jackson was Britai 



informed, that the prince had set off for Copenha- ' 



gen, but that any proposals which he might make 

 in the name of the British court, should be forward- 

 ed to his royal hignness. The British minister chose 

 rather to follow the prince to his capital, and arrived 

 there on the 12th of August. In the mean time, 

 from the prompt movements of the British squadron, 

 no progress had been made in assembling an army in 

 Zealand. A division of our fleet, under the imme- 

 diate direction of Commodore Keats, had been de- 

 tached to the Great Belt, with instructions to allow 

 no military force to pass over from the continent. 

 That officer had led his line of battle ships through 

 an intricate and ill known navigation, without the 

 smallest loss, and stationed his vessels within tele- 

 graphic distance of each other. All connection was 

 thus intercepted between the island of Zealand and 

 the adjacent isle of Funen, and the mainland of Hoi- 

 stein, Sleswig, and Jutland. A levy had been made 

 in Copenhagen from amongst the populace ; but with- 

 out the walls of that city and of Elsmeur, there wag 

 not a battalion of regular troops. On reaching the 

 Danish capital, Mr Jackson was informed at the 

 first interview with the minister, that the prince had 

 returned to Sleswig. This conduct was thought to 

 shew a studied disposition to avoid negotiation, and 

 the acknowledgment of the Danish minister, that he 

 had no authority in the prince royal's absence to con- 

 clude any arrangement in the least compatible with 

 Mr Jackson's instructions, determined the British 

 envoy to take his leave. He repaired that tame even- 

 ing on board the advanced frigate of the British squa- 

 dron, now at anchor within a few miles of Copen- 

 hagen. Next morning the British commanders were 

 informed, that all hope of accommodation was at an 

 end. 



The army accordingly landed without opposition The Br 

 at the village of Vedbeck, on the morning of the army i; 

 16th of August, and, after Borne ineffectual attempts m Zeal 

 of the enemy to annoy its left wing by the fire of 

 their gun boats, and to impede its progress by sallies, 

 which were always repulsed with loss, it closely in- 

 vested the town on the land side. The fleet coming 

 to a nearer anchorage, formed an impenetrable block- 

 ade by sea. On the evening of the 2d of Septem- j3, i 

 ber, the land-troops, and the bomb and mortar vei- men o 

 sels, opened a tremendous fire upon the town, with Co, 'en- 

 such effect, that a general conflagration soon was vi- "..gen. 

 sible. The fire was returned but feebly from the 

 ramparts of the town, and from the citadel and crown 

 batteries. On the night of the third, the British 

 fire was considerably slackened, either from appre- 

 hension that the ammunition would not suffice for the 

 prosecution of t!ie siege, or, what is more probable 

 and charitable to believe, from hopes being enter- 

 tained that the impression already made would pro- 

 duce proposals for capitulation. It was probably 

 because the Danes adopted the first of these suppo- 

 sitions, that the second was not realized ; the be- 

 sieged conceived some hope from the relaxation of 

 our fire, which, however, was resumed witli so much 

 vigour and effect, that on the night of the 4th, (Sep- 

 tember), a trumpeter appeared at the British out- 

 posts, with a letter from the commandant of the which 

 town, proposing a truce for twenty-four hours, to render 



