Each time one of the old hulls was
crushed, a Briton pushed into the hole made in the line and raked
the remaining ones fore and aft until their decks were like huge
shambles. The block-ship _Indfoedsretten_ bore the concentrated fire
of five frigates and two smaller vessels throughout most of the
battle. Her chief was killed. When the news reached head-quarters on
shore, Captain von Schroedersee, an old naval officer who had been
retired because of ill health, volunteered to take his place. He was
rowed out, but as he came over the side of the ship a cannon-ball
cut him in two. _Proevestenen_, as it was the first to fire a shot,
held out also to the last. One-fourth of her crew lay dead, and her
flag had been shot away three times when the decks threatened to
cave in and Captain Lassen spiked his last guns and left the wreck
to be burned. All through the fight she was the target of ninety
guns to which she could oppose only twenty-nine of her own sixty.
Nelson had promised Admiral Parker to finish the fight in an hour.
When the battle had lasted three, Parker signalled to him to stop.
Every school-boy knows the story of how Lord Nelson put the glass to
his blind eye and, remarking that he could see no signal, kept right
on.
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