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Chap. X.
THE BOMBARDMENT.
155
after the event, as well as several of more recent date.
I have no national prejudice on the subject: on the
contrary, residing in the city itself, with “pleine et
entiëre jouissance ” of a cannon-ball—triste souvenir—
inserted in the very masonry of the house we inhabit,
I almost feel as though bombarded myself.
Under the then existing circumstances, I cannot see
how the English Government could have acted
otherwise. It was a painful necessity. They had received
from the most reliable sources certain information that
the Emperor Napoleon, about to occupy Holstein with
his army, would, if once master of Zealand, seize the
Danish fleet and employ it against our country for the
invasion of Great Britain and Ireland. The demand
made for the deposit of the Danish fleet under our care
until the conclusion of the war was peremptorily
refused to Lords Gambier and Cathcart: perhaps the
terms in which it was made were somewhat galling to
the spirit of Danish independence. They were,
however, not only refused, but followed up at once by a
proclamation on the part of Count Brockdorff, declaring
the confiscation of British property, the annulment of
debts due to British subjects, and forbidding, as illegal,
all correspondence with them. This was not likely to
mend matters.
Frederic, the Crown Prince—unlike his heroic
ancestor King Frederic III., who, when advised to quit the
besieged capital in 1659, replied, “ I will remain and
die in my nest —demanded his passport and rejoined
the royal family located at Kiel. Of the corps
diplomatique, the French legation alone remained.
For my own part, I shall always believe that the Crown
Prince, then Regent, sacrificed his capital to his own
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