1807 - Lord Gambier at Copenhagen


 
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Naval history of Great Britain - Vol. IV
by
William James
1807 Lord Gambier at Copenhagen 285

On the 1st of August, in the evening, when of the Wingo-beacon, at the entrance of Gottenberg, Commodore Keats, with the Ganges, Vanguard, Orion and Nassau, also the 38-gun frigate Sibylle, Captain Clotworthy Upton, 36-gun frigates Franchise, Captain Charles Dashwood, and Nymphe, Captain Conway Shipley; and 10 brigs, parted company by signal, and steered for the passage of the Great Belt, in order to cut off any supplies of Danish troops that might attempt to cross from Holstein to Zealand. On the 3d, in the forenoon, having previously ascertained that no opposition would be offered to the passage of the fleet into the Sound, the British admiral interchanged salutes with the castle of Cronberg, and shortly afterwards anchored in the road of Elsineur, where was lying the Danish 32-gun frigate Frederickscoarn. On the 5th, in the morning, the 74-gun ship Superb, Captain Daniel M'Leod, joined the expedition, and on the morning of the 6th weighed and made sail after the Vanguard and squadron, to receive the broad pendant of her old commander.

On the 7th the Inflexible and Leyden 64s, Captains Joshua Rowley Watson and William Cumberland, with a large convoy of transports, arrived ; also Rear-admiral William Essington, with the 74-gun ships Minotaur, Captain Charles John Moore Mansfield, and Valiant, Captain James Young. On the 8th and 9th the Mars and Defence 74s, Captains William Lukin and Charles Ekins, joined, the first with a convoy of transports. On the 12th, in the morning, the 32-gun frigate Africaine, Captain Richard Raggett, arrived from Put bay in the island of Rugen, having on board Lieutenant-general Lord Cathcart, the commander-in-chief of the land-forces to be employed. Lord Cathcart had sailed from England in the same frigate on the 5th of July, and had anchored on the 16th in Put bay. His lordship and suite there disembarked, and proceeded to the neighbouring fortress of Stralsund.

By the time the transports from Rugen had joined, and a few others, under the 64-gun ship Agamemnon, Captain Jonas Rose, from England, the expedition consisted of 25 sail of the line, and upwards of 40 frigates, sloops, bomb-vessels, and gunbrigs ; making a total of about 65 vessels of war, exclusive of

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