THE BOMBARDMENT OF COPENHAGEN BY NELSON, as it is generally styled, is therefore, like most other oracular phrases of the day, a mere combination of words, without the slightest meaning." The British lost in killed and wounded nine hundred and forty-three men; and the loss of the Danes, according to their own account, which is confirmed by the French, was but very little higher.

The English, however, say it amounted to sixteen or eighteen hundred; but let the loss be what it may, it was almost exclusively confined to the floating defences, and can in no way determine the relative accuracy of aim of the guns ashore and guns afloat.
The facts and testimony we have adduced, prove incontestably-- 1st.

That of the fleet of fifty-two sail and seventeen hundred guns sent by the English to the attack upon Copenhagen, two ships carrying one hundred and forty-eight guns were grounded or wrecked; seven ships of the line, and thirty-six smaller vessels, carrying over one thousand guns, were actually brought into the action; while the remainder were held as a reserve to act upon the first favorable opportunity.
2d.

That the Danish line of floating defences, consisting mostly of hulls, sloops, rafts, &c., carried only six hundred and twenty-eight guns of all descriptions; that the fixed batteries supporting this line did not carry over eighty or ninety guns at most; and that both these land and floating batteries were mostly manned and the guns served by _volunteers_.
3d.

That the fixed batteries in the system of defence were either so completely masked, or so far distant, as to be useless during the contest between the fleet and floating force.
4th.