The Captain of the Fleet said to Layman that the Danes were too strong to attack, and a torpor verging to despondency prevailed in the councils.

While others were dismayed, however, Lord Nelson questioned those just arrived from Copenhagen not only as to the force, but as to the position of the enemy.

Such interrogatories he called 'bringing people to the post.' Having learned that the great strength of the enemy was at the head of the line, supported by the Crown Battery, his Lordship emphatically observed that to begin the attack there would be like taking a bull by the horns, and he therefore suggested the attempt by the tail."[27] In order to avoid the formidable works at Cronenburg, and yet come up in rear of Copenhagen, according to this proposition of Nelson's, it was proposed in the council to go by the Great Belt.

That passage is more intricate, and therefore, from the pilot's point of view, more hazardous than the Sound.

Nelson was not much deterred by the alarming reports.