At the moment, the concentrated naval strength of England made it more than a match for its adversaries. A fleet of seventeen ships of the line sailed from Yarmouth on the 12th of March, under the command of Parker and Nelson, with orders to coerce the Danes and to prevent the junction of the confederate navies. The fleet reached the Sound. The Swedish batteries commanding the Sound failed to open fire. Nelson kept to the eastern side of the channel, and brought his ships safely past the storm of shot poured upon them from the Danish guns at Elsinore. He appeared before Copenhagen at mid-day on the 30th of March. Preparations for resistance were made by the Danes with extraordinary spirit and resolution. The whole population of Copenhagen volunteered for service on the ships, the forts, and the floating batteries. Two days were spent by the English in exploring the shallows of the channel; on the morning of the 2nd of April Nelson led his ships into action in front of the harbour. Three ran aground; the Danish fire from land and sea was so violent that after some hours Admiral Parker, who watched the engagement from the mid-channel, gave the signal of recall. Nelson laughed at the signal, and continued the battle. In another hour the six Danish men-of-war and the whole of the floating batteries were disabled or sunk. The English themselves had suffered most severely from a resistance more skilful and more determined than anything that they had experienced from the French, and Nelson gladly offered a truce as soon as his own victory was assured. The truce was followed by negotiation, and the negotiation by an armistice for fourteen weeks, a term which Nelson considered sufficient to enable him to visit and to overthrow the navies of Sweden and Russia. [Murder of Paul, March 23.] [Peace between England and the Northern Powers.]