For two months Lord Nelson and his wife lived, as might be supposed, most unhappily, when he determined to leave her forever, settling upon her £1,600 per year. He wrote to his friend Davison, "Sooner than live the life I did when last I came to England, I would stay abroad forever." The last time he saw her, Jan. 13, 1801, before he left for the Baltic, he said at parting, "I call God to witness there is nothing in you or your conduct I wish otherwise." In 1801 England found herself engaged in conflict with Denmark, which had become an ally of Russia, Prussia, and Sweden, in naval rights. On March 12, 1801, a fleet of fifty-two sail was sent into the Baltic from England, Nelson acting as second in command under Sir Hyde Parker. On March 16 the ship Invincible, of seventy-four guns, struck on a sand-bank called Hammond's Knowl, and went down, taking four hundred persons with her. The harbor of Copenhagen was most strongly fortified. The city was protected by defences which stretched a distance of about four miles. The Danes had removed all the buoys, so that Nelson was obliged to make soundings and replace them. On the morning of April 1, the British fleet anchored within two leagues of Copenhagen. On April 2, at five minutes past ten in the forenoon, the battle began. Nelson's squadron being received with the fire of more than a thousand guns. As some of his ships had become disabled, Admiral Parker, at a distance, thinking that the fire was too hot for Nelson, threw out the signal to retreat, knowing that if Nelson could possibly continue the battle he would do so. When told of the signal, Nelson put his glass to his blind eye, saying, "I really do not see the signal! Keep mine for closer battle flying! That's the way I answer such signals. Nail mine to the mast!" The men fought heroically on both sides. The battle lasted for five hours, men fighting knee-deep among the dead on the decks. The Danes lost 1800 men, including prisoners, 6,000, and the English 253 killed and 688 wounded. Nelson said, "I have been in one hundred and five engagements in the course of my life, but this has been the most terrible of all." An armistice was effected, and the Crown Prince of Denmark gave a grand banquet to the Danish commissioners and English officers. At the banquet, Nelson praised the bravery of the Danes, and asked to be introduced to Lieutenant Villemoes, a youth of seventeen, who, on a floating battery or raft, with six small cannon and twenty-four men, came under the very stern of Nelson's ship, the Elephant, and attacked her. Twenty of his men were killed; but the boy-commander, standing up to his waist among his dead comrades, fought till the truce was proclaimed. Southey gives the number of guns as twenty-four, and the men one hundred and twenty.