"I was yesterday evening favoured with your reply to my letter of the 22d of April; and I have no scruple in assuring you, that if Commodore Fischer's letter had been couched in the same manly and honourable manner, I should have been the last man to have noticed any little inaccuracies which might get into a commander in chief's public letter; and if the commodore had not called upon his royal highness for the truth of his assertions, I never should have noticed his letter. You have stated, truly, the force which would have been brought into action, but for the accidents of their getting aground; and, except the Desiree frigate, no other frigate or sloop fired a gun to the southward of the Crown Islands. I have done ample justice to the bravery of nearly all your officers and men; and, as it is not my intention to hurt your feelings, or those of his royal highness--but, on the contrary, to try and merit your esteem--I will only say, that I am confident you would not have wrote such a letter. Nothing, I flatter myself, in my conduct, ought to have drawn ridicule on my character from the commodore's pen; and you have borne the handsomest testimony of it, in contradiction to his. I thought then, as I did before the action, and do now, that it is not the interest of our countries to injure each other. I am sorry that I was forced to write you so unpleasant a letter; but, for the future, I trust that none but pleasant ones will pass between us: for, I assure you, that I hope to merit the continuation of your esteem, and of having frequent opportunities of assuring you how I feel interested in being your sincere and faithful friend, "Nelson and Bronte." "Adjutant-General Lindholm."