The bombardment of the capital began on the 2nd September, 1807, and ended on the 5th, when the British took possession of the citadel and arsenals. The Danish fleet was surrounded and convoyed to England the following month. Jackson thus describes the contest, beginning with the preliminary passage from Landscrona to the fleet off Copenhagen, which occupied two hours and a half. “It was nearly dark when we sailed out of the harbour; and in about half an hour afterwards we saw a great many rockets in the air, succeeded by shells on either side. The wind was so violent that we heard nothing until we were actually in the midst of the fleet, though we saw everything distinctly. Several shells fell in our direction, and so frightened our boatmen, that they repeatedly urged us to turn back. This, of course, we would not hear of; and at last we succeeded in getting alongside the flag-ship, where we found the Admiral and my brother in the stern gallery looking at the conflagration--for the city was on fire in three places. I never saw, nor can well conceive, a more awful, yet magnificent spectacle. It was the beginning of the bombardment _in forma_. We saw and heard it going on until daylight, as we lay in our cots; and as the work of destruction proceeded, I cannot describe to you the appalling effect it had on me. Our cabin was illuminated with an intensely red glow, then suddenly wrapped in deep gloom, as the flames rose and fell, while the vessel quivered and every plank in her was shaken by the loud reverberation of the cannon. Alas! poor Danes! I could not but feel for them. “Lord Cathcart told me the next morning that he had thrown two thousand shells into the town, besides the fire from our gun-boats and the famous catamaran rockets. And this sort of work was to begin again at night.... “In the afternoon the firing began again with greater fury than ever, and for two or three hours there was a tremendous blaze. The wind was high; the flames spread rapidly, and towards night vividly illumined the horizon, so that at the distance of five miles from the city we could see each other on the quarter-deck as if it had been broad daylight, and into the city in the same manner; the intervening ships forming very picturesque objects. “... Ere I left, the fire had increased to a prodigious height, the principal church was in flames, looking like a pyramid of fire, and the last I saw and heard of the ill-fated city was the falling-in of the steeple with a tremendous crash, and the distant loud hurrahs it occasioned along our line. “I own that my heart ached as I thought of the many scenes of horror that must inevitably take place in the midst of all this--and soon there would be but a heap of ruins instead of a city to take.”