According to an item dated Copenhagen 16 March arrived in Denmark an allied army consisting of Dutch, French and Spanish troops. In Denmark continued the preparations for war fare continuously. The commanding officers of the new naval force were appointed and except for the gunboats were 10 armed vessels available. All the merchant ships which were lying there and which numbered between 181 until 240 and above were to report to become a crew and to prepare for service. In the Great Belt were 3 Danish brigs of war waiting.
An earlier edition dated 18 March supplied even more details. In an item dated Copenhagen 5 March was reported that of the so-called Scheeren fleet at Landskrona 18 vessels were ready to depart. These vessels were freed from the ice. To compensate the fleet handed over to the British were new armed vessels available. The gun prams Kempen, Swerdfisk and Lindormen were lying ready just like some gunboats and four East Indiamen were fitted out as frigates and armed with 36pdr guns and carronades. The engine for destroying ships which was recently invented deserved more attention that first was thought.(1) The inventor Winstrup (a guard soldier) was by his commanding officer general count of Bauaissin presented to the crown prince with as result that the prince ordered that the Admiralty would investigate the model of the engine. Sadly enough supplied the newspaper Koninklijke Courant dated 14 March 1808 the same details about this engine.
Note
1. Perhaps a ‘submerged’ ship like the famous Fulton in 1807 in New York showed? The spelling of the names in the news item was of course Dutch.
