Battle of Zealand Point

The Battle of Zealand Point was a naval battle of the English Wars and the Gunboat War. It was fought off Zealand Point by ships of the Danish and British navies on 22 March 1808 and was a British victory.

Prelude
The Danish ship of the line Prins Christian Frederik was stationed in Kristiansand, Norway from 7 August 1807, patrolling waters between Norway and Denmark where Britain had imposed a blockade. In February 1808, the Prins Christian Frederik pursued the British ship HMS Quebec (1781) into hiding. Having learned of the Danish ship, the British admiralty sent a squadron consisting of HMS Nassau (the former Danish ship-of-the-line Holsteen, taken during the Battle of Copenhagen), HMS Stately (1784), HMS Vanguard (1787), and two brigs, HMS Constant (1801) and HMS Kite (1805), to secure the waters. While this was going on Prins Christian Frederik became frozen in near Kristiansand. She therefore did not set sail for Denmark until 4 March.

By the time Prins Christian Frederik reached Denmark, epidemic typhus had broken out among her crew. Ice in the Danish harbours prevented her from docking, and crew were replaced over the ice. On 17 March morale deteriorated further when news arrived that King Christian had died. She was ordered into the Great Belt (Storebælt) strait to provide cover for a crossing of a French army corps consisting of Spanish soldiers ordered by Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte (later King of Sweden) to attack Skåne. Having been alerted to the Danish plan, the British ships give chase. The British ships intended to outmanoeuvre, corner and overpower the Prins Christian Frederik; Captain Carl Jessen, after conferring with his officers, decided to take a stand in order to gain enough of a tactical advantage to move into familiar waters and within the protective range of the cannon at Kronborg.

Course
In the hours before the battle the Danish ship-of-the-line was within sight of two British warships – the frigate Quebec and the sloop Lynx. At 2 [pm] they were joined by the sloop, Falcon, who recorded the signal from Quebec ”Danish Line-of-battle-ship to windward”, and cleared for action. Shortly after 4 [pm] Stately and Nassau were sighted to the North East, and the signal, "inforced with a (signal) gun", of the presence of the enemy led to all ships making ”all sail, in chace”. Falcon recorded in her logbook, from a safe distance of five miles, that the battle opened at 7:50 [pm].

At about 7 pm, Stately and Nassau flanked the Prins Christian Frederik, which opened fire on Stately. The two British ships returned fire. The initial engagement lasted for two hours, and resulted in the death of one of the Danish officers, Peter Willemoes. After a brief pause, the British ships attacked again and succeeded in driving the Prins Christian Frederik onto the sandbar.

The Danish officers surrendered and prisoners were transferred to the British ships. The dead were dumped overboard; the transfer of wounded took until the next morning. After failing in their attempts to tow the Prins Christian Frederik off the sand, the British set her on fire; she exploded in the evening of 23 March.

Stately had four men killed, and 31 officers and men wounded. Nassau lost one man killed, 17 officers and men wounded, and one man missing. Prins Christian Frederik lost 55 men killed and 88 men wounded. The British had evacuated all the Danish prisoners and wounded before they set fire to her. In 1847 the Admiralty awarded the Naval General Service Medal with clasps "Stately 22 March 1808" and "Nassau 22 March 1808" to any still surviving crew members of those vessels that chose to claim them.

Consequences
The Prins Christian Frederik was the last of the Danish ships of the line during the Napoleonic Wars. Its loss meant the end to any Danish challenge to British supremacy in Danish territorial waters.