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 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 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 .
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.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Zealand Point