_Wh._ How shall they do for victuals there to get fresh from the land?
_Dane._ There is plenty of butter and cheese, sheep and hogs; and the poor country people will be no trouble to you, but be willing to be commanded by you.
_Dane._ Higher in the country is Bergen, the chief town for trade there, and rich enough. Your ships may easily come into that harbour, and plunder the town and get a great booty, and return to Fleckeren Town again.
_Wh._ Is there anything to be done at Iceland?
_Dane._ I wonder you do not send, in August or September, four or five ships to Iceland, being men-of-war. They may have twenty or thirty Dutch ships, laden with fish, butter, and hides, which will make no resistance at all; and it would be a rich prize, and might be had without danger or difficulty.
_Wh._ Is the castle of Elsinore so strong a piece that it cannot be taken without much expense and danger?
_Dane._ This will not be the best design for England: it is a small, strong castle, and doth not signify much; though it be esteemed a piece of importance, it is not so.
_Wh._ It commands the passage of the Sound.
_Dane._ Most men believe so, but it is mistaken. I have seen an experiment to the contrary, that a boat, being placed in the middle of that narrow passage of the Sound, they shot at it from the castle of Elsinore, and likewise from the castle of Helsingborg on the other side, with the greatest guns they had, and yet they could not reach the boat from either side by two thousand paces; nor is it so narrow in the passage but that a ship may, when she pleaseth, sail by those castles in despite of them.
_Dane._ There is no harbour for ships to ride in, and in foul weather they will be in danger to be all lost, because they must ride in the open sea, which there is extreme perilous; and therefore Elsinore is not worth the keeping, if England had it. But their best design would be to go directly to the town of Copenhagen with fifty or sixty good ships, with landsmen in them; and it is easy enough to take that town, for the works of it are not strong, nor is it well guarded, and it would be easier to take that town than Elsinore; and if England were masters of it, the castle would quickly come in to them; and at the town they should have a good haven for their ships, and a small matter would build a better fort near the town than Elsinore is, and would command the passage more than the castles do, and make you masters of the Sound and of all the trade of the Baltic Sea.