wn to Lady Nelson. But it was
objected to in a certain quarter, because your Lordship was not a
commander-in-chief. In my humble opinion a more flimsy reason never
was given." Official circles regained, or rather perhaps again lost,
their senses, and the victory, unquestionably the most nearly complete
and the most decisive ever gained by a British fleet, was rewarded, in
the person of the commanding officer, with honors less than those
bestowed for St. Vincent and Camperdown. Nelson was advanced to the
lowest rank of the peerage, as Baron Nelson of the Nile. "In
congratulating your Lordship on this high distinction," wrote the
First Lord, "I have particular pleasure in remarking, that it is the
highest honour that has ever been conferred on an officer of your
standing,[68] in the Service, and who was not a commander-in-chief;
and the addition [of the Nile] to the Title is meant more especially
to mark the occasion on which it was granted, which, however, without
any such precaution, is certainly of a nature never to be forgotten."
His Lordship's sense of humor must a little have failed him, when he
penned the platitude of the last few words.

To the sharp criticism passed in the House of Commons on the
smallness of the recognition, the Prime Minister replied that Nelson's
glory did not depend upon the rank to which he might be raised in the
peerage; a truism too palpable and inapplicable for serious utterance,
the question before the House being, not the measure of Nelson's
glory, but that of the national acknowledgment. As Hood justly said,
"All remunerations should be proportionate to the service done to the
public;" and if that cannot always be attained absolutely, without
exhausting the powers of the State,[69] there should at least be some
proportion between the rewards themselves, extended to individuals,
and the particular services. But even were the defence of the
Ministers technically perfect, it would have been pleasanter to see
them a little blinded by such an achievement. Once in a way, under
some provocations, it is refreshing to see men able even to make fools
of themselves.

Nelson made to the First Lord's letter a reply that was dignified and
yet measured, to a degree unusual to him, contrasting singularly with
his vehement reclamations for others after Copenhagen. Without
semblance of complaint, he allowed plainly to appear between the lines
his own sense that the reward was not proportionate to the