g them should first come forth
to defend their glory from implication of some undefined stain, if not
their Commander-in-Chief, one whose great renown could well spare the
additional ray of lustre which he demanded for them. Whether
underneath lay some spot of self-seeking, of the secondary motive from
which so few of us are free, matters little or nothing. The thing was
right to be done, and he did it. If the Government and the City of
London, by calculated omission, proclaimed, as they did, that these
men had not deserved well of their country, it became him to say, as
he did, openly to the City, subordinately to his superiors, that they
had done men's work and deserved men's reward.

"If Lord Nelson could forget the services of those who have fought
under his command, he would ill deserve to be so supported as he
always has been." Thus he closed his last letter to the Lord Mayor on
this subject, a year after the correspondence began. It was this noble
sympathy with all beneath him, the lack of which has been charged
against the great Commander of the British Army of this period, that
won for Nelson the enthusiastic affection which, in all parts of his
command, however remote from his own eyes, aroused the ardent desire
to please him. No good service done him escaped his hearty
acknowledgment, and he was unwearied in upholding the just claims of
others to consideration. In the matter of Copenhagen, up to the time
he left the country, eighteen months later, he refused any
compromise. He recognized, of course, that he was powerless in the
face of St. Vincent's opposition; but, he wrote to one of the captains
engaged, "I am fixed never to abandon the fair fame of my companions
in dangers. I have had a meeting with Mr. Addington on the subject; I
don't expect we shall get much by it, except having had a full
opportunity of speaking my mind." The Premier's arguments had been to
him wholly inconclusive. Oddly enough, as things were, the Sultan sent
him a decoration for Copenhagen. Coming from a foreign sovereign,
there was, in accepting it, no inconsistency with his general
attitude; but in referring the question to the Government, as was
necessary, he told the Prime Minister, "If I can judge the feelings of
others by myself, there can be no honours bestowed upon me by
foreigners that do not reflect ten times on our Sovereign and
Country."[55]

In conformity with this general stand, when it was proposed in June,
1802, to