The news was received at the first with an applause and a popular commotion commensurate to its greatness, and promised for the moment to overflow even the barriers of routine in one of the most conservative of nations.  “Mr. Pitt told me the day after Captain Capel arrived,” wrote his old admiral, Hood, to Nelson, “that you would certainly be a Viscount, which I made known 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 service done.  “I have received your Lordship’s letter communicating to me the Title his Majesty has been graciously pleased to confer upon