Nelson, to use his own word, was “thunder-struck” by this statement.  “I own,” he said, “I considered the words your Lordship used as conveying an assurance.  It was an apology for their not being given before, which, I understood you, they would have been, but for the difficulty of fixing who was to have them;” an allusion particularly valuable as indicating, in this case of flat contradiction between two honorable men, what was the probable cause of withholding the marks of hard-won distinction.  “I have never failed assuring the Captains, that I have seen and communicated with, that they might depend on receiving them.  I could not, my dear Lord, have had any interest in misunderstanding you, and representing that as an intended Honour from the King which you considered as so improper to be recommended to the King:  therefore I must beg that your Lordship will reconsider our conversation—­to me of the very highest concern, and think that I could not but believe that we would have medals.  I am truly made ill by your letter.”  St. Vincent replied briefly, “That you have perfectly mistaken all that passed between us in the conversation you allude to, is most certain.  At the same time I am extremely concerned that it should have had so material an effect upon your health,” etc.  “Either Lord St. Vincent or myself are liars,” wrote Nelson to Davison; a conclusion not inevitable to those who have had experience of human misunderstandings.

The Prime Minister took a week to reply.  When he did, he deprecated the sending of any letter to the Mayor, for reasons, he said, “not merely of a public nature, but connected with the interest I shall ever take in your well-earned fame.”  These reasons, he added, he would be ready to give him in a private interview.  Nelson had asked his opinion upon the terms of the letter; but, impatient after waiting three days, had already sent it in when this answer came.  It seems probable that, with his usual promptness, he called at once; for on the same day, November 28, that he received Addington’s letter he withdrew that to the Mayor.[52] “By the advice of a friend,” he said, “I have now to request that your Lordship will consider my letter as withdrawn, as the discussion of the question may bring forward characters which had better rest quiet."[53] There seems, therefore, little reason to doubt that the honors, due to those who fought, were withheld out of consideration to those who did not fight.  Nelson himself recognized the difficulty.  “They are not Sir Hyde Parker’s real friends who wish for an inquiry,” he had written confidentially to Davison before leaving the Baltic.  “His friends in the fleet wish everything of this fleet to be forgot, for we all respect and love Sir Hyde; but the dearer his friends, the more uneasy they have been at his idleness, for that is the truth—­no criminality.”  But, as he vigorously and characteristically said of another matter occurring about this time, “I was told the difficulties were insurmountable.  My answer was, ’As the thing is necessary to be done, the more difficulties, the more necessary to try to remove them.’”