and overcome them.”  Notwithstanding this, and notwithstanding that the valor of the squadron, as manifested in its losses, was never excelled, no medals were ever issued for the battle, nor were any individual rewards bestowed, except upon Nelson himself, who was advanced in the peerage to be a Viscount, and upon his immediate second, Rear-Admiral Graves, who was made a Knight of the Bath.  The cause for this action—­it was not a case of oversight—­has never been explained; nor did Nelson consider the reasons for it, which the Prime Minister advanced to him in a private interview, at all satisfactory.  If it was because a formal state of war did not exist between Great Britain and Denmark, the obvious reply of those engaged would be that they had hazarded their lives, and won an exceptionally hard-fought fight, in obedience to the orders of their Government.  If, on the other hand, the Ministry felt the difficulty of making an invidious distinction between ships engaged and those not engaged, as between Nelson’s detachment and the main body under Parker, it can only be said that that was shirking the duty of a government to reward the deserving, for fear lest those who had been less fortunate should cry out.  The last administration had not hesitated to draw a line at the Battle of the Nile, even though the mishap of so great an officer as Troubridge left him on the wrong side.  St. Vincent, positive as he was, had shrunk from distinguishing by name even Nelson at the battle which had won for himself his title.  This naturally suggests the speculation whether the joint presence of St. Vincent and Troubridge at the Admiralty was not the cause of this futility; but nothing can be affirmed.

“First secure the victory, then make the most of it,” had been avowedly Nelson’s motto before the Nile.  In the Battle of Copenhagen he had followed much the same rule.  After beating the force immediately opposed to him, he obtained the safe removal of his detachment from the critical position in which it lay, by the shrewd use made of the advantage then in his hands.  This achieved, and his ships having rejoined the main body, after various mishaps from grounding, under the enemy’s guns, which emphasized over and over the adroit presence of mind he had displayed, it next fell to him to make the most of what the British had so far gained; having regard not merely to Denmark and Copenhagen, but to the whole question of British interests involved in the Coalition of the Baltic States.  Parker intrusted to him the direct management of the negotiations, just as he had given him the immediate command of the fighting.