a diplomatist; for,
instead of exacting guarantees which would have insured the military
situation remaining unchanged until definite agreements had been
reached, he returned to Kioge Bay, near Copenhagen, but within the
Shallows, leaving the Revel squadron untrammelled, either by force or
pledge, free to go out when the ice allowed, and to join either the
Swedes or its own main body. Accordingly, it did come out a fortnight
later, went to Cronstadt, and so escaped the British fleet.

While on this cruise towards Carlscrona, Nelson became involved in a
pen-and-ink controversy about Commodore Fischer, who had commanded the
Danish line at the Battle of Copenhagen,--one of two or three rare
occasions which illustrate the vehemence and insolence that could be
aroused in him when his vanity was touched, or when he conceived his
reputation to be assailed. Fischer, in his official report of the
action, had comforted himself and his nation, as most beaten men do,
by dwelling upon--and unquestionably exaggerating--the significance of
certain incidents, either actual, or imagined by the Danes; for
instance, that towards the end of the battle, Nelson's own ship had
fired only single guns, and that two British ships had struck,--the
latter being an error, and the former readily accounted for by the
fact that the "Elephant" then had no enemy within easy range. What
particularly stung Nelson, however, seems to have been the assertion
that the British force was superior, and that his sending a flag of
truce indicated the injury done his squadron. Some of his friends had
thought, erroneously in the opinion of the author, that the flag was
an unjustifiable _ruse de guerre_, which made him specially sensitive
on this point.

His retort, addressed to his Danish friend, Lindholm, was written and
sent in such heat that it is somewhat incoherent in form, and more
full of abuse than of argument, besides involving him in
contradictions. That the British squadron was numerically superior in
guns seems certain; it would have been even culpable, having ships
enough, not to have employed them in any case, and especially when the
attacking force had to come into action amid dangerous shoals, and
against vessels already carefully placed and moored. In his official
report he had stated that the "Bellona" and "Russell" had grounded;
"but although not in the situation assigned them, yet so placed as to
be of great service." In the present dispute he