This letter was written after Nelson had been to Revel, and seen the conditions on which he based his opinion.
So far from taking this course,--which it may be said would have conformed to instructions from his Government then on their way, and issued after knowing Paul's death,--Parker appeared off Carlscrona on April 20th.

Two days afterwards he received a letter from the Russian minister at Copenhagen, saying that the Emperor had ordered his fleet to abstain from all hostilities.

Parker apparently forgot that he was first a naval officer, and only incidentally 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.