Volume 74 — NAPOLEON AND SIR HUDSON LOWE.[15]

NAPOLEON AND SIR HUDSON LOWE.^[15]

One of the most distinguishing features of public life in England is the judgment exercised upon the character of its public men. In other countries the public man is generally seen through a haze of opinion. The minister of a foreign monarchy stands in the clouded light of the throne. If eminent, his fame is the result of secret councils, unknown circumstances, and personal influences almost purposely hidden from the national mind. If unsuccessful, his failures are sheltered under his partnership with the higher powers. He is hidden in the curtains of the Cabinet. At all events, he divides this responsibility with the monarch whose choice has placed him in office, and whose influence retains him in power. There are no publications of private correspondence, no despatches, except garbled ones; no secret instructions, hereafter to be developed. All the materials for forming a true estimate of the minister are withheld, by suppressing all the materials for forming a true estimate of the man. Even if a biography of the individual is written, either by a friend or an enemy, it is generally greatly destitute of that evidence from which alone posterity can come to a rational conclusion. But in England—and it is to the honour of England—the career of the public man is almost incapable of misconception. He has seldom been chosen by the caprice of power. He must have given pledges as to character. Parliament has been the point from which he has launched into the navigation of public life; his principles must have undergone a probation before his possession of office, and the whole course of his after life is registered by correspondences, despatches, and authentic memorials, which may be made public at the requisition of any member of the Legislature. The twofold advantage of this publicity is, that public justice is sure to be done to character, and that every man acts under a sense of that enlarged responsibility which is the safest guardian of public honour. If even to this feeling there may be exceptions, this view is the true theory of Ministerial life; and, among the imperfect motives of all human virtue, it is not the least that the documents are in existence, hourly accumulating, and sure to be brought forward, which shall testify to the nation and the world against every act of individual shame.

The record to which we now advert is a collection of letters, despatches, and orders, on a subject which formed some years ago the chief topic of Europe—the detention of Napoleon at St Helena. The treatment by the British officer to whom he was given in charge, the commands of Government, and the character of his captivity, are now, for the first time, laid before the world on the testimony of unanswerable documents; and an authentic form is now given to the narrative of that melancholy period which closed on the most eventful, disturbing, changeful, and dazzling era of Europe for a thousand years; the fifth act of the most magnificent drama of the modern world; the thunderstorm which, combining all the influences of a world long reeking with iniquity, the feculence of earth with the fires of heaven, at last burst down, perhaps to purify the moral atmosphere, or perhaps to warn nations of the still deeper vengeance to come, and startle them into regeneration.

We now give a brief sketch of the governor of St Helena. Sir Hudson Lowe was born in Ireland, in Galway, in July 1769. His father was an Englishman, who had served as a medical officer with the British troops in the Seven Years’ War, and whose last service was as head of the medical department in the garrison of Gibraltar, where he died in 1801.

Shortly after the birth of Sir Hudson Lowe, his father’s regiment, the 50th, being ordered to the West Indies, he was taken out with it, and thus underwent the first hazard of a life of soldiership. On his return to England he was made an ensign in the East Devon Militia—probably the youngest in the service, for he was but twelve years old. In 1787 he was appointed to an ensigncy in the 50th regiment, then at Gibraltar—arriving while the place was still in ruinous confusion from the memorable siege. “The whole rock was covered with fragments of broken shells and shot; and there was not a house in the town, nor a building within the batteries, which did not bear the marks of its devastation.” O’Hara succeeded to Elliot as the governor, and seemed resolved to signalise himself by his discipline. “I was once,” says Sir Hudson, “proceeding with the escort, in order to reach the barrier-gate by daybreak, with my head down, to stem, as well as I was able, the tremendous gusts of rain and wind, when I heard myself very sharply spoken to by a mounted officer, who desired me to ‘hold up my head and look what I was about, for it was not as a mere matter of form I was ordered on that duty.’” This officer was General O’Hara. “This,” says the narrator, “is the only real rebuke I ever experienced from a superior officer during the whole course of my military life.” He approves of the rebuke. On another occasion, on parade, when the late Duke of Kent happened to have done something which displeased the General—on a rebuke, in the presence of the officers, the Prince said, “I hope, sir, I shall always do my duty.” The General’s reply was, “And if you don’t, I shall make you do it.” It, however, happened that this man of fierce tongue showed himself at least unlucky in the field; for, having been sent to take the command of Toulon, then in possession of the Allies, he was taken prisoner in an unsuccessful sortie, and carried off by the besiegers.

On leave of absence, after four years’ duty in the garrison, Lowe, then a lieutenant, travelled into France and Italy, and made himself master of the languages of both; an accomplishment of prime value to a soldier, and which was the pivot of his fortunes. On his return to Gibraltar, the war having broken out, the 50th was ordered to Corsica, and garrisoned Ajaccio—the residence of that family who were afterwards to enjoy such splendid fortune.

In a memorandum he says, “We were all delighted with our change of quarters to Ajaccio. The town was well laid out, spacious, well built, and the citadel had excellent accommodations, but not sufficient for all the officers. One of the best houses was occupied by the mother and sisters of Bonaparte. An officer of the 50th, of the name of Ford, was, for a short time, quartered in the house, and spoke with much satisfaction of the kind manner in which the family acted towards him. The young girls—for such they were at that time—ran slipshod about the house, but hardly any notice was taken of them. There were several balls and parties given after our arrival there, but Madame Bonaparte was not invited to them, on account of the situation of her two sons (in France). She shortly after removed to Cargese, originally a Greek colony, to a house which had been built or occupied by Count Marbœuf while in the administration of that part of the island. It is not from my own recollection I mention those circumstances, because, strange as it may appear, I was not aware of the residence of any of the Bonaparte family at Ajaccio during nearly two years when we were in garrison in that town. I used frequently to hear Napoleon spoken of, but not as connected with the exploits generally mentioned as giving the first celebrity to his name—his share in the expulsion of the British from Toulon.”

The 50th subsequently served in Elba, Lisbon, and Minorca. To this last place flocked a large body of Corsican emigrants, who were formed into a corps called the Corsican Rangers, the charge of which was intrusted to Lowe, then a captain. In 1800 they were attached to the Egyptian Expedition under Abercromby, Lowe having the temporary rank of major. In the famous landing at Aboukir, on the 8th of March 1801—one of the most brilliant exploits ever performed by an army—the Corsican Rangers fought on the right of the Guards, and were warmly engaged; they were present also at the battle of Alexandria (March 21, 1801), when the dashing attack of the French on the English lines was most gallantly defeated;—an action which, in fact, involved the conquest of Egypt, for the French fought no more, the rest of the campaign being a succession of marches and capitulations. In this campaign the Major had the good fortune to save Sir Sydney Smith’s life; for a picket, mistaking Sir Sydney for a French officer, from his wearing a cocked hat (the English wearing round hats), levelled their muskets at him, when Lowe struck up their pieces and saved him. His activity in command of the outposts received the flattering expression from General Moore—“Lowe, when you are at the outposts, I always feel sure of a good night’s rest.” Moore, in writing to Lowe’s father, said—“In Sir Ralph Abercromby he lost, in common with many others, a good friend; but his conduct has been so conspicuously good, that I hope he will meet with the reward he merits.” In Sir Robert Wilson’s history of the campaign, Lowe is mentioned as “having always gained the highest approbation,” and his Corsican Rangers as exciting, from their conduct and appearance, “the general admiration.”

On the Peace of Amiens they were disbanded, but Lowe was confirmed in his rank of Major-Commandant; and after being placed on half-pay, was appointed to the 7th or Royal Fusileers, on Moore’s recommendation; adding, “It is nothing more than you deserve; and if I have been at all instrumental in bringing it about, I shall think the better of myself for it.” This generous testimony continued to influence Lowe’s fortunes; for on his arrival in England, in 1802, he was appointed one of the permanent Assistants Quartermaster-General. “I have known you,” said Moore, “a long time; and I am confident your conduct, in whatever situation you may be placed, will be such as to do honour to those who have recommended you.” He soon obtained a mark of still higher confidence. Before he had been many weeks in England, he was sent on a secret mission to Portugal, for the purpose of ascertaining the state of Oporto and the neighbouring cities. On this occasion he expressed his opinion of the practicability of defending the country by united British and Portuguese. Thus he gave an opinion contradictory to that of Europe, but subsequently realised with the most admirable success by Wellington.

He then proceeded to the Mediterranean, with an order to raise another regiment of Corsican Rangers. In the course of service with this corps, he commanded at Capri, in the Bay of Naples; and as the loss of this place formed one of the chief themes of foreign obloquy on this officer, we enter into a slight statement of the facts, less for the clearance of his character, than for the more important purpose of showing how truth may be mutilated, partly by negligence in the general narrative, and partly by exaggeration in the personal enemy.

The island of Capri, in May 1806, had surrendered to a British squadron. Its possession was of value as blocking up the Bay of Naples. Colonel Lowe, with five companies of his regiment, and a small detachment of artillery, were sent in May to garrison the island. The whole regiment was subsequently sent. In August, Murat took possession of the kingdom of Naples, and his first expedition was to Capri, whose possession by a British force, seen from the windows of his palace, continually molested him. Accordingly, on the 4th of October, an embarkation under General Lamarque attempted a landing near the town of Capri. Lowe with his Rangers hastened to the spot, and drove the enemy back to their ships. The island is three miles long, and about two miles across, and had 4000 inhabitants. Lowe had demanded a force of 2190 men for its defence. The whole number under his command were 1400, of whom 800 were a regiment of Maltese, of a miscellaneous description, and but imperfectly disciplined, though commanded by a gallant officer, Major Hammill. Lowe placed this regiment in Ana-Capri, an elevated district, on a platform of rock, to be ascended only by 500 steps of stone. The French landed 2000 men there. The Maltese regiment dispersed themselves, notwithstanding the utmost efforts of Major Hammill, who, disdaining to follow their flight, was killed; finally, the whole of the Maltese regiment were taken prisoners. Thus the 1400 men were reduced to 600, in the presence of a French force of 3000! Lowe’s object was now necessarily confined to defending the town of Capri, which he did vigorously, for ten days of frequent attacks, in the hope of being succoured by the English squadron, which would have turned the tables on the besiegers, and caught the French General in a trap. But, from some cause not easily accountable, the fleet did not appear, and the Corsican Rangers were left to the rotten and unprepared ramparts of the town. On the 15th the French cannon had made a practicable breach. Lowe still held out, and attempted to erect new defences under the fire of the French guns; but the walls were crumbling, and the cannon of the town were rendered nearly unserviceable by the enemy’s fire. The French flotilla also approached. In the evening Lamarque sent in a flag of truce, demanding the surrender of the garrison as prisoners of war, with the exception of Lowe and five or six of his officers. Lowe would permit no distinction between his officers and soldiers, nor suffer the words “prisoner of war,” positively refusing to accept of any other terms than “to evacuate his post with his arms and baggage.” On these terms alone the town was surrendered, and on the 20th the garrison embarked at the Marina, “with all the honours of war.” In addition, it deserves to be remembered that, on Lamarque’s demanding that several of the foreigners, who had enlisted in the British service while prisoners, should be given up to him, Lowe’s spirited answer was, “You may shoot me, but I will never give up a single man.”

On this occasion he received many flattering letters on his defence of the island under such difficulties; and among the rest, one from Major-General Lord Forbes, expressing the sense which must be entertained by his superior, Sir John Stuart, “of the unremitting zeal, ability, and judgment which his conduct had displayed, under the trying circumstances of Capri.”

After various services on the Italian coast, Colonel Lowe with his regiment was ordered on an expedition against the Ionian Islands, then garrisoned by the French. On their conquest, he was appointed governor of Cephalonia and Ithaca, with a recommendatory circular from General Oswald, commanding the expedition, and congratulating the people on the government of an officer “who had shown himself the common father of all ranks and classes of their communities.” In 1812 he obtained the rank of full Colonel, and returned on leave to England. “I was then,” he says, “in my twenty-fourth year of service, and had never been absent a single day from my public duty since the commencement of the war in 1793. I had been in England only once during that time.” His services were still required by Government in matters of importance; in inspecting foreign regiments to be taken into English pay; in attendance on the negotiations for the accession of Sweden to the Grand Alliance, &c. &c. At the Swedish Court he met the “Queen of the Blues,” the celebrated Madame de Stael, talking politics as usual. She had begun her performances in Sweden with writing a letter of thirty pages to Bernadotte, instructing him how to govern the Swedes; but she was not always guilty of this extravagance of presumption. Silly in her political ambition, she was hospitable in her home. A little theatre was formed in her house—for the French, even in exile, cannot live without the follies of the theatre—where she and her daughter exhibited scenes from the Iphigenie of Racine. How her physiognomy might have agreed with the requisitions of the stage, it is difficult to conjecture, for Nature never clothed a female with a more startling exterior. She afterwards performed in a farce of her own, in which her daughter exhibited as a dancer! And those were the entertainments for ambassadors and princes!—for Bernadotte, then Prince-Royal, came in, but soon disappeared. We should by no means wish to see the manners of foreign life adopted by the pliancy of Englishwomen.

The prince is thus described: “I have never seen so remarkable a countenance as that of Bernadotte; an aquiline nose of most extraordinary dimensions—eyes full of fire—a penetrating look—with a countenance darker than that of any Spaniard—and hair so black that the portrait-painters can find no tint dark enough to give its right hue: it forms a vast bushy protuberance round his head, and he takes great pains, I understand, to have it arranged in proper form.” When we had the honour of seeing the prince, which we did in Pomerania, when he was about to march his army to the camp of the Allies, every lock of his hair was curled like a Brutus bust displayed in the window of a Parisian perruquier. From Sweden Colonel Lowe was summoned by Lord Cathcart, then ambassador to Russia, to join him at the Imperial headquarters in Poland. After an interview with the Czar, he joined the Allied troops, and was present at the hard-fought battle of Bautzen on the 20th and 21st of May. Here he first saw that extraordinary man, whom he afterwards was to see under such extraordinary circumstances of change. In his correspondence with Lord Bathurst, the Colonel says—“Between the town of Bautzen and the position of the Allies is a long elevated ridge.... In the morning a body of the enemy’s troops was observed to be formed on its crest. In their front a small group was collected, which by our spyglasses we discovered to be persons of consequence in their army. Among them was most clearly distinguishable Napoleon himself. He advanced about forty or fifty paces, accompanied only by one of his marshals (conjectured to have been Beauharnais), with whom he remained in conversation, walking backwards and forwards (having dismounted) for nearly an hour.

“I was on an advanced battery in front of our position, and had a most distinct view of him. He was dressed in a plain uniform coat, and a star, with a plain hat, different from that of his marshals and generals (which were feathered); his air and manner so perfectly resembling the portraits that there was no possibility of mistake. He appeared to me conversing on some indifferent subject; very rarely looking towards our position, of which, however, the situation in which he stood commanded a most comprehensive and distinct view.”

In October, through Sir C. Stewart (now Marquis of Londonderry), he was attached to the army under that great and bold soldier, Marshal Blucher, and was with him in every battle from Leipsic to Paris. His description of the horrors of the French retreat, after the battle of Leipsic, unfolds a dreadful picture of the sufferings of war. “For an extent of fifty miles, on the French route, there were carcasses of dead and dying horses without number; bodies of men, who had been either killed, or died of hunger, sickness, and fatigue, lying in the roads and ditches; parties of prisoners and stragglers brought in by the Cossacks; blown-up ammunition waggons, in such numbers as absolutely to obstruct the road.... Pillaged and burning towns and villages marked, at the same time, the ferocity with which the enemy had conducted himself.”

In the close of this memorable year, Colonel Lowe was ordered to Holland on a commission for organising the Dutch troops who were to join Sir Thomas Graham’s army; but (as it appears), at his own request, his destination was changed for the Prussian army, under Blucher, then crossing the Rhine. He was present at all the battles fought by that army on their march through France, forming, with its four German actions, no less than thirteen—of which eleven were fought against Napoleon in person.

In all those campaigns he gallantly took the soldier’s share, being constantly at the Marshal’s side; being present, on one occasion, when he was wounded; on another, when the Cossack orderly was shot beside him; and on two others, when he narrowly escaped being made prisoner, being obliged to make a run of it, with the whole of his retinue, through a party of the enemy; Bonaparte also having been nearly taken by him in the same way, on the same day. He was present at the conferences of Chatillon, where he strongly joined those opinions which were in favour of the “March to Paris;” and he had the honour of bearing the despatch to England announcing the abdication of Napoleon; which was instantly published from the Foreign Office, in a “Gazette Extraordinary.” Colonel Lowe was received with great distinction. The Prince-Regent immediately knighted him; and the Prussian order of Military Merit was conferred on him, with the order of St George from the Emperor of Russia.

In 1814 Sir Hudson Lowe was promoted to the rank of major-general, and appointed quartermaster-general to the British troops in the Netherlands, commanded by the Prince of Orange. In that capacity he visited the fortresses on the frontier, and drew up reports on their restoration. It is remarkable that among his plans was the recommendation of building a Work at Mont St Jean, as the commanding point at the junction of the two principal roads from the French frontier, on the side of Namur and Charleroi, to Brussels, and the direction in which an army must move for the invasion of Belgium. How much earlier the battle of Waterloo would have terminated, and how many gallant lives might have been saved by the possession of a fortress in the very key of the position, we may conjecture from the defence of Hougomont, where the walls of a mere farmyard, defended by brave men, were sufficient to resist the entire left wing of the enemy during that whole hard-fought, decisive, and illustrious day.

The news of Napoleon’s escape from Elba roused all Europe. It was at once the most dexterous performance, and the most unwise act, of the great charlatan of empire. He ought to have delayed it, at least for a year. The negotiators at Vienna were already on the verge of discontents which might have broken up the general alliance; the troops were on the point of marching to their homes: thus Europe was about to be left without defence, or even to a renewal of hostilities. But the escape of Napoleon sobered all. The universal peril produced the universal reconciliation. And the Manifesto was issued in the shape of a universal declaration, proclaiming Napoleon Bonaparte the enemy of mankind.

The position of Sir Hudson Lowe at Brussels made his advice of importance. The question was, where the Allied armies should expect the attack? The Prussian generals were of opinion that they should be prepared on the side of Switzerland and Mayence. Sir Hudson Lowe, more sagaciously, affirmed that Brussels would be the object. Count Gneisenau, the Prussian quartermaster-general, finally decided to wait for the opinion of the Duke of Wellington on his arrival in the Netherlands. At this period, while matters remained in a state of uncertainty as to the movements of France, Sir Hudson Lowe was offered the command of the British troops at Genoa, intended to act with the Austro-Sardinian army, and the squadron under Lord Exmouth, against the south of France. Unwilling to quit the great Duke, he waited on him for his opinion. As all recollections of Wellington are dear to his country, we give his few words, in which, after saying that Sir W. Delancy (as his successor) might not at once be au fait at the business of the Office, and as Sir G. Murray, “who had been with him for six years, was only on his return from Canada, still he did a good deal of his own business, and could do business with any one.” In short, “it was a case that must be left to himself.”

Accordingly, he remained with the Duke until the beginning of June, and then went to take his command. On his way through Germany, he met at the Imperial headquarters Blucher, Schwartzenberg, and the Czar. With the last he had the honour of a conversation. The Czar received him in his cabinet, quite alone; took him by the hand; said that he was glad to see him, but that it was an unfortunate circumstance which compelled him (the Czar) to come forward; that oceans of blood might be again spilt; but that, while that man (Napoleon) lived, there would be no hope of repose for Europe; that armies must be kept up by every nation on a war footing; and that, in short, there appeared no other alternative than carrying on the war with vigour, and thus bringing it to the speedier close. The Czar spoke in English. He asked many other questions; but seemed most gratified by knowing that the force under the Duke of Wellington, instead of being 60,000 men, was, with the Allied forces of the Netherlands, not less than 100,000.

On reaching Genoa, the expedition sailed to the south of France; but all the cities having suddenly hoisted the white flag, the war was at an end.

Now began the only portion of his prosperous and active career, which could be called trying and vexatious. On the 1st of August 1815 he received an order to return immediately to London, for the purpose of taking charge of Napoleon Bonaparte.

On his arrival in Paris he had communications with all the Cabinet. Lord Castlereagh asked him his opinion of the possibility of Napoleon’s escape. He answered that he could see none, except in case of a mutiny, of which there had been two instances at St Helena. But on being informed of the nature of the intended garrison, he answered that its chance would be proportionably diminished. This was the only conversation which he ever had with Lord Castlereagh. On reaching London, he received the Ministerial orders for the charge of his memorable prisoner. By Lord Liverpool’s authority, he was told that if he remained in charge for three years, the royal confidence, and, we presume, the royal reward, “should not stop there.” Lord Ellenborough, Chief-Justice, assured him, “that in the execution of the duty the law would give him every support.” On the 23d of August, the Directors of the East India Company appointed him governor of St Helena; the command of the troops, with the local rank of lieutenant-general, was given to him; and his salary was fixed at £12,000 a-year.

The regulations for the safe keeping of Napoleon, adopted by the Secretary of War and Colonies, Lord Bathurst, and delivered to Sir George Cockburn, were (in outline) as follows:—

1. When General Bonaparte shall be removed from the Bellerophon to the Northumberland, there shall be an examination of the effects which the General shall have brought with him.

2. All articles of furniture, books, and wine, which the General shall have brought, shall be transhipped to the Northumberland.

3. Under the head of furniture is the plate, provided it be not to such an amount as to bespeak it rather an article of convertible property than for domestic use.

4. His money, diamonds, and negotiable bills of exchange, are to be given up. The admiral will explain to him that it is by no means the intention of Government to confiscate his property, but simply to prevent its being converted into an instrument of escape.

The remainder consists of details. In the event of his death, the disposition of his property was to be determined by his will, which would be strictly attended to.

Bonaparte was to be always attended by a military officer; and if he was permitted to pass the boundaries allotted to him, the officer was to be attended by an Orderly. No individual of his suite was to be carried to St Helena but with his own consent, it being explained to him that he must be subject to the restraints necessary for the security of Bonaparte’s person. All letters addressed to him were to be delivered to the admiral, or governor, and read by them. Bonaparte must be informed, that any representation addressed to Government would be received and transmitted, but must be transmitted open to the governor and admiral’s inspection, that they might be enabled to transmit answers to any objections. If Bonaparte were to be attacked with serious illness, the governor and admiral were each to direct a medical person, in addition to his own physician, to attend him, and desire them to report daily on the state of his health. Finally, in the event of his death, the admiral was to give orders for the conveyance of his body to England.

It would be difficult to conceive arrangements less severe, consistently with the urgent necessity of preventing another war.

On the embarkation on board the Northumberland, the arms were to be taken from the French officers on board; but to be packed carefully, and put into the charge of the captain. Napoleon’s sword was not taken from him, and the swords of the officers were restored on their arrival at St Helena. Of this order, Count Montholon made a handsome melodramatic story, in the following style: “His lordship (Lord Keith) said to him, in a voice suppressed (assourdie) by vivid emotion, ‘England demands your sword.’ The Emperor, with a convulsive movement, dropped his hand on that sword, which an Englishman dared to demand. The expression of his look was his sole answer. It had never been more powerful, more superhuman (sur-humaine). The old admiral felt thunderstruck (foudroyé). His tall figure shrank; his head, whitened by age, fell upon his bosom, like that of a criminal humbled before his condemnation.” This theatric affair Mr Forsyth declares to be pure fiction. The story is contradicted even by Las Cases, who says, in his journal—“I asked, whether it was possible that they would go so far as to deprive the Emperor of his sword? The admiral replied that it would be respected; but that Napoleon was the only person excepted, as all the rest would be disarmed.” The perpetual habit of frequenting the theatre spoils all the taste of France. The simplest action of life must be told in rhodomontade, and even the gravest facts must be dressed up in the frippery of fiction.

On the 7th of August 1815, Bonaparte was removed on board of the Northumberland, with a suite of twenty-five persons, including Count and Countess Bertrand, with their three children; Count and Countess Montholon, with one child; and Count de Las Cases, with his son, a boy of fourteen. As Mengeaud, the surgeon who had accompanied him from Rochefort was unwilling to go to St Helena; O’Meara, the surgeon of the Bellerophon, was chosen by Bonaparte, and allowed by Lord Keith to attend him.

They hove to at Madeira for refreshments, and landed at St Helena on the 15th of October.

A letter of O’Meara to a Mr Finlayson at the Admiralty, gives a characteristic detail of the voyage. “During the passage the ladies were either ill the whole time, or fancied themselves to be so; in either of which cases, it was necessary to give them medicine, in the choice of which it was extremely difficult to meet their tastes or humours, or their ever-unceasing caprice. What was most extraordinary, they never complained of loss of appetite. They generally ate of every dish at a profusely supplied table, of different meats, twice every day, besides occasional tiffins, bowls of soup, &c. They mostly hate each other, and I am the depositary of their complaints—especially Madame Bertrand’s, who is like a tigress deprived of her young, when she perceives me doing any service for Madame Montholon. The latter, to tell the truth, is not so whimsical, nor subject to so many fits of rage as the other.

“Bonaparte was nearly the entire of the time in perfect health. During the passage, Napoleon almost invariably did not appear out in the after-cabin, before twelve; breakfasted either in bed or in his own cabin about eleven; dined with the admiral about five; stayed about half an hour at dinner, then left the table and proceeded to the quarter-deck, where he generally spent a couple of hours, either in walking, or else leaning against the breech of one of the guns, talking to De las Cases. He generally spoke a few words to every officer who could understand him; and, according to his custom, was very inquisitive relative to various objects. His suite, until the day before we landed (three days after our arrival), invariably kept their hats off while speaking to him, and then, by his directions, remained covered. He professes his intention, I am informed, to drop the name of Bonaparte, and to assume that of a colonel he was very partial to, and who was killed in Italy.

“He is to proceed in a few days to Longwood, the present seat of the Lieutenant-governor, where there is a plain of above a mile and a half in length, with trees (a great rarity here) on it. He is to have a captain constantly in the house with him, and he is also to be accompanied by one whenever he goes out. None of his staff are to go out, unless accompanied by an English officer or soldier.

“I had a long conversation with him the day before yesterday. Among other remarks he observed, ‘Why, your Government have not taken the most economical method of providing for me. They send me to a place where every necessary of life is four times as dear as in any other part of the globe; and not content with that, they send a regiment here, to a place where there are already four times as many inhabitants as it can furnish subsistence to, and where there are a superabundance of troops. This is the way,’ continued he, ‘that you have contracted your national debt—not by the actual necessary expenses of war, but by the unnecessary expenses of colonies.’”

Napoleon was in the habit of predicting the ruin of England, and pointing out, we may presume, with no intention of warning, the blunders of that policy which, however, had rescued Europe from the French yoke, and sent himself to moralise in a dungeon. “This island,” said he, “costs, or will cost, two millions a-year, which is so much money thrown in the sea. Your East India Company, if their affairs were narrowly scrutinised, would be found to lose instead of gaining, and in a few years must become bankrupt. Your manufactures, in consequence of the dearness of necessaries in England, will be undersold by those of France and Germany, and your manufacturers will be ruined.” All this train of ill omen is profitable, if it were only to show how little we are to depend upon the foresight of politicians. Here was unquestionably one of the most sagacious of human beings delivering his ideas on the future, and that not a remote future, not a future of centuries, but a future within the life of a generation; and yet what one of these predictions has not been completely baffled? The East Indian territories of England have been constantly aggrandising for nearly forty years of that period which was to have seen their bankruptcy. The manufactures of England, instead of total failure, have been growing to a magnitude unequalled in the annals of national industry, and are rapidly spreading over the globe. England, instead of struggling with exclusion from foreign commerce, and domestic disaffection, has possessed a peace, the longest in its duration, and the most productive in its increase of opulence, invention, and power, that Europe has ever seen. But if the malignant spirit of her prisoner may be presumed to have perverted his sagacity, his opinions were the opinions of the Continent; and every statesman, from Calais to Constantinople, occupied himself by counting on his fingers the number of years that lay between England and destruction. Yet England still stands, the envy of all nations; and will stand, while she retains her loyalty, her principle, and her honour; or, rather, while she retains her religion, which includes them all.

The exterior of St Helena is unpromising. “Masses of volcanic rock, sharp and jagged, tower up round the coast, and form an iron girdle. The few points where a landing can be effected are bristling with cannon.” The whole has the evidence of the agency of fire; and from the gigantic size of the strata, so disproportioned to its circuit, it has been supposed the wreck of a vast submerged continent. But the narrow valleys, radiating from the basaltic ridge forming the backbone of the island, have scenes of beauty. A writer on the “Geognosy” of the island, even describes those valleys as exhibiting an alternation of hill and dale, and luxuriant and constant verdure. Even Napoleon, in all his discontent, admitted that it had “good air.” Or, as in some more detailed remarks transmitted by Las Cases—“After all, as a place of exile, perhaps St Helena was the best. In high latitudes we should have suffered greatly from cold; and in any other island of the tropics we should have expired miserably, under the scorching rays of the sun. The rock is wild and barren, no doubt; the climate is monstrous and unwholesome; but the temperature, it must be confessed, is mild (douce).”

It is of some importance to the national character to touch on those matters, as they show that Napoleon was not sent for any other purpose than security of detention. A West Indian island might have unduly hastened the catastrophe. A letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Jackson gives even a more favourable testimony than has been generally conceived. He had been a resident for several years.

“Lying within the influence of the south-east trade-wind, which is usually a strong breeze between the Cape and St Helena, the tropical heat is moderated thereby to a delightful temperature, and perhaps there is no finer climate to be found than in certain parts of St Helena. In the town, I rarely saw the thermometer above 80°, while the general height may have been about 75°. But I write from memory, having lost my register of the temperature. Between Longwood and Jamestown there is a difference of eight or ten degrees. A fire is rarely necessary, unless perhaps as a corrective of the dampness produced by fog, to which the elevated portions of the island are occasionally liable. I believe the average duration of life to be much as in England.”

Mr Henry, who was stationed in the island as assistant-surgeon during Napoleon’s residence, gives even a more decided testimony. “For a tropical climate, only 15° from the line, St Helena is certainly a healthy island, if not the most healthy of the description in the world. During one period of twelve months, we did not lose one man by disease out of five hundred of the 66th quartered at Deadwood. In 1817, 1818, and 1819, Fahrenheit’s thermometer, kept at the hospital, ranged from fifty-five to seventy degrees; with the exception of calm days, when it rose to eighty. In Jamestown, from the peculiar radiation of heat to which it was exposed, the temperature was sometimes upwards of ninety.... There is no endemic in the island.... The upper parts of St Helena, including the residence of Bonaparte, are decidedly the most healthy, and we often moved our regimental convalescents from Jamestown to Deadwood for cooler and better air. The clouds moved so steadily and regularly with the trade-wind that there appeared to be no time for atmospherical accumulations of electricity, and we never had any thunder or lightning. No instance of hydrophobia, in man or any inferior animal, had ever been known in St Helena.”

We shall limit ourselves to an outline of the transactions referring to Napoleon. He landed at Jamestown on the evening of the 17th of October, where he remained for the night, and on the next day removed to the “Briars,” the country house of Mr Balcombe, who afterwards became purveyor to the residence at Longwood. Two proclamations were immediately issued by the governor, Colonel Wilkes, one cautioning the inhabitants of the island against any attempt to aid the escape of “General Napoleon Bonaparte;” and the other, prohibiting all persons from passing through any part of the island (except in the immediate vicinity of the town) from nine at night until daylight, without having the parole of the night; and a third, placing all the coasts, and vessels or boats, under the control of the Admiral. A despatch from the Admiral, to the Secretary of the Admiralty, explained the choice of Longwood for the residence of the prisoner. “I have not hesitated on fixing on it. Longwood is detached from the general inhabited parts of the island, therefore none of the inhabitants have occasion, or are at all likely, to be met with in its neighbourhood; it is the most distant from the parts of the coast always accessible to boats.” He then mentions it as having an extent of level ground, perfectly adapted for horse-exercise, carriage-driving, and pleasant walking. The house was small, but it was better than any other in the island (out of the town) except the governor’s; and by the help of the ships’ carpenters and others, was capable of convenient additions. Repairs were accordingly made, and everything was done that could fit it for a comfortable residence.

The system of discontent, remonstrance, and, we must add, misrepresentation, was begun. A letter from the “Grand Marshal, Count Bertrand,” led the way. It protested against everything, and frequently applied the term “Emperor” to Napoleon. The Admiral’s reply was fair and manly. It expressed regret for the necessary inconveniences, and a desire to consult the wishes of General Bonaparte; but said that he was authorised to apply no title which had not been given by his Government. This refusal was perfectly justifiable, though it made one of the clamours of the time. The custom of European diplomacy is never to acknowledge a new title but by treaty, and in return, if possible, for some concession on the part of the claimant. The embarrassments connected with the opposite practice are obvious. Where is the line to be drawn? If every ruler, however trifling his territory, or however recent his usurpation, were to fix his own title, all the relations of public life might be outraged. The creature of every revolution might be authenticated the legitimate possessor of sovereignty—an upstart received into the family of kings, become a living encouragement to political convulsion. All the declamation which was lavished on the denial of the Imperial title to Bonaparte, amounted to the maxim, that success justifies usurpation. If, in general life, no man can bear a title without the sanction of the laws—to avoid the disturbance of the Civil order, why should not the same sanction be demanded where the result of concession without cause might influence the highest interests of public life? There can be no question that the Imperial title, continued to Napoleon by the credulity of Alexander, laid the foundation of the renewed disturbances of France and Europe. It had placed him within sight of power again; it had fixed the eye of French conspiracy on him; it had conveyed to all his partisanship the idea that he still was an object of fear to Europe, and it thus revived the hope of his restoration. This dangerous concession made him, while at Elba, the virtual Emperor of France—prompted him to contemplate the resumption of the sceptre—pointed him out as a rallying point for disaffection—connected his mock crown with his former sovereignty—and left the peace of the world to the hazard of the die which was thrown at Waterloo.

If it be said that the concession which was dangerous at Elba was trifling at St Helena, we have no hesitation in accounting for the sudden forgetfulness of Napoleon exhibited by France to the refusal of the title. “General” Bonaparte lived only in the recollection of a broken army; the “Emperor” lived in the pride and passions of the people. It was essential to dissolve this combination; to show that the prestige of his name existed no longer; that he was an object of fear no more; and especially, that his connection with title-loving France was to be cut asunder for the remainder of his existence. All this was done, and could alone be done, by refusing to continue that title to the prisoner, which England had loftily refused to him in the height of his power.

Even Napoleon himself was so fully convinced of the contradiction between his present state and his former, that he subsequently wrote a Memorial addressed to the Governor, containing this declaration: “Seven or eight months ago Count Montholon proposed, as a means of removing the little inconveniences which were ever recurring, the adoption of an ordinary name.... I am quite ready to take any ordinary name; and I repeat that, when it may be deemed proper to remove me from this cruel abode, I am resolved to remain a stranger to politics, whatever may be passing in the world. Such is my resolve; and anything which may have been said different from this would not be the fact.”

Unfortunately, it was wholly impossible to rely on any declaration of this kind, and it would have been absolute folly to have hazarded the peace of Europe on the contingency of Napoleon’s keeping his word. He had gone to Elba with the same protest against politics, he had publicly declared that his political life was ended; and the weakness of giving credit to that declaration cost the lives of perhaps fifty thousand men, and might have cost a universal war.

If the strictness of the regulations at St Helena have been matter of charge against this country, it is to be remembered that the highest interests might have been endangered by his escape; that no royal captive was ever so indulged before; and that England was but a trustee for the tranquillity of the world. The instructions were the most lenient possible, consistently with his safe keeping. A captain was to ascertain his presence twice in the twenty-four hours. Whenever Napoleon rode or walked beyond the boundaries where the sentinels were placed, he was to be attended by an officer. Napoleon and his attendants were to be within his house at nine o’clock every night.

If these restrictions might be considered severe, it is to be remembered that they were only severities against the necessity of a second Waterloo. It is to be observed, also, that these regulations all took place before the arrival of Sir Hudson Lowe. The English mind revolts against confinement of any kind; but the limits of Napoleon’s grounds, within which he might take exercise unattended by any officer, embraced a circuit of twelve miles! The ground was nearly flat, and well covered with turf. On the plain of Deadwood, adjoining, was an excellent race-course, a mile and a half long, of which one mile was in a straight line. The house at Longwood had been used by the former governor as a villa; but it was small, consisting only of five rooms. To these, however, additions were made; the whole being merely a temporary residence until the completion of a house on a larger scale, which was preparing in England.

It became the peevish custom of the French, on the arrival of Sir Hudson Lowe, to contrast his conduct with that of Sir George Cockburn, and speak of their satisfaction with the latter; but they quarrelled equally with both. A letter from O’Meara to his correspondent Finlayson (not printed in his volumes), says: “Napoleon inveighs most bitterly against the English Ministry for sending him here. He has been for sometime back at Longwood, where he is tolerably well lodged, considering the island.”

As to his displeasure at being sent to the island, he should have regarded himself as peculiarly well treated; for what must have been his condition in the custody of any other government? He must have been sent to a fortress with no other liberty of exercise than within the space of the ramparts; he must have had sentinels everywhere on his steps, and have been subjected to all the rigid regulations of a garrison, and perhaps altogether separated from his attendants and general society. The greater probability of escape in Europe would have required the greater strictness; and the necessity of the case must have made his confinement little better than that of the dungeon. What liberty was allotted to Louis Napoleon in Ham for six years? What liberty was allotted to Toussaint Louverture by Napoleon himself?—a damp dungeon until he died. What liberty was allotted to the State prisoners under the Empire?—or what liberty was allotted to the English officers confined in the casemates of Biche? Instead of such restrictions, he had a large space of a healthy island in which he might move, without watch or ward, with a crowd of attendants of his own choice round him, with such society as he chose to receive, with a sumptuous table kept for him, and every deference paid to his fame and rank, compatible with that essential point, the prevention of his escape, which he appears to have been constantly meditating.

An order prohibiting the general access of the population to Longwood was now issued. Napoleon at this was in great indignation. He said to O’Meara, “It was absurd to prohibit people from visiting him, while he was at liberty to go out and call upon them.... I will never receive any person coming with a pass from the Admiral, as I will immediately set down the person receiving it as being like the donor, and a spy upon me.”... Then becoming more warm, he said, “Who is the Admiral? I have never heard his name as the conqueror in a battle, either singly or in general action.... It is true, he has rendered his name infamous in America; and so he will now render it here, on this desolate rock.”

Stopping then with much agitation, and looking at me earnestly—“Next to your Government exiling me here, the worst thing they could have done, and the most insufferable to my feelings, is sending me with such a man as HE. I shall make my treatment known to all Europe. It will be a reflection and a stain on his posterity for centuries. What! does he want to introduce Turkish laws into the Rock? Other prisoners under sentence of death are allowed to communicate, by the laws of England and all other civilised nations.”

The fact was, that Napoleon wished to accomplish an object incompatible with the purpose of his being sent to the island; he demanded all the conveniences of perfect freedom—of course for the purpose of escape. However, to avoid all shadow of cruelty, the passports were finally left to the distribution of Bertrand.

O’Meara further says, “He has since discovered that the Admiral’s conduct has been most grossly and shamefully misrepresented and blackened to him. The people he is surrounded by at present give me some faint idea of what the court of St Cloud must have been during his omnipotent sway. Everything here is disguised and mutilated.”

Napoleon’s theatrical rants were sometimes amusing. Foreigners can rail fluently enough at misfortune, but they always forget the share which they had in bringing it on themselves. “Behold the English Government!” said he one day, gazing round on the stupendous rocks which encompassed him; “this is their liberality to the unfortunate, who, confiding in what is called their national character, in an evil hour gave himself up to them! But your Ministers laugh at your laws. I thought once that the English were a free nation; but I now see that you are the greatest slaves in the world. You all tremble at the sight of that man.”

“Another time, talking to me (O’Meara) about the island, he said, ‘In fact, I expect nothing less from your Government than that they will send out an executioner to despatch me. They send me here to a horrible rock, where even the water is not good. They send out a sailor with me, who does not know how to treat a man like me, and who puts a camp under my nose, so that I cannot put my head out without seeing my jailors. Here we are treated like felons: a proclamation is issued for nobody to come near and touch us, as if we were lepers.’”

O’Meara’s description of the officers in attendance on Napoleon is sufficiently contemptuous. Of Montholon he speaks most offensively. He admits Bertrand to be a “good man;” but he thus characterises Gourgaud, whose quarrel with Sir Walter Scott once made some noise: “Gourgaud is now recovering from dysentery. During his illness, I never saw a man betray so much fear of dying as he did on various occasions. One night a large black beetle got into the bed, and crawled up alongside of him. His imagination immediately magnified the insect into a devil, or some other formidable apparition, armed with talons, long teeth, and ready to tear away his lingering soul from its mortal abode. He shrieked, became terribly agitated and convulsed; a cold sweat bedewed his pallid face; and when I entered he presented all the appearance of a man about to expire, with the most terrific ideas of what would be his future lot; and it was not till after a considerable time that he could be restored to some degree of composure.” Gourgaud had in some degree provoked this description by his previous fanfaronades. When he arrived in the island he had produced a sword to the daughters of Mr Balcombe, on which he had himself represented in the act of killing a Cossack who was about to take Bonaparte prisoner, with a pompous inscription narrating the feat. At the end of the blade he made them observe a spot, as if stained with the blood of two Englishmen, slain by him at Waterloo. He gave the last finish to this “passage of arms,” by saying, that in the same battle he might have made the Duke prisoner! “but that he saw the business was decided, and he was unwilling to produce any further effusion of human blood!” (“Credit—believe it who will,” says O’Meara.) During Gourgaud’s illness, however, he seemed to have forgotten all his chivalry—as, one day, “whining and lamenting over his state, he said, with many tears, ‘He did not know for what he was exiled, for he had never done harm to mortal man.’”

O’Meara’s own history was a varied one. He had begun his course as an assistant-surgeon in the 18th, in 1804; but a duel happening in the regiment, in which he acted as second, a courtmartial was the consequence, and he retired from the army. He then served as a naval surgeon, for many years, in the Mediterranean and the West Indies, with Maitland (captain of the Bellerophon), who gave him an advantageous character. He was then selected as the surgeon in attendance on Napoleon. The quick observation of that sagacious personage saw instantly that O’Meara might be useful in more capacities than those of his profession; he flattered him with his confidence, and converted him into partisanship.

Nothing but the extraordinary selfishness of Napoleon’s character could have stooped to those perpetual complaints. A man who had sat upon the first throne of the Continent ought to have felt that nothing, after such a catastrophe, could be worth a care. A man of true grandeur of mind, after having seen all the diadems of the Continent under his feet, ought to have scorned any inferior degree of power—been utterly indifferent to title, wealth, or the homage of dependents. A philosopher would have despised the mockery of ex-emperorship; rejected the affectation of a power which he was to possess no more; and, having been once forced to submit to a change of fortune which displaced him from the summit of society for ever, would have been contemptuous of living on the fragments of his feast of supremacy. But Napoleon had no sense of this generous and lofty disdain—he clung to the wrecks of his royalty. He was as anxious to sustain the paltry ceremonial of kissing a hand, as when he saw kings crowding to his palace; and showed as much fretfulness at the loss of the most pitiful mark of respect, as he could at an insult to a throne which threw its shadow across the civilised world. This anomaly is easily explained. The spirit of selfishness belongs to all foreign life. Its habits, its amusements, its perpetual passion for frivolous excitement, its pursuit of personal indulgence in every shape, high or low, utterly extinguish all the nobler attributes of mind—substitute fierceness for fortitude, rashness for decision—and feeble repinings against fate, for the dignity which makes defeat but another occasion of showing the superiority of man to fortune. Napoleon was selfishness embodied, and was as important to himself at St Helena as in the Tuileries.

On the 10th of January 1816, Sir Hudson Lowe received a despatch from Earl Bathurst, stating that, on his arrival at St Helena, he should notify to all the attendants of Napoleon that they were at perfect liberty to leave the island for Europe or America; but that those who remained should declare, in writing, that they were prepared to submit to the necessary restrictions. To Sir Hudson the orders were—“You are to continue to treat Napoleon Bonaparte as a prisoner of war, until further orders.”

The governor reached St Helena on the 14th of April, and on the 16th he visited Bonaparte, having given him previous notice of his intention. The visit was unlucky, for even the hour was constituted into an offence. Las Cases thus mentions the visit: “The new governor arrived at Longwood about ten o’clock, notwithstanding the rain, which still continued. He was accompanied by the admiral, who was to introduce him, and who had, no doubt, told him that this was the most suitable hour for his visit. The emperor did not receive him—he was indisposed; and even had he been well, he would not have seen him. The governor, by this abrupt visit, neglected the usual forms of decorum. It was easy to perceive that this was a trick of the admiral. The governor, who probably had no intention to render himself at all disagreeable, appeared very much disconcerted. We laughed in our sleeves. As to the admiral, he was quite triumphant. The governor, after long hesitation, and very evident marks of ill-humour, took his leave rather abruptly. We doubted not that this visit had been planned by the admiral, with the view of prepossessing us against each other at the very outset.”

The English reader of this incident will find in it the key to the whole conduct of Napoleon and his attendants; he was determined to turn everything into an offence, and they were equally determined to turn everything into an intrigue. The narrative foolishly and malignantly represents the conduct of a naval officer of high character in the light of a paltry ruse, and for no imaginable purpose but ill-will. “They laughed in their sleeves” at the success of this ruse. The admiral was triumphant, because the governor was vexed; and Napoleon was, of course, conqueror on the occasion. This is the most pitiful of all gossip, and is unworthy of even the nursery. Let this be contrasted with the manly account by the governor himself of the first interview which took place next day at four. “I was accompanied by Sir G. Cockburn. General Bertrand received us in the dining-room serving as an antechamber, and instantly ushered me into an inner room, where I found him (Napoleon) standing, having his hat in his hand. Not addressing me when I came in, but apparently waiting for me to speak to him, I broke silence by saying, ‘I am come, sir, to present my respects to you.’ ‘You speak French, sir, I perceive; but you also speak Italian. You once commanded a regiment of Corsicans.’ I replied, ‘the language was alike to me.’ ‘We will speak, then, in Italian;’ and immediately commenced a conversation which lasted about half an hour—the purport of which was principally as follows. He first asked me, ‘where I had served?—how I liked the Corsicans? They carry the stiletto; are they not a bad people?’ (looking at me very significantly for an answer.) My reply was—‘They do not carry the stiletto, having abandoned that custom in our service. They have always conducted themselves with propriety; I was very well satisfied with them.’

“He asked me if I had not been in Egypt with them; and on my replying in the affirmative, he entered into a long discussion respecting that country. ‘Menou was an imbecile. If Kleber had been there, you would have been all made prisoners.’” To this ungracious remark the governor seems to have abstained from any reply. How easily might he have reminded Napoleon of Acre! and the difficulty which he found then of taking prisoners even the crews of two English ships, who drove him from the walls at the head of his army, and virtually, after hunting him from Syria, drove him into the desertion of Egypt. In the French narratives of war, the general who has been beaten is always an imbecile. It is an extraordinary trait of character in Napoleon to have ventured on the subject at all. Yet he expatiated on it, as if he had never known defeat on its shores. “He blamed Abercromby for not having landed sooner, or for not proceeding to another point. Moore, with his six thousand men, ought to have been all destroyed.” He admitted, however, the bravery of the generals. “He asked me if I knew Hutchinson, and whether he was the same who had been arrested at Paris” (for the escape of Lavalette). “His question on this point betrayed great interest.” The subject of Egypt was resumed. “It was the most important geographical point in the world, and had always been considered so. He had reconnoitered the line of the Canal across the Isthmus of Suez; he had calculated the expense at ten or twelve millions of livres (half a million sterling, he said, to make me understand more clearly the probable cost of it); that a powerful colony being established there, it would have been impossible for us to have preserved our empire in India.”

This remark is an example of the dashing way in which foreigners settle all the affairs of the world. If Napoleon had been asked to show how a French colony in Egypt could have overthrown an Indian empire, he must have been profoundly puzzled. A French colony would, doubtless, have prevented the overland passage. Yet, without that passage, India had been ours, or in the direct progress to be ours, for a hundred years! What could a colony in Egypt have done while the Red Sea was blocked up by English ships? How could it transport an army over the Desert—through Arabia, Persia, and the passes of the Himalaya?—and without an army, what could they do in India? The much greater chance was, that a French colony would have been starved or slaughtered, as the French army in Egypt would have been, but for its capitulation. The same absurdity is common to other services. The Russians, from the peasant to the throne, think that India is at their mercy, from the instant of a battalion’s appearing on the verge of Tartary, while they are forced to acknowledge that the Desert is impassable by any army in summer; and General Perowsky, in an expedition which decimated his army, half way to Thibet, has proved it to be equally impassable in winter. Or, may we not ask, if this mighty conquest is so much a matter of calculation, why have not the poor and feeble tribes of the Caucasus been conquered in a war of twenty years, within a stone’s throw of the Russian frontier?—while in India, after a march across swamps, sands, and mountains, they would have to meet an army of two hundred thousand men (easily increased to half a million), led by British officers?

The people of the United States are equally absurd in their speculations on the conquest of Canada. They pronounce it ready to drop into their hands, like fruit from the tree. Yet, every attempt at the invasion of Canada has resulted only in ridiculous defeat!

Napoleon again railed at Menou, and concluded with the remark, which he pronounced in a very serious manner: “‘In war, the gain is always with him who commits the fewest faults.’ It struck me as if he was reproaching himself with some great error.”

In this curious interview, Sir G. Cockburn’s having been shut out by a mere accident was made the most of, as a charge of incivility against the governor. We give Sir Hudson Lowe’s own version. He had been accompanied by the admiral to Longwood. “In order that there might be no mistake respecting the appointment being for Sir George Cockburn as well as myself, I distinctly specified to Bertrand that we should go together. We went, and were received in the outer room by Bertrand, who almost immediately ushered me into Bonaparte’s presence. I had been conversing with him for nearly half an hour, when, on his asking me if I had brought with me the Regent’s speech, I turned round to ask Sir George Cockburn if I had not given it to him? and observed, to my surprise, that he had not followed me into the room. On going out, I found him in the antechamber much irritated. He told me that Bertrand had almost shut the door in his face as he was following me into the room, and that a servant had put his arm across him. He said he would have forced his way, but that he was expecting I would have turned round to see that he was following me, when he supposed I would have insisted on our entering the room together. I told him I knew nothing of his not being in the same room till Bonaparte asked me for the Regent’s speech.... Bonaparte was ready to receive him after I had left the room; but he would not go in. Bertrand and Montholon have been with him since, making apologies. But the admiral, I believe, is still not quite satisfied about it.”

Napoleon’s conversation was essentially rough, a circumstance to be accounted for, partly by his birth, and partly by his camp education. O’Meara mentions that Montholon, having brought a translation of the paper which the domestics who desired to remain with him were to sign, Napoleon, looking at it, said—“This is not French—it is not sense.” “Sire,” said the other, “it is a literal translation of the English.” “However,” said Napoleon, “it is neither French nor German (tearing it in two)—you are a fool.” Then, looking it over, he said—“He makes a translation into stuff, which is not French, and is nonsense to any Frenchman.”

As we are not the defenders of the governor, and the subject of mere defence is now past by, we shall chiefly give abstracts of the conversation of his memorable prisoner. He asked O’Meara if he had been at Alexandria. “Yes, in a line-of-battle ship.” “But I suppose you could not enter the harbour?” O’Meara told him, “that we soon found a passage through which any vessel might go. This he would not believe for some time, until I told him that I saw the Tigre and the Canopus, of eighty guns each, enter with ease. ‘Why!’ said he, with astonishment, ‘that Commodore Barré, whom you took in the Rivoli, was ordered by me to sound for a passage when I was there, and he reported to me that there was not a possibility of a line-of-battle ship’s entering the harbour.’ He observed, then, ‘that the fleet might have been saved if he had done his duty.’ I told him, then, that we had blocked up the passage by sinking two vessels laden with stone in it; to which he replied, ‘that it was easy to remove such obstacles.’”

The expenses of Napoleon’s household were heavy. On the voyage out, between the 8th of August and the 17th of November, they had consumed a hundred dozens of wine, besides some casks of an inferior kind for the servants. In one of the governor’s despatches to Lord Bathurst, two fortnights’ accounts are given from Mr Balcombe, purveyor to Longwood. The amount of one fortnight is an expenditure of £683, 5s. 4d.; and of the other, £567, 10s. 4d.; the annual expense, at the former rate, thus amounting to above £16,000, and at the latter to £13,000—nine persons, with four children, being the family; the rest, with the exception of the two officers in attendance, being servants—the whole number amounting to 59.

One day, on hearing that Napoleon had not been seen by the attendant officer, the governor visited Longwood. “I passed,” said he, “through his dining-room, drawing-room, and another room, in which were displayed a great number of maps and plans laid out on a table, and several quires of writing, and was then introduced into an inner room, with a small bed in it, and a couch, on which Bonaparte was reclining, having only his dressing-gown on, and without his shoes.” On the governor’s expressing regret for his indisposition, and offering him medical advice, “I want no doctor,” said he. On his asking “whether Lady Bingham had arrived, and being answered that her non-arrival was owing to the delay of the Adamant transport, which was also bringing wines, furniture, &c., for Longwood, he said—‘It was all owing to the want of a chronometer; that it was a miserable saving of the Admiralty not to give every vessel of above two hundred tons one; and that he had done it in France.’ After a pause, he asked—‘What was the situation of affairs in France when I left Europe?’ I said, ‘Everything, I believe, was settled there.’ Beauchamp’s Campaign of 1814 was lying on the floor near him. He asked me if I had written the letters referred to in the appendix to this work. I answered, ‘Yes.’ ‘I recollect Marshal Blucher at Lubeck,’ said he; ‘is he not very old?’ ‘Seventy-five years,’ I replied, ‘but still vigorous—supporting himself on horseback for sixteen hours a-day, when circumstances render it necessary.’”

Napoleon then, after a pause, returned to the usual observations on his captivity. “I should have surrendered myself,” said he, to the Emperor of Russia, who was my friend, or to the Emperor of Austria, who was related to me. “There is courage in putting a man to death, but it is an act of cowardice to let him languish, and to poison him in so horrid an island, and so detestable a climate.” To the governor’s remark that St Helena was not unhealthy, and that the object of the British Government was, to make his residence on the island as satisfactory to himself as possible, he said—“Let them send me a coffin—a couple of balls in the head is all that is necessary. What does it signify to me whether I lie on a velvet couch or on fustian? I am a soldier, and accustomed to everything.”

As to his repeated expression, that he might have put himself into the hands of others, and that he voluntarily gave himself up to England, there can be no doubt of his conscious falsehood on both points. The French provisional government would not have suffered him to pass the frontier; nor would he have given himself up to Captain Maitland if he could have escaped to America. He also dreaded the sentence of the Bourbons, who would probably have imprisoned, or even put him to death, as they did Ney and Labédoyère, and as Murat was shot by order of the Neapolitan government. If he had fallen into Blucher’s hands, that officer proposed to have him shot in the ditch of Vincennes, on the very spot where the Duc d’Enghien was murdered; a proposal which was ineffectual only through the generous objections of the Duke of Wellington. The proclamation of the Allied sovereigns had already put him in a state of outlawry with Europe. Napoleon knew all this: he had been a prisoner at Malmaison; and though spared for the moment, he might be convinced that, on the withdrawal of the Allied troops, his life would have been demanded by the tribunals. Thus his declarations of confidence in England amounted simply to the belief that he would not be put to death in its hands. He was too sagacious to suppose that he could have been let loose again, to be the firebrand of the Continent, or to play once more the farce of royalty in Elba.

The inveteracy of Napoleon in his hatred of the governor almost amounted to frenzy. After one of these interviews, he said, “I never saw such a horrid countenance. He (Sir H. Lowe) sat in a chair opposite to my sofa, and on the little table between us was a cup of coffee. His physiognomy made such an unfavourable impression on me that I thought his looks had poisoned it. I ordered Marchand to throw it out of the window. I could not have swallowed it for the world.” Part of this “horror” was probably “acting;” but as everything reached Sir Hudson, it belonged to the system of insult.

Napoleon’s ideas of religion were sometimes regarded as decent, compared with the general tone of the Continent. On his deathbed he said, “Je ne suis ni physicien ni philosophe.” (I am neither a materialist nor an infidel.) But an anecdote given in Sir Hudson’s correspondence shows the unfortunate conception of his creed: “Dr O’Meara related to me yesterday a very characteristic observation of this remarkable personage. He asked him, on seeing that he had taken his oath to the authenticity of the paper he had brought to me, in what manner he had sworn to it. Dr O’Meara replied, ‘On the New Testament.’ ‘Then, you are such a fool!’ was his reply.” His attendants were obviously much of the same order of thinking: “Cipriani came out one day from Bonaparte’s room, to Dr O’Meara, saying, in a manner indicative of great surprise, ‘My master is certainly beginning to lose his head. He believes in God. You may think; he said to the servant who was shutting the windows, Why do you take from us the light which God gives us?’ Oh, certainly he loses his head. He began at Waterloo, but now it is certain.” His following remark was curious, as an evidence of the actual feeling of these people with respect to the man whom they professed to adore. Cipriani added—“I do not believe in God; because, if there were one, he would not have allowed a man, who has done so much harm, to live so long. And he does not believe; because, if he believed, he would not have caused so many millions of men to be killed in this world, for fear of meeting them in the other.” This is absurd, but it is perhaps the average of Italian belief. Cipriani was maître d’hotel, and a man of intelligence. He died on the island in 1818.

One of the conversations transmitted by O’Meara related to Waterloo. “The worst thing,” said Napoleon, “that England ever did, was that of endeavouring to make herself a great military nation. In doing that, she must always be the slave of Russia, Prussia, or Austria, or at least in some degree subservient to them, because she has not enough of men to combat on the Continent either France or any of the others, and consequently must hire men from some of them; whereas, at sea, you are so superior, your sailors so much better, that you will always be superior to us. Your soldiers, too, have not the qualities for a military nation; they are not equal in agility, address, or intelligence to the French; and when they meet with a reverse, their discipline is very bad.... I saw myself the retreat of Moore, and I never in my life witnessed anything so bad as the conduct of the soldiers; it was impossible to collect them or make them do anything; nearly all were drunk.”

This is a calumny. The army under General Moore offered battle to the army under Napoleon, who declined it; and when he saw the steadiness of the British, on their retreat through an exhausted country, and especially saw that his troops could make no impression on the fifteen thousand men commanded by Moore, and saw (as we understood) the utter defeat of the cavalry of his guard by the British hussars, under the command of the present Marquis of Londonderry, he wisely drew rein, and returned to Paris, leaving it to Soult “to drive the leopards into the sea,” who, instead of performing this exploit, was himself beaten on the shore, and forced to see the British embark at their ease. It is true that the rapidity and exhaustion of the British march left many stragglers on the road; but the rapidity resulted from the error of having supposed that there were parallel roads to the highroad, by which a French force might have intercepted their march. But, in every attack on that march, the French were repulsed; and such was the nature of their defeat in the battle of Corunna, that they were wholly driven off their ground, and another hour of daylight must have seen their retreat converted into a rout.

The sneer at England, as not being a military nation, is at once answered by the fact, that its whole regular force is an army of volunteers, while all the other armies of Europe are raised by a conscription; that in the French war England had an army of 200,000 men, raised by the military spirit of the country, besides 500,000 militia and yeomanry! The answer to the “want of soldierly qualification” in the British troops, is given in the fact, that in the whole war the British army never lost a pitched battle.

Napoleon’s account of Waterloo, as given in those pages, is, simply, that Wellington did everything wrong, but with the good fortune of everything turning out right; that he ought, in all propriety, to have been beaten, though he beat; that the battle was a series of blunders, which by the power of destiny, or something else, turned into victory; and that he himself ought, by all the rules of war, to have been marching in triumph into Brussels, while he was running away to Paris, leaving 40,000 Frenchmen slain, prisoners, or fugitives, instead of the 40,000 Englishmen, who ought to have fallen. In the same spirit, Napoleon ought to have been sitting on the throne of France, while he was talking fustian at St Helena. “What,” said Napoleon, “must have been the consequence of my victory?” The indignation against the Ministry for having caused the loss of 40,000 of the flower of the English army, of the sons of the first families, and others, who would have perished there, would have excited such a popular commotion, that—“they would have been turned out.” (A rather lame and impotent conclusion.) “The English would then have made peace, and withdrawn from the Coalition.”

This is one of the perpetual absurdities of foreigners. England has never been compelled to an ignominious peace, by losses in war. She has never seen an enemy in her capital. Loving peace, she willingly makes peace; but she has never surrendered her sword to make it.

He persevered in this verbiage. “I had succeeded; before twelve o’clock everything was mine, I might almost say. But destiny and accident decided it otherwise.” The curious combination of the most fixed, and the most casual, of all things, was alone adequate to account for the defeat of Napoleon! and with this folly the prisoner nursed his self-delusion to the end.

One of the chief charges against the English Government was its stinting the French tables. But one of O’Meara’s private letters gives a fair account of the matter. “With respect to the allowance within which all the expenses were directed to be comprised—viz., £8000 sterling a-year, to which Sir Hudson Lowe has, on his own responsibility, since added £4000 yearly (!) in my opinion a due regard has not been paid to circumstances, and I do not think even this latter sum will be sufficient.... You perhaps are not aware of the French mode of living and their cookery. They have, in fact, two dinners every day—one at eleven or twelve o’clock, to which joints, roast and boiled, with all their various hashes, ragouts, fricassees, &c., &c., are served up, with wine and liqueurs; and another at eight o’clock, which differs from the former only in being supplied with more dishes. Besides these two meals, they all have (except Bonaparte himself, who eats only twice a-day, certainly very heartily) something like an English breakfast, in bed, between eight and nine in the morning; and a luncheon, with wine, at four or five in the afternoon.

“The common notion of the English eating more animal food than the French is most incorrect. I am convinced that between their two dinners and luncheon they consume three or four times as much as any English family of a similar number. Those two dinners, then, the first of which they have separately in their respective rooms, cause a great consumption of meat and wine, which, together with their mode of cookery, require a great quantity of either oil or butter, both of which are excessively dear in this place (and you may as well attempt to deprive an Irishman of potatoes as a Frenchman of his oil, or some substitute for it). Their soupes consommés (for they are, with one or two exceptions, the greatest gluttons and epicures I ever saw), producing great waste of meat in a place where the necessaries of life are so dear, altogether render necessary a great expenditure of money.”

Among the cunning attempts to throw the conduct of the governor into abhorrence, was the charge of refusing Napoleon the bust of his son, and even intending to destroy it. O’Meara says, that it had been “landed fourteen days, and some of those in the governor’s hands.” This is another instance of the language perpetually used; the fact being, “that the bust was landed on the 10th or 11th of June, and sent to Longwood the next day.”

The true narrative was this: In the summer of 1816, the ex-empress Maria Louisa having visited the baths of Leghorn, two marble busts of her son were executed. One of those was purchased by Messrs Beaggini in London, in hopes of an opportunity of sending it to St Helena. A store-ship, the Baring, being about to sail there in January 1817, a foreign gunner on board, named Radavich, was intrusted with the bust, with instructions to give it to Count Bertrand, for Napoleon, leaving it to his generosity “to refund their expenses.” If, however, he wished to know the price, it was to be a hundred louis. The captain of the ship (a half-pay lieutenant) knew nothing of its being on board till shortly before, or immediately after, his arrival at St Helena; at that time Radavich was ill of apoplexy, followed by delirium, so that for several days it was impossible to speak to him on the subject. When Sir Thomas Reade was informed that it was on board, he immediately acquainted the governor with the circumstance. Sir Hudson Lowe, considering the clandestine manner in which it was brought, was at first inclined to retain it until he had communicated with Lord Bathurst. But, Sir T. Reade suggesting that as the bust was not plaster, it could not contain letters, advised its being forwarded at once, and the governor assented. Before, however, ordering it on shore, he himself went to Longwood, to ascertain Napoleon’s wish through Bertrand. Major Gorrequer accompanied him, and in his notes gives an account of the interview. The governor mentioned the arrival of the bust to Bertrand, and said that he would take upon himself the responsibility of landing it, if such was the wish of Napoleon. Bertrand’s answer was, “No doubt it will give him pleasure.” The next day the bust was landed, taken to Longwood, and received by Napoleon with evident delight. By some means or other he had known of its arrival, and said to O’Meara on the 10th, “I have known it several days.” He then rushed into one of those explosions of wrath and oratory which were familiar to him. He said, “I intended, if it had not been given, to have made such a complaint as would have caused every Englishman’s hair to stand on end! I should have told a tale which would have made the mothers of England execrate him as a monster in human shape.”

And all this with the bust before his eyes. To heighten the effect, he would persist in pretending to believe that Sir Hudson Lowe had given orders for breaking up the bust, and on this fancy he declaimed anew against him, calling him “barbarous and atrocious.” “That countenance,” said he, turning to the bust, “would melt the heart of the most ferocious wild beast! The man who gave orders to break that image would plunge a knife into the heart of the original, if it were in his power.” And all this fury for a fiction!—the palpable contradiction to the charge of cruelty standing on his table.

It is not even clear, after all, that there was not an intrigue connected with this bust: Napoleon exhibited extreme anxiety to see Radavich. This the governor permitted, but on the condition of the officer in attendance being present, and it was declined. Lord Bathurst, in his despatch to St Helena, said, “The suspicious circumstances under which the bust arrived, were sufficient to make you pause before you determined to transmit it to the general. Had the package contained anything less interesting to him in his character as a father, the clandestine manner in which it was introduced on board of the vessel would have been a sufficient reason for withholding the delivery of it, at least for a much longer period.... I am not disposed to participate in his (the French ambassador’s) apprehensions that letters were conveyed in it. No doubt, however, can be entertained that attempts are making at clandestine communications.”

To this we may add that, by some secret means, the French were acquainted with every transaction of Europe, and frequently before the public authorities.

Napoleon ordered £300 to be given to Radavich (who was merely the agent for the London house). O’Meara says, in his Voice from St Helena, that, “by some unworthy tricks, this poor man did not recover the money for nearly two years.” This is a proof of the slipshod statements which are to be found in the volume; the fact being, that, in March 1818, the former proprietors of the bust wrote to Bertrand, to complain of the conduct of Radavich, as having come to no settlement with them “for the payment he had received for the bust, and for the other articles intrusted to him; and that he had gone from England without rendering any account to them.” They solicited Bertrand to give them some remuneration.

Our limits warn us that we must conclude, leaving a crowd of interesting incidents behind. The work seems perfectly to clear Sir Hudson Lowe’s character, not merely from the charge of severity, but even from the imputation of petulance. No man could be placed in a situation of greater difficulty. He had to deal with a coterie of the most unscrupulous kind; he had also especially to deal with a man irritated by the most signal downfall in European record, subtle beyond all example, unhesitating in evasion, formed of falsehood, and furious at necessary coercion. He had to meet also the clamours of French partisanship throughout Europe, and to bear the calumnies of faction even in England. He had to endure personal insult, and to counteract reckless intrigue. If he had been roused into violence of temper, no man could be more easily pardoned for its excess; but there is not a single proof of this charge, and the whole tenor of his conduct seems to have been patient and equable, though strict and firm. He had one paramount duty to perform—the prevention of Napoleon’s escape, and he did that duty. All minor deficiencies, if they existed, might be merged in the perfect performance of a duty which involved the peace of the world.

The dismissal of O’Meara from his office in the island, followed by his dismissal from the navy, let loose a personal enemy of some ability, much plausibility, and the bitterest anger. His volume, A Voice from St Helena, embodied all the charges against Sir Hudson Lowe, and was prosecuted as a libel. But the prosecution having, in the opinion of the judges, been delayed for some months beyond the legal time, it failed, on that ground only. The governor of St Helena drew up a refutation of the volume, which still remains in the archives of Government. Why he did not appeal to the opinion of the country—a duty which no public man can decline without loss to his own character—cannot now be ascertained. He was probably weary of a life of contradiction, and had no desire to continue it in controversy.

But the task, though long delayed, has finally been performed, as it appears to us, with perfect manliness, clearness, and conviction, by its present author. Mr Forsyth’s style is admirably fitted for his subject—fair, forcible, and argumentative. By his work he has done credit to himself, and cleared the character of a brave, an honest, and a high-minded English soldier and gentleman. We know no ampler panegyric on the uses or the successes of authorship.

Sir Hudson Lowe was appointed to the colonelcy of the first vacant regiment (the 93d) on his return—was subsequently in command of the troops in Ceylon—and at length, yielding to the effects of toil and time, died in 1844, in his 75th year.

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