Note 43 — RESIDENCE IN GERMANY. (continued 2)

It has been thought necessary to introduce here the following letters of Count de Las Cases; 1.—Because they are alluded to in the preceding letter from Count Bertrand, and help to complete the sense and understanding of it; 2.—Because they evince the candour and good faith with which this correspondence with Longwood was carried on; 3.—In short, because they enable the reader to give its due value to the extraordinary assertion of Mr. Goulburn, who, whilst he received these letters, and acknowledged with courtesy the receipt of them, nevertheless ventured to affirm in the House of Commons, on a certain occasion, that the author’s expressions were always clothed in language admitting of a twofold interpretation. How can a man of candour, such as the person to whom the aforesaid letters were addressed, who had received, and must have read my letter to Lord Bathurst particularly, take upon himself to assert that the author’s expressions were always given in language that admitted of a double interpretation? Surely, Mr. Goulburn must be very fastidious in point of explicit and positive meaning, or else he does not understand French. But has he read? Has he misunderstood? Did he wish to misunderstand, and, in imitation of Lord Bathurst, may he not, like his noble patron, on the occasion of his famous denials to Lord Holland in the House of Peers, have founded his arguments not upon what really existed, but upon what appeared to his advantage? The communication of these letters is made chiefly from the necessity of enabling every one to judge of the degree of credit which is due to Mr. Goulburn’s assertion. That they were not intended to be made public is sufficiently evident from the careless and unaffected style in which they are written.