RESIDENCE IN GERMANY.

FROM THE TIME OF MY ARRIVAL AT FRANKFORT TO THE PERIOD OF MY RESIDENCE AT OFFENBACH.

A Space of Fifteen Months.

Residence at Frankfort.—My endeavours to alleviate the Situation of the Inhabitants of Longwood.—Letters to Maria Louisa and to the Allied Sovereigns.—My Letter to Lord Bathurst.—Petition to the British Parliament.—Transactions with several Members of the Emperor’s Family.—Measures to supply the Wants of Longwood; Details, &c.—Journey to Baden.—Residence at Manheim; Motives for this choice.—Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle; my Efforts; Details.—Letter from Madame Mère, &c.—Note to the Sovereigns.—New Official Documents received from Longwood, and addressed to the Sovereigns; new Efforts; &c.—State of Public Opinion.—Arrival of the brig Musquito.—Fresh Vexation; the Minister of Baden orders me to leave Manheim.—I retire to Offenbach.

The band of captives arrived at last at Frankfort, after having, for fifteen days, undergone persecutions almost unexampled in civilized countries, and in a state of tranquillity. A Prussian officer, whose duty, he politely said, was not so much to guard me as to see that I was well treated, had conducted me thither. He did not allow me to communicate freely with any person, and was not to leave me until some authentic and final decision had been adopted with respect to me.

308On arriving at Frankfort, I immediately sent to our Ambassador, as I had done in the Netherlands, the following letter:

Sir,—I have the honour, on arriving in this town, to claim the protection of your public character, against the rigorous measures which have been pursued for some time past in regard to me.

I have been arrested, and am carried about from town to town, under escort, against my will, like a captive. Those who act thus candidly confess that they only push me on in that manner, because I have been so brought to them; and they have not any special motive or positive order on the subject. On my passage through the Netherlands, I addressed a representation on the subject to our ambassador at the court of the Hague; but I have been hurried on so precipitately that it has not been possible for me to receive any answer. I take the liberty of sending you a copy of the letter which I addressed to him, in order to put your Excellency in possession of the first details of my adventure.

It is now, Sir, the hundred and thirtieth day of my travels; I am harrassed, tired, sick, and infirm; I have been tossed by the fury of the waves, and must perish at last if I cannot find a port. In the name of humanity and justice, I implore to be allowed to take breath for a moment. I have found an erroneous impression existing every where in my way: and those who thus disposed of my person have all expressed the greatest surprise, when the discussion of the point has proved that there did not exist in France any law or act, either public or private, directed against me; and that nothing had ever occurred which could give rise to such a proceeding. I request, Sir, that you will be kind enough to prevent, by your testimony, the possibility of an error that might influence the decision to be taken with respect to me; and that you will grant me that protection which I am naturally entitled to expect from you in your public character.

I have the honour, &c.

P.S. I think it right to inform your Excellency that, in the perplexity of my situation, I wrote a few days since to His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, to request an asylum in his dominions, should my liberty be placed under any restraint. But a distant country, the language and manners of which are quite new to me, cannot suit me, except in case of necessity. I should wish to be as near to France as possible, in order to be able to see my family, and attend to my domestic concerns, which have been neglected for the last three years; and Brussels, which, in addition to these advantages, possesses that of the language which would enable me to superintend the education of my children, is the place in which I should be happy to reside. I have requested M. Latour Dupin, at the Hague, to obtain the necessary permission to enable me to do so, and I earnestly entreat you to assist him, as far as it lies in your power.

309The same thing that had happened in the Netherlands happened also at Frankfort; I received no answer to my letter. But his Excellency did not remain idle with respect to me, and I have been assured that he had immediately required from the senate of this free and sovereign city my removal within the space of twenty-four hours. Fortunately the Prussian officer, who was obliged to follow me, and who did not relish such a continuation of our journey, induced the Minister from his court to interfere, in order that I might be allowed to remain at Frankfort.

From that instant every thing became calm, and the tide of British persecution which, rolling from afar, had so long harassed my existence, was at last stopped. The senate allowed me to reside in Frankfort, and the Prussian officer took his departure. Politeness now succeeded to churlishness: Prince Hardenberg, to whom I had written to complain of my arrest in the Rhenish provinces, replied that he had been very angry about it himself. An answer came from Vienna, most graciously granting the asylum which I had demanded. I was now free, and I acquired also the hope of seeing my liberty respected for the future; for the Duke de Richelieu, Minister for Foreign Affairs, to whom our Ambassador at Frankfort applied respecting me, answered, I was told, “that I should be left unmolested.”

The Duke de Richelieu, feeling his independence, had no doubt only followed the impulse of his natural generosity, whereas it must be presumed that these sentiments were restrained in the breast of our Ambassador at Frankfort by the necessity of giving pledges of his fidelity, having been formerly Napoleon’s minister at the court of King Jerome. This line of conduct was very proper on his part, no doubt; but I had a right to think it unfortunate that it had, on this occasion, been pursued at my expense.

My first care, as soon as I was at liberty to dispose of my actions, was entirely directed to the grand motive which had caused my departure from St. Helena, and brought me back to Europe. Though repulsed from London, on which I had founded my strongest hopes, I 310nevertheless embraced with ardour the means that were still left to me.

I first wrote to Maria Louisa, as in duty bound, and addressed my letter to her, unsealed and under cover to Prince Metternich, principal Minister of Austria. I afterwards wrote to the three Allied Sovereigns. I transcribe here those letters:

LETTER TO MARIA LOUISA, WRITTEN AT THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, AND FORWARDED TO EUROPE.

Madam,—I have no sooner left St. Helena than I think it my duty to hasten to lay at the feet of your Majesty some intelligence from your august consort. I have been suddenly torn from his presence, without any previous notice, and as it were struck with sudden death at his side, without the possibility of his having forseen such an event. I am not therefore fortunate enough to be intrusted with any special message for your Majesty; and it is from his every-day habits and conversation that I must collect what details I shall presume to transmit to your Majesty.

Indifferent to public events, the Emperor Napoleon most frequently indulged in the contemplation of his family recollections and affections. He was grieved at not having ever received, although he had officially demanded it of those who guard him, any news from those who are most dear to him. Your Majesty will find the lively expression of that regret traced by the hand of your illustrious consort in the letter which he did me the honour to write me, after I had been separated from him, a copy of which I shall take the liberty of laying before your Majesty.^[30]

The health of the Emperor, at my departure, was very much impaired, and his situation was most painful in every respect, being exposed to numerous wants, and deprived of every enjoyment. Fortunately, his mind triumphed over every thing, and remained calm and serene.

I have seen him obliged, every month, to sell part of his plate, to supply his daily wants, and he has been reduced to the necessity of accepting a small sum, which a faithful servant was fortunate enough to have at his disposal in England, when he left him.

Madam, guided by the sentiments which fill my heart, I take the liberty, as a devoted servant, to lay at the feet of your Majesty, in the hope of being agreeable to you, a sacrifice which is dear to me, being some hair of your august consort, which has been a long time in my possession. I presume also to send at the same time to your Majesty a plan of Longwood, drawn by my son for his mother. Your Majesty will no doubt feel interested in examining this remote desert in its details.

311On arriving in Europe, my first step would be to throw myself at the feet of your Majesty, if a sacred duty did not oblige me to remain in England, in order to devote every instant of my life to endeavour to impart, through the means allowed by the British regulations, some consolation to the inhabitants of that horrible rock, which retains for ever the object of my most tender cares. The British Ministers will not refuse to allow me to undertake this pious occupation. I shall solicit it with ardour, and fulfil it with loyalty. I am, &c.

COUNT DE LAS CASES.

P. S. On my arrival in Europe, Madam, I have been ejected by England, arrested on the Continent, detained by sickness at Frankfort, and have just obtained an asylum in the dominions of your august father. I take advantage of the first moment of my liberty, to address to your Majesty the above letter, that was written for you at the extremity of Africa, at a distance of three thousand leagues. I entreat your Majesty to deign to receive it favourably, and that will be some consolation for my sufferings.

LETTER TO PRINCE METTERNICH, CONTAINING THE PRECEDING.

Prince,—I hasten to offer to your Highness my sincere thanks for the favour of an asylum obtained in the dominions of his Majesty the Emperor.

I take the liberty at the same time to enclose, under cover to you, a letter for her Majesty Maria Louisa. And here, Prince, I entreat you to allow me to lay aside the public character with which your highness is invested, to address you in your private character only. I wish to ask for advice rather than to accomplish an act. Having been so long absent from Europe, I might unknowingly and unwillingly transgress the rules of expediency. I give myself up to the effusion of my heart.

Prince, the result of these different feelings has been to induce me to confide the letter which I enclose herein, unsealed, to your discretion and personal judgment. It is again the result of these same feelings which impels me to represent to you the Emperor Napoleon a prey on his rock to the persecution of personal enemies, and abandoned by all the rest of the world. Henceforth I shall live only in the hope of affording him some sources of consolation. From a daily intercourse of eighteen months, and, I may say, from some moments of unreserved confidence, I know those that would be most dear to him. And who can know Napoleon better than I do? He already feels and converses on the subjects of the past events of his own history, as if they had happened three hundred years ago. He remains unchanged only with respect to family feelings. Whatever political events may have occurred, he entertains no doubts on the score of domestic sentiments. How, through what channels, by what means, could I, without transgressing the rules of expediency, or any regulations and intentions, obtain direct 312intelligence concerning his wife and his son? Prince, I again repeat that this communication is from man to man: it is one heart questioning another.

During my residence at St. Helena, we have not had any intercourse, nor been able to have any with the Commissioner from Austria. Your Highness must have read in a public document,^[31] written in answer to the Governor, that, if the Austrian and Russian Commissioners had been sent to see that Napoleon was treated in a proper manner, and with the respect due to him, this measure was in harmony with the character of their Sovereigns; but that the Governor, having declared that they had no right or authority to interfere on the subject, had by that declaration rendered them inadmissible. At the same time, Napoleon publicly said that he would willingly receive them as private individuals, yet we have not seen them; be it that such was the tenor of their instructions, or, as I have more reason to suppose, that the Governor wished to subject them, as private individuals, to restrictions which would have degraded their character.

Your Highness will see by the copy of a letter, transcribed for her Majesty Maria Louisa, the severity used towards an Austrian botanist, and how much the Emperor Napoleon was hurt by that circumstance. I again repeat to your Highness the expression of the nature of my sentiments, and the assurance of the high respect with which I am, &c.

COUNT DE LAS CASES.

P. S. In case my Letter for her Majesty Maria Louisa should not be delivered to her, I request your Highness will do me the particular favour to cause the hair which is enclosed in it to be returned to me.

LETTER TO HIS MAJESTY THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA.

Sire,—A sentiment, a sacred duty, brings me to the feet of your Majesty.

The zealous and faithful servant of a royal victim of adversity presumes to lift up his voice to your throne, surrounded by every prosperity which fortune can bestow; will you refuse to hear him?

Unexpectedly torn from Napoleon, and, as it were, struck with sudden death at his side, I have since wandered as in another universe, pursued every where by the recollection of sufferings which I have witnessed and can no longer share.

It is at your feet, Sire, that my heart prompts me to seek for an alleviation of my affliction, for encouragement to my hope.

Your treaty of the 2nd August, 1815, with your illustrious Allies, stipulates that Napoleon is your prisoner, and abandons to England the possession of his person, and the care and necessary measures of his detention.

313I shall not say any thing against that treaty, Sire; I shall not even complain of the manner in which the British Ministers execute that part of the treaty which you have intrusted to their care.

The high interests of politics, the great grievances, however they may weigh upon my heart, are at this moment far from my thoughts; domestic cares alone occupy my breast.

I therefore implore your Majesty, as I have implored your high Allies,^[32] to deign to protect the request which I address to the English Government, to be allowed to devote myself in London to the care of procuring for the illustrious captive, through the means allowed by the laws and regulations, some moral enjoyments, and some physical comforts, which will not be a burden to any body.

My request, Sire, is an innocent favour, natural and simple, and against which no reasonable objection can be raised; indeed, I am not without strong claims on your Majesty’s attention. You are far from being a stranger to them.

In abandoning to others the custody and detention of the captive, your Majesty has certainly not renounced your right of superintendence over the marks of attention and respect due to his sacred person. In renouncing all political interposition, your Majesty has not intended to preclude yourself from contributing to the consolations approved by your individual sentiments, and to those alleviations which do not interfere with the principal object, in view.

Every day, Sire, at St. Helena, chains are imposed, and their weight is aggravated in your name. Can you, Sire, have allowed your name to reach that spot, only to authorize odious and intolerable acts of severity?

He upon whom these acts are inflicted, Sire, is the same to whom you long gave the name of brother. Your royal heart cannot forget it, it cannot remain insensible. I therefore appeal, in order to obtain a small favour, to your sympathy, to your recollections, and even to your dignity. Your magnanimous mind, Sire, has shewn itself too much the friend of public morality, it has displayed too much private delicacy and generosity in its various bearings, to allow me to doubt for an instant of success.

And what is, Sire, once more, the object for which I require your protection? Merely to be allowed to be near the place of communication and conveyance, that is, on the spot the most favourable, and in the situation the most proper, to be able, according to the prescribed forms and regulations, to continue from afar those domestic cares which I am no longer allowed to exercise in the prison itself: that is all.

314Nevertheless, Sire, I implore and expect this favour from your Majesty. And how happy should I be if your Majesty should deign to add to it that of confiding to my care that part of the private and moral interest which your great engagements cannot have compelled you to renounce. And who better than myself, Sire, could fulfil that duty? Who could devote himself to it with more ardour? I have banished myself from my native country, in order to be able to give up to that purpose the rest of my life without interruption or restraint. Deign, Sire, to listen to me, and comply with my request, I beseech you. And on whom are these cares to be bestowed? In whose favour do I solicit to be allowed to sacrifice myself? Sire, it is in favour of the man whom you once called your friend.

The reign of your Majesty is sufficiently distinguished by prodigies and monuments of glory; with these, history is already provided; let it also record acts of more exalted virtue; do something for friendship!—Let history say of you: In the midst of the most violent political contest that ever existed, he set the example of something still greater than victory—he remembered, he respected, the feelings of ancient friendship!

How many times, on our rock, have I heard the Emperor Napoleon conversing on the past events of his life, as if they had occurred several centuries ago, and, already speaking the language of history, say: I never had any war with the Emperor Alexander but a political one; that war had nothing to do with our individual feelings: I cannot suppose him to feel any personal animosity against me. A circumstance which would be worthy of you, Sire, tended to confirm him in this opinion. A report reached us on our rock that the Commissioner of your Majesty at St. Helena had, at the end of his instructions, a recommendation, written by your Majesty’s own hand, enjoining him most positively to shew the same marks of respect to the Emperor Napoleon as are shewn to yourself. We took pleasure in repeating this report to him; we were aware that he was pleased by it. Such a proceeding was in harmony with the character of your Majesty, and we believed in it without, however, having had it in our power to convince ourselves of its truth; for (during my stay, at least) we never could hold any communication with the Commissioner of your Majesty. You will doubtless have heard that Napoleon being required by the Governor of St. Helena to receive the Commissioner of your Majesty, and that of your illustrious ally, the Emperor of Austria, ordered the following answer to be given: That if those Commissioners were ordered by their Masters to take care that, in an island in the midst of the ocean, remote from the rest of the world, he should be treated with the respect due to him, he recognised in that measure the character of these two Princes; that the Governor having declared that they had no right to interfere in any thing that happened on that rock, they from that moment were without an official character in his eyes. He, however, added that he should be happy to see them as private individuals; but this message remained 315without effect, either from their having never been apprized of it, or from their instructions not allowing them to take advantage of it; or lastly, perhaps (and I do not think it at all improbable), because the English Governor wished in that case to subject them to certain conditions which were inconsistent with their character.

If I have thus presumed, Sire, to raise my humble voice to your Majesty, my temerity was inspired by the entire, ardent, and unalterable devotion which I cherish for him who once reigned over me, who was my master ... and that sentiment will plead in my favour in the eyes of your Majesty.

I am, &c.

COUNT DE LAS CASES.

With a heart still oppressed by all the ill usage I had experienced, proceeding from the British Government, I deemed it incumbent upon me, and a public duty as it were, to complain to Lord Bathurst in the following letter, which, by the way, was kept secret for upwards of ten months, and might have remained so for ever, had not Mr. Goulburn, Under Secretary of State, by certain misplaced and incorrect assertions which he made in the House of Commons concerning me, as will hereafter be seen, compelled me in some degree to publish it. This circumstance, however, is an additional pledge to the reader of the authenticity and correctness of all the facts which I have stated.

LETTER OF COUNT DE LAS CASES TO LORD BATHURST.

My Lord,—Were I to bear in silence the arbitrary and tyrannical acts, the infraction of the laws, the contempt of all forms, the violation of principles, of which I have been a victim, for upwards of a year that I have been in the hands of your agents, my silence might be construed into a tacit acquiescence, which would render me guilty towards myself, towards you, and towards society at large. Towards myself, because I have ample cause to seek for redress; towards you, who are ignorant of my grounds of complaint, and might perhaps hasten to grant me that redress; and towards society, on whose behalf every upright man ought sternly to resist the encroachments of power, for the honour of the laws, and for the protection of those who come after him.

My Lord, if I have so long delayed stating my grievances to you, the blame attaches to yourself, to the persecution that has assailed me upon your shores, and to that to which you have given the impulse in neighbouring countries. It would appear, in fact, as if a species of torment had been invented for me; a deportation along the high roads. I have been carried from town to town like 316a malefactor, though I was in a dying state, without any motive having been assigned for such conduct, and without being allowed to take any rest. How then was it possible for me to write to you?

If I now address your Lordship personally respecting what concerns me, it is because all the acts of which I have to complain have originated, and have been continued, in your department, and under your name; and if other hands have since oppressed me, I am indebted to your Lordship for being placed within their reach, and to your suggestions for the treatment which they have inflicted upon me.

My Lord, I am one of the four to which your orders at Plymouth had reduced the number of those who eagerly sought the happiness and glory of following the illustrious victim of the dreadful hospitality of the Bellerophon; I followed my sacred occupation at Longwood to the best of my power; all the faculties of my heart and soul were engaged in soothing the bitterest captivity ever known, when the Governor of St. Helena suddenly tore me away from that island. Perhaps he was right: I had infringed his regulations. But, after all, I was guilty of no other crime than that of using the right, which every prisoner possesses, of endeavouring without any scruple to deceive the vigilance of his gaoler; for between us nothing had been left to delicacy, confidence, or honour. I have not complained of the proceedings enforced against me. I was only grieved at the uncalled-for insult inflicted upon him from whom I was separated. It was almost by his side, almost under his eye, that I was arrested; on which occasion he wrote, what you no doubt will have read, that, seeing me from his windows hurried off on the plain, in the midst of waving plumes and horses prancing around me, he had fancied he saw the savages of the South Sea, who, in their ferocious joy, dance round the victim whom they are about to devour.

My Lord, it was natural for me to believe that the cause of what has happened to me, the confiding of secret documents to my servant at his own request, was but the result of a snare laid for me. The Governor himself agreed with me that appearances might justify my suspicion; but he gave me his word of honour that he had nothing to do in the business, and I believed him. It had originally been intended, however, that those secret documents should pass through the Governor’s hands; they would have been addressed to him, if he had not informed me, a short time before, that if I continued to write in the same style he would separate me from him to whom I devoted my existence. So true is this assertion, and so unimportant in themselves were the documents, that they have never since been mentioned; they have remained entirely unconnected with the event to which they gave rise.^[33]

My Lord, my captivity in St. Helena was only voluntary. According to your own regulation, it was to cease at my pleasure. 317As soon, therefore, as I found myself separated from Longwood, I signified to Sir Hudson Lowe, that I, from that moment, withdrew from his personal control, and placed myself again under the protection of the civil and general laws; that if I had committed any offence, I required to be sent into the presence of my judges; that if he thought it necessary to submit to the inspection of Ministers my papers, which I had given him sufficient time to examine and to understand, I desired they might be sent to you, my Lord, and that I might be sent with them. And in order that he should have the less difficulty in taking this determination, I represented to him the dreadful state of my health, and the imminent danger of my son, which required our being sent to where we might procure the first medical advice; and I further added that I submitted willingly and unreservedly to every restriction, however illegal, that your Lordship might deem it necessary to impose upon me when I should have arrived in England. Sir Hudson Lowe did not think himself at liberty to take this step; and, after he had long hesitated, and had kept me a close prisoner in the Island for five or six weeks, he at last sent me off to the Cape of Good Hope, according to the letter of his instructions; a measure which he might and certainly ought to have adopted within a few days after my arrest. This Governor, at the same time, kept back such of my papers as he thought proper, without allowing me to affix my seal to them, or he would only allow me to do so under the derisive condition of my express consent to his breaking the seal in my absence if he thought proper, which was equivalent to a prohibition of sealing them at all.

By the aid of such subterfuges, Sir Hudson Lowe might likewise assert that it was in my power to return to Longwood; it is true, that, being urged by my arguments and by the delicacy of his position with respect to me, he offered to let me go back thither, because that would have released him from his embarrassment. But at the same time that he made the offer, he rendered it impossible for me to accept it: ‘You have disgraced me and dishonoured me,’ said I to him, ‘in arresting me in Napoleon’s presence; I could no longer be an object of consolation to him, but one rather that would bring painful and injurious recollections to his mind. I could not appear again at Longwood except at his express desire.’ I asked leave to write; I did even write to inquire whether there existed such a wish; but Sir Hudson Lowe insisted upon dictating or controlling the expressions of my letter, and I was bound to refuse. His advantages were by far too great already, placed as he was amongst close prisoners, whose actions he separately directed at his will. Besides, if I even went back, he did not consent to return me my papers. The very next day he might renew upon me, or upon my unfortunate companions, the example of such degrading 318acts of authority; I had the grief of having opened the door to such an abuse of power, and my return would give to it the sanction of precedent for the future: no alternative, was, therefore, left to me, but to quit the Island with an aching heart.

I think, my Lord, I have stated to you every thing relating to my affairs at St. Helena; this account is proved and developed in my correspondence with Sir Hudson Lowe, all the documents of which, carefully arranged and put in order by myself, were seized in the Thames by your directions, and are at present in your possession.

My Lord, when I arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, I thought myself better situated for enjoying the protection of your laws. Away from the fatal island, where certain irregularities might perhaps find a colouring in the importance of the motive which had occasioned them, I found myself at a distance of five hundred leagues, in a quiet colony, governed by the uncontrolled operation of your excellent laws, so deservedly extolled. How great was my astonishment! Lord Charles Somerset found no difficulty in doing at the Cape what Sir Hudson Lowe had not dared to do at St. Helena—to detain me a prisoner. In vain I made the same entreaties, and urged the same arguments; in vain I offered the same concessions that I offered to Sir Hudson Lowe, in order that I might be sent to your Lordship in Europe; all was useless: he detained me. And this was an act of his own will and caprice, for Sir Hudson Lowe was not his superior, and could not therefore give him any orders. Lord Charles Somerset governed without controul; he held a discretionary power; he could and ought to have been a summary judge in my affair, but he constantly refused to listen to me, rejected all explanation, and, notwithstanding my warm and urgent representations, contented himself with coolly inquiring of my natural judges, at a distance of three thousand leagues, whether he should do right in sending me to them; thereby inflicting upon me, from that moment, the most dreadful sentence that any tribunal could ever have pronounced; an exile, and an imprisonment of seven or eight months’ duration, separated by three thousand leagues from my family, my private affairs, my country, my connexions, and all my affections.

My Lord, according to the sanctity of your laws, and to the principles which have been transmitted to you by your forefathers, Lord Charles Somerset has become guilty towards me of the greatest of crimes; a crime which in the eyes of many people is equal to that of homicide, and which, from the torments I have been made to endure, exceeds it in mine. I denounce it to you, and demand justice at your hands. There is not an Englishman, valuing his noble privileges, whose voice does not unite with mine, and who does not form to himself a correct idea of the torments I have suffered. In vain it will be alleged that the Cape is but a colony governed by a military power, and still, to a certain extent, by Dutch laws. My Lord, the justice and protection of the 319British laws ought to reign wherever the British name extends. What would be a crime on the banks of the Thames cannot be a matter of indifference in a part of Africa over which the British standard waves.

I was not a prisoner of war; I could only be a prisoner amenable to the tribunals. To have kept me eight months separate from my judges is a denial of justice that would make an Englishman shudder; to have punished me without either trial or sentence is an act of tyranny which is revolting to your legislation. What did I ask of Lord Charles Somerset? Did I demand my liberty? No; I only requested that I might be sent a prisoner to you, and undergo a trial, if there was cause for one. But he sported in this instance with that which reason holds most sacred, which is most pleasing to the heart, and dearest to man. What could be his motives? What excuses could he plead? He constantly and obstinately refused to give any. And here, my Lord, I desire it may be understood that indignation and grief do not carry me so far as not to distinguish in Lord Charles Somerset the private attentions with which he endeavoured to soften my captivity from the infamy of the public act by which he doomed me to it; although it is true that, towards the end of my residence, the warmth of my expressions, and no doubt the importunity of my appeals, exasperated him so far as to induce him to keep me confined in the country, in spite of my entreaties and of the deplorable state of my health, out of the daily reach of physicians and medicines.

At last, my Lord, after a captivity of seven months, it was signified to me, no doubt in consequence of orders arrived from your Lordship, that I had only to procure a vessel to carry me to England. In vain I asked that some opportunity might be selected, which would afford some of those comforts which the distressing state of my health, and that of my son, required; every suitable ship was refused me under some pretence or other; and the choice that was left to me was reduced to the only vessel on the eve of sailing; and even that was pointed out to me by the Governor himself. I was compelled to embark in it as a prisoner, and yet at my own expense; (this, by the way, appears a little contradictory;) and in this brig, of the burden of two hundred and thirty tons, and having a crew of twelve men, we had to endure a voyage of nearly one hundred days, without a physician, and subject to all the inconveniences, all the privations, all the evils, attendant upon so small a vessel.

This, my Lord, is all that concerns my affair at the Cape of Good Hope, the proof and particulars of which are to be found in my correspondence with Lord Charles Somerset, which was seized in the Thames by your orders, and is at present in your possession.

On reaching your shores, my Lord, I thought I had arrived at the end of my troubles. On my arrival at the Cape, I had the honour of addressing a letter to the Prince Regent, to implore his royal protection; I had also written one to your Lordship upon the 320same subject, and I had no doubt that the order given for my return was owing to those letters. Already I felt my sufferings alleviated by the pleasing prospect of seeing some friends I have in London, and of resuming the management of my private affairs, which had been either neglected, or totally ruined, during an absence of upwards of three years; but what was my surprise! On arriving in the Thames, I was instantly placed in solitary confinement, and had seals put upon my papers. A few hours afterwards, one of your messengers came to seize my person in the middle of the night, signified to me the order for my being conveyed to the Continent, and conducted me to Dover for the purpose of sending me thither. A delay of three days having occurred, his zeal led him to turn this time to account: he restored my papers to me; procured me every facility for writing; did all he could to encourage me to write, and watched for the very last moment previous to my departure, in order to make the most minute search after my papers, and carry every one of them away, to the very last written line. This, my Lord, is a kind of snare which I am far from attributing to any other cause than to the baseness of the person who laid it.

A similar circumstance had occurred at St. Helena. Sir Hudson Lowe, after having kept me confined for five weeks, during which he had allowed me every facility to write, wished at my departure to search again amongst my papers; but it was sufficient for me to observe to him how strange it would appear that he had afforded me the facility of confiding to paper ideas which I should otherwise have kept within my own breast. Sir Hudson Lowe instantly gave up the thought; it is an acknowledgment which, in justice to the Governor, I am bound to make.

What appears most strange, my Lord, and what will hardly be credited, is, that your messenger should have packed up all my papers, in spite of my remonstrances, and have taken them away from me, without writing down an inventory of them, or attending to any of the formalities required by all received notions of jurisprudence throughout the world. Persuaded that this deviation from first principles proceeded from the ignorance of the subaltern, and not from the orders of the Minister, I sought for your own interest, my Lord, to remedy the evil, by obtaining, and hastening to affix my seal to the papers, in order that you might rectify in time the errors of your agents. I am anxious that your Lordship should appreciate the motive of this proceeding; it was solely intended, as will be made evident to you by the nature of my papers, to afford you an insight into my character and a proof of my moderation. I had the honour of writing to Lord Sidmouth to this effect, on the spur of the moment, and of pointing out to him, at the same time, how necessary my presence would be at the examination of my papers, which are very easily understood by the most trifling explanation from myself, but which might remain quite unintelligible in my absence. Lord Sidmouth has not honoured me with a reply.

Your agent, however, my Lord, outstepping the bounds of that 321decency and generous feeling which particularly characterize the individuals of your nation, contrived to add more bitterness to his mission than could well be imagined. After having offended me once, by grossly insulting the person whom I venerate above all others in this world, he heaped upon myself every expression of insult which language affords, for no other reason than that I would not enter into conversation with him. He had received your orders to guard me; but could he suppose that you wished to extend your power so far as to force me to associate with him? This man had an assistant, of whom I have no reason to complain, although he took a part in inflicting the treatment I experienced; I could, however, occasionally remark a certain reserve in him towards me; and he was besides urged on and excited by the other.

Your messenger, my Lord, in signifying to me, in the middle of the night, the order for my removal, left me no other choice than Calais or Ostend. I had hardly recovered from my surprise, when I had to make an immediate decision. A few hours afterwards, I asked, upon further reflection, whether I could not be allowed to go to America, or to some other part of the Continent. The messenger replied in the negative, and that he had already written to the Government, to communicate the choice I had made; I again urged the subject, but he assured me he was persuaded that all my endeavours would be vain. Could his assertion be true, my Lord? I have difficulty in believing it; nevertheless it determined my fate.

I have seen, but have not been allowed to hold in my hands, the order of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, which commands me instantly to quit England. Was this refusal a mere matter of form? Was it a precaution taken? Would this royal act involve any responsibility, or was it feared that I might pride myself upon it? And, in fact, could it be otherwise, when, without laying any crime to my charge, it seemed only to punish an act of the most rare devotedness, that of a servant sacrificing himself with his master when fortune had deserted him.

My Lord, when your Lordship limited my choice, I selected Ostend in preference to Calais, from pure motives of delicacy suggested to me by tender love of my country; it would have been too painful to me that my countrymen should ever be accused of having persecuted me for a virtuous action. This conduct on their part might perhaps, however, have been at least excusable; on yours, my Lord, my removal from England proceeded from a mere caprice, a severity that nothing can palliate.

I am now, however, upon the Continent, where I have been thrown by you against my will. Allow me, my Lord, to pause here for a moment. I know every circumstance of my life; and happily there is not a corner in Europe where I may not tread with an easy heart, an open countenance, and a firm step. But you, my Lord, who neither have the leisure, nor the will, nor the means of inquiring into my obscure career, if by chance I had been brought into danger through the effects of political dissensions, during the 322existence of which, all actions that are proscribed are not therefore crimes, if I had fallen a sacrifice, I should have been called a victim; but you, my Lord, who would have delivered me up, what name might not have been given to you? Were you not exposing yourself to have it said of you, ‘Whilst the English legislature prides itself upon having abolished the trade of black slaves in the islands of America, the British Ministers are trading in white flesh on the continent of Europe!’

My Lord, in consequence of the impulse which your Lordship has given to my destinies, I have been seized and conducted across the kingdom of the Netherlands like a malefactor; and, though in a dying state, have been treated without mercy. I have loudly complained of this conduct. On this subject, my Lord, shall I venture to repeat to you some unpleasant truths that were told me? But why not? All your countrymen have a right to tell the truth fearlessly to a British Minister, and this is much more incumbent upon a foreigner who has such just motives of complaint and sorrow. Well then, my Lord, when I complained of so revolting an abuse of power against me, I was asked from what part of the world I came, and whence proceeded my astonishment? Some persons said to me, ‘We have a good King; do not find fault with him; he is only the instrument that strikes you; the tyrannical hand that wields it is farther off.’ Others added, ‘The English nation had settlements in India a long time since for the benefit of its commerce, and the English Ministers are now establishing some upon the Continent to favour their despotism. When their authority is eluded in England, they protract it upon the Continent. They have placed amongst us their instruments of torture and their executioners, and you will neither escape from their inquisition, nor from the punishments it inflicts.’ Then followed a volley of animadversions and imprecations against England and Englishmen. No doubt, my Lord, that people who are wise, well informed, and free from passions, are not mistaken on this subject, and know with whom alone the blame rests. They can very well distinguish the excellence of the laws from their violation, and from the abuse of power; they know that true Englishmen abhor and detest all species of tyranny, whether at home or abroad; that in their island they are the most ardent defenders, the most zealous guardians, of the great and noble truths which upon our Continent are the objects of our hopes and of our wishes. But the majority of the people do not consider the question so closely; they find it the shortest way to attack a whole nation, and to involve it in one general condemnation.

But, my Lord, what is, after all, my crime? I demand what can be the motive of so cruel a persecution? and the countries in which that persecution has been continued by the impulse which you have given, unite with me in demanding it. Every where the authorities, who have exercised their jurisdiction over my person, have carefully avoided seeing me. The rights which I possessed would have embarrassed them, and they could not have assigned 323any motive for their acts. They are ignorant of the origin and of the cause of them. From the Cape of Good Hope to the place where I now am, whenever I have asked what sentence had been pronounced, what charge had been preferred against me, I have been answered by the production of an order; and when I have required a motive to be assigned, I have received no answer at all.

My Lord, I had the honour of addressing to you from the Cape the following observations, which I now repeat:—What rational objection can be raised against the wish which I expressed to inhabit your country, and to reside among you? Was it feared that I should converse and write upon political subjects? But if I had, what inconvenience could result therefrom to England? Was it feared that I should publish unwelcome complaints respecting your administration? But is there a spot on the Continent where I am forbidden to give vent to those complaints, and where I should not find every body disposed to listen to them? Placed on your own territory, and within your reach, was not that the situation in which you would have had the surest hold upon me, and the greatest authority over me? If I became guilty, had you not your general laws? If I became obnoxious, had you not your private laws; and, moreover, your Alien Bill? Lastly, and above all, you had, as a pledge of my reserve and moderation, my wish to remain near you. That wish was great, my Lord, and I will tell you why. My residence in England would have enabled me to fulfil the hopes and the destiny of my life, by devoting myself for ever to procure (consistently with your regulations, and through the legal channel allowed by you) some consolations and comforts for him for whom I mourn. I suppose, my Lord, that you and your colleagues have a sufficient degree of elevation of mind to fulfil, on this occasion, a political duty, and at the same time, to remain strangers to all motives of personal animosity. Having secured the safe custody of the captive, you cannot grudge the enjoyment of any indulgence that is not a burden to you; you will, on the contrary, facilitate the means of his obtaining them. I implore, therefore, to be allowed to undertake the sacred duty of bestowing them; my heart feels the want of fulfilling it: I will do it in good faith. I should have convinced you, my Lord, had I been able to see you, and I do not despair yet; I still solicit again....

I had also considered, my Lord, I must confess, that another chance of my admission existed in the wish which your Lordship must have felt to take advantage of so favourable an opportunity to learn the truth. I thought that both your situation and your character would prompt you to do so. And what conflicting evidence would you not thus have obtained to direct you in your noble functions as jury! I should have replied to all your questions with candour and without passion; I should have convinced you quietly, if you had wished it, of all the errors in which the multiplicity and importance of your affairs compel you to remain with respect to us. I have read in three different papers, 324the Times, the New Times, and the London Chronicle, your answer to Lord Holland, on his motion relative to St. Helena; and I can assure you that almost every line of it is founded on error.

God forbid, my Lord, that I should suspect that you do not believe yourself what you state! But your information has been erroneous. Your Lordship has affirmed, for instance, that none of the relations of the Emperor Napoleon had written to him; whereas I myself delivered to him three or four letters, sent by you through Sir Hudson Lowe, from Madame Mère, from the Princess Borghese, and from his brother Lucien. The fact in itself, my Lord, is unimportant; but the want of accuracy on this point must excite your doubts upon others, and corroborate, in some degree, my assertions upon the remainder. Again, that part of your speech concerning myself is so garbled that, notwithstanding the unfavourable prejudice which I have a right to entertain against Sir Hudson Lowe, I am persuaded that he will himself exclaim against the incorrectness of the statement. Be that as it may, my Lord, in the heat of opposition, and of conflicting parties, two true conclusions are invariably drawn from the same fact, and my conclusion cannot possibly be precisely yours. The public are aware of this, and would therefore have wished to establish theirs upon official documents. But you have thought proper to refuse to produce these documents; will you not have thereby fixed public opinion?

My Lord, it is time to sum up, after so long a statement.

1.—I demand justice and redress for the abuse of power, the arbitrary and tyrannic act, by which Lord Charles Somerset deprived me of my liberty during so long a period, and in direct violation of the laws of his country.

2.—I demand justice and redress for the irregular forms with which all my papers have been seized in the Thames, without an inventory having been made of them, notwithstanding all my remonstrances.

3.—I demand justice and redress for having been sent to the Continent as a captive, in open violation of all principles, and, in consequence of an impulse given, or instructions transmitted, obliged to pass through the Netherlands and adjacent countries as a malefactor.

4.—I demand the examination and prompt restitution of my papers seized in the Thames. Most of them had been respected by Sir Hudson Lowe, and others are absolutely necessary to me in the daily occurrences of my domestic affairs; they contain all my titles of property and fortune; without them I am deprived of every thing.

5.—I demand the restitution of my papers of St. Helena, the inventory of which, duly certified and signed by Sir Hudson Lowe, is amongst the papers that have been seized in the Thames. My papers of St. Helena consist almost solely of a manuscript, in which are recorded, day by day, during eighteen months, but as 325yet confusedly, and without being settled, the conversations, the words, and perhaps even the gestures, of him who so long guided the destinies of Europe.

This manuscript, sacred by its nature and its object, was unknown, and was intended to remain unknown to all. I allowed Sir Hudson Lowe to peruse it sufficiently to be convinced of its inoffensive nature in political matters. On arriving at the Cape, I had the honour to write to the Prince Regent, through the channel of Ministers, as well as to Ministers themselves, to place these precious materials under their special protection; I appealed to them in the name of justice and of history. They are, according to all laws, my sacred property, the property of my children, and of posterity.

6.—Lastly, and above all, I demand the restoration of the letter which the Emperor Napoleon did me the honour to address to me in my prison, in the Island of St. Helena. A letter entirely foreign to politics, read by the Governor of St. Helena, read by Ministers themselves, if they have thought proper to do so, cannot, consistently with any code of laws, be taken from the person whose property it is, however strong it may be in the tenor of its confidential expressions. This sacred and precious object is the reward of my life, a title for my children, a monument for my family.

My Lord, as I am by nature and reflection a friend to propriety and moderation, it is to you that I first address the enumeration of my grievances. It is of you alone that I quietly ask their redress.^[34] But if your Lordship should not think proper to reply, it is then to your tribunal that I shall feel compelled to appeal; after that to the tribunal of public opinion; and lastly, and above all, to that dread tribunal, which, holding the balance with an equal hand between tyrants and victims, secures in eternity the infallible triumph of all rights and the final chastisement of all injustice.

“I have the honour to be,” &c.

It was about this time that my petition to the British Parliament also appeared. I had forwarded it from the deserts of Tygerberg to London: but, whether it did not reach its address, or whether obstacles occurred to its being brought forward, not a word had been said about it. My return brought the circumstance to light. A member of the House of Commons, struck with the sensation which its publication had just caused, offered to present it himself; and for that purpose a paper was 326sent to me from England, to which I affixed my signature. But this formality was not sufficient; and this circumstance, added perhaps to other considerations, prevented its being laid before the House. I transcribe it here. It is so nearly allied to my subject that I trust I shall be forgiven for so doing. Besides, that document and others which are found in this volume have been mutilated, disfigured, and re-translated into French from a foreign text: I am therefore interested in their being restored in all their integrity. Besides, if they were not found here they might be considered as apocryphal, and that is what I wish to avoid.

PETITION TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND.

A simple individual, a helpless stranger, presumes to raise his voice among you, Representatives of the people of England; but he invokes you in the name of humanity, of justice,—in the name of your glory. Can he speak in vain? must he not be heard? Cast out from St. Helena, forced away from the greatest monument of the vicissitudes of human life that ever existed, I approach you to paint to you his situation, his sufferings. Snatched suddenly and unexpectedly from his presence, deprived of all communication, my words, my ideas, will be all my own: they will have no other source but my heart. Perhaps the lofty spirit of him who is the object of them will be irritated by the step which I am taking at this moment; thinking that here below he ought not, he cannot, appeal from his sufferings, but to God alone. Perhaps he will demand of me who has committed the cares and the interests of his life to me? It matters not: my love for him will have caused my weakness. I feel myself already too far from his heroic influence; my heart can no longer contain the ills of which it has been the witness. They open for themselves a passage; they force me to cry out.

You have banished in the deserts of the ocean him whose magnanimous confidence brought him, freely and from choice, to live among you, under the protection of your laws, which he considered all-powerful. No doubt you sought in your determination only what you conceived to be useful; you did not pretend to be just; otherwise it might be demanded of you, who put him in your power? who gave you the right of judging him? upon what ground have you condemned him? whom have you heard in his defence?... But you have made the law.... It exists; I respect it. I am not entitled to discuss the principle. I will refrain from all murmur; my protest shall not escape from my heart. You shall hear now only the vexations with which your decisions have been attended, and, no doubt, contrary to your intentions. Representatives of Great Britain, you have said you only wished to 327secure the person of the Emperor Napoleon, and to ensure his detention.—This object attained, you proposed that every thing should be lavished upon him that could soften and alleviate what you have considered the work, the obligation of policy:—such have been the spirit, the letter of your laws, the expression of your debates, the wishes of your nation, the sentiments of its honour. Well, then! only the severe part of your intentions has reached the illustrious captive upon his frightful rock. Happy, however, still, if they never had been transgressedtransgressed. But the clouds which hang over his island are less dense, less dark, than the moral and physical pains which are heaped upon his head.

Under the vain pretence of apprehensions purely imaginary, every day has seen new restrictions. His proud spirit has every day brooked new outrages; all exercise has become impossible to him; all visits, all conversations, have been nearly interdicted. Thus privations of every kind, vexations of every nature, unite against him with the extreme insalubrity of a climate, at once humid and burning, with the dull monotony of a sky without colours or seasons. They contract every instant, in a frightful manner, the circle of his life! He is compelled to keep his chamber. They are inflicting on him his death!

Did you then intend all these things? No, undoubtedly; and what motives could justify them? The fear of an escape? Then let them call together military and naval men, competent judges, that they may consult their experience, that they may learn their opinions, and let them cease to surrender such an object to the discretion of a single man, who, taking his terrors for his guide, will occupy his time every day with combating phantoms which his own terrified imagination may create, without reflecting that he cannot destroy all chances, or reach them all, but by causing death. At Longwood all escape is held impossible; no one there thinks of it. Certainly, every one would wish to accomplish the enterprise at the expense of his life: death would appear sweet for so glorious a result. But how elude the officers who are constantly on the watch? escape the soldiers who line the shore? descend perpendicular rocks? throw one’s self, as it were, into the vast ocean? clear a first line of boats? a second of ships of war? when one is overlooked from all the heights, where one may be surrounded, pursued with signals every instant, and in all directions? And what mode of embarkation could be hazarded? There is none within reach of the shore. In what vessel could refuge be sought? There is not one far or near; all foreign sail, even those of your own nation, become the prey of your cruisers, if they approach without urgent motives the accursed isle!

With such precautions and under such circumstances, is not then the whole island a prison sufficiently secure? Can it be necessary to fill it incessantly with prisons within prisons? And if so many difficulties could be overcome, which is impossible, the immensity of the seas and almost every land remain still a new prison?

Now who would induce men in their sound senses to dream of 328such ridiculous attempts? Who at Longwood could entertain thoughts so madly desperate? Besides, the Emperor Napoleon has still the same views, the same desires, which he declared when he came with confidence freely and in good faith among you: ‘A retreat and repose under the protection of your positive laws, or those of America.’ This is what he wished, this is what he wishes still, what he always demands.

If then the island of St. Helena, from its nature, is not already a sufficient prison—if it has not the advantage of combining safety with indulgence, you have been deceived in your choice and your intentions. For what purpose send us to die miserably in a foreign climate? For what purpose all your additional expenses? For what purpose your numerous garrison and its large staff? For what purpose your naval establishment? For what purpose the restrictions imposed upon the commerce of that unfortunate isle? There were many points in your European dominions where you could have kept us without expense, and where we should have considered ourselves less unfortunate! If that island, on the contrary, from its nature, and with the aid of the precautions above stated, presented in itself every thing that human wisdom and prudence can conceive necessary, then would not all aggravating conditions be so many useless vexations, tyrannical and barbarous acts executed against your intention? For it was not your intention to torture Napoleon—to make him die by inches; and yet it is but too true that he is perishing from the incessant wounds of every day, of every hour, of every minute.

If you chose to behold in him a simple prisoner, and not the object of the ostracism of kings, a king himself—if you have designed to give him only a common prison, and not to choosechoose for him a place where the asperities of his exile might be mitigated—if it was intended to commit him to a gaoler, and not to an officer of high rank, who, by his habits of business and of the world, would know how to unite what he owed to the safety of the captive with the respect and regard which he commands—if it was intended to pursue hatred and vengeance, and all the narrow and vulgar passions—if it was intended only, in fine, to intrust to the climate the death of the illustrious enemy, to charge nature with an act which no one durst execute himself—if all this was intended, I stop; I leave nothing more to say; I have already said too much.

But if, in the spirit of your Bill itself, you meant to accompany your political act, as you in fact did, with all the intentions of a great, noble, and honourable nation, I may continue: for you must have meant all the good that circumstances can permit; interdicted every ill that necessity did not command. You never meant that the prisoner should be deprived of all exercise, by the needless imposition of conditions or forms which would make that recreation a torment.

You have not wished that the nature of his words, the length of his sentences, should be prescribed to him, you have not wished that his original circuit should be abridged upon the pretence that he 329did not make daily use of its extent; you have not wished that he should be forced to confine himself to his chamber, that he might not find himself in the midst of intrenchments and palisades, with which his garden is ridiculously surrounded.

Now, all these things exist; they are renewed every day, although they are considered useless, and although a great many of your countrymen condemn and lament them.—You did not wish that, to the great detriment of his health and his comforts, he should be condemned to a wretched, small, inconvenient dwelling: while the government had large and fine houses both in town and country, which would have been much more commodious and more appropriate, and would have saved the sending of the famous palace, or to speak much more correctly, of the immense quantity of rough planks, now rotting unused upon the shore, because it has been found that it would require from seven to eight years to complete the intended edifice. You cannot have meant that, in spite of the sums which you have devoted to them, the necessaries of life, all the means of subsistence, furnished daily at Longwood, should be of the worst kind, while others could have those of the best quality; you did not mean that Napoleon should be so far outraged as to attempt to force him to discuss the little details of his own expenditure, that he should be called upon to produce a surplus when he had none; that, in default of his so doing, he should be threatened with insufferable reductions; that he should be forced to desire, in his indignation, ‘To let him be quiet; that he asked for nothing; that when he should be hungry he would go and seat himself among those brave fellows whose tents he perceived at a distance, who would not repulse the oldest soldier in Europe.’—You did not intend that Napoleon should find himself thereby constrained to sell his plate piece-meal, to supply the deficiency of every month, and that he should be reduced to the necessity of accepting what some faithful servants were happy enough to be able to lay at his feet.

O Englishmen! Is it thus they can treat in your name, him who has governed Europe, disposed of so many thrones, created so many kings! Do you not fear the loud complaint of history? Suppose it should hereafter say, ‘They deceived him to get possession of his person, and they afterwards grudged him the means of subsistence.’ Will you suffer your sentiments, your character, your honour, to be thus compromised?compromised? Is this then your Bill, your intentions? And what connexion have such unbecoming measures with security? You never intended that authority should make a puerile and barbarous study of incessantly recalling, by words, regulations, and acts, that which it would have been delicate never to mention; by repeating to us every day that we deceived ourselves strangely respecting our position; by rigidly interdicting all unusual respect; in even punishing, as we have been told, those whose habits had inadvertently led them to shew such respect; by restricting the journals furnished us to those which might be the most disagreeable; by voluntarily procuring 330us libels; and by removing or withholdingwithholding, on the contrary, favourable works; in fine, by imposing upon us the literal form of the declaration by which we were to purchase the slavery and the happiness of attending a revered object; by compelling us to admit into it denominations contrary to our habits and to our laws, thus taking advantage of our own hands to degrade the august object whom we surrounded; and yet we were obliged to do it, because, upon our unanimous refusal, we were threatened with being all torn from our pleasing employment, instantly thrown on board ship, and carried to the Cape of Good Hope.—How can these cruel and tyrannical measures contribute to security?

It will be hardly believed that Napoleon, on inquiring if he might be allowed to write to the Prince Regent, was answered by authority that his letter would not be suffered to pass, unless it was open; or that it would be opened to ascertain its contents: a proceeding which reason rejects, as equally insulting to the two august persons.

St. Helena had been chosen for us, we were told, in order that we might be able to enjoy there a certain degree of liberty and some indulgence.—But we cannot speak to any one; we are forbidden to write to any one whomsoever; we are restricted in our most petty domestic affairs. Ditches and intrenchments surround our dwellings; an authority without control governs us. And St. Helena was chosen in order to allow us some indulgence! But what prison in England, then, could have been worse for us? Certainly, there is none there at this day that would not seem to us a blessing. We should find ourselves in a Christian land; we should breathe European air. The control of a superior authority would have sheltered us from personal resentments, from momentary irritation, or even an error in judgment.

It has been insinuated to the officers of your nation that they are not to present themselves before him whom they guard; or they have been forbidden to do so. The English themselves, whatever may be the rank and the confidence which they enjoy, have been forbidden to approach us, and to enter into conversation with us, without formalities which are equivalent to an interdiction, lest we might represent to them the ill usage heaped upon us—a precaution useless with respect to security; but which proves the jealous care with which we are prevented from communicating the truth. Our efforts on this subject have been made a crime; as if to inform you of the truth, particularly where it interests your honour, your character, was not doing you a service.

You certainly never intended to allow such a tyranny over our thoughts and sentiments, as to insinuate to us, or inform us, that, if we continued to express ourselves freely in our letters to our relatives, to our friends, we should be torn from the presence of Napoleon, and banished from the Island. Yet it is precisely this circumstance which has brought about my deportation, by causing me to forward, clandestinely, the very letters which I had in the 331first instance, intended for the Governor, and which I would have sent to him, had it not been for his vexatious intimation—an intimation gratuitously tyrannical—since these letters were sent open to Ministers, accompanied, if necessary, by the notes of the local authority, that they might be detained by the Ministers, if they were improper; or even delivered up to the laws, if they were criminal: and since, at all events, they must have in their eyes the merit of being a further means of coming at the truth.

Certainly, you never intended that those who had obtained the favour of staying with Napoleon should find themselves within the penalties of the laws, but excluded from their benefit. This is, however, what has been positively signified to us. You did not intend that my most secret, and most sacred, papers should be seized; and, though I had allowed them to be read cursorily, in order to shew their nature, that they should be taken from me, and that I should not be allowed to put my seal upon them. You never intended that a barbarous sport should be made in my case, of whatever is most holy and most sacred among you; that, in contempt of my constant claims to be restored to liberty, or brought to trial; that, in despite of my reiterated offers to submit myself voluntarily, beforehand, to all the privations, even arbitrary, which might be imposed upon me in England, I should be kept prisoner at St. Helena; that I should be sent from that Island to the Cape of Good Hope, to be brought back in the course of time, from the Cape to St. Helena; that I should be carried a prisoner over the vast extent of sea, in a frail vessel, to the great injury of the health of my son, whose life was in danger, to the peril of my own life, which has been afflicted with infirmities that must accompany me to the grave,—if, indeed, they do not plunge me into it before my time.

It was not your intention that, on my arrival at the Cape, the Governor should detain me there arbitrarily, without examination, without inquiry, without inquest, and cause me to wither there in the pangs of sorrow, of delay, and of despair, upon the ridiculous pretence of sending to a distance of two thousand leagues to inquire of my natural judges, the ministers to whom I so earnestly solicited to be delivered up, if it would be right to send me to them; and executing beforehand upon me, by that single act, a sentence a thousand times more terrible than could have been that of my judges, viz. depriving me for several months of my liberty, detaining me the whole of that time a captive at the extremity of the earth, separated from my family, from my friends, from my interests, painfully wearing out in the desert the few days which remain to me. Surely, under the empire of positive laws, no one could thus tyrannically sport with the liberty, the life, the happiness of individuals.

O Englishmen! if such acts should remain unpunished, your excellent laws would be no more than an empty name. You would carry terror to the extremities of the earth and there would no longer be either liberty or justice among you.

332Such are the grievances which I had to make known to you, and which are developed, with others, in a letter hereto annexed,^[35] which, on leaving St. Helena, I sent to the Governor, in the hope that it might produce a reformation.

Many of these grievances would perhaps have deserved to pass unnoticed by us; nevertheless, I have done myself the violence of laying them before you. There are none of them so trivial as not to interest your honour. And what could be the causes of such measures? Whence can proceed these gradual attacks, these continued aggravations. How can they have been justified? We know not.

Not, however, that the ruling power at St. Helena denies the danger to the health of the captive, the imminent peril of his life, the probable and speedy issue of such a state of things. ‘It will have been his own wish,’ they content themselves with coldly observing; ‘It will be his own fault.’ But do they act discreetly in this? To confess that Napoleon seeks death, is it not confessing that they have rendered life intolerable to him? ‘Moreover,’ continue they, ‘why refuse to take the necessary exercise, because an officer must accompany him? What is there in this formality so hateful, so painful? Why does he insist upon making it a matter of such great importance?’ But who can arrogate to himself the right of judging of the feelings of the illustriousillustrious victim? Napoleon debars himself, and he is silent; what would they have more? Besides, it has been reported, a thousand times, it is neither the colour of the coat nor the difference of nation which creates repugnance; but the nature of the thing itself, and its inevitable effects. If, in such exercise, the benefit of the body were greatly below the sufferings of the mind, would this exercise be an advantage?

But it is further insinuated, (for there is not one identical scale for all minds and all sentiments) ‘Why such particular regard, why such extraordinary cares and attentions? After all he is a captive, of distinction perhaps, but what is he more? what are his claims?’

What he is, and what are his claims, I will proceed to state.

Napoleon’s destiny has been the first, the most astonishing in history. He is the man of renown, of prodigies; the hero of ages. His name is in every mouth; his actions excite every imagination; his career remains without a parallel. When Cæsar meditated the seizure of the sovereign power in his country, Cæsar was already the first man in it, by his birth and his riches; when Alexander undertook to subjugate Asia, Alexander was a king, and the son of a king who had paved the way for his successes: but Napoleon, rushing from the crowd to govern the world, presents himself alone without any other auxiliary than his genius. His first steps in his career are so many miracles; he immediately 333covers himself with immortal laurels, and reigns from that instant over every mind: the idol of his soldiers, whose glory he has raised to the skies—the hope of his country, which, in her pangs already feels that he will be her liberator; and this expectation is not disappointed. At her expiring voice, Napoleon, interrupting his mysterious destinies, hastens from the banks of the Nile; traverses the seas, at the risk of his liberty and of his reputation; and lands alone upon the French shore. Every heart leaps at seeing him again. Acclamations, public rejoicing, and triumph attend him into the capital. At sight of him the different factions droop, parties blend themselves into one; he rules, and the revolution is chained.

The mere weight of opinion, the influence of one single man, effected every thing. He had no occasion to fight; not one drop of blood was shed. Nor was this the only time that such a prodigy distinguished his life.

At his voice, the principles of disorganization vanish; wounds are closed; stains are effaced. Creation seems once more to issue from chaos.

All the revolutionary follies disappear; grand and noble truths alone remain. Napoleon knows no party; no prejudice attaches to his administration. All opinions, all sects, all talents, form themselves in a group about him; a new order of things commences.

The nation recovers breath, and blesses him; the people of other states admire him; kings respect him; every one is happy,—every one fells himself once more honoured in being a Frenchman.

Shortly, he is raised to the throne; he becomes Emperor. Every one knows the rest. Every one knows with what lustre, with what power, he dignified his crown. A sovereign by the choice of the people, consecrated by the head of religion, sanctioned by the hand of victory, what chief of a dynasty ever united titles so powerful, so noble, so pure? Let them be examined.

All the Sovereigns were allied to him by blood or treaties. All nations acknowledged him. Englishmen, if you alone are an exception, that exception only belongs to your policy; it was only a matter of form. Moreover, you are precisely those who have seen in Napoleon the most sacred, the most indisputable titles. Other powers may perhaps have yielded to necessity. You, you have done nothing but submit to principles, to your conviction, to the truth; for such are your doctrines that Napoleon, four times elected by a great nation, must necessarily, in spite of your public denials, have found himself a sovereign in the bottom of your hearts. Look into your consciences!... Now, Napoleon has lost nothing but his throne; a reverse has snatched it from him; success would have fixed it with him for ever. He has seen eleven hundred thousand men march against him. Their generals, their sovereigns, have every where proclaimed that his person was their sole object. What a destiny! He fell; but he lost only power: all 334his august attributes remain and command the respect of mankind.

A thousand recollections of glory still crown him; misfortune renders him sacred, and, in this state of things, the man of real feeling does not hesitate to consider him more venerable upon his rock than at the head of six hundred thousand men, imposing laws.

Such are his claims.

In vain would narrow minds, or perfidious hearts, attempt to charge him, as is the custom, with being the offensive cause of all the evils, of all the troubles, of which we have been the witnesses or the victims. The time of libels is past, the truth must have its turn. Already the clouds of falsehood are clearing up before the sun of futurity. A time will come when the world will render him complete justice; for passions die with contemporaries; but actions live with posterity, which has no bounds. Then it will be said that the great actions, the great benefits, came from him; that the evils were those of time and fate.

Who does not now begin to see that, notwithstanding his vast power, he never had the choice of his destiny or of his means? that, constantly armed for defence, he retarded his destruction only by a constant succession of new prodigies; that in this terrible conflict he was placed under the necessity of subduing every thing, in order to survive and save the great national cause? Who among you, Englishmen, dreams of denying, above all, this last truth? Has not war for life been often proclaimed among you; and did not your secret allies, in the bottom of their hearts, feel that which your position permitted you to declare aloud? Do you not still boast that you would have carried on the war as long as he maintained himself? Thus every time that he proposed peace to you, whether his offers were sincere, or whether they were not, it was of little importance to you: your decision was fixed. What course then remained for him, and what reproach could be uttered against him, which you yourselves did not already deserve? And who at this day would still pretend to bring forward the vulgar reproach of his ambition? What then has it had so new, so extraordinary, and above all, so exclusive in his person?

Did it stifle sentiment in him, when he said to the illustrious Fox, that in future Europe would be so united by laws, manners, and blood, that there could be no war in it, but civil war?

Was it irresistible, when, describing to us all his useless efforts to prevent the rupture of the treaty of Amiens, he concluded that England, notwithstanding all the advantages of to-day, would, however, have gained more by having adhered to it; that all Europe would have gained by it; that he alone, perhaps, his name and his glory, would have lost by it?

Was it an over-greedy and common ambition, when at Chatillon he preferred the chance of losing a throne to the certainty 335of possessing it at the price of the glory and independence of the nation?

Was it incapable of alteration, when he has been heard to say, ‘I returned from the Isle of Elba quite another man. They did not think it possible, and they were wrong. I am not a man to do things with a bad grace, or by halves. I would have been at once the monarch of the constitution and of peace?’

Was it insatiable, when, after the victory of which he considered himself certain at Waterloo, his first word to the vanquished was to have been the offer of the treaty of Paris, and a sincere and solid union, which, blending the interests of the two nations, would have insured the empire of the seas to England, and forced the continent to repose?

Was it blind, and without motives, when, after his disaster, passing in review the political consequences which he had so often foreseen, and trembling at the probabilities of the future, he exclaimed, ‘There is no nation, not even the English, who may not one day have to lament their victory at Waterloo?’

And who can now think of reverting to this charge of ambition? It will not be the people, all astonished as they are, at the conduct of those who have overthrown him. Will it be the Sovereigns? They talked of nothing but justice before the battle, but what use have they made of the victory? Let them cease, then, to repeat these odious charges. They might be an excellent pretence; they would be pitiful justifications. Let them content themselves with having conquered!...

But I grow warm. Whither do the force of truth, the warmth of sentiment, the impulse of the heart, carry me? I return to my subject.

Representatives of Great Britain, take this state of things into fresh consideration. Justice, humanity, your honour, your glory, demand it from you. St. Helena is insupportable; Napoleon’s stay there is equivalent to certain and premeditated death; you could not wish to make yourselves responsible for this in the eyes of futurity. Napoleon was, during twenty years, your terrible enemy; he will remind you of Hannibal and of Roman infamy.... You would not stain with such a spot the noble pages of your present history. Save your administration the odious, the horrible, censure of having trafficked with the blood of a prisoner. History furnishes several examples of it. They all excite our horror; and what an increase of dignity would be reserved for Napoleon’s character! For it is easy to predict, when Napoleon shall be no more, when the crime has been accomplished, he will become the man of the people; then he will be only the victim, the martyr, of Kings. The inevitable march of the force of things and of the sentiments of man so wills it. Save our modern annals from such a scandal and its dangerous consequences. Save royalty from its own blindness. Save the most sacred interests of the great Monarchs, in whose name the victim is under execution. Save royal Majesty in the first of its attributes, the most holy of 336its characters, its inviolability. If kings themselves lay their hands upon the representatives of God on earth, what restraint, what respect, can they intend to oppose to the attempts of the people? There is no prosperity here below, secure from time or from fortune. The circle of vicissitudes envelops all thrones. This cause is the cause of all kings, present and to come. An anointed of the Lord degraded, debased, tortured, immolated, cannot, must not, be other than an object of indignation, of horror for history, of terror for kings!

Recal Napoleon among you; let him come to find repose under the protection of your laws; that they may enjoy his distinguished homage. Do not deprive them of their noblest triumph. And who will prevent you?

Will it be your first decision? But, in recalling it, you would shew to every eye that you were only then guided by the force of circumstances, the law of necessity.

Will it be your domestic repose? But the thought of that would be foolish; the doubt an injury, an outrage, to your institutions, to your manners, to your whole population.

Will it be the safety of Europe? But truths of circumstance have their day, and it belongs only to the vulgar to perpetuate them, to bring them forward long after they cease to exist. Napoleon, in his omnipotence, might be the terror of Europe; reduced to his single person, he can no longer be any thing but an object of astonishment and meditation. And, in truth, what could he effect at this day, even with power, against the safety of Russia, that of Austria, of Prussia, or your own?

Finally, can there be any fear of his secret intentions? But Napoleon now has no wish but for repose. In his own eyes, in his own mouth, his wonderful career has already all the distance of ages. He no longer considers himself of this world; his destinies are accomplished. A soul of such elevated power is of no value but to lead to celebrity, to glory. And what mortal has accumulated more of these? Does not the measure seem above the imagination of man? Have not even his reverses been abundant sources of glory to him? Does there exist any thing to be compared with the return from the Isle of Elba? And, more lately, what an apotheosis is his; the regrets of a great nation. A great number among you have traversed our provinces, penetrated to our fire-sides; you know our secrets, our sentiments. If the country was less dear to him than glory, what has he to desire after what he has left behind? His advanced age, his lost health, his disgust at the vicissitudes of life, perhaps that which he feels for men, the satiety, above all, of the great objects pursued here below, leave him nothing new or desirable but a tranquil asylum, a happy and sweet repose. He demands them from you, Englishmen, and you owe them to the heroic magnanimity with which he gave you the preference over all his other enemies. Learn, dare, will to be just. Recal him, and you will have secured the only glory which seems to be wanting in your present condition. 337The admirers, the real friends, of your liberties and of your laws expect this of you; they demand it. You have baffled those who delight in boasting of all the benefits that flow from your noble constitution.

‘Where, then,’ say their adversaries, with a triumphant irony, ‘is that generosity, that elevation of sentiment, that inflexibility of principle, that public morality, that force of opinion, which you told us distinguished that free people, in some sort superior to the sovereignty itself? Where are the so much vaunted fruits of this classic ground of liberal institutions? All this pompous scaffolding, these imaginary pictures, have then disappeared before the dangers which a single man has created; or rather before the hatred and the vengeance which he has inspired. And what more could that absolute power which we defend, and you decry so much, have done? It would have done less, perhaps, but most assuredly it would not have been able to do more. It would have shewn itself sensible, no doubt, of the noble and magnanimous confidence of its enemy, or, if it had so decided, on the ground of utility, it would, at least have shewn more energy, candour, and elevation in its injustice. It would not have descended to palliate its wrong in the eyes of the people, by associating its neighbours gratuitously in it. It would have avoided above all the leaving itself entangled in this distressing dilemma: Either, when you concluded your iniquitous treaty of ostracism, the victim was not in your power, and you had the cowardice to hold out the hand to him that you might seize him; or, you had him already in your power, and you sacrificed your glory, the honour of your country, the sanctity, the majesty, of your laws to foreign solicitations.’solicitations.’

Englishmen, your friends are obliged to turn to you for an answer. They await it.

As for me, in spite of a fatal experience of two years, such is still my confidence in your principles, that I still reckon upon your justice; and I have dared to speak before you, consulting only my own heart, persuaded that it will be in the midst of you that I shall see the defence and the talents worthy of this great and noble cause arise. However you may decide in other respects, my own destinies are fixed. Wherever the victim dwells I wish to go, to devote at his feet the few days that still remain to me;^[36] and in this tribute of sentiment I shall think I have done nothing but for myself. When I followed him at first, I rather obeyed honour, I followed glory:—but now I bewail, far from him, all the qualities of the heart that attach man to man. How many of your countrymen have approached him! they would all tell you the same thing. Let them be consulted. Englishmen! is this,

338then, the man who has been portrayed to you? Have you pronounced upon his fate in full possession of the case?

COUNT DE LAS CASES.

My solicitations were not confined to the letters which I addressed to the Allied Sovereigns; my efforts were ardently directed towards every point, and every object I could think of. As soon as I was restored to liberty, I found myself surrounded by the French exiles at Frankfort, who shared my sentiments, and manifested the tenderest sympathy for me. All, not even excepting those who had nothing to spare, save the widow’s mite, offered me all they possessed, not only to provide for the personal wants with which they supposed I had to struggle, but also to promote the sacred object which wholly occupied my mind. At Frankfort I had also the happiness to meet the Countess de Survilliers, whose extreme generosity is only one of the many virtues that adorn her. Finally, some eminent merchants of Frankfort, merely from hearing of my adventures, and from motives of pure sympathy, made me the most generous offers; and even diplomatic individuals, of whom there were many at that time in the town, indirectly conveyed to me proofs of their attention. These circumstances enabled me to learn where the different members of the Emperor’s family were to be found, and to enter immediately into communication with them, so as to adopt the speediest means of ameliorating the condition of him for whose sake I had resolved to exert every effort, and even to sacrifice my life.

On the other hand, I had laid down the rule of writing regularly, on a certain day every month, to the Grand Marshal, in order to obtain such information as would enable me to render myself as useful as possible; and I sent the letter open to the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, with whom I had, by this means, commenced a correspondence, which I conceived to be best calculated to fulfil the object I had in view. I requested that he would send out regularly to Longwood the newspapers, pamphlets, new publications, and various articles of daily use which I specified, or which I begged he 339would himself select, to be paid for by me to his order; this he promised to do.

The Emperor’s mother, brothers, sisters, and all his relations, though I was not particularly acquainted with any of them, except Prince Lucien, immediately answered me in the warmest and most affecting manner. Mine were almost the first authentic tidings they had received from the illustrious victim; and they esteemed themselves happy in finding a channel, by means of which they could transmit to him testimonies of their respect, devotedness, and affection. They wished only to be informed what they had to do. An annual contribution of one hundred and fifty thousand francs was immediately determined on: this sum I conceived to be indispensably necessary for the establishment at Longwood. The amount was divided equally among all, and I already had in my hands the subscriptions of several of the parties, when I had the satisfaction of being enabled to return them, with the request that they might be reserved till a future time, as unforeseen circumstances would render it unnecessary to make use of the money for two or three years. The reason was that there had been found a deposit of several hundred thousand francs belonging to the Emperor, and I esteemed myself happy in being thus early enabled to present to the members of his family a proof of the regularity and reserve with which I acted. But unfortunately I was too precipitate; for the money which had been promised, and was to have been furnished by me, was, either through the mistake or embarrassments of the banker, or the negligence of agents, more than a year in being paid. I was very much vexed and disappointed by this circumstance, for the thirteen bills which I had left with the Grand Marshal on my departure from St. Helena, had been quickly paid away, and fresh drafts had been made on my banker, or on other individuals in London, who allowed the bills to be protested, because they had no funds belonging to me, or had received none from any other individual. This occasioned enormous expense, compromised Longwood, and afforded a subject of ridicule to the English ministerial journals.