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
British 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 same
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 decency
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 existence 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 any 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, the 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 yet 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.
Footnote 34:
This letter was only made public a year after it had been written;
the motive which led to its publication has already been seen, and
will be further explained in the sequel of these pages.
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 sent 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.