_Buonaparte's alleged grievances considered--Right to restrict his
Liberty--Limits allowed Napoleon--Complaints urged by Las Cases
against Sir George Cockburn--Sir Hudson Lowe appointed Governor of
St. Helena--Information given by General Gourgaud to
Government--Agitation of various Plans for Buonaparte's
Escape--Writers on the subject of Napoleon's Residence at St.
Helena--Napoleon's irritating Treatment of Sir Hudson
Lowe--Interviews between them._
Hitherto, as we have prosecuted our task, each year has been a history
which we have found it difficult to contain within the limits of half a
volume; remaining besides conscious, that, in the necessary compression,
we have been obliged to do injustice to the importance of our theme. But
the years of imprisonment which pass so much more slowly to the captive,
occupy, with their melancholy monotony, only a small portion of the page
of history; and the tale of five years of St. Helena, might, so far as
events are concerned, be sooner told than the history of a single
campaign, the shortest which was fought under Buonaparte's auspices. Yet
these years were painfully marked, and indeed embittered, by a train of
irritating disputes betwixt the prisoner and the officer to whom was
committed the important, and yet most delicate, task of restraining his
liberty, and cutting off all prospect of escape; and whose duty it was,
at the same time, to mix the necessary degree of vigilance with as much
courtesy, and we will add kindness, as Napoleon could be prevailed on to
accept.
We have had considerable opportunity to collect information on this
subject, the correspondence of Sir Hudson Lowe with his Majesty's
Government having been opened to our researches by the liberality of
Lord Bathurst, late secretary of state for the colonial department. This
communication has enabled us to speak with confidence respecting the
general principles by which the British Government were guided in their
instructions to Sir Hudson Lowe, and the tenor of these instructions
themselves. We therefore propose to discuss, in the first place, the
alleged grievances of Napoleon, as they arose out of the instructions of
the British Government; reserving as a second subject of discussion, the
farther complaints of the aggravated mode in which these instructions
are alleged to have been executed by the Governor of St. Helena. On the
latter subject our information is less perfect, from the distance of Sir
Hudson Lowe from Europe precluding personal inquiry, and the
impossibility of producing impartial evidence on the subject of a long
train of minute and petty incidents, each of which necessarily demands
investigation, and is the subject of inculpation and defence. We have,
however, the means of saying something upon this subject also.
We have already discussed the circumstances of Napoleon's surrender to
the British, without reserve, qualification, or condition of any kind;
and we have seen, that if he sustained any disappointment in being
detained a prisoner, instead of being considered as a guest, or free
inmate of Britain, it arose from the failure of hopes which he had
adopted on his own calculation, without the slightest encouragement from
Captain Maitland. We doubt greatly, indeed, if his most sanguine
expectations ever seriously anticipated a reception very different from
what he experienced; at least he testified little or no surprise when
informed of his destiny. But, at any rate, he was a prisoner of war,
having acquired by his surrender no right save to claim safety of life
and limb. If the English nation had inveigled Napoleon into a
capitulation, under conditions which they had subsequently broken, he
would have been in the condition of Toussaint, whom, nevertheless, he
immured in a dungeon. Or, if he had been invited to visit the Prince
Regent of England in the character of an ally, had been at first
received with courteous hospitality, and then committed to confinement
as a prisoner, his case would have approached that of Prince Ferdinand
of Spain, trepanned to Bayonne. But we should be ashamed to vindicate
our country by quoting the evil example of our enemy. Truth and
falsehood remain immutable and irreconcilable; and the worst criminal
ought not to be proceeded against according to his own example, but
according to the general rules of justice. Nevertheless, it greatly
diminishes our interest in a complaint, if he who prefers it has himself
been in the habit of meting to others with the same unfair weight and
measure, which he complains of when used towards himself.
Napoleon, therefore, being a prisoner of war, and to be disposed of as
such, (a point which admits of no dispute,) we have, we conceive,
further proved, that his residence within the territories of Great
Britain was what could hardly take place consistently with the safety of
Europe. To have delivered him up to any of the other allied powers,
whose government was of a character similar to his own, would certainly
have been highly objectionable; since in doing so Britain would have so
far broken faith with him, as to part with the power of protecting his
personal safety, to which extent the country to which he surrendered
himself stood undeniably pledged. It only remained to keep this
important prisoner in such a state of restraint, as to ensure his not
having the means of making a second escape, and again involving France
and Europe in a bloody and doubtful war. St. Helena was selected as the
place of his detention, and, we think, with much propriety; since the
nature of that sequestered island afforded the means for the greatest
certainty of security, with the least restriction on the personal
liberty of the distinguished prisoner. Waves and rocks around its shores
afforded the security of walls, ditches, bars, and bolts, in a citadel;
and his hours of exercise might be safely extended over a space of many
miles, instead of being restrained within the narrow and guarded limits
of a fortress.
The right of imprisoning Napoleon being conceded, or at least proved,
and the selection of St. Helena, as his place of residence, being
vindicated, we have no hesitation in avowing the principle, that every
thing possible ought to have been done to alleviate the painful
feelings, to which, in every point of view, a person so distinguished as
Napoleon must have been subjected by so heavy a change of fortune. We
would not, at that moment, have remembered the lives lost, fortunes
destroyed, and hopes blighted, of so many hundreds of our countrymen,
civilians travelling in France, and detained there against every rule of
civilized war; nor have thought ourselves entitled to avenge upon
Napoleon, in his misfortunes, the cruel inflictions, which his policy,
if not his inclination, prompted him to award against others. We would
not have made his dungeon so wretched, as that of the unhappy Negro
chief, starved to death amidst the Alpine snows. We would not have
surrounded him, while a prisoner, with spies, as in the case of the Earl
of Elgin; or, as in that of Prince Ferdinand, have spread a trap for him
by means of an emissary like the false Baron Koli, who, in proffering to
assist his escape, should have had it for an object to obtain a pretence
for treating him more harshly. These things we would not then have
remembered; or, if we could not banish them from our recollection, in
considering how far fraud and ignoble violence can debase genius, and
render power odious, we would have remembered them as examples, not to
be followed, but shunned. To prevent the prisoner from resuming a power
which he had used so fatally, we would have regarded as a duty not to
Britain alone, but to Europe and to the world. To accompany his
detention with every alleviation which attention to his safe custody
would permit, was a debt due, if not to his personal deserts, at least
to our own nobleness. With such feelings upon the subject in general, we
proceed to consider the most prominent subjects of complaint, which
Buonaparte and his advocates have brought against the Administration of
Great Britain, for their treatment of the distinguished exile.
[Sidenote: ALLEGED GRIEVANCES.]
The first loud subject of complaint has been already touched upon, that
the imperial title was not given to Napoleon, and that he was only
addressed and treated with the respect due to a general officer of the
highest rank. On this subject Napoleon was particularly tenacious. He
was not of the number of those persons mentioned by the Latin poet, who,
in poverty and exile, suited their titles and their language to their
condition.[219] On the contrary, he contended with great obstinacy,
from the time he came to Portsmouth, on his right to be treated as a
crowned head; nor was there, as we have noticed, a more fertile source
of discord betwixt him and the gentlemen of his suite on one side, and
the Governor of St. Helena on the other, than the pertinacious claim, on
Napoleon's part, for honours and forms of address, which the orders of
the British Ministry had prohibited the governor from granting, and
which, therefore, Napoleon's knowledge of a soldier's duty should have
prevented his exacting. But, independently of the governor's
instructions, Buonaparte's claim to the peculiar distinction of a
sovereign prince was liable to question, both in respect of the party by
whom it was insisted on, and in relation to the government from whom it
was claimed.
Napoleon, it cannot be denied, had been not only an Emperor, but perhaps
the most powerful that has ever existed; and he had been acknowledged as
such by all the continental sovereigns. But he had been compelled, in
1814, to lay aside and abdicate the empire of France, and to receive in
exchange the title of Emperor of Elba. His breach of the treaty of Paris
was in essence a renunciation of the empire of Elba; and the
reassumption of that of France was so far from being admitted by the
allies, that he was declared an outlaw by the Congress at Vienna.
Indeed, if this second occupation of the French throne were even to be
admitted as in any respect re-establishing his forfeited claim to the
Imperial dignity, it must be remembered that he himself a second time
abdicated, and formally renounced a second time the dignity he had in an
unhappy hour reassumed. But if Napoleon had no just pretension to the
Imperial title or honours after his second abdication, even from those
who had before acknowledged him as Emperor of France, still less had he
any right to a title which he had laid down, from a nation who had never
acquiesced in his taking it up. At no time had Great Britain recognised
him as Emperor of France; and Lord Castlereagh had expressly declined to
accede to the treaty of Paris, by which he was acknowledged as Emperor
of Elba.[220] Napoleon, indeed, founded, or attempted to found, an
argument upon the treaty of Amiens having been concluded with him, when
he held the capacity of First Consul of France. But he had himself
destroyed the Consular Government, of which he then constituted the
head; and his having been once First Consul gave him no more title to
the dignity of Emperor, than the Directorship of Barras invested _him_
with the same title. On no occasion whatever, whether directly or by
implication, had Great Britain recognised the title of her prisoner to
be considered as a sovereign prince; and it was surely too late to
expect acquiescence in claims in his present situation, which had not
been allowed when he was actually master of half the world.
But it may be urged that, admitting that Napoleon's claim to be treated
with royal ceremonial was in itself groundless, yet since he had
actually enjoyed the throne for so many years, the British ministers
ought to have allowed to him that rank which he had certainly possessed
_de facto_, though not _de jure_. The trifling points of rank and
ceremonial ought, it may be thought, according to the principles which
we have endeavoured to express, to have been conceded to eclipsed
sovereignty and down-fallen greatness.
To this it may be replied, that if the concession recommended could have
had no further consequences than to mitigate the repinings of
Napoleon--if he could have found comfort in the empty sound of titles,
or if the observance of formal etiquette could have reconciled his
feelings to his melancholy and dethroned condition, without altering the
relative state of the question in other respects--such concession ought
not to have been refused to him.
But the real cause of his desiring to have, and of the British
Government's persisting in refusing to him, the name and honours of a
sovereign, lay a great deal deeper. It is true, that it was a foible of
Buonaparte, incident, perhaps, to his situation as a _parvenu_ amongst
the crowned heads of Europe, to be at all times peculiarly and anxiously
solicitous that the most strict etiquette and form should be observed
about his person and court. But granting that his vanity, as well as his
policy, was concerned in insisting upon such rigid ceremonial as is
frequently dispensed with by sovereigns of ancient descent, and whose
title is unquestionable, it will not follow that a person of his sense
and capacity could have been gratified, even if indulged in all the
marks of external influence paid to the Great Mogul, on condition that,
like the later descendants of Timur, he was still to remain a close
prisoner. His purpose in tenaciously claiming the name of a sovereign,
was to establish his claim to the immunities belonging to that title. He
had already experienced at Elba the use to be derived from erecting a
barrier of etiquette betwixt his person and any inconvenient visitor.
Once acknowledged as Emperor, it followed, of course, that he was to be
treated as such in every particular; and thus it would have become
impossible to enforce such regulations as were absolutely demanded for
his safe custody. Such a _status_, once granted, would have furnished
Napoleon with a general argument against every precaution which might be
taken to prevent his escape. Who ever heard of an emperor restricted in
his promenades, or subjected, in certain cases, to the surveillance of
an officer, and the restraint of sentinels? Or how could these
precautions against escape have been taken, without irreverence to the
person of a crowned head, which, in the circumstances of Napoleon
Buonaparte, were indispensably necessary? Those readers, therefore, who
may be of opinion that it was necessary that Napoleon should be
restrained of his liberty, must also allow that the British Government
would have acted imprudently if they had gratuitously invested him with
a character which they had hitherto refused him, and that at the very
moment when their doing so was to add to the difficulties attending his
safe custody.
The question, however, does not terminate even here; for not only was
Great Britain at full liberty to refuse to Buonaparte a title which she
had never recognised as his due--not only would her granting it have
been attended with great practical inconvenience, but farther, she could
not have complied with his wishes, without affording the most serious
cause of complaint to her ally the King of France. If Napoleon was
called emperor, his title could apply to France alone; and if he was
acknowledged as Emperor of France, of what country was Louis XVIII.
King? Many wars have arisen from no other cause than that the government
of one country has given the title and ceremonial due to a sovereign, to
a person pretending to the throne of the other, and it is a ground of
quarrel recognised by the law of nations. It is true, circumstances
might have prevented Louis from resenting the supposed recognition of a
royal character in his rival, as severely as Britain did the
acknowledgment of the exiled Stuarts by Louis XIV., yet it must have
been the subject of serious complaint; the rather that a conduct tending
to indicate England's acquiescence in the imperial title claimed by
Napoleon, could not but keep alive dangerous recollections, and
encourage a dangerous faction in the bosom of France.
Yet, notwithstanding all we have said, we feel there was an awkwardness
in approaching the individual who had been so preeminently powerful,
with the familiarity applicable to one who had never stood more high
above others than he would have done merely as General Buonaparte. A
compromise was accordingly offered by Sir Hudson Lowe, in proposing to
make use of the word Napoleon, as a more dignified style of addressing
his prisoner. But an easy and respectable alternative was in the
prisoner's own power. Napoleon had but to imitate other sovereigns, who,
either when upon foreign travel, or when other circumstances require it,
usually adopt a conventional appellative, which, while their doing so
waves no part of their own claim of right to royal honours, is equally
far from a concession of that right on the part of those who may have
occasion to transact with them. Louis XVIII. was not the less the
legitimate King of France, that he was for many years, and in various
countries, only known by the name of the Comte de Lille. The conveniency
of the idea had struck Napoleon himself; for at one time, when talking
of the conditions of his residence in England, he said he would have no
objection to resume the name of Meuron, an aide-de-camp who had died by
his side at the battle of Arcola.[221] But it seems that Napoleon, more
tenacious of form than a prince who had been cradled in it, considered
this vailing of his dignity as too great a concession on his part to be
granted to the Governor of St. Helena. Sir Hudson Lowe, at one time
desirous to compromise this silly subject of dispute, would have been
contented to render Napoleon the title of Excellency, as due to a
field-mareschal, but neither did this meet with acceptation. Napoleon
was determined either to be acknowledged by the governor as Emperor, or
to retain his grievance in its full extent. No modifications could be
devised by which it could be rendered palatable.
Whether this pertinacity in claiming a title which was rendered
ridiculous by his situation, was the result of some feelings which led
him to doubt his own title to greatness, when his ears were no longer
flattered by the language of humility; or whether the political
considerations just alluded to, rendered him obstinate to refuse all
epithets, except one which might found him in claims to those
indemnities and privileges with which so high a title is intimate, and
from which it may be said to be inseparable, it is impossible for us to
say; vanity and policy might combine in recommending to him perseverance
in his claim. But the strife should certainly, for his own sake, have
been abandoned, when the point remained at issue between the governor
and him only, since even if the former had wished to comply with the
prisoner's desires, his instructions forbade him to do so. To continue
an unavailing struggle, was only to invite the mortification of defeat
and repulse. Yet Napoleon and his followers retained so much sensibility
on this subject, that though they must have been aware that Sir Hudson
Lowe only used the language prescribed by his government, and indeed
dared use no other, this unfortunate phrase of _General Buonaparte_
occurring so often in their correspondence, seemed to render every
attempt at conciliation a species of derogation and insult, and made
such overtures resemble a coarse cloth tied over a raw wound, which it
frets and injures more than it protects.
[Sidenote: COCKBURN'S INSTRUCTIONS.]
Whatever might be the merits of the case, as between Napoleon and the
British Ministry, it was clear that Sir George Cockburn and Sir Hudson
Lowe were left by their instructions no option in the matter at issue.
These instructions bore that Napoleon, their prisoner, was to receive
the style and treatment due to General Buonaparte, a prisoner of war;
and it was at their peril if they gave him a higher title, or a
different style of attention from what that title implied. No one could
know better than Napoleon how strictly a soldier is bound by his
_consigne_; and to upbraid Sir Hudson Lowe as ungenerous, unmanly, and
so forth, because he did not disobey the instructions of his
government, was as unreasonable as to hope that his remonstrances could
have any effect save those of irritation and annoyance. He ought to have
been aware that persisting to resent, in rough and insulting terms, the
deprivation of his title on the part of an officer who was prohibited
from using it, might indeed fret and provoke one with whom it would have
been best to keep upon civil terms, but could not bring him one inch
nearer to the point which he so anxiously desired to attain.
In fact, this trivial but unhappy subject of dispute was of a character
so subtle, that it penetrated into the whole correspondence between the
Emperor and the governor, and tended to mix with gall and vinegar all
attempts made by the latter to cultivate something like civil
intercourse. This unlucky barrier of etiquette started up and poisoned
the whole effect of any intended politeness. While Sir George Cockburn
remained on the island, for example, he gave more than one ball, to
which _General Buonaparte_ and his suite were regularly invited. In
similar circumstances, Henry IV. or Charles II. would have attended the
ball, and to a certainty would have danced with the prettiest young
woman present, without dreaming that, by so doing, they derogated from
pretensions derived from a long line of royal ancestors. Buonaparte and
Las Cases, on the contrary, took offence at the familiarity, and wrote
it down as a wilful and flagrant affront on the part of the admiral.
These were not the feelings of a man of conscious dignity of mind, but
of an upstart, who conceives the honour of preferment not to consist in
having enjoyed, or in still possessing, a high situation, gained by
superiority of talent, so much as in wearing the robes or listening to
the sounding titles, which are attached to it.
A subject, upon which we are called upon to express much more sympathy
with the condition of Napoleon, than moves us upon the consideration of
his abrogated title, is, the screen which was drawn betwixt him, and, it
may be said, the living world, through which he was not permitted to
penetrate, by letter, even to his dearest friends and relatives, unless
such had been previously communicated to, and read by, the governor of
the island.
It is no doubt true, that this is an inconvenience to which prisoners of
war are, in all cases, subjected; nor do we know any country in which
their parole is held so sacred as to induce the government to dispense
with the right of inspecting their letters. Yet the high place so lately
occupied by the fallen monarch might, we think, have claimed for him
some dispensation from a restriction so humiliating. If a third person,
cold-blooded at best, perhaps inclined to hold up to scorn the
expressions of our grief or our affection, is permitted to have the
review of the effusions of our heart towards a wife, a sister, a
brother, or a bosom-friend, the correspondence loses half its value;
and, forced as we are to keep it within the bounds of the most discreet
caution, it becomes to us rather a new source of mortification, than the
opening of a communion with those absent persons, whose friendship and
attachment we hold to be the dearest possession of our lives. We the
rather think that some exercise of this privilege might have been left
to Napoleon, without any risk of endangering the safe custody of his
person; because we are pretty well convinced that all efforts strictly
to enforce this regulation did, and must have proved, ineffectual, and
that in some cases by means of money, and at other times by the mere
influence of compassion, he and his followers would always acquire the
means of transmitting private letters from the island without regard to
the restriction. Whatever, therefore, was to be apprehended of danger in
this species of intercourse by letter, was much more likely to occur in
a clandestine correspondence, than in one carried on even by sealed
letters, openly and by permission of the government. We cannot help
expressing our opinion, that, considering the accurate attention of the
police, which would naturally have turned in foreign countries towards
letters from St. Helena, there was little danger of the public post
being made use of for any dangerous machinations. Supposing, therefore,
that the Exile had been permitted to use it, it would have been too
dangerous to have risked any proposal for his escape through that
medium. A secret correspondence must have been resorted to for that
purpose, and that under circumstances which would have put every
well-meaning person, at least, upon his guard against being aiding in
it; since, if the ordinary channels of communication were open to the
prisoner, there could have been no justifiable reason for his resorting
to private means of forwarding letters from the island. At the same
time, while such is our opinion, it is founded upon reasoning totally
unconnected with the claim of right urged by Napoleon; as his situation,
considering him as a prisoner of war, and a most important one,
unquestionably entitled the government of Britain to lay him under all
the restrictions incident to persons in that situation.
Another especial subject of complaint pleaded upon by Napoleon and his
advocates, arose from a regulation, which, we apprehend, was so
essential to his safe custody, that we are rather surprised to find it
was dispensed with upon any occasion, or to any extent; as, if fully and
regularly complied with, it would have afforded the means of relaxing a
considerable proportion of other restrictions of a harassing and
irritating character, liable to be changed from time to time, and to be
removed and replaced in some cases, without any very adequate or
intelligible motive. The regulation which we allude to is that which
required that Buonaparte should be visible twice, or at least once, in
the day, to the British orderly officer. If this regulation had been
submitted to with equanimity by the Ex-Emperor, it would have given the
strongest possible guarantee against the possibility of his attempting
an escape. From the hour at which he had been seen by the officer, until
that at which he should again become visible, no vessel would have been
permitted to leave the island; and supposing that he was missed by the
officer at the regular hour, the alarm would have been general, and,
whether concealed in the town, or on board any of the vessels in the
roadstead, he must necessarily have been discovered. Indeed, the risk
was too great to induce him to have tried an effort so dangerous. It
might easily have been arranged, that the orderly officer should have
the opportunity to execute his duty with every possible respect to
Napoleon's privacy and convenience, and the latter might himself have
chosen the time and manner of exhibiting himself for an instant. In this
case, and considering how many other precautions were taken to prevent
escape--that every accessible path to the beach was closely guarded--and
that the island was very much in the situation of a citadel, of which
soldiers are the principal inhabitants--the chance of Napoleon's
attempting to fly, even if permitted the unlimited range of St. Helena,
was highly improbable, and the chance of his effecting his purpose next
to an impossibility. But this security depended upon his submitting to
see a British officer at a fixed hour; and, resolute in his plan of
yielding nothing to circumstances, Napoleon resisted, in every possible
manner, the necessity of complying with this very important regulation.
Indeed, Sir Hudson Lowe, on his part, was on many occasions contented to
wink at its being altogether neglected, when the orderly officer could
not find the means of seeing Napoleon by stealth while engaged in a
walk, or in a ride, or as it sometimes happened, through the casement.
This was not the way in which this important regulation ought to have
been acted upon and enforced, and the governor did not reap a great
harvest of gratitude from his conduct in dispensing with this act of
superintendence upon his own responsibility.
We have seen that a circuit of twelve miles and upwards was laid off for
Buonaparte's private exercise. No strangers entered these precincts
without a pass from Bertrand, and the Emperor had uninterrupted freedom
to walk or ride within them, unaccompanied by any one save those in his
own family. Beyond these privileged bounds, he was not permitted to
move, without the attendance of a British officer; but under the escort
of such a person he was at liberty to visit every part of the island. To
this arrangement Napoleon was more averse, if possible, than to that
which appointed that a British officer should see him once a-day.
Other subjects of complaint there were; but as they chiefly arose out of
private discussions with Sir Hudson Lowe--out of by-laws enacted by that
officer--and restrictions of a more petty description, we limit
ourselves for the present to those of a general character, which,
however inconvenient and distressing, were, it is to be observed, such
as naturally attached to the condition of a prisoner; and which, like
the fetters of a person actually in chains, are less annoying when
submitted to with fortitude and equanimity, than when the captive
struggles in vain to wrench himself out of their gripe. We are far,
nevertheless, from saying, that the weight of the fetters in the one
case, and the hardship of the personal restrictions in the other, are in
themselves evils which can be easily endured by those who sustain them.
We feel especially how painful the loss of liberty must have been to one
who had not only enjoyed the freedom of his own actions, but the
uncontrolled right of directing those of others. Impatience, however, in
this, as in other instances, has only the prerogative of injuring its
master. In the many hours of meditation which were afforded to
Buonaparte by his residence in St. Helena, we can never perceive any
traces of the reflection, that he owed his present unhappy situation
less to the immediate influence of those who were agents in his defeat
and imprisonment, than to that course of ambition, which, sparing
neither the liberties of France, nor the independence of Europe, had at
length rendered his personal freedom inconsistent with the rights of the
world in general. He felt the distresses of his situation, but he did
not, or could not, reason on their origin. It is impossible to reflect
upon him without the idea being excited, of a noble lion imprisoned
within a narrow and gloomy den, and venting the wrath which once made
the forest tremble, upon the petty bolts and bars, which, insignificant
as they are, defy his lordly strength, and detain him captive.
The situation was in every respect a painful one; nor is it possible to
refuse our sympathy, not only to the prisoner, but to the person whose
painful duty it became to be his superintendent. His duty of detaining
Napoleon's person was to be done most strictly, and required a man of
that extraordinary firmness of mind, who should never yield for one
instant his judgment to his feelings, and should be able at once to
detect and reply to all such false arguments, as might be used to deter
him from the downright and manful discharge of his office. But, then,
there ought to have been combined with those rare qualities a calmness
of temper almost equally rare, and a generosity of mind, which,
confident in its own honour and integrity, could look with serenity and
compassion upon the daily and hourly effects of the maddening causes,
which tortured into a state of constant and unendurable irritability the
extraordinary being subjected to their influence. Buonaparte, indeed,
and the followers who reflected his passions, were to be regarded on all
occasions as men acting and speaking under the feverish and delirious
influence of things long past, and altogether destitute of the power of
cool or clear reasoning, on any grounds that exclusively referred to
things present. The emperor could not forget his empire, the husband
could not forget his wife, the father his child, the hero his triumphs,
the legislator his power. It was scarce in nature, that a brain agitated
by such recollections should remain composed under a change so fearful,
or be able to reflect calmly on what he now was, when agitated by the
extraordinary contrast of his present situation with what he had been.
To have soothed him would have been a vain attempt; but the honour of
England required that he should have no cause of irritation, beyond
those which severely enough attached to his condition as a captive.
From the character we have given of Sir George Cockburn, it may be
supposed that he was attentive, as far as his power extended, and his
duty permitted, to do all that could render Napoleon's situation more
easy. The various authors, Dr. O'Meara, Las Cases, Santini, and others,
who have written with much violence concerning Sir Hudson Lowe's
conduct, have mentioned that of Sir George as fair, honourable, and
conciliatory. No doubt there were many occasions, as the actual
inconveniences of the place were experienced, and as the rays of
undefined hope vanished from their eyes, when Napoleon and his followers
became unreasonably captious in their discussions with the admiral. On
such occasions he pursued with professional bluntness the
straightforward path of duty, leaving it to the French gentlemen to be
sullen as long as they would, and entering into communication again with
them whenever they appeared to desire it. It was probably this
equanimity, which, notwithstanding various acknowledgments of his good
and honourable conduct towards them, seemed to have drawn upon Sir
George Cockburn the censure of M. Las Cases, and something that was
meant as a species of insult from Napoleon himself. As Sir George
Cockburn is acknowledged on the whole to have discharged his duty
towards them with mildness and temper, we are the rather tempted to
enter into their grounds of complaint against him, because they tend to
show the exasperated and ulcerated state of mind with which these
unfortunate gentlemen regarded those, who, in their present office, had
no alternative but to discharge the duty which their sovereign and
country had imposed upon them.
At the risk of being thought trifling with our readers' patience, we
shall recapitulate the grievances complained of by Las Cases, who
frankly admits, that the bad humour, arising out of his situation, may
have in some degree influenced his mind in judging of Sir George
Cockburn's conduct, and shall subjoin to each charge the answer which
seems to correspond to it.
[Sidenote: RECAPITULATION.]
1st, The admiral is accused of having called the Emperor Napoleon,
_General Buonaparte_; and to have pronounced the words with an air of
self-satisfaction, which showed that the expression gratified him. It is
replied, that Sir George Cockburn's instructions were to address
Napoleon by that epithet; and the commentary on the looks or tone with
which he did so, is hypercritical.--2d, Napoleon was quartered in Briars
for two months, while the admiral himself resided in Plantation-house.
Answered, that the instructions of Government were, that Napoleon should
remain on board till his abode was prepared; but finding that would
occupy so much more time than was expected, Sir George Cockburn, on his
own responsibility, placed him on shore, and at Briars, as being the
residence which he himself preferred.--3d, The admiral placed sentinels
under Napoleon's windows. Replied, it is the usual practice when
prisoners of importance are to be secured, especially if they do not
even offer their parole that they will make no attempt to escape.--4th,
Sir George did not permit any one to visit Napoleon without his
permission. Replied, it seemed a necessary consequence of his situation,
until Sir George should be able to distinguish those visitors who might
be with propriety admitted to an unlimited privilege of visiting the
important prisoner.--5th, He invited Napoleon to a ball, by the title of
General Buonaparte. The subject of the title has been already discussed;
and it does not appear how its being used in sending an invitation to a
convivial party, could render the name by which the admiral was
instructed to address his prisoner more offensive than on other
occasions.--6th, Sir George Cockburn, pressed by Bertrand's notes, in
which he qualified the prisoner as an emperor, replied sarcastically,
that he knew of no emperor at St. Helena, nor had heard that any
European emperor was at present travelling abroad. Replied, by referring
to the admiral's instructions, and by the fact, that if an emperor can
abdicate his quality, certainly Napoleon was no longer one.--7th, Sir
George Cockburn is said to have influenced the opinions of others upon
this subject, and punished with arrest some subordinate persons, who
used the phrase of emperor. Answered as before, he had orders from his
government not to suffer Buonaparte to be addressed as emperor, and it
was his duty to cause them to be obeyed. He could not, however, have
been very rigorous, since Monsieur La Cases informs us that the officers
of the 53d used the _mezzotermine_ Napoleon, apparently without censure
from the governor.--Lastly, There remains only to be added the
complaint, that there was an orderly officer appointed to attend
Napoleon when he went beyond certain limits, a point of precaution which
must be very useful, if not indispensable, where vigilant custody is
required.
From this summary of offences, it must be plain to the reader, that the
resentment of Las Cases and his master was not so much against Sir
George Cockburn personally, as against his office; and that the admiral
would have been very acceptable, if he could have reconciled it to his
duty to treat Napoleon as an emperor and a free man; suffered himself,
like Sir Niel Campbell, to be admitted or excluded from his presence, as
the etiquette of an imperial court might dictate; and run the risk of
being rewarded for his complaisance by learning, when he least looked
for it, that Napoleon had sailed for America, or perhaps for France. The
question how far Britain, or rather Europe, had a right to keep Napoleon
prisoner, has already been discussed. If they had no such right, and if
a second insurrection in France, a second field of Waterloo, should be
hazarded, rather than that Napoleon Buonaparte should suffer diminution
of dignity, or restraint of freedom, then Napoleon had a right to
complain of the ministry, but not of the officer, to whom his
instructions were to be at once the guide and vindication of his
conduct.
While these things passed at St. Helena, the ministry of Great Britain
were employed in placing the detention of the Ex-Emperor under the
regulation of an act of Parliament, which interdicted all intercourse
and commerce with St. Helena, excepting by the East India Company's
regular chartered vessels. Ships not so chartered, attempting to trade
or touch at St. Helena, or hovering within eight leagues of the island,
were declared subject to seizure and confiscation. The crews of the
vessels who came on shore, or other persons visiting the island, were
liable to be sent on board, at the governor's pleasure; and those who
might attempt to conceal themselves on shore, were declared subject to
punishment. Ships were permitted to approach upon stress of weather, but
it was incumbent on them to prove the indispensable necessity, and while
they remained at St. Helena, they were watched in the closest manner. A
clause of indemnity protected the governor and commissioners from any
act transgressing the letter of the law, which they might already have
committed, while detaining Napoleon in custody. Such was the act 56
George III. ch. 23, which legalized the confinement of Napoleon at St.
Helena.[222]
Another convention betwixt the principal powers of Europe, at Paris, 2d
August, 1815, had been also entered into upon the subject of Napoleon,
and the custody of his person. It set forth, I. That, in order to render
impossible any further attempt on the part of Napoleon Buonaparte
against the repose of the world, he should be considered as prisoner to
the high contracting powers, the King of Great Britain and Ireland, the
Emperor of Austria, the Emperor of Russia, and the King of Prussia. II.
That the custody of his person was committed to the British Government,
and it was remitted to them to choose the most secure place and mode of
detaining him in security. III. That the courts of Austria, Russia, and
Prussia, were to name commissioners who were to inhabit the same place
which should be assigned for Napoleon Buonaparte's residence, and who,
without being responsible for his detention, should certiorate
themselves that he was actually present. IV. His Most Christian Majesty
was also invited to send a commissioner. V. The King of Great Britain
engaged faithfully to comply with the conditions assigned to him by this
convention.[223]
Of these powers, only three availed themselves of the power, or
privilege, of sending commissioners to St. Helena. These were Count
Balmain, on the part of Russia, Baron Sturmer for Austria, and an old
emigrant nobleman, the Marquis de Montchenu, for France. Prussia seems
to have thought the expense of a resident commissioner at St. Helena
unnecessary. Indeed, it does not appear that any of these gentlemen had
an important part to play while at St. Helena, but yet their presence
was necessary to place what should pass there under the vigilance of
accredited representatives of the high powers who had engaged in the
Convention of Paris. The imprisonment of Napoleon was now not the work
of England alone, but of Europe, adopted by her most powerful states, as
a measure indispensable for public tranquillity.
[Sidenote: SIR HUDSON LOWE.]
Several months before the arrival of the commissioners, Sir George
Cockburn was superseded in his anxious and painful office by Sir Hudson
Lowe, who remained Governor of St. Helena, and had the charge of
Napoleon's person, until the death of that remarkable person. The
conduct of this officer has been censured, in several of the writings
which have treated of Napoleon's confinement, with such extremity of
bitterness as in some measure defeats its own end, and leads us to doubt
the truth of charges which are evidently brought forward under deep
feelings of personal animosity to the late Governor of St. Helena. On
the other hand, it would require a strong defence on the part of Sir
Hudson Lowe himself, refuting or explaining many things which as yet
have neither received contradiction nor commentary, to induce us to
consider him as the very rare and highly exalted species of character,
to whom, as we have already stated, this important charge ought to have
been intrusted.
Sir Hudson Lowe had risen to rank in the army while serving chiefly in
the Mediterranean, in a foreign corps in the pay of England. In this
situation he became master of the French and Italian languages,
circumstances which highly qualified him for the situation to which he
was appointed. In the campaign of 1814, he had been attached to the army
of the allies, and carried on a correspondence with the English
Government, describing the events of the campaign, part of which was
published, and intimates spirit and talent in the writer. Sir Hudson
Lowe received from several of the allied sovereigns and generals the
most honourable testimonies of his services that could be rendered. He
had thus the opportunity and habit of mixing with persons of distinction
in the discussion of affairs of importance; and his character as a
gentleman and a man of honour was carefully inquired into, and highly
vouched, ere his nomination was made out. These were points on which
precise inquiries could be made, and distinct answers received, and they
were all in favour of Sir Hudson Lowe.
But there were other qualifications, and those not less important, his
possession of which could only be known by putting him upon trial. The
indispensable attribute, for example, of an imperturbable temper, was
scarce to be ascertained, until his proceedings in the office intrusted
to him should show whether he possessed or wanted it. The same must be
said of that firmness and decision, which dictate to an official person
the exact line of his duty--prevent all hesitation or wavering in the
exercise of his purpose--render him, when it is discharged, boldly and
firmly confident that he has done exactly that which he ought--and
enable him fearlessly to resist all importunity which can be used to
induce him to change his conduct, and to contemn all misrepresentations
and obloquy which may arise from his adhering to it.
Knowing nothing of Sir Hudson Lowe personally, and allowing him to
possess the qualities of an honourable, and the accomplishments of a
well-informed man, we are inclined, from a review of his conduct,
divesting it so far as we can of the exaggerations of his personal
enemies, to think there remain traces of a warm and irritable temper,
which seems sometimes to have overborne his discretion, and induced him
to forget that his prisoner was in a situation where he ought not, even
when his conduct seemed most unreasonable and most provoking, to be
considered as an object of resentment, or as being subject, like other
men, to retort and retaliation. Napoleon's situation precluded the
possibility of his inflicting an insult, and therefore the temper of the
person to whom such was offered, ought, if possible, to have remained
cool and unruffled. It does not seem to us that this was uniformly the
case.
In like manner, Sir Hudson Lowe appears to have been agitated by an
oppressive sense of the importance and the difficulties of his
situation, to a nervous and irritating degree. This over-anxiety led to
frequent changes of his regulations, and to the adoption of measures
which were afterwards abandoned, and perhaps again resumed. All this
uncertainty occasioned just subject of complaint to his prisoner; for,
though a captive may become gradually accustomed to the fetters which he
wears daily in the same manner, he must be driven to impatience if the
mode of adjusting them be altered from day to day.
It is probable that the warm temper of Sir Hudson Lowe was in some
degree convenient to Napoleon, as it afforded him the means of reprisals
upon the immediate instrument of his confinement, by making the governor
feel a part of the annoyance which he himself experienced. Sir George
Cockburn had been _in seipso totus, teres, atque rotun dus_. He did what
his duty directed, and cared little what Napoleon thought or said upon
the subject. The new governor was vulnerable; he could be rendered
angry, and might therefore be taken at advantage. Thus Napoleon might
enjoy the vindictive pleasure, too natural to the human bosom, of giving
pain to the person who was the agent, though not the author, in the
restrictions to which he himself was subjected. But Napoleon's interest
in provoking the governor did not rest upon the mere gratification of
spleen. His views went far deeper, and were connected with the prospect
of obtaining his liberty, and with the mode by which he hoped to
accomplish it. And this leads us to inquire upon what these hopes were
rested, and to place before our readers evidence of the most
indisputable credit, concerning the line of policy adopted in the
councils of Longwood.
[Sidenote: GOURGAUD.]
It must be premised that the military gentlemen, who, so much to the
honour of their own fidelity, had attended on Buonaparte, to soften his
calamity by their society and sympathy, were connected by no other link
than their mutual respect for the same unhappy master. Being unattached
to each other by any ties of friendship, or community of feelings or
pursuits, it is no wonder that these officers, given up to ennui, and
feeling the acidity of temper which such a situation is sure to cause,
should have had misunderstandings, nay, positive quarrels, not with the
governor only, but with each other. In these circumstances, the conduct
of General Gourgaud distinguished him from the rest. After the peace of
Paris, this officer had been aide-de-camp to the Duke of Berri, a
situation which he abandoned on Napoleon's return at the period of the
Hundred Days. As he was in attendance upon the Ex-Emperor at the moment
of his fall, he felt it his duty to accompany him to St. Helena. While
upon that island, he took less share in Napoleon's complaints and
quarrels with the governor, than either Generals Bertrand and Montholon,
or Count Las Cases, avoided all appearance of intrigue with the
inhabitants, and was regarded by Sir Hudson Lowe as a brave and loyal
soldier, who followed his emperor in adversity, without taking any part
in those proceedings which the governor considered as prejudicial to his
own authority. As such, he is characterised uniformly in Sir Hudson's
despatches to his Government.
This officer had left in France a mother and sister, to whom he was
tenderly devoted, and who loved him with the fondest affection. From
attachment to these beloved relatives, and their affecting desire that
he should rejoin them, General Gourgaud became desirous of revisiting
his native country; and his resolution was the stronger, that
considerable jealousies and misunderstandings arose betwixt him and
Count Bertrand. In these circumstances, he applied for and obtained
permission from the governor, to return to London direct. Before leaving
St. Helena, he was very communicative both to Sir Hudson Lowe and Baron
Sturmer, the Austrian commissioner, respecting the secret hopes and
plans which were carrying on at Longwood. When he arrived in Britain in
the spring 1818, he was no less frank and open with the British
Government; informing them of the various proposals for escape which had
been laid before Napoleon; the facilities and difficulties which
attended them, and the reasons why he preferred remaining on the island,
to making the attempt. At this period it was supposed that General
Gourgaud was desirous of making his peace with the King of France; but
whatever might be his private views, the minutes of the information
which he afforded to Sir Hudson Lowe and Baron Sturmer at St. Helena,
and afterwards at London to the Under Secretary at War, are still
preserved in the records of the Foreign Office. They agree entirely with
each other, and their authenticity cannot be questioned. The
communications are studiously made, with considerable reserve as to
proper names, in order that no individual should be called in question
for any thing which is there stated; and in general they bear, as was to
be expected, an air of the utmost simplicity and veracity. We shall
often have occasion to allude to these documents, that the reader may be
enabled to place the real purposes of Napoleon in opposition to the
language which he made use of for accomplishing them; but we have not
thought it proper to quote the minutes at length, unless as far as
Napoleon is concerned. We understand that General Gourgaud, on his
return to the continent, has resumed that tenderness to Napoleon's
memory, which may induce him to regret having communicated the secrets
of his prison-house to less friendly ears. But this change of sentiments
can neither diminish the truth of his evidence, nor affect our right to
bring forward what we find recorded as communicated by him.
Having thus given an account of the evidence we mean to use, we resume
the subject of Napoleon's quarrels with Sir Hudson Lowe.
It was not, according to General Gourgaud, for want of means of escape,
that Napoleon continued to remain at St. Helena. There was one plan for
carrying him out in a trunk with dirty linen; and so general was the
opinion of the extreme stupidity of the English sentinels, that there
was another by which it was proposed he should slip through the camp in
disguise of a servant carrying a dish. When the Baron Sturmer
represented the impossibility of such wild plans being in agitation,
Gourgaud answered, "There was no impossibility to those who had millions
at their command. Yes, I repeat it," he continued, "he can escape from
hence, and go to America whenever he has a mind."[224]--"Why, then,
should he remain here?" said Baron Sturmer. Gourgaud replied, "That all
his followers had urged him to make the experiment of escape; but he
preferred continuing on the island. He has a secret pride in the
consequence attached to the custody of his person, and the interest
generally taken in his fate. He has said repeatedly, 'I can no longer
live as a private person. I would rather be a prisoner on this rock,
than a free but undistinguished individual in the United States.'"[225]
General Gourgaud said, therefore, that the event to which Napoleon
trusted for liberty, was some change of politics in the court of Great
Britain, which should bring into administration the party who were now
in opposition, and who, he rather too rashly perhaps conceived, would
at once restore to him his liberty. The British ministers received the
same assurances from General Gourgaud with those given at St. Helena.
These last are thus expressed in the original:--
"Upon the subject of General Buonaparte's escape, M. Gourgaud stated
confidently, that although Longwood was, from its situation, capable
of being well protected by sentries, yet he was certain that there
would be no difficulty in eluding at any time the vigilance of the
sentries posted round the house and grounds; and, in short, that
escape from the island appeared to him in no degree impracticable.
The subject, he confessed, had been discussed at Longwood amongst
the individuals of the establishment, who were separately desired to
give their plans for effecting it. But he expressed his belief to
be, that General Buonaparte was so fully impressed with the opinion,
that he would be permitted to leave St. Helena, either upon a change
of ministry in England, or by the unwillingness of the English to
bear the expense of detaining him, that he would not at present run
the hazard to which an attempt to escape might expose him. It
appeared, however, from the statement of General Gourgaud, and from
other circumstances stated by him, that Buonaparte had always looked
to the period of the removal of the allied armies from France as
that most favourable for his return; and the probability of such an
event, and the consequences which would flow from it, were urged by
him as an argument to dissuade General Gourgaud from quitting him
until after that period."
[Sidenote: WARDEN--O'MEARA, ETC.]
General Gourgaud's communications further bear, what, indeed, can be
collected from many other circumstances, that as Napoleon hoped to
obtain his liberty from the impression to be made on the minds of the
English nation, he was careful not to suffer his condition to be
forgotten, and most anxious that the public mind should be carefully
kept alive to it, by a succession of publications coming out one after
another, modified according to the different temper and information of
the various authors, but bearing all of them the stamp of having issued
in whole or in part from the interior of Longwood. Accordingly, the
various works of Warden,[226] O'Meara,[227] Santini,[228] the letter of
Montholon,[229] and other publications upon St. Helena,[230] appeared
one after another, to keep the subject awake; which, although seemingly
discharged by various hands, bear the strong peculiarity of being
directed at identically the same mark, and of being arrows from the same
quiver. Gourgaud mentioned this species of file-firing, and its purpose.
Even the _Manuscrit de St. Hélène_, a tract, in which dates and facts
were misplaced and confounded, was also, according to General Gourgaud,
the work of Buonaparte, and composed to puzzle and _mystify_ the British
public. He told Sir Hudson Lowe that he was not to consider the abuse in
these various pamphlets as levelled against him personally, but as
written upon political calculation, with the view of extorting some
relaxation of vigilance by the reiteration of complaints. The celebrated
Letter of Montholon was, according to the same authority, written in a
great measure by Napoleon; and the same was the case with Santini's,
though so grossly over coloured that he himself afterwards disowned
it.[231] Other papers, he said, would appear under the names of captains
of merchantmen and the like, for Napoleon was possessed by a mania for
scribbling, which had no interruption. It becomes the historian,
therefore, to receive with caution the narratives of those who have thus
taken a determinedly partial part in the controversy, and concocted
their statements from the details afforded by the party principally
concerned. If what General Gourgaud has said be accurate, it is Napoleon
who is pleading his own cause under a borrowed name, in the pages of
O'Meara, Santini, Montholon, &c. Even when the facts mentioned in these
works, therefore, are undeniable, still it is necessary to strip them of
exaggeration, and place them in a fair and just light before pronouncing
on them.
The evidence of O'Meara, as contained in a _Voice from St. Helena_, is
that of a disappointed man, bitterly incensed against Sir Hudson Lowe,
as the cause of his disappointment. He had no need to kindle the flame
of his own resentment, at that of Buonaparte. But it may be granted that
their vindictive feelings must have strengthened each other. The quarrel
was the more irreconcilable, as it appears that Dr. O'Meara was
originally in great habits of intimacy with Sir Hudson Lowe, and in the
custom of repeating at Plantation-house the gossip which he had heard at
Longwood. Some proofs of this were laid before the public, in the
_Quarterly Review_;[232] and Sir Hudson Lowe's correspondence with
government contains various allusions to Mr. O'Meara's authority,[233]
down to the period when their mutual confidence was terminated by a
violent quarrel.[234]
Count Las Cases is not, in point of impartiality, to be ranked much
above Dr. O'Meara. He was originally a French emigrant, a worshipper by
profession of royalty, and therefore only changed his idol, not his
religion, when he substituted the idol Napoleon for the idol Bourbon. He
embraces with passive obedience the interests of his chief, real or
supposed, and can see nothing wrong which Napoleon is disposed to think
right. He was also the personal enemy of Sir Hudson Lowe. We have no
idea that he would falsify the truth; but we cannot but suspect the
accuracy of his recollection, when we find he inserts many expressions
and incidents in his Journal, long after the period at which it was
originally written, and it is to be presumed from memory. Sir Hudson
Lowe had the original manuscript for some time in his possession, and we
have at present before us a printed copy, in which Sir Hudson has, with
his own hand, marked those additions which had been made to the Journal
since he saw it in its primitive state. It is remarkable that all, or
almost all, the additions which are made to the Journal, consist of
passages highly injurious to Sir Hudson Lowe, which had no existence in
the original manuscript. These additions must therefore have been made
under the influence of recollection, sharpened by angry passions, since
they did not at first seem important enough to be preserved. When memory
is put on the rack by passion and prejudice, she will recollect strange
things; and, like witnesses under the actual torture, sometimes avow
what never took place.
[Sidenote: ANTOMMARCHI.]
Of Dr. Antommarchi it is not necessary to say much; he was a legatee of
Buonaparte, and an annuitant of his widow, besides being anxious to
preserve the countenance of his very wealthy family. He never speaks of
Sir Hudson Lowe without rancour. Sir Hudson's first offence against him
was inquiring for clandestine correspondence;[235] his last was,
preventing the crowd at Napoleon's funeral from pulling to pieces the
willow-trees by which the grave was sheltered, besides placing a guard
over the place of sepulture.[236] What truth is there, then, to be
reposed in an author, who can thus misrepresent two circumstances--the
one imposed on Sir Hudson Lowe by his instructions; the other being what
decency and propriety, and respect to the deceased, imperatively
demanded?
The mass of evidence shows, that to have remained upon good, or even on
decent terms with the governor, would not have squared with the politics
of one who desired to have grievances to complain of; and who, far from
having the usual motives which may lead a captive and his keeper to a
tolerable understanding, by a system of mutual accommodation, wished to
provoke the governor, if possible, beyond the extent of human patience,
even at the risk of subjecting himself to some new infliction, which
might swell the list of wrongs which he was accumulating to lay before
the public.
What we have stated above is exemplified by Napoleon's reception of Sir
Hudson Lowe, against whom he appears to have adopted the most violent
prejudices at the very first interview, and before the governor could
have afforded him the slightest disrespect. We quote it, because it
shows that the mind of the prisoner was made up to provoke and insult
Sir Hudson, without waiting for any provocation on his part.
The governor's first aggression (so represented,) was his requiring
permission of _General Buonaparte_ to call together his domestics, with
a view to their taking the declaration required by the British
Government, binding themselves to abide by the rules laid down for the
custody of Buonaparte's person. This permission was refused in very
haughty terms. If Napoleon had been at the Tuileries, such a request
could not have been more highly resented. The servants, however,
appeared, and took the necessary declaration. But the affront was not
cancelled; "Sir Hudson Lowe had put his finger betwixt Napoleon and his
valet-de-chambre." This was on the 27th April, 1816.[237]
Upon the 30th, the governor again paid his respects at Longwood, and was
received with one of those calculated bursts of furious passion with
which Napoleon was wont to try the courage and shake the nerves of those
over whom he desired to acquire influence. He spoke of protesting
against the Convention of Paris, and demanded what right the sovereigns
therein allied had to dispose of one, their equal always, and often
their superior. He called upon the governor for death or liberty--as if
it had been in Sir Hudson Lowe's power to give him either the one or the
other. Sir Hudson enlarged on the conveniences of the building which was
to be sent from England, to supply the present want of accommodation.
Buonaparte repelled the proposed consolation with fury. It was not a
house that he wanted, it was an executioner and a line. These he would
esteem a favour; all the rest was but irony and insult. Sir Hudson Lowe
could in reply only hope that he had given no personal offence, and was
reminded of his review of the domestics; which reproach he listened to
in silence.[238]
Presently afterwards, Napoleon fell on a new and cutting method of
exercising Sir Hudson's patience. A book on the campaign of 1814,[239]
lay on the table. Napoleon turned up some of the English bulletins, and
asked, with a tone which was perfectly intelligible, whether the
governor had not been the writer of these letters. Being answered in the
affirmative, Napoleon, according to Dr. O'Meara, told Sir Hudson they
were full of folly and falsehood; to which the governor, with more
patience than most men could have commanded on such an occasion,
replied, "I believe I saw what I have stated;"[240] an answer certainly
as temperate as could be returned to so gratuitous an insult. After Sir
Hudson left the room in which he had been received with so much
unprovoked incivility, Napoleon is described as having harangued upon
the sinister expression of his countenance, abused him in the coarsest
manner, and even caused his valet-de-chambre throw a cup of coffee out
of the window, because it had stood a moment on the table beside the
governor.[241]
Every attempt at conciliation on the part of the governor, seemed always
to furnish new subjects of irritation. He sent fowling-pieces to
Longwood, and Napoleon returned for answer, it was an insult to give
fowling-pieces where there is no game; though Santini, by the way,
pretended to support the family in a great measure by his gun. Sir
Hudson sent a variety of clothes and other articles from England, which
it might be supposed the exiles were in want of. The thanks returned
were, that the governor treated them like paupers, and that the articles
ought, in due respect, to have been left at the store, or governor's
house, while a list was sent to the Emperor's household, that such
things were at their command if they had any occasion for them. On a
third occasion, Sir Hudson resolved to be cautious. He had determined to
give a ball; but he consulted Dr. O'Meara whether Napoleon would take it
well to be invited. The doctor foresaw that the fatal address, _General
Buonaparte_, would make shipwreck of the invitation. The governor
proposed to avoid this stumbling-block, by asking Napoleon verbally and
in person. But with no name which his civility could devise for the
invitation, could it be rendered acceptable. A governor of St. Helena,
as Napoleon himself observed, had need to be a person of great
politeness, and at the same time of great firmness.
[Sidenote: RUPTURE WITH SIR H. LOWE.]
At length, on 18th August, a decisive quarrel took place. Sir Hudson
Lowe was admitted to an audience, at which was present Sir Pulteney
Malcolm, the admiral who now commanded on the station. Dr. O'Meara has
preserved the following account of the interview, as it was detailed by
Napoleon to his suite, the day after it took place.
"'That governor,' said Napoleon, 'came here yesterday to annoy me.
He saw me walking in the garden, and in consequence, I could not
refuse to see him. He wanted to enter into some details with me
about reducing the expenses of the establishment. He had the
audacity to tell me that things were as he found them, and that he
came up to justify himself; that he had come up two or three times
before to do so, but that I was in a bath.' I replied, 'No, sir, I
was not in a bath; but I ordered one on purpose not to see you. In
endeavouring to justify yourself you make matters worse.' He said,
that I did not know him; that, if I knew him, I should change my
opinion. 'Know you, sir!' I answered, 'how could I know you? People
make themselves known by their actions--by commanding in battles.
You have never commanded in battle. You have never commanded any but
vagabond Corsican deserters, Piedmontese and Neapolitan brigands. I
know the name of every English general who has distinguished
himself; but I never heard of you, except as a _scrivano_ [clerk] to
Blucher, or as a commandant of brigands. You have never commanded,
or been accustomed to men of honour.' He said, that he had not
sought for his present situation. I told him that such employments
were not asked for; that they were given by governments to people
who had dishonoured themselves. He said, that he only did his duty,
and that I ought not to blame him, as he only acted according to his
orders. I replied, 'So does the hangman; he acts according to his
orders. But when he puts a rope about my neck to finish me, is that
a reason that I should like that hangman, because he acts according
to his orders? Besides, I do not believe that any government could
be so mean as to give such orders as you cause to be executed.' I
told him, that if he pleased, he need not send up any thing to eat;
that I would go over and dine at the table of the brave officers of
the 53d; that I was sure there was not one of them who would not be
happy to give a plate at the table to an old soldier; that there was
not a soldier in the regiment who had not more heart than he had;
that in the iniquitous bill of Parliament, they had decreed that I
was to be treated as a prisoner; but that he treated me worse than a
condemned criminal or a galley slave, as they were permitted to
receive newspapers and printed books, of which he deprived me.' I
said, 'You have power over my body, but none over my soul. That soul
is as proud, fierce, and determined at the present moment, as when
it commanded Europe.' I told him that he was a _sbirro Siciliano_
(Sicilian thief-taker,) and not an Englishman; and desired him not
to let me see him again until he came with orders to despatch me,
when he would find all the doors thrown open to admit him.'"[242]
It is not surprising that this extreme violence met with some return on
Sir Hudson's part. He told Napoleon that his language was uncivil and
ungentlemanlike, and that he would not remain to listen to it.
Accordingly, he left Longwood without even the usual salutation.
Upon these occasions, we think it is evident that Napoleon was the
wilful and intentional aggressor, and that his conduct proceeded either
from the stings of injured pride, or a calculated scheme, which made him
prefer being on bad rather than good terms with Sir Hudson Lowe. On the
other hand, we could wish that the governor had avoided entering upon
the subject of the expenses of his detention with Napoleon in person.
The subject was ill-chosen, and could produce no favourable result.
They never afterwards met in friendship, or even on terms of decent
civility; and having given this account of their final quarrel, it only
remains for us to classify, in a general manner, the various subjects of
angry discussion which took place betwixt them, placed in such
uncomfortable relative circumstances, and each determined not to give
way to the other's arguments, or accommodate himself to the other's
wishes or convenience.
FOOTNOTES:
[219]
Et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri.
Telephus et Peleus, cum pauper et exul uterque,
Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba.
HOR. _Ars Poetica._
"Princes will sometimes mourn their lot in prose.
Peleus and Telephus, broke down by woes,
In indigence and exile forced to roam,
Leave sounding phrase, and long-tail'd words, at home."--S.
[220] Parl. Debates, vol. xxx., p. 377.
[221] "In default of America, I prefer England to any other country. I
shall take the name of Colonel Meuron, or of Duroc."--_Instructions to
Gourgaud_, July 13, 1815; Savary, tom. iv., p. 162.
[222] Parl. Debates, vol. xxxiii., p. 213.
[223] Parl. Debates, vol. xxxiii., p. 235.
[224] "_Je le répète, il peut s'évader seul, et aller en Amérique quand
il le voudra._" Taken from a report of Baron Sturmer to Prince
Metternich, giving an account of General Gourgaud's communications,
dated 14th March, 1818.--S.
[225] "_Je ne puis plus vivre en particulier. J'aime mieux être
prisonnier ici, que abre aux Etats Unis._"--S.
[226] Warden's Letters from St. Helena.
[227] Voice from St. Helena, &c.
[228] Appeal to the British Nation, &c. By M. Santini, Porter of the
Emperor's closet.
[229] Official Memoir, dictated by Napoleon; being a Letter from Count
de Montholon to Sir Hudson Lowe.
[230] Manuscrit venu de St. Hélène d'une manière inconnue, &c.
[231] "Santini has published a brochure full of trash. There are some
truths in it; but every thing is exaggerated."--NAPOLEON, _Voice_, &c.,
vol. ii., p. 76.
[232] Vol. xxviii., p. 227.
[233] Sir Hudson Lowe writes, for example, to Lord Bathurst, 13th May,
1816:--"Having found Dr. O'Meara, who was attached to Buonaparte's
family on the removal of his French physician, very useful in giving
information in many instances, and as, if removed, it might be difficult
to find another person who might be equally agreeable to General
Buonaparte, I have deemed it advisable to suffer him to remain in the
family on the same footing as before my arrival." On the 29th of March,
1817, Sir Hudson writes:--"Dr. O'Meara had informed me of the
conversations that had occurred, and, with that readiness which he
always manifests upon such occasions, immediately wrote them down for
me."--S.
[234] "A catastrophe seemed inevitable. Napoleon indeed concluded that
there was a determination to bring it about. On the 6th of May, he sent
for O'Meara, in order that he might learn his personal position. He
desired me to express to him in English, that he had hitherto no cause
of complaint against him. It was necessary, he said, to come to an
understanding. Was he to consider him as his own physician personally,
or merely as a prison doctor, appointed by the English Government? Was
he his confessor or his inspector? _Had he made reports respecting him_,
or was it his intention to do so if called upon. The doctor replied with
great firmness, and in a tone of feeling. He said he had made _no
report_ respecting the Emperor, and that he could not imagine any
instance in which he might be induced to make a report, except in case
of serious illness."--LAS CASES, tom. i., p. 211.
[235] Last Days of the Emperor Napoleon, vol. i., p. 60.
[236] Last Days of the Emperor Napoleon, vol. ii., p. 185.
[237] Las Cases, tom. ii., p. 89.
[238] Las Cases, tom. ii., p. 115-120.
[239] Hist. de la Campagne de 1814 par Alphonse de Beauchamp.
[240] "It appears that this governor was with Blucher, and is the writer
of some official letters to your government, descriptive of part of the
operations of 1814. I pointed them out to him, and asked him, '_Est-ce
vous, Monsieur?_' He replied, 'Yes.' I told him that they were _pleines
de faussetés et de sottises_. He shrugged up his shoulders, and replied,
'_J'ai cru voir cela_.'"--_Voice_, &c., vol. i., p. 49.
[241] Las Cases, tom. i., p. 121.
[242] _Voice_, &c., vol. i., p. 93.--"The Emperor admitted that he had,
during this conversation, seriously and repeatedly offended Sir Hudson
Lowe; and he also did him the justice to acknowledge, that Sir Hudson
had not precisely shown, in a single instance, any want of respect; he
had contented himself with muttering, between his teeth, sentences which
were not audible. The only failure, perhaps, on the part of the
governor, and which was trifling, compared with the treatment he had
received, was the abrupt way in which he retired, while the admiral
withdrew slowly, and with numerous salutes."--LAS CASES, tom. iii., p.
222.