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NAPOLEON'S 
 LAST VOYAGE 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/extractfromdiaryOOcockrich 
 
(^itxact ham a jiiar^ 
 
 REAR-ADMIRAL 1 
 
 1 
 
 SIR GEORGE COCKBURN, 
 
 WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO 
 
 GEN. NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, 
 
 Passage from England to St. Helena, in 1815. 
 
 ON BOARD 
 
 H.M.S. "NORTHUMBERLAND," 
 
 Bearing the Rear-Admiral s Flag. 
 
 PRICE TWO SHILLINGS. 
 
 fmtdfln:— SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & Co, 
 
 1888. 
 
 ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL. 
 
dip 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The M.S. from which this " Extract" has 
 been printed, was found, in his own hand- 
 writing, among the papers of my late father ; 
 attached to it being a note, also in his own 
 handwriting, to the effect that it is a repro- 
 duction of a copy found at St. Helena, in 1824 
 or 25, among the effects of one who had held 
 an official position as Admiral's Secretary or 
 Captain's Clerk on board the " Northumber- 
 land " on her voyage to St. Helena, where he 
 died, and who had no doubt made it as a 
 matter of pardonable curiosity and satisfaction 
 for himself; and it is now published in the 
 belief that it's intrinsic interest, as closing a 
 gap in the later career of the great soldier, will 
 be deemed sufficient excuse for it's seeing the 
 light. 
 
 Thos: Salkeld Borradaile. 
 
 Surbiton, 1888. 
 
 lVil.81677 
 

 ^iflrad from a ^iarg 
 
 OF 
 
 I[EAR-ADM1RAL SIR GEORGE COCKBURN. 
 
 [N the 6th August, being off the Start in the 
 " Northumberland," I met Lord Keith 
 in the "Tonnant," having with him the "Bellero- 
 phon" and some frigates in which were General 
 Buonaparte and all his suite. As the removal 
 of the General and his things was likely to 
 occupy some time, and the doing of it with 
 the ships under sail might be attended with 
 inconvenience, Lord Keith agreed with me in 
 the propriety of anchoring the whole off the 
 Berry Head, which was accordingly done the 
 same evening; and his lordship afterwards 
 accompanied me on board the " Bellerophon " 
 to make known to General Buonaparte that 
 in pursuance of instructions under which I 
 was acting, he, the General, was to be removed 
 as quickly as convenient into the ** North- 
 umberland " for the purpose of being conveyed 
 to St. Helena. The General protested very 
 strongly against this proceeding and against 
 the right of the British Government thus to 
 
dispose of him. Very little other conversation 
 passed between us ; we did not think it 
 necessary to enter into the merits of the 
 question with him, but contented ourselves 
 with observing that, as military officers, we 
 must, of course, obey the instructions of our 
 Government, and therefore that we hoped he 
 would be ready to remove to the " Northum- 
 berland " the next morning. 
 
 On the jth August, after breakfast, I went 
 again to the ** Bellerophon" to examine the 
 baggage, (&c., of the General and of those who 
 were to accompany him, at which he was 
 extremely indignant. I, however, in conformity 
 with my instructions, caused everything to be 
 inspected previous to permitting it to be sent 
 on board the " Northumberland;" all the arms 
 of every description were delivered up by him 
 and his suite, and I stopped 4,000 napoleons 
 in gold, which I delivered to Captain Maitland 
 to be by him transmitted to the Lords Com- 
 missioners of the Treasury. Everything else 
 belonging to them being transhipped and 
 the necessary arrangements completed, about 
 midday Buonaparte embarked on board 
 the " Northumberland, " with the persons 
 undermentioned, viz. — 
 
Grand Marechal Cornte de Bertrand. 
 Madame de Bertrand. 
 3 children of ditto. 
 I female servant with her child. 
 I man servant. 
 
 General Comte de Montholon. 
 
 Madame de Montholon. 
 
 I child. 
 
 I female servant. 
 Le Comte de Las Cases. 
 
 I son (a boy about 13 years of age). 
 
 General Gourgaud. 
 3 valets de chambre. 
 3 ditto de pied. 
 I maitre d'hotel. 
 I chef d'office. 
 I cook. 
 I huissier. 
 
 1 lampiste. 
 
 Of which — 
 
 7 grown-up, to be at my table. 
 
 2 maid servants '\ 
 
 I young gentleman > at a separate table. 
 5 children ) 
 
 12 domestics, with my servants. 
 
 27 in all. 
 
On reaching the deck he said to me, ** Here I 
 am, Admiral, at your orders! " He then asked 
 to be introduced to the Captain, then asked 
 the names of the different officers and gentle- 
 men upon deck, asked them in what countries 
 they were born and other questions of such 
 trifling import, and he then went into the 
 cabin with Lord Keith and myself, followed by 
 some of his own people. After I had shown 
 him the cabin I had appropriated for his 
 exclusive use and requested him to sit down in 
 the great cabin, he begged me to cause the 
 Lieutenant of the ship to be introduced to 
 him ; as, however, at this time his own 
 followers came to take leave of him, I thought 
 it best to leave him for a little while to himself, 
 and I found soon afterwards advantage was 
 taken of this for him to assume exclusive right 
 to the after, or great cabin. When I therefore 
 had finished my letters I went into it again 
 with some of my officers and desired M. de 
 Bertrand to explain to him that the after cabin 
 must be considered as common to us all, and 
 that the sleeping cabin I had appropriated 
 to him could alone be considered as exclusively 
 his. He received this intimation with sub- 
 mission and good humour and soon afterwards 
 
went on deck, where he chatted loosely and 
 good-naturedly with everybody. 
 
 At dinner he ate heartily of almost every 
 dish, praised everything and seemed most 
 perfectly contented and reconciled to his fate. 
 He talked with me during dinner much on his 
 Russian Campaign, said he meant only to have 
 refreshed his troops at Moscow for four or five 
 days and then to have marched for Petersburg, 
 but the destruction of Moscow subverted all 
 his projects, and he said nothing could have 
 been more horrible than was that campaign; 
 that for several days together it appeared to 
 him as if he were marching through a sea of 
 fire owing to the constant succession of villages 
 in flames which arose in every direction as far 
 as his eye could reach ; that this had been by 
 some attributed to his troops but that it was 
 always done by the natives. Many of his 
 soldiers however, he said, lost their lives by 
 endeavouring to pillage in the midst of the 
 flames. He spoke much of the cold during 
 their disastrous retreat, and stated that one 
 night, after he had quitted the army to return 
 to Paris, an entire half of his Guard were 
 frozen to death. He also told me in the 
 course of this evening that previous to his 
 
8 
 
 going to Elba he had made preparations for 
 having a Navy of lOO sail of the line ; that he 
 had established a conscription for the Navy, 
 and that the Toulon Fleet was entirely manned 
 and brought forward by people of this descrip- 
 tion ; that he ordered them positively to get 
 under weigh and manoeuvre every day the 
 weather would permit of it, and to stand out 
 occasionally and to exchange long shots with 
 our ships; that this had been much remon- 
 strated against by those about him and had 
 cost him at first a good deal of money to repair 
 the accidents that occurred from the want of 
 maritime knowledge, such as from the ships 
 getting aboard of each other, splitting their 
 sails, springing their masts, &c., but he found 
 that even these accidents tended to improve 
 the crews and therefore he continued to pay 
 his money and oblige them to continue to 
 exercise. He said he had built his ships at 
 Antwerp in rather too great a hurry, but he 
 spoke highly in praise of the port and said he 
 had already given orders for a similar establish- 
 ment to have been formed on the Elbe ; and 
 had fortune not turned against him he hoped 
 to have sooner or later given us some trouble, 
 even on the seas. He stated that the reason 
 
he had over-hurried the ships at Antwerp, 
 before mentioned, was because he was anxious 
 to press forward an expedition from thence 
 against Ireland. After taking his wine and 
 coffee he took a short walk on deck and after- 
 wards proposed a round game at cards ; in 
 compliance with which we played at vingt-un 
 until about half-past ten, won from him about 
 seven or eight napoleons, and he then retired 
 to his bedroom, apparently as much at his ease 
 as if he had belonged to the ship all his life. I 
 afterwards disposed of his whole party for the 
 night, though not without some difficulty ; the 
 ladies with their families making it necessary I 
 should provide them with adequate room and 
 accommodation, and yet each other person of 
 the suite asking for and expecting a separate 
 cabin to sleep in and in which to put their things. 
 On the Sth August y we lay-to the most of the 
 day off Plymouth, waiting to be joined by the 
 squadron destined to accompany us. It had 
 blown fresh during the night, which left rather 
 a heavy swell, the effect of which prevented 
 General Buonaparte from preparing for dinner 
 (at least that was the excuse made for his non- 
 appearance), and I consequently did not see 
 him during the day. 
 
10 
 
 On the gth August, being joined by all our 
 squadron (except the " Weymouth " which I 
 could not wait for), we proceeded on our way 
 down Channel, with tolerably fine weather but 
 wind from N.W. General Buonaparte came 
 out of his cabin, for the first time this day, 
 about two p.m. and took a short walk on deck, 
 but as I was busy writing I did not see him 
 until dinner time. I found him rather lower 
 and more reserved than the first day ; indeed, 
 until after drinking a tumbler of champagne 
 he hardly spoke at all, but afterwards he con- 
 versed with more freedom, and made many 
 and particular enquiries on the number and 
 state of our forces in India ; said he had been 
 in correspondence with Tippoo Saib, and that 
 he had hoped to have reached India when he 
 went to Egypt, but the removal of the Vizier, 
 and the alteration of politics of the Ottoman 
 Porte, with other circumstances, had prevented 
 his pursuing the career there which he had at 
 first contemplated. After dinner he went upon 
 deck, and persisted in keeping off his hat as he 
 walked up and down, evidently with a view to 
 inducing the English Officers on deck also to 
 continue uncovered (as his French attendants 
 did, and as I am told the Officers of the 
 
II 
 
 *' Bellerophon " used to do whilst he remained 
 on the deck of that ship). Observing this, I 
 made a point of putting on my hat immediately 
 after the first compliment upon going out, and 
 I desired the Officers to do the same, at which 
 he seemed considerably piqued, and he soon 
 afterwards went into the cabin and made up 
 his party at vingt-un, but he certainly neither 
 played nor talked with the same cheerfulness 
 he did the first night : this might, indeed, have 
 been accident, but it appeared to me to pro- 
 ceed rather from downright sulkiness, though I 
 cannot but remark that his general manners, as 
 far as I am yet able to speak of them, are un- 
 couth and disagreeable, and to his French friends 
 most overbearing if not absolutely rude. About 
 eleven he retired to his bedroom, having been as 
 unfortunate at his vingt-un party as the evening 
 before. (Just before dark this evening I dis- 
 patched a brig to put letters into the Post Office 
 at Falmouth, off which place we were, to inform 
 Government of our progress.) 
 
 On the loth August, as soon as the brig I 
 had sent to Falmouth rejoined me, we made 
 sail on the starboard tack, the wind being still 
 from the westward with considerable swell 
 from that quarter. Buonaparte did not make 
 
12 
 
 his appearance until just before dinner, when I 
 found him playing at chess in the great cabin 
 with the Comte de Montholon. He appeared 
 to me to play but badly, and was evidently 
 inferior to his antagonist, who I observed 
 nevertheless was quite determined not to win 
 the game from his ex-majesty. 
 
 At dinner, Buonaparte told me, when talking 
 about our late contests with America, that Mr. 
 Maddison was too late in declaring his war, 
 and that he never made any requisition to 
 France for assistance ; but that he (Buonaparte) 
 would very readily have lent any number of 
 line-of-battle ships Mr. Maddison might have 
 wished for, if American seamen could have 
 been sent to man them and carry them over ; 
 but that the affairs of France beginning to go 
 wrong about that period, it was out of his 
 power to afford any other material assistance 
 to the American Government. 
 
 Immediately after dinner to-day, the General 
 got up rather uncivilly and went upon deck as 
 soon as he had swallowed his own coffee and 
 before all the rest of us were even served. 
 This induced me to request particularly the 
 remainder of the party to sit still, and he 
 consequently went out only attended by his 
 
13 
 
 Mar^chal, without the slightest further notice 
 being taken of him. (It is clear he is still 
 inclined to act the Sovereign occasionally, but 
 I cannot allow it, and the sooner therefore he 
 becomes convinced it is not to be admitted the 
 better.) 
 
 General Gourgaud (who was in the Battle of 
 Waterloo) told me to-day that during that 
 battle, when the Prussians appeared, Buonaparte 
 believed them to have been General Grouchy's 
 Division, he having left between 30 and 40,000 
 men with that General, under orders to advance 
 (in the same direction from which the Prussians 
 had come) if from the firing heard General 
 Grouchy should have reason to suppose the day 
 was obstinately contested by the English ; and 
 this, he said, induced Buonaparte to persist in 
 his efforts so long, and occasioned (when it was 
 discovered that there were nothing but Prussians 
 on the French flank) so general and complete 
 a rout. 
 
 He said Buonaparte was forced off the ground 
 at last by Soult, and he proceeded afterwards 
 as quickly as possible to Paris ; but so great 
 was the panic and disorder among the French 
 soldiers, that many of them (without arms or 
 accoutrements) actually arrived in Paris (some 
 
14 
 
 behind carriages, others in carts, &c.), on the 
 same day with the General and his attendants, 
 not having halted once from the moment of 
 their quitting the field, and reporting every- 
 where as they passed that all was lost. So 
 well do these soldiers seem to have followed 
 their chief's example in the hour of difficulty 
 and danger ! ! ! 
 
 Our latitude this day at noon was 49° 41' N. 
 
 On the 11th August, it blew very fresh all 
 day from the N.W., and I was forced to carry 
 sail to weather Ushant, which occasioned all 
 my French party, from the master to the man, 
 to be miserably sick; I therefore saw nothing 
 of General Buonaparte throughout the day. I 
 had, however, some conversation with M. de 
 Bertrand, which tended to prove to me how 
 blindly attached he is to Buonaparte, and 
 how decidedly inimical to the Bourbon family. 
 He affirmed that neither Ney, nor Soult, nor 
 any of the French marechals were apprised of 
 Buonaparte's intention of returning from Elba 
 to France ; that it was adopted by the General 
 of his own accord, in consequence of his 
 observing in the public papers how unwisely 
 the Bourbons were acting, and which rendered 
 him certain how unpopular they would be 
 
15 
 
 throughout France, and consequently that he 
 (General Buonaparte) had only to shew himself 
 there to be joined by everybody ; but to the 
 moment of his actually landing in France, 
 he had not received a promise or a line from 
 anybody with proposals or recommending the 
 step. M. de Bertrand told me they landed 
 with only 600 men ; that he was sure Ney left 
 Paris with the intention of obeying the king's 
 orders and opposing Buonaparte's progress ; 
 but finding the soldiers he commanded, and 
 indeed almost all his officers, resolved on join- 
 ing Buonaparte instead of acting against him, 
 he (Ney) then determined on taking the same 
 line, as the only way of keeping the command 
 of his division ; and after having so resolved, 
 he thenceforth acted most zealously for the 
 new cause he had adopted, and did everything 
 in his power to forward Buonaparte's views, 
 and thwart and destroy those of the Bourbons. 
 Bertrand then added that General Buonaparte 
 was received everywhere, as he advanced in 
 France, like a father returning to his children, 
 and that he would be always so received again 
 in the event of his landing there (after the allied 
 troops had quitted the country) owing to the 
 love and affection borne him by every individual 
 
i6 
 
 in the country. I could not help smiling at 
 this statement of M. de Bertrand's, and asking 
 him, in reply, if Buonaparte were so popular 
 with all descriptions of persons throughout 
 France, why he had so quickly determined on 
 quitting it altogether after the defeat of 
 Waterloo, instead of endeavouring to rally 
 the dispersed armies, and make further efforts 
 to defend the country ? The only answer I 
 could get from him to this question was, that 
 General Buonaparte had expected to have been 
 very differently received by the English ; and 
 that he had been much influenced in taking the 
 step he had done by the Abbe Sieyes, who had 
 strongly advised the General to proceed at 
 once to England in preference to taking any 
 other course. 
 
 Our latitude and longitude this day at noon 
 were 48° 48' N., 5° 58' W. 
 
 On the 12th August our weather was 
 more moderate, though the west wind and 
 swell continued. Buonaparte came upon deck 
 this day eairlier than usual, that is to say 
 about three o'clock. He does not generally 
 quit his bed till between ten and eleven, 
 and, like most Frenchmen, he breakfasts, 
 reads, &c., before he makes his toilet, but he 
 
17 
 
 does not come out of his own cabin until he 
 is dressed. He appeared to-day thoughtful 
 and low, though in good health. I had a 
 tolerably long conversation with him relative 
 to Ferdinand of Spain : he said he considered 
 him to be both a fool and a coward ; that he 
 was now perfectly under the dominion of the 
 priesthood and was merely a passive instrument 
 in the hands of the monks ; he added, he looked 
 upon King Charles of Spain as an honest good 
 man, but that he had lost everything by his 
 attachment to a bad wife. 
 
 He told me that Baron de Kolly, who was 
 sent by our Government to bring off Ferdinand, 
 was first found out by his endeavouring to gain 
 some person to his interest in Paris, as also 
 from suspicion excited by the command of 
 money which he appeared to possess ; that 
 upon his being arrested all his papers were 
 discovered, and then that it was determined to 
 send off a poHce officer from Paris to personate 
 Kolly at Vallan9ay, to deliver the Prince 
 Regent's letter, and to assure Ferdinand that 
 everything was prepared for his escape, pur- 
 posely to prove how he would act under such 
 circumstances ; but in spite of everything this 
 sham Kolly could urge (and Buonaparte added 
 
i8 
 
 that he was a clever fellow) Ferdinand's 
 courage was not equal to the undertaking, 
 and he obstinately refused to have anything 
 to do with the supposed agent of Great Britain. 
 The General assured me that until Kolly was 
 discovered at Paris the French Government 
 had no idea of our attempting to carry off 
 Ferdinand, but, however, that he was quite 
 convinced, had Kolly not been discovered, that 
 the pusillanimity of Ferdinand would have pre- 
 vented all possibility of our success. I told 
 him we had some suspicion of Baron de Kolly 
 having played a double part in the transaction, 
 but he said upon his honour it was no such 
 thing. 
 
 Speaking of Captain Wright, he said that 
 when Lord Ebrington, at Elba, first drew his 
 attention to the name and to the circumstances 
 respecting Captain Wright he did not recollect 
 the case, which, he said, was exactly this ; that 
 Captain Wright, being supposed in France to 
 have been concerned with the conspiracy of 
 Georges and others, was, when taken, conveyed 
 to the Temple preparatory to being examined 
 with reference to that transaction, and on 
 being ordered to attend a council charged with 
 the investigation of it, he had put an end to 
 
19 
 
 himself* Buonaparte, though he confessed he 
 could not give any reason for Captain Wright 
 committing such an act, yet added that the 
 inferior rank and Httle consequence of this 
 officer ought to have exempted him (Buona- 
 parte) from the charge of having either ordered 
 or attached any importance to his death. 
 
 He asked me during this day's conversation 
 a good many questions respecting the Spanish- 
 American Colonies, and said he thought Spain 
 would, by the present bigoted misconduct of 
 Ferdinand, infallibly lose them all. 
 
 In the evening he played at vingt-un as 
 usual until about eleven, but he did not seem 
 to recover his spirits; he talked but little and 
 appeared much absorbed in thought. 
 
 This day at noon we were in latitude 46° 
 30' N., longitude 8° 2' W. 
 
 On the 13^/t August, it was calm most of the 
 twenty-four hours, but still we were attended 
 by a disagreeable swell. I did not see much of 
 General Buonaparte throughout this day, as 
 owing to his appearing inclined to try to assume 
 again improper consequence, I was purposely 
 more than usually distant with him, and there- 
 fore, though we exchanged common salutations 
 and high looks, nothing passed between us 
 worth noticing. 
 
20 
 
 Our latitude and longitude to-day at noon 
 were 45° 42' N., and 8° 10' W. 
 
 On the i/^th August, we had a continuation 
 of fine weather and light winds. The General 
 and myself were again distant and high with 
 each other, though perfectly civil — at least he 
 has been as much so as his nature (which is 
 not very polished) seems capable of — and his 
 attendants are certainly behaving as if anxious 
 to gain my good opinion. 
 
 Our latitude and longitude to-day at noon 
 were 45° 13' N., 9° 5' W. 
 
 On the i^th August, we had still light winds 
 and fine weather with less swell than usual, 
 which may in some measure account for 
 General Buonaparte being more sociable and 
 apparently more at his ease. It being his 
 birthday I made him my compliments upon it 
 and drank his health, which civility he seemed 
 to appreciate ; and after dinner I walked with 
 him on deck and had rather a long conversa- 
 tion with him, in which I asked him whether 
 he really had intended to invade England 
 when he made the demonstration at Boulogne. 
 He told me he had most perfectly and decidedly 
 made up his mind to it, but his putting guns 
 into the praams, and the rest of his armed 
 
21 
 
 flotilla, was only to deceive and endeavour to 
 make us believe he intended to attempt making 
 a descent on England with their assistance 
 only, whereas he had never intended to make 
 any other' use of them than as transports ; and 
 he had entirely depended on his fleets deceiv- 
 ing ours by the routes and manoeuvres he 
 directed them to make, and that they would 
 thereby have been enabled to get off Boulogne, 
 so as to have a decided superiority in the 
 Channel long enough to ensure his making 
 good his landing ; for which he said everything 
 was so arranged and prepared that he would 
 only have required twenty-four hours after 
 arriving at the spot fixed upon. He said he 
 had 200,000 men for this service, out of which 
 6,000 cavalry would have been landed with 
 horses and every appointment complete, fit 
 for acting the moment they were thrown on 
 shore ; that his praams were particularly 
 intended for the carrying over these horses. 
 He told me the exact point of debarcation had 
 not been fixed upon by him, as he considered it 
 not material and only therefore to be deter- 
 mined by the winds and circumstances of the 
 moment ; but that he had intended to have got 
 as near to Chatham as he conveniently could, 
 
22 
 
 to have secured our resources there at once,, 
 and to have pushed on to London by that 
 road. He said he had ordered his Medi- 
 terranean Admiral to proceed with his fleet 
 to Martinique to distract our attention and 
 draw our fleets after him, and then to exert 
 his utmost efforts to get quickly back to 
 Europe ; and, looking into Brest (where he 
 had ordered another fleet under Gantheaume 
 to be ready to join him), the whole was to 
 push up Channel to Boulogne, where Buona- 
 parte was to be ready to join them and to 
 move with them over to our coast at an hour's 
 notice ; and in point of fact, he said, he was 
 so ready, his things embarked and himself 
 anxiously looking for the arrival of his fleets, 
 when he heard of their having indeed returned 
 to Europe, but that instead of coming into 
 the Channel in conformity with the instruc- 
 tions he had given, they had got to Cadiz, 
 where they were blockaded by the English 
 Fleet, with which they had a partial en- 
 gagement off Ferrol ; and thus, he said, by 
 disobedience and want of management of his 
 Admiral, he saw in a moment that all his hopes 
 with regard to invading England were frustrated, 
 with this additional disadvantage (which he had 
 
23 
 
 fully foreseen when he first turned in his mind 
 the idea of such attempt), that the preparations 
 at Boulogne had given a stronger military 
 bias to every individual in England, and en- 
 abled ministers to make greater efforts than 
 they otherwise perhaps would have been per- 
 mitted to do. He added that he believed, 
 however, the English administration had enter- 
 tained great alarms for the issue if he had 
 got over, as his secret agents at the Russian 
 Government reported to him that Great Britain 
 had most pressingly urged that Court, with 
 Austria, to declare war against France for 
 the purpose of averting from England the 
 danger of this threatened invasion ; which he 
 said, however, he had given up from the 
 moment he found his fleets had failed him, 
 and, having then turned his whole attention 
 to his new enemies on the Continent, his 
 forces collected at Boulogne enabled him to 
 make the sudden movement which proved 
 fatal to General Mac, and gave him (Buona- 
 parte) all the advantages which followed. In 
 short, the account he gave me very much 
 tallied with Goldsmith's relation of the same 
 circumstances (as given in his secret History 
 of St. Cloud), and I must say, from what I 
 
24 
 
 have hitherto seen and learned, I begin to 
 think Mr. Goldsmith had more foundation 
 for many of his statements than he has gene- 
 rally received credit for. Buonaparte, how- 
 ever, told me in a manner not at all suspicious 
 that Admiral Villeneuve decidedly put himself 
 to death, though the General, in talking to me 
 of him, seemed very strongly impressed with 
 an idea of the Admiral's unpardonable dis- 
 obedience and misconduct throughout. He 
 also told me that he had ordered Admiral 
 Dumanois to be tried by a court martial for 
 his conduct at the Battle of Trafalgar, and 
 that he had exerted all his influence to get 
 him shot or broke, but that he had been ac- 
 quittedN in spite of him ; and he added, when 
 the sentence of acquittal was given. Admiral 
 Cosmas (who was one of the Members of the 
 Court, and who he said he decidedly con- 
 sidered to be the best sea officer now in 
 France, and who has therefore been lately 
 created a peer) broke his own sword at the 
 time that of Diimanois was returned to him ; 
 which act Buonaparte seemed to have been 
 most highly pleased with, and which was most 
 probably the real cause of Cosmas's advance- 
 ment to the peerage. 
 
25 
 
 In the course of this evening's conversation 
 he informed me that he had prepared a strong 
 expedition at Antwerp, destined to act against 
 Ireland, which he had only been prevented 
 from sending forward by his own affairs be- 
 ginning to take an unfavourable turn on the 
 Continent. 
 
 His spirits throughout this day appeared 
 considerably better than for some days past; 
 he won a good deal at vingt-un, and his good 
 fortune seemed to gratify him, the more as it 
 was his birthday. He did not go to his bed- 
 room this evening until past eleven o'clock. 
 
 Our latitude and longitude this day at noon 
 were 43° 51' N., and 10° 21' W. 
 
 On 16th August, we had a continuation of 
 fine weather, but light winds with calms. 
 General Buonaparte is, I am glad to observe, 
 evidently improving in his spirits and his 
 behaviour, and as I am always ready to meet 
 him half-way, when he appears to conduct 
 himself with due modesty and consideration of 
 his present situation, after dinner to-day I had 
 a good deal of pleasant conversation with him ; 
 in the course of which some of the most re- 
 markable circumstances he mentioned were, 
 he assured me upon his word and honour (as 
 
26 
 
 Comte de Bertrand had done before), that he 
 had not any communication or invitation from 
 any of the Marechals or Generals, or from any 
 other person in France, when he returned to it 
 from Elba, but that the public papers con- 
 veyed to him such an acccount of the state of 
 France as induced him no longer to hesitate in 
 taking the step he did : that on his getting 
 within about five leagues of Grenoble, soon 
 after his landing in France, a detachment of 
 troops of the 3rd Regiment showed inclination 
 to resist him ; that he put himself immediately 
 in front, and throwing open his great coat to 
 shew himself more conspicuously, called to 
 them to kill their Emperor if they wished it ; 
 that this had the effect he expected, and they 
 all immediately joined him ; and afterwards he 
 received nothing but congratulations and proofs 
 of attachment all the way to Paris. 
 
 He said, at Paris he had paid too much 
 attention to and submitted too much to the 
 opinion of. the Jacobin party, which he now 
 was persuaded had not been so requisite for 
 him as he had conceived it to be, and that he 
 should have done better if he had taken his 
 measures from himself, and depended on his 
 own popularity. He said the conduct of the 
 
27 
 
 allies obliged him to form his army, and move 
 it, so quickly that he had not time to examine 
 it and weed it as he should have done, and 
 therefore many officers remained in it who had 
 received their appointments from the Bourbons, 
 and were extremel}' disaffected to him and 
 anxious for opportunity to betray him. He 
 said that he did not lose any soldiers from 
 desertion on his march, but that his officers 
 were constantly deserting. He then paid a 
 compliment to the lower order of people in 
 France at the expense of the higher orders. He 
 said the former were the most sincere, the 
 most firm, and at the same time the best 
 dispositioned people in the world ; but in pro- 
 portion as you rose in class of people in 
 France, the character became worse, and 
 above the bourgeois they were too fickle and 
 too volatile to be at all depended upon ; they 
 had one principle for to-day, and another for 
 to-morrow, according to the circumstances of 
 the moment ; and he attributed solely to the 
 disaffected officers of his army his Waterloo 
 disasters. He contradicted what General Gour- 
 gaud said the other day respecting his having 
 mistaken the Prussians for General Grouchy's 
 division, and assured me he knew early in the 
 
28 
 
 day the Prussians were closing on his flank ; 
 that this, however, gave him Kttle or no un- 
 easiness as he depended on General Grouchy 
 also closing with him at the same time, and he 
 had ordered a sufficient force to oppose the 
 Prussians, who were in fact already checked ; 
 and he added that he considered the battle to 
 have been upon the whole rather in his favour 
 than otherwise throughout the day, but that 
 after dusk the disaffected officers he had alluded 
 to promulgated the cry of '' sauve qui pent,'' 
 which spread such confusion and alarm through- 
 out his whole line, that it became impossible 
 to counteract it, or to rally his troops, situated 
 as they were ; though he said had it been 
 daylight, he was positive the result would have 
 been different, as he then would only have had 
 to have placed himself in a conspicuous situa- 
 tion in the front to have insured the rallying of 
 all his troops around him, but, as it was, 
 treachery and darkness combined rendered 
 his ruin inevitable. 
 
 He said he did not on the morning of the 
 1 8th June entertain the most distant idea that 
 the Duke of Wellington would have willingly 
 allowed him to have brought the English army 
 to a decisive battle, and he (Buonaparte) had 
 
29 
 
 therefore been the more anxious to push on, 
 and if possible force it, as he considered nothing 
 else could offer him a chance of surmounting 
 the difficulties with which he was surrounded ; 
 but, he added, if he could have beaten the 
 English army, which (from the approximation 
 of their numbers) he was led to consider 
 possible, the situation was such that he was 
 positive hardly any of the English forces would 
 have escaped being either killed or taken ; 
 that the Russian army, having been already 
 beaten on the i6th, would (upon any 
 decided disaster to the English) have been 
 forced to make a precipitate retreat and 
 perhaps have been dispersed, certainly entirely 
 disorganized ; that he (Buonaparte) might 
 then have pushed by forced marches to 
 have met the Austrians before any junction 
 could have taken place between them and the 
 Russians, which would have placed the game 
 in his hands even if hostihties had been ob- 
 stinately persevered in ; though, in the then 
 state of things, he had built, he said, rather 
 upon the idea that a victory over the English 
 army in Belgium, with its immediate results, 
 would have been sufficient to have produced 
 a change in the Administration in England 
 
30 
 
 and have afforded him a chance of concluding 
 an immediate general truce ; which was really 
 his first object, as France was hardly equal 
 to the effort she was then making, and it was 
 perfectly impossible for her to think of making 
 any adequate resistance against the numerous 
 forces of the Allies if once united and acting in 
 concert against him. 
 
 He said things, however, having taken the 
 turn they did, and forced him, consequently, 
 to act as he had done, he thought Great 
 Britain had not pursued the wisest policy in 
 refusing to receive him in a friendly manner ; 
 that he would have given his word of honour 
 not to have quitted the kingdom nor to have 
 interfered in any manner, directly or indirectly, 
 in the affairs of France or in politics of any 
 sort, unless hereafter requested so to do by our 
 Government ; that the influence he had over 
 the minds of people of every description in 
 France would have enabled him to have kept 
 them quiet under whatever terms it might 
 have been thought necessary for the future 
 security to impose upon France ; but that if 
 terms at all repugnant to the vanity of the 
 French nation are acquiesced in by the 
 Bourbons it will render them, if possible, 
 
31 
 
 even more unpopular than they now are, and 
 the people of France will only await a 
 favourable crisis to rise en masse for their 
 destruction. He said the disbanding of the 
 French Army was of no great consequence, as 
 the whole nation was now military and could 
 always form into an army at a given signal. 
 In answer to all this I told him very fairly 
 that, conscious as he no doubt was of his own 
 integrity and how sacredly he would have 
 observed any stipulations to which he pledged 
 his word of honour, it was, perhaps, natural for 
 him at the moment to feel as he had stated ; 
 yet that I did not think, after the events of 
 latter years, the Government of Great Britain 
 could be supposed to have sufficient reliance 
 on him to have allowed him to take up his 
 abode in England in conformity with his 
 request, due reference being had to the present 
 state of things in France and to the feelings of 
 our allies on the Continent ; and I therefore 
 observed to him, that, with this view of the 
 subject, I had been surprised at his not retiring 
 in preference to Austria, where his connection 
 with the Emperor would have afforded him 
 so strong a claim to more distinguished 
 reception and consideration. He said if he 
 
32 
 
 had gone there he had no doubt he would have 
 been received with every attention, but that he 
 could not bring himself to receive any favours 
 from the Emperor of Austria after the manner 
 in which he had now taken part against him, 
 notwithstanding his former professions of af- 
 fection and his close connection with him ; 
 which latter, the General added, had not been 
 by any means sought by himself. He then gave 
 me the following curious relation respecting his 
 marriage with Maria Louisa. He told me that 
 when he was with the Emperor of Russia at 
 Erfurth, Alexander took an opportunity of 
 pressing upon him one day how important his 
 having a legitimate heir must prove to the 
 repose of France and Europe ; and Alexander 
 therefore advised his setting aside Josephine, 
 to which, if he would consent, the Emperor 
 offered him in marriage a Russian princess 
 (Buonaparte said he believed the Emperor 
 called her the Princess Ann) ; but he said he 
 did not pay much attention to it at the time, 
 for he had lived so long in such harmony, 
 and had so much reason to be satisfied, with 
 Josephine, that the idea of causing her pain dis- 
 inclined him from then entering further on the 
 subject ; added to which, he said, he was alread}- 
 
33 
 
 well aware of the falseness of character of the 
 Emperor Alexander. He therefore merely ob- 
 served to him in reply, that he was living on 
 the best terms possible with the Empress 
 Josephine, and consequently had never turned 
 his thoughts towards any arrangement of the 
 nature mentioned by his Imperial Majesty. 
 However, some time afterwards at Paris, being 
 strongly pressed by his friends on the same 
 point, and Josephine having herself assented to 
 the arrangement, he sent to Russia to acquaint 
 Alexander with his wish and readiness to espouse 
 the Russian princess who had been proffered 
 to him. This intimation, he said, the Russian 
 government received with every outward mark 
 of satisfaction, professing its readiness to accede 
 to the match, but at the same time starting 
 difficulties upon various points connected with 
 it, and particularly with regard to securing to 
 the Princess the right of exercising her own 
 religion, to which end it was demanded a Greek 
 chapel might be established for her in the 
 Tuilleries. This, Buonaparte said he would not 
 have cared about himself, but being a thing so 
 uncustomary, it, with the other points requested 
 by Russia, caused much discussion and difficulty 
 at Paris ; therefore, in consequence of these 
 
 c 
 
34 
 
 inconveniences presenting themselves with re- 
 gard to the Russian alliance, some of his 
 ministers, with Eugene Beauharnois (his son- 
 in-law), waited upon him to press the advantage 
 it would be if he would consent to ask in 
 marriage an Austrian princess instead, adding 
 that the Austrian Ambassador would readily 
 engage for his court coming into any arrange- 
 ments he (Buonaparte) might wish for this 
 object ; to which he replied if such were the 
 case, and the thing could be concluded at once, 
 he should not on his part make objections to 
 this new plan. It was, therefore, almost im- 
 mediately agreed upon to take the contract of 
 marriage of Louis XVI. for their guide in 
 arranging his with an Austrian princess, and 
 before twelve o'clock that night the necessary 
 documents were prepared and signed and sent 
 off for the approbation of the Emperor of 
 Austria; who acceded without hesitation to 
 everything, and by his manner of forwarding 
 it, gave all reason to believe that he was not 
 only satisfied, but highly pleased with the 
 arrangement ; and thus Buonaparte said he 
 became the Emperor's son-in-law without any 
 other solicitation or intrigue on his part, and 
 without having even once seen Maria Louisa 
 
35 
 
 until she arrived in France as his wife. He 
 therefore seemed to think that the Emperor's 
 conduct towards him, since his reverses began, 
 was not in unison with his conduct or profes- 
 sions towards him in prosperity, or such as he 
 had a right to expect from the father of his 
 wife ; and consequently he said he would rather 
 have gone anywhere in his distress, or done 
 anything, than have placed himself in a situation 
 to have been obliged to ask protection as a 
 favour from a prince who he thought had 
 behaved towards him so unjustly. He finished 
 by saying he had been deceived with respect 
 to the reception he looked for from the English, 
 but still, harshly and unfairly as he considered 
 himself treated by them, yet he found comfort 
 from feeling that he was under the protection 
 of British laws ; which he could not have felt 
 had he gone to any other country, where his 
 fate might have depended on the whim of an 
 individual. He hardly said anything more 
 about his wish to have gone to America, and 
 though his attendants assured me he was very 
 anxious to have got there, and to have re- 
 mained there as a private individual, I believe 
 he gave up all idea of that country after the 
 passports were refused him, and he saw the 
 
36 
 
 situation of our ships. He played his game of 
 vingt-un this evening as usual, and went to bed 
 about ten o'clock. 
 
 Our latitude and longitude were to-day at 
 noon 42^ 59' N., and 10° 42' W. 
 
 On the lyth August we had light baffling 
 weather. In my conversation this day with 
 General Buonaparte, the only thing which 
 passed, worthy of noticing, was his remarking 
 to me, amongst other things, that he had been 
 placed in chief command as a General Officer at 
 the age of twenty-four years ; that he made the 
 conquest of Italy at twenty-five ; that he had 
 risen from nothing to be sovereign of his country 
 (as Consul) at thirty; and that if chance had 
 caused him to have died or to have been killed 
 the day after he entered Moscow, his would 
 have been a career of advancement and unin- 
 terrupted success without a parallel ; and the 
 very misfortunes which afterwards befel the 
 French Army would in such case probably 
 have tended rather to the advantage than 
 disadvantage of his fame, as, however inevit- 
 able they were, they would certainly have 
 been attributed to his loss rather than to 
 their true cause. 
 
 The General left the vingt-un party rather 
 
37 
 
 abruptly this evening and retired earlier than 
 usual. 
 
 Our latitude and longitude this day were 
 41° 57' N., 11° II' W. 
 
 On the iSth August we had fine weather 
 with light winds from the westward. The 
 brig I sent to Guernsey joined us again this 
 day, which enabled me to give General Buona- 
 parte some French papers and gazettes which 
 she brought. He told me in the evening that 
 the Presidents des Departements and des 
 Arrondissements appointed by the King were, 
 with very few exceptions, the same persons as 
 he (Buonaparte) should have appointed. In 
 the course of our conversation this evening he 
 talked much of the late Queen of Naples and 
 said he had had a good deal of correspondence 
 with her, as well whilst he was in Sicily as in 
 Naples : he said his general advice to her was 
 to remain quiet and not to intermeddle with 
 the arrangements of the greater Powers of 
 Europe. By letters which, he said, he had 
 received from his wife, he learned that after 
 the Queen of Naples had returned to Vienna 
 she had taken notice of and been very kind 
 to his son, and that in a conversation she had 
 with his wife she had asked her why she did 
 
38 
 
 not follow him (Buonaparte) to Elba. Maria 
 Louisa answered that she wished to do so, 
 but her father and mother would not allow 
 her, &c. The Queen of Naples then inter- 
 rogated her as to whether she really liked 
 him, when, being answered in the affirmative, 
 and Maria Louisa speaking further in his 
 favour, the Queen said to her, " My child, 
 when one has the happiness to he married to 
 such a man, papas and mammas should not 
 keep one away from him whilst there are 
 windows and sheets by which an escape to 
 him might be effected." If there be any truth 
 in the Archduchess having written to him in 
 this style whilst he was at Elba, it will tend 
 to prove that she entertained some idea of his 
 restoration to power ; for were she (as he 
 would infer by it) really attached to him, she 
 would, I think, have been more likely to have 
 attempted following the Queen of Naples*^ 
 advice than to have written about it. 
 
 In the course of this evening's conversation 
 he told me that he considered the Russians 
 and Poles to be decidedly a braver race of 
 people than all the rest of Europe excepting 
 the French and English, and in particular 
 very superior to the Austrians. He said that 
 
39 
 
 the Emperor of Austria had neither abilities 
 nor firmness of character ; that the King of 
 Prussia was un pauvre bete ; that the Emperor 
 Alexander was a more active and clever man 
 than any of the Sovereigns of Europe, but 
 that he was extremely false ; and he asked me 
 if I was aware that, when in friendship with 
 him at Erfurth, he had signed with him a joint 
 letter to the King of England to request His 
 Majesty would relinquish the right of maritime 
 visitation of Neutrals. 
 
 He said Russia was much to be feared if 
 Poland was not preserved as an independent 
 nation, to be a barrier between Russia (which 
 was already able to call forth such hordes of 
 soldiers) and the rest of Europe. He added, 
 however, that whatever might be decided on 
 this subject at the Congress, he did not think 
 Russia would succeed in making Poland an 
 appendage to the Empire, the Poles being too 
 brave and too determined ever to be brought 
 to submit quietly to what they considered as 
 disgrace and national degradation. He spoke 
 in high terms of the King of Saxony, and said 
 he was the only sovereign who had kept faith 
 with him to the last. He mentioned to me also 
 that, after his arrival at Paris from Elba, he 
 
40 
 
 had received assurances, both from the King 
 of Spain and from the Portuguese, that, what- 
 ever appearances they might be forced to make, 
 he might depend on their not taking any active 
 offensive part against him. He talked to me 
 of many of our principal characters in Eng- 
 land, and stated particularly the high respect 
 he entertained for the character of the late 
 Lord Cornwallis, whose manners and be- 
 haviour at Amiens he spoke of as being most 
 noble and honourable, both to himself and his 
 country. He spoke in equal terms of panegyric 
 of Mr. Fox, with whom he said he had had 
 much conversation when he was in France. 
 He likewise talked of several other people in 
 England, but not in so flattering a strain as of 
 those I have mentioned. He told me he had 
 formed a great friendship with Captain Usher, 
 who conveyed him to Elba, and added that he 
 had hoped to have seen him at Paris ; that he 
 had confidently looked for a visit from him 
 there, and was much disappointed at his not 
 coming to see him in his prosperity, as he had 
 commenced acquaintance with him in his ad- 
 versity. 
 
 He told me this evening, Hkewise, that he 
 had gained possession of a correspondence 
 
41 
 
 from a foreign royal personage of high con- 
 sideration in England, which spoke very dis- 
 respectfully of different branches of our Royal 
 Family ; that he (Buonaparte) had been on the 
 point of publishing these letters in The Moniteur, 
 but had desisted, or rather recalled them from 
 the publisher, at the earnest intercession of, and 
 from consideration towards, the person by whose 
 means he obtained them. 
 
 Our latitude and longitude to-day were 
 40° 50' N., 11° 20' W. 
 
 On the igth Augusty our weather was moderate 
 with a pleasant breeze from the N.W. General 
 Buonaparte, since on board the " Northumber- 
 land," has kept nearly the same hours: he gets 
 up late (between ten and eleven) ; he then has 
 his breakfast (of meat and wine) in his bed-room, 
 and continues there in his deshabille until he 
 dresses for dinner, generally between three and 
 four in the afternoon; he then comes out of his 
 bed cabin and either takes a short walk on deck 
 or plays a game of chess with one of his Generals 
 until the dinner hour (which is five o'clock). At 
 dinner he generally eats and drinks a great deal 
 and talks but little ; he prefers meats of all kinds 
 highly dressed and never touches vegetables. 
 After dinner he generally walks for about an 
 
42 
 
 hour or hour and-a-half, and it is during these 
 walks that I usually have the most free and 
 pleasant conversations with him. About eight 
 he quits the deck, and we then make up a game 
 at cards for him, in which he seems to engage 
 with considerable pleasure and interest until 
 about ten, when he retires to his bed-room, and 
 I believes goes almost immediately to bed. Such 
 a life of inactivity, with the quantity and des- 
 cription of his food, makes me fear he will 
 not retain his health through the voyage ; he 
 however as yet does not appear to suffer 
 any inconvenience from it. 
 
 In our conversation this evening he gave me 
 an amusing account of being admitted a Mussul- 
 man. When in Egypt he said the Sheiks and 
 other Chiefs there had many consultations on 
 the subject, but at last admitted him and his 
 followers amongst the Faithful, and with express 
 permission to drink wine, provided that every 
 bottle they opened they would determine to do 
 some good action. On his requiring an ex- 
 planation of what was intended by the term 
 a good action, the head Sheik informed him 
 they meant such as giving charity to people in 
 distress, making a well in a desert, building a 
 mosque, and such like. 
 
43 
 
 He said, had he continued in Egypt, things 
 would not have ended there as they did ; that 
 Kleber was an excellent man, and a good 
 soldier, but that he did not understand or try 
 to manage the people of the country, and that 
 he had beaten one of the principal sheiks, 
 which, being considered an indignity to the 
 whole, caused him to be assassinated ; and 
 he said General Menon, who succeeded him, 
 though a brave man, had no abilities whatever. 
 He told me the Turks had sent two or 
 three people at diiferent times to kill him 
 (Buonaparte) ; but that the people of the 
 country, from his having humoured them and 
 made friends with them, always gave him 
 sufficient warning, and prevented the assassins 
 getting near him ; whereas, he said, the man 
 who killed Kleber had been suffered to hide 
 himself in Kleber's garden, and when the 
 General was walking there alone, he sprang 
 upon him unawares and stabbed him ; after 
 which, instead of attempting to escape, he sat 
 down at one end of the garden until he was 
 taken by the General's guard, almost imme- 
 diately after he had perpetrated the deed. 
 
 If Buonaparte had any share in causing the 
 death of Kleber (as has been generally reported), 
 
44 
 
 he certainly is the most consummate hypocrite 
 that ever existed, for I eyed him closely whilst 
 he was talking to me about it, and he certainly 
 did not betray the least embarrassment or 
 hesitation whilst telling his story. 
 
 In answer to a question I put to him, he said 
 if everything had turned out in Egypt according 
 to the best hopes and wishes he entertained 
 when he sailed for that country, yet, that he 
 should nevertheless have returned as he did in 
 consequence of the information he received 
 from France. He played at cards as usual 
 this evening until about half-past ten, and he 
 appeared in excellent humour and spirits. 
 
 Our latitude and longitude this day at noon 
 were 39° 9' N. and 11° 26' W. 
 
 On the 20th August the weather continued 
 fine, and would have been pleasant but for the 
 swell. Being Sunday, Divine Service was per- 
 formed on board, and I was rather surprised 
 that none of my French passengers attended, 
 even from curiosity. I did not see the General 
 to-day until dinner-time. At dinner he asked 
 the clergyman many questions with respect to 
 the differences between our religion and the 
 Roman Catholic. After dinner he walked but a 
 very short time, and then went directly to his 
 
45 
 
 sleeping cabin, which I attributed to his having- 
 observed the preceding Sunday that neither 
 myself nor any of the officers of the ship joined 
 in his card party, and his not choosing to risk 
 infringing any of our regulations. 
 
 Our latitude and longitude to-day were 
 37° 19' N. and 12° 14' W. 
 
 On the 21st August our weather continued 
 much the same, but rather more thick and 
 cloudy, and the wind, though light, veering to the 
 N.E. Captain Hamilton of the *'Havannah,'* 
 and Captain Mansell of the 53rd, dined with 
 me to-day. Buonaparte was pleasant, and 
 talked, more than usual, with them, but on 
 indifferent subjects. Our dinner having been 
 later than usual, curtailed our customary walk 
 and conversation, and he went to his card 
 party almost immediately after getting up from 
 dinner. He played, however, only until about 
 half-past nine, and then retired to his bed- 
 room. His French friends generally continue 
 playing after he retires, until about eleven. 
 They do not breakfast with me in the morning 
 at eight ; but have one for themselves more 
 according to their palates, of hot meats with 
 wines, between ten and eleven, before which 
 time (like their chief), they seldom get up. 
 
46 
 
 Our latitude and longitude to-day at noon 
 were 35° 56' N. and 13° 16' W. 
 
 On the '22nd August we got the N.E. wind 
 which usually prevails in these latitudes, with 
 fine weather, though unpleasantly hazy. General 
 Buonaparte requested me to write home from 
 Madeira for some books for him, which I 
 promised to do. All my French party have 
 been engaged writing letters this day for Europe 
 to send to Madeira as we pass it. Buonaparte 
 asked me at dinner several questions about the 
 different islands in the Atlantic ; to what 
 nations they belonged and so forth. His igno- 
 rance on these points seems quite wonderful, 
 and I cannot understand what object he can 
 have in pretending to be so if not so in reality. 
 
 He said to-day that had he continued at the 
 head of the French Government in peace, and 
 had found it to have been within his power, 
 he never would have attempted the occu- 
 pation of St. Domingo ; that the most he would 
 willingly have established with regard to that 
 island would have been to have kept frigates 
 and sloops stationed round it to force the 
 blacks to receive everything they wanted from, 
 and to export all their produce exclusively to, 
 France ; for, he added, he considered the inde- 
 
47 
 
 pendence of the blacks there to be more likely 
 to prove detrimental to England than to France 
 (and it really appears that in all his calculations 
 he has made or does make, the proportion of 
 evil which may accrue to England from any 
 measure bears always in his mind the first 
 consideration). 
 
 He complained to-day of suffering much from 
 the heat : he played, however, at cards until 
 ten o'clock and then went to his room. 
 
 Our latitude and longitude to-day were 
 34° 58' N. and 13° 31' W. 
 
 On the 2^rd August our N.E. wind veered to 
 E., freshened, and the weather became hot, 
 hazy and unpleasant. Soon after noon we 
 made the Island of Porto Santo and afterwards 
 Madeira. General Buonaparte did not come 
 on deck before dinner, as I expected he would 
 have done, to look at the land, and during 
 dinner he appeared thoughtful and out of 
 spirits, as if the passing of this island made 
 him reflect the more strongly on the little 
 chance he had of ever seeing Europe again. 
 He went upon deck, however, after dinner, 
 and observed the island very particularly whilst 
 we ran down along it, until we brought-to close 
 off Funchal after dark, when he went into the 
 
48 
 
 cabin and played a game or two at piquet and 
 then retired for the night to his bed-room, 
 evidently not so well or not in such good 
 spirits as on many of the preceding days. 
 
 We were this day at noon about nine leagues 
 E.S.E. of Porto Santo. 
 
 On the 24th August we remained lying-to off 
 the town of Funchal. I sent the frigate and 
 troopships to the anchorage with my letters for 
 England and to procure water and refresh- 
 ments. We were unfortunate in having a very 
 strong and unpleasant siroc wind which kept 
 the thermometer above 80°. General Buona- 
 parte came out of his cabin earlier than usual 
 to look at and make his remarks on the town, 
 which he had not been able to make out last 
 night, and he appeared better than yesterday. 
 
 Mr. Veitch, His Majesty's Consul at Madeira, 
 came on board, and I requested him to stay 
 dinner. Buonaparte asked him a good many 
 questions about the island, it's produce, it's 
 height from the level of the sea, it's population, 
 &c. He walked with Mr. Veitch and myself, 
 talking on general topics, for about an hour 
 after dinner, and then retired at once to his 
 bed-room without joining the card table. 
 
49 
 
 This day at noon we were off the town of 
 Funchal, Madeira. 
 
 On the 2Sth August we had a continuance of 
 the violent and disagreeable siroc wind. The 
 frigate and troopships which had anchored in 
 Funchal Roads did not rejoin me until about 
 three o'clock, the strength of the wind having 
 opposed great difficulties to them in procuring 
 their water and other supplies ; and after they 
 did join, it occupied us until dark to remove 
 the different things they brought out for those 
 of the squadron which had remained under 
 way ; we then made sail again to the southward. 
 
 The heat of this day and the disagreeable 
 nature of the wind, added to the motion of the 
 ship, which was considerable, evidently affected 
 General Buonaparte very much. He was on 
 deck but little either before or after dinner ; he 
 seemed to have lost his appetite, and was in 
 very low spirits and retired early to his bed- 
 room. We were this day at noon about seven 
 leagues S.W. of Madeira. 
 
 On the 26th August, though the wind con- 
 tinued from the E. its siroc qualities had 
 quitted it (to our great relief) and this proved 
 a pleasant cool day in comparison with what 
 we had experienced off Madeira. The sea, 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 which had been excited by the violence of the 
 siroc wind, had Hkewise subsided, and with 
 scarce any motion we ran about nine knots an 
 hour during the day. This pleasant change 
 brought General Buonaparte out of his bed- 
 room early, and he appeared evidently better 
 in health, though I observed at dinner he had 
 not recovered his former appetite. After dinner 
 he walked with me very late, talking generally 
 of the affairs of Europe. He told me, amongst 
 other things, that he had observed in some of 
 the French papers brought from Guernsey, the 
 King of Prussia was about to change the nature 
 of his government, and to admit of national 
 representation in it ; he foretold that this 
 would produce the greatest difficulties and 
 mischief, both to the King of Prussia and 
 Emperor of Austria; that he knew there were 
 many revolutionary spirits in both those 
 countries, and that the nations of the conti- 
 nent were not adapted for a representative 
 government like England. I remarked to him 
 in reply that he had, however, admitted it into 
 the constitutions which he had himself estab- 
 lished in France. This he acknowledged, but 
 added that he had not done so because he had 
 considered it a wise measure for the nations. 
 
51 
 
 but because his situation at the moment re- 
 quired him to yield this point to the popular 
 feeling ; and it being, he said, at the time his 
 particular interest to substantiate all the late 
 innovations, and in short whatever differed 
 essentially from the old system of government, 
 thereby to render more difficult the restoration 
 of the former order of things and therewith the 
 dynasty of the Bourbons, He went again over the 
 old ground of the military bias of the French 
 nation, and the impolicy of exasperating the 
 French people. He spoke much of their de- 
 termined aversion to the Bourbons, which he 
 said could not but be materially increased by 
 the idea of that family being again put in 
 possession of the government by means of 
 foreign troops, who had carried ruin and devas- 
 tation into the greatest part of the country ; 
 therefore he was quite sure the troubles in 
 France were by no means at an end. They 
 might, he said, be smothered for a moment by 
 terror, and by the presence of the allied troops, 
 but if these forces withdrew from the country 
 whilst the recollection of events remained in 
 the minds of the people, he averred that a 
 general insurrection throughout France would 
 immediately take place, and it would cost 
 
52 
 
 much difficulty and bloodshed ere it would 
 again be suppressed. 
 
 He mentioned in the course of our conversa- 
 tion, that he had left his brother Jerome at 
 Paris, who had determined to remain there in 
 disguise for some time, and until he saw the 
 turn affairs were likely to take ; he added he 
 did not know what befel him (Jerome) after- 
 wards, as of course he had not been able to 
 hear from him since. 
 
 After walking, and so conversing, in a frank 
 strain until past nine o'clock, he went into the 
 cabin and from thence almost immediately to 
 his bedroom. 
 
 Our latitude and longitude this day at noon 
 were 30° 53' N., 17° 22' W. 
 
 On the 2jth August, we had a fine breeze 
 from the N.E., but the weather became more 
 than usually foggy and hazy, which I the more 
 regretted as. General Buonaparte having ex- 
 pressed some curiosity respecting the Peak of 
 Teneriffe and the Canary Islands, I caused 
 the squadron to be this day steered between 
 the Islands of Gomera and Palma for the 
 purpose of gratifying his curiosity; but though 
 we passed close to Gomera about mid-day, yet 
 the haze continued so thick that we obtained 
 
53 
 
 but bad views of the land, and could only 
 make it out very imperfectly and with much 
 difficulty. 
 
 The General seemed much recovered to-day ; 
 he did not, however, walk before dinner, and 
 our days are now so much shortened by having 
 got so far to the southward that our walks and 
 conversations after dinner are considerably 
 curtailed. This evening he told me he had 
 spent ^^3,000,000 sterling in the improvements 
 at Cherbourg ; that he had constructed a basin, 
 or rather a kind of inner harbour (as it is 
 without gates), which would contain thirty 
 sail-of-the-line and which had fifty feet of 
 depth at low water ; that the outer road, which, 
 he said, was now perfectly safe with all winds, 
 would also contain thirty sail-of-the-line more ; 
 that he had arranged everything necessary for 
 building ships there, and in short for making it 
 a naval port of the first rank; and he added 
 that he had conceived such an establishment, so 
 situated, would have caused us much difficulty 
 with reference to our possessions in Guernsey 
 and Jersey. The only thing, he said, he had 
 dreaded relative to it, and which he was taking 
 therefore every precaution to avert, was our 
 getting momentary possession of the place by 
 
54 
 
 a coup de main at any favourable juncture, and 
 in which case he was aware that a few barrels 
 of gunpowder, scientifically applied to the walls 
 of his basins, cones, &c., might destroy in an 
 instant what had cost so much time, expense, 
 and labour to complete. He withdrew to his 
 own cabin again very early this evening. 
 
 To-day at noon we were about four leagues 
 W. from Gomera, with a fresh breeze from 
 the N.E., running between the Islands at the 
 rate of about eleven miles an hour. 
 
 On the 2d>th August ^ our N.E. trade con- 
 tinued, but not so fresh as yesterday, and 
 the weather became hot, thermometer being 
 from 78° to 80°. My French party appeared 
 distant and much out of humour to-day, 
 especially M. de Bertrand, who presumed to 
 appear dissatisfied because I would not desire 
 he might be permitted to have a light burning 
 in his cabin throughout the night. I have, of 
 course, left them to get out of this temper their 
 own way, and have taken little or no notice of 
 them throughout the day. General Buonaparte 
 took but a short walk after dinner and I had 
 very little conversation with him. 
 
 Our latitude and longitude this day at noon 
 were 26° 2' N., 19° 9' W. 
 
55 
 
 On the 2gth August, we had a moderate 
 trade wind with a good deal of swell. The day 
 has passed nearly as the preceding one with 
 regard to my passengers, and without any 
 circumstance worthy of notice. 
 
 Our latitude and longitude this day at noon 
 were 24° 23' N., 20° 23' W. 
 
 On the ^oth August, we had a fresh trade 
 wind, disagreeable weather and heavy swell, 
 which made the ship roll much. Buonaparte 
 seemed to suffer much from these causes, and 
 though he attended our dinner party he ate 
 very little, seemed disinclined to enter into 
 conversation, and retired to his own room 
 again soon after dinner. 
 
 Our latitude and longitude this day at noon 
 were 22° 27' N., and 22° 12' W. 
 
 On the 315^ August, the fresh trade wind and 
 swell continued ; the General, however, appeared 
 better, though the rolHng of the ship seemed 
 still to affect him considerably. He mentioned 
 to-day that, when his Army in Egypt was so 
 severely visited by the plague, his soldiers, and 
 indeed, the officers, became so disheartened 
 that, as General-in-chief, he found it to be an 
 absolutely necessary part of his duty to en- 
 deavour to give them confidence and reanimate 
 
56 
 
 them by visiting frequently himself the plague 
 hospital, and talking to and cheering the 
 different patients in it. He said he caught 
 the disorder himself but recovered again 
 quickly ; he added that those who kept up 
 their spirits, and did not give way to the idea 
 that they must die, generally recovered, but 
 those who desponded almost invariably died. 
 He played at chess with M. de Bertrand this 
 evening till later than his usual hour of going 
 to bed, and appeared in better spirits than for 
 two or three days past. 
 
 Our latitude and longitude to-day were 
 19° 53' N., 25° 43' W. 
 
 On the 1st September, we had a fresh trade 
 wind accompanied by uncommonly thick 
 weather, which prevented our making out 
 the Island of St. Antonio so soon as we ex- 
 pected; but, just as the sun set, we found 
 ourselves close to the S.W. end, not having 
 been able previously to discover any part of 
 it. I then brought-to with an intention of 
 communicating with the island in the morning, 
 and to wait for two brigs I had sent to recon- 
 noitre the nearest shores to search for a con- 
 venient watering place. 
 
 Our conversation at table this day, and after- 
 
57 
 
 wards on deck, was principally with reference 
 to the islands near us, and did not draw forth 
 anything I have considered worth noticing. 
 
 General Buonaparte has given up his evening 
 card parties for chess, at which game he has 
 of late entertained himself from his dinner to 
 his bed-time. 
 
 Our latitude and longitude to-day at noon 
 were 17° 45' N., and 25° 4' W. 
 
 On the 27id September, about i a.m., the trade 
 wind, which had been for some time strong, 
 freshened ^to a perfect gale of wind, bringing 
 with it a very heavy sea and violent rain. Soon 
 after daylight the wind veered from N.E. to E., 
 and then from E. to S.E. and S., still blowing 
 hard, which rendered it impracticable for me 
 to communicate with the islands ; and the brigs 
 I had sent to reconnoitre being driven oif by 
 the gale without effecting anything, I made the 
 signal to put the crews of the squadron on 
 short allowance of water, and pushed on again 
 to the S.W. All my French passengers suf- 
 fered much by the bad weather of the night ; 
 General Buonaparte, however, contrary to my 
 expectation, made his appearance at dinner and 
 seemed in tolerable spirits. 
 
 The weather moderated a little after dinner, 
 
58 
 
 and this evening passed, with regard to the 
 General, as the preceding one, without offering 
 anything worthy of notice. 
 
 We were to-day at noon W.N.W. from the 
 S.W. end of St. Antonio, about seven leagues 
 distance; our latitude 17° 6' N. 
 
 On the ^rd September^ the wind continued 
 from the S.E. and became light, baffling and 
 calm at times, the weather extremely hot, the 
 thermometer being from 82° to 83° throughout 
 the day. General Buonaparte complained much 
 of the heat, and I saw but little of him and had 
 no conversation with him. 
 
 I took advantage of the calm to collect returns 
 from the squadron, and had the satisfaction to 
 find it unusually healthy ; the troopships, with 
 448 persons on board the one, and 446 on board 
 the other, having the one only two, and the 
 other only six, in their respective weekly sick 
 reports. 
 
 Our latitude and longitude this day were 
 16° 15' N., and 26° 30' W. 
 
 On the 4th September, the calm weather 
 which continued until a little after daylight 
 was succeeded by a moderate breeze from 
 the N.E., and though we had much swell 
 from the S.W. the ship proceeded forward 
 
59 
 
 on her course pleasantly, which brought 
 General Buonaparte from his cabin earlier 
 than usual. He was occupied playing at 
 chess before dinner, but after dinner I 
 had a long walk and a good deal of con- 
 versation with him, in the course of which 
 I was enabled to draw from him a relation 
 of the Jaffa poisoning story. His statement 
 of it was that, finding himself obliged 
 to evacuate Jaffa, and leave it to be taken 
 possession of by the troops of Djezzer Pacha 
 (whose cruelty of character was well known) 
 he ordered off before him all the sick and 
 wounded of the army that could be moved, 
 to facilitate which he lent even his own horses ; 
 but the Chief Physician then represented to 
 him that there were a few Frenchmen in such 
 an advanced state of the plague that there did 
 not remain even a possibility of their recovery^ 
 and that attempting to remove them with 
 the rest would endanger the whole army. 
 Knowing, however, as he (Buonaparte) well 
 did, that if these unhappy wretches fell into 
 the hands of Djezzer Pacha they would have 
 all sorts of cruelties practised on them in their 
 last moments, he felt the best thing he could 
 do was to order a council of all the medical 
 
6o 
 
 men in the army to be assembled, to ascertain, 
 in the first place, whether the removal of these 
 poor people, or any of them, might be effected 
 without endangering, in an unwarrantable 
 degree, the remainder of the army, and whether 
 there existed any chance of adequate benefit 
 accruing to themselves if their removal were 
 attempted ; and, in the next place, if the council 
 agreed with the Chief Physician and confirmed 
 the absolute necessity of some being left 
 behind, then to consider whether it would not 
 be better for the individuals themselves to 
 accelerate their death by opium rather than leave 
 them in the state they were, to be tormented 
 by the implacable enemies into whose hands 
 they would inevitably be doomed to fall. He 
 said the council was public and everybody 
 knew what passed in it, and therefore he had 
 been surprised at the many contradictory 
 stories which he knew had gone abroad 
 respecting this transaction. He added that 
 after the medical council had finished its 
 deliberations, they reported to him it was 
 their decided opinion the people ought not, 
 on any account, to be removed, yet that the 
 majority of the council could not bear the idea 
 of adopting such a measure as accelerating the 
 
6i 
 
 death of individuals under their charge, how- 
 ever desperate their situations ; but they further 
 stated they had every reason to believe all 
 difficulties on this head would be done away^ 
 by the natural consequences of the disease 
 under which these poor fellows laboured, if the 
 General would so arrange as to retain the 
 place forty-eight hours longer, at the expiration 
 of which time they considered it scarcely 
 possible that one of them could remain alive. 
 Upon this report, the General told me, he 
 immediately determined on retaining Jaffa 
 the time specified by the board, and he con- 
 tinued in it himself, with the whole army, 
 twenty-four hours longer, and then left a strong 
 rear-guard to hold it the other twenty-four 
 hours ; at the expiration of which, he said, the 
 prediction of the medical officers was pretty 
 well fulfilled by the death of almost every one 
 of the patients in question, though, he added, 
 he believed one or two might have been left 
 not quite dead.* He considered the measure 
 
 " This part of the statement has since been confirmed to 
 me by Captain Beattie, of the Marines, serving on board the 
 "Northumberland," who belonged to the "Theseus" in 
 Egypt, and entered Jaffa immediately after the French 
 (juitted it, and even before the troops of Djezzer Pacha ; he 
 assures me there were only three or four Frenchmen found 
 alive, and those in an advanced stage of the plague. 
 
62 
 
 he wished to have adopted as more worthy of 
 praise than of censure, and said had he been 
 one of the people afflicted he should have 
 considered it the greatest act of kindness to 
 have been so dealt with, rather than left 
 (without hope of recovery) to be tormented 
 by such wanton savages as Djezzer Pacha's 
 troops. Thus by his own acknowledgment 
 (at least as far as regards his ideas and orders 
 thereupon) is now placed beyond doubt a 
 circumstance, which, from its nature and the 
 numbers who have constantly denied it, has 
 not been hitherto generally credited, and which 
 has been also, very recently, flatly contradicted 
 in a publication stated to have been written by 
 a person who never quitted him for fifteen 
 years. 
 
 In the course of this evening's conversation, 
 Buonaparte also mentioned to me particulars 
 of what passed between the Queen of Prussia 
 and himself at Tilsit, when (to solicit that 
 Magdeburg might be left to Prussia) she joined 
 the royal party already assembled there. He 
 said that had she arrived there sooner, it was 
 probable she would have gained her point in 
 this particular, not only by reason of the great 
 advantage an extremely clever and fine woman 
 
63 
 
 of high rank must always have when personally 
 urging any suit she has much at heart, but also 
 from the inclination he (Buonaparte) then had 
 to meet (as far as he conveniently could) the 
 wishes of the Emperor Alexander, who he 
 did not hesitate in affirming was at the time a 
 strongly attached and much favoured admirer of 
 her Prussian Majesty. It was, he said, owing 
 to the King of Prussia being apprised of this 
 latter circumstance, and consequently being 
 extremely jealous of the Emperor of Russia, 
 that the former prevented the Queen from 
 coming sooner to Tilsit, and until the Prussian 
 ministers, towards the closing of the arrange- 
 ments, urged him in the strongest manner to 
 send for her, that they might have the benefit 
 of her abilities and influence to second their 
 endeavours to obtain better terms for Prussia ; 
 to which at length the King consenting, she 
 arrived accordingly, and the whole party being 
 to dine with him (General Buonaparte), she 
 was introduced to him before dinner, and 
 entered with great vivacity and ability upon 
 the subject of the approaching treaty, and 
 strongly solicited, as a personal favour to her- 
 self, that he would consent to leave Magdeburg 
 to Prussia, which, she said, would bind her 
 
64 
 
 family to him by the strongest ties of gratitude^ 
 as well as respect. The General said Her 
 Majesty pressed her suit warmly and cleverly ; 
 but he merely replied to all she said in general 
 terms of civility, and avoided giving her any 
 decided answer, or entering at all with her into 
 the merits of the question ; notwithstanding, 
 it was evident by her behaviour at dinner that 
 she entertained sanguine hopes of succeeding. 
 He said she sat between the Emperor of 
 Russia and himself, and although most elegant 
 and amiable in her manners, she did not for a 
 moment forget the object she had in view; and 
 in proof of this, he added that at the dessert 
 (I think he said), or in the evening, on his 
 offering her a rose* he took out of a vase near 
 him, she, on taking it, asked him immediately 
 if she might consider it as a token of friendship, 
 and of his having acceded to her request. 
 Being, however, he said, upon his guard, and 
 resolved not to be thus caught by surprise, he 
 parried the attack with some general remarks 
 
 *I have noted particularly what the General told me 
 respecting this rose, and his conversation at the time with 
 the Queen of Prussia, as the author of the book " stated to 
 be written by a person who never quitted him for fifteen 
 years" mentions this circumstance, but states it very 
 differently. 
 
65 
 
 respecting the light in which alone civilities ot 
 this description should be regarded, and then 
 turned the conversation. Notwithstanding this, 
 however, and his having been extremely cautious 
 throughout the evening not to allow anything 
 to escape him which might in the slightest 
 degree authorise the Queen to believe him 
 inclined to yield to her solicitation, yet when 
 she went away she appeared to be well satisfied, 
 and to have persuaded herself that her en- 
 deavours were not to prove unsuccessful. The 
 General said that therefore, thinking it would 
 be impolitic to leave the question any longer 
 open to discussion, he caused the Treaty to be 
 signed at once on the next morning, and, of 
 course, without any alterations in it in favour 
 of Prussia. When the Queen came the next 
 day to dinner, he said she showed evidently by 
 her manner that she was piqued and much 
 hurt, but she behaved with great dignity, and 
 did not once allude to the Treaty, nor to any- 
 thing which had passed respecting it, until 
 going away in the evening, when, as General 
 Buonaparte was handing her to her carriage, 
 she mentioned to him how much he had dis- 
 appointed her by the refusal of her request : 
 that, had he complied, it would have attached 
 
 £ 
 
66 
 
 her whole family to him for ever, and so forth ; 
 to which he only answered that he should ever 
 consider it one of the greatest misfortunes of 
 his life that it had not been within his power to 
 obey her Majesty's commands in this affair, 
 begging her, however, to believe it would always 
 afford him the highest gratification to be able 
 to meet any wish of her's, and adding more 
 civil speeches of this kind ; ('' mais " said he to 
 me, with a self- applauding smile, " tout cela 
 n'etoit pas Magdebourg,'') and having reached 
 her carriage he put her into it, bade her good 
 night, and left her. He added that previous, 
 however, to her driving off, she sent for Duroc 
 (the Grand Marechal of his Palace) to her 
 carriage, when, giving vent to her feelings, which 
 she had till then so well stifled, she could not 
 refrain from tears whilst she complained to him 
 of the great disappointment, and told him how 
 much she had been deceived in Buonaparte's 
 character, and hurt by what had passed, &c., 
 and early the next morning he said he received 
 a message from her to say that, being taken 
 suddenly ill, she had been forced to quit Tilsit 
 and return home ; and thus, he added, Magde- 
 burg was retained, though perhaps he had 
 suffered somewhat by it in the good graces of 
 
67 
 
 her Prussian Majesty. He told me he thought 
 her a most elegant engaging woman, and as 
 handsome as could be expected in a woman 
 thirty-five years of age. He spoke, however, 
 very badly of her character as a wife, and 
 particularly with reference to the Emperor 
 Alexander; to oblige whom, he mentioned (as 
 a good joke), that he detained the King of 
 Prussia a whole day by announcing an inten- 
 tion of paying him a formal visit, of which 
 the Emperor Alexander took a premeditated 
 advantage by setting off to obtain thereby an 
 uninterrupted tete-a-tete visit with the Queen ! ! ! 
 
 Having walked with me recounting these 
 stories till later than usual, he did not make his 
 appearance in the great cabin but retired to his 
 own room at once. 
 
 Our latitude and longitude this day at noon 
 were 15° 34' N. and 26° 36' W. 
 
 On the ^th September we had a moderate 
 trade wind but excessively hot weather, and 
 nothing occurred during the day with regard 
 to General Buonaparte worthy of notice. Our 
 latitude and longitude at noon was 13° 58' N. 
 and 25° 30' W. 
 
 On the 6th September our trade wind continued 
 till about four in the evening, when we experi- 
 
68 
 
 enced excessively heavy rain, and the wind 
 gradually died away until it failed us altogether 
 and was succeeded by a southerly wind. To 
 my great surprise, after General Buonaparte had 
 eaten his dinner he got up to take his walk as 
 usual, and upon my remarking to him that it 
 was still pouring with rain, and therefore 
 advising him not to go out in it, he treated it 
 lightly and said it would not hurt him more 
 than the sailors he observed at the time 
 catching water, working and running about in 
 it. Of course I no longer opposed his whim, 
 and out he went in the rain accompanied by 
 two of his French friends, who, though obliged 
 to attend him, seemed by no means to enjoy 
 the idea of the wetting they were doomed to 
 get par complaisa^ice. I have no doubt General 
 Buonaparte intended this dash of his should 
 give us a great idea of his hardiness of 
 character ; as, however, no further particular 
 notice was taken of it by any of us, and finding 
 it, I suppose, more unpleasant than he expected, 
 his walk was of very short duration, and being, 
 as was inevitable, perfectly wet through, he, 
 immediately on quitting the deck, went into 
 his own cabin, from whence he did not rejoin 
 us during the evening. 
 
69 
 
 Our latitude and longitude this day at noon 
 were 12° 41' N. and 23° 55' W. 
 
 From the 6th to this day, the 2^rd September 
 (on which we crossed the Equator about the 
 meridian of Greenwich), General Buonaparte, 
 continuing to keep nearly the same hours, and 
 to follow the same routine of eating, drinking 
 and sleeping, as before noticed, and my usual 
 conversations with him after dinner having 
 suffered considerable interruption from the 
 shortness of the evenings and from his own 
 people keeping more closely about him during 
 his evening walks than formerly, so little 
 variety of matter has oifered for detailing on 
 each successive day that I have been induced 
 to combine this period ; throughout the most of 
 which we have experienced moderate S.S.W. 
 winds with cloudy weather, accompanied occa- 
 sionally with rain, and the air from these 
 causes has been more cool and pleasant than 
 we expected to meet with in such latitudes. 
 
 In the course of the different short conversa- 
 tions I managed to have with the General in 
 this interval, he told me that had he succeeded 
 in his attempt against England and reached 
 London y his chief object and first endeavour 
 would have been to have there concluded a 
 
70 
 
 peace, which he should have immediately offered 
 on moderate terms ; but what, under such 
 circumstances, he would have considered mode- 
 rate terms I could not draw from him (nor did 
 I think it very material), but the relinquishment 
 of the right of maritime visitation of neutrality 
 was one of the points he certainly would have 
 insisted upon. In another conversation on the 
 subject of the Russian expedition, he assured 
 me in the strongest manner that the only object 
 he had when he undertook it, and all he should 
 have asked had he been successful, was the 
 Independence of Poland (to which nation he 
 intended leaving the free choice of their own 
 king, only recommending Poniatowsky to them 
 as worthy of such distinction), and to make the 
 Emperor of Russia engage to join firmly in the 
 continental system against commercial inter- 
 course of any sort with England until its 
 Government should be brought to agree to 
 what he termed " the Independence of the 
 Seas." He, however, when subsequently talk- 
 ing to me of Moscow, let out that he had 
 procured there numerous emissaries to disperse 
 throughout the country amongst the Russian 
 peasantry to bias them in his favour and against 
 their own Government ; to explain to them the 
 
71 
 
 miseries they suffered from the unjust state of 
 slavery in which they were kept ; and to offer 
 them freedom and protection if they would seek 
 it through his means. He said he had at the 
 time already received applications from different 
 bodies of them, and had he been able to have 
 maintained himself in the country he was quite 
 sure he should have had the mass of the 
 population in his favour. He told me that, 
 prior to the death of the Emperor Paul, he 
 (Buonaparte), whilst he was First Consul, had 
 received seven or eight letters, written in his 
 Imperial Majesty's own hand, pressing him to 
 enter into close and intimate alliance with 
 Russia, for the express purpose of exerting the 
 united efforts of the two countries to humble 
 Great Britain ; and the Emperor proposed (if 
 Buonaparte approved of it) to send off at once 
 a large Russian army to act against the English 
 interests in India. The General said he was 
 about to dispatch a confidential ambassador 
 with full powers to make the necessary arrange- 
 ments, and to communicate to the Emperor 
 his sentiments on these points, when he received 
 the unwelcome intelligence of the Emperor's 
 assassination. He added that, from the opinion 
 the Emperor Paul seemed by his letters to 
 
72 
 
 entertain of him (the General), and from the 
 great confidence he appeared to place in him, 
 he had no doubt, if their negotiation had gone 
 on, he would shortly have attained sufficient 
 ascendancy with the Emperor to have induced 
 him to change the foolish and impolitic course 
 he was then pursuing in his own country; in 
 which case his life would probably have been 
 saved, and he might have become an ally of 
 great importance to the French, and therefore 
 the General said he considered Paul's death 
 at the moment as a particularly untoward 
 circumstance. 
 
 In a conversation on the propriety of the 
 different capitals of Europe being sufficiently 
 fortified to enable them to withstand for a 
 short time a sudden advance and attack of 
 an enemy's army, he told me he had long 
 foreseen the propriety of having works of this 
 kind around Paris, but he had been restrained 
 from ordering them by his dread of the effect 
 it might have on the public opinion, in concert 
 with which he had considered it a requisite 
 policy always to act, and which, even in the 
 zenith of his power, he had never felt himself 
 strong enough to disregard ; and, he added, 
 he knew full well the French character to be 
 
such that until danger was at their gates they 
 could not have borne the idea of such a 
 precaution being for a moment necessary. 
 
 Speaking again on the subject of his medi- 
 tated invasion of England, I asked him if he 
 had procured any plans of our fortifications 
 at Chatham. He told me he had not, but that 
 he had a general idea of the lines there, and 
 that he had had no doubt of procuring in time 
 such further information on the subject as was 
 necessary for him. He said he had got his 
 intelligence very regularly from England by 
 means of our smuggling boats, and that 
 amongst others Mr. Goldsmith (the Editor) had 
 conveyed to him much useful information. 
 He told me he had had a personal interview 
 with him at Boulogne at one of the periods 
 he (Goldsmith) came over in one of these 
 smuggling boats, and he said considerable 
 sums had been paid him by the police office 
 at different times for services of this nature. 
 I mention this because I have determined to 
 note down herein every particular this extra- 
 ordinary man tells; but it is right I should 
 at the same time remark that there was a 
 something of malicious cunning in General 
 Buonaparte's manner whilst making this state- 
 
74 
 
 ment which induced me very much to doubt 
 the truth of the whole story ; and I was rather 
 inclined to think he made this assertion (which 
 was in public, at my table) either with a view 
 to make us fancy all Mr. Goldsmith had 
 written against him was merely as a cloak 
 to cover his (Goldsmith's) own treasons, or 
 (which is perhaps more probable) he hoped 
 by such a statement so made, and therefore 
 likely to be repeated, that he might cause 
 public suspicion to fall on Mr. Goldsmith, 
 which might perhaps draw him into difficulties, 
 and thereby offer General Buonaparte some 
 chance of being revenged upon him for the 
 unqualified abuse he has so lavishly heaped 
 upon the General and his family. He further 
 observed that he believed Mr. Goldsmith was 
 possessed of some talent, although a con- 
 summate rogue, and he then immediately 
 turned the conversation to other matter. 
 
 On another day, talking of Ireland, he told 
 me he had arranged everything with that 
 country, and if he could have got safely over 
 to it the force he intended sending, the party 
 there in his favour was so strong that he had 
 every reason to suppose they would have 
 succeeded in possessing themselves of the 
 
75 
 
 whole Island. He said he had held constant 
 communication with the disaffected party, 
 which he averred was by no means confined 
 to the Roman Catholics, but had also a very 
 large proportion of Protestants. He of course 
 did not give me any of their names, nor did I 
 think it right to ask him for them. He said 
 he always acquiesced in everything they asked 
 for, leaving all arrangements respecting the 
 Country, Religion, &c., entirely to themselves ; 
 his grand and only object being to gain the 
 advantageous point, for him, of separating 
 Ireland from England on any terms, and to 
 have it on his side in opposition to England. 
 He told me those who came to him from Ireland 
 generally came and returned through London, by 
 which means he obtained information from them 
 respecting both countries ; and they crossed the 
 Channel backwards and forwards with little 
 risk or difficulty by the means likewise of his 
 friends the smugglers; but he said, notwith- 
 standing the great advantages he thus derived 
 from these smugglers, he found out at last that 
 they played a similar game backwards and 
 forwards, and carried us as much intelligence 
 to England as they brought him from it, and 
 he was therefore obliged to forbid their being 
 
76 
 
 any longer admitted at Dunkirk, or indeed 
 anywhere but at Gravelines ; where he established 
 particular regulations respecting them, and did 
 not allow them to pass a barrier which he 
 caused to be fixed for the purpose, and where 
 he placed a guard to watch them, and to pre- 
 vent their having unnecessary communication 
 with the country; and he ordered the goods 
 and other articles they wished to have to be 
 brought down for them to this barrier, for which 
 they paid a small additional impost. 
 
 Soon after we had crossed the Equator to- 
 day, the Comte de Bertrand came to me from 
 General Buonaparte to say that, it being a 
 general custom of all nations for those who had 
 not passed the Equator to submit to certain 
 ceremonies, or to pay for exemption some 
 trifling tribute to those who had crossed it, he 
 (the General) wished, if I had no objection to it, 
 to send our seamen, who were at the time going 
 through the usual process, one or two hundred 
 napoleons. As I considered this to be an 
 attempt of the General's to avail himself, with 
 his usual finesse, of a plausible excuse to dis- 
 tribute such a large sum amongst the seamen, 
 solely with a view of rendering himself popular 
 with them, I, of course, not only refused my 
 
assent to this request, but pointedly prohibited 
 it. I told him the custom of the ships of our 
 nation was, for those whose rank and station 
 authorized them to look for indulgence on these 
 occasions, usually to send a bottle of rum to 
 the seamen; but this being incompatible with 
 the discipline of a man-of-war, officers of the 
 ** Northumberland" who had not crossed the 
 line, had given, in lieu of rum, the subordinate 
 officers one dollar, and the higher officers half- 
 a-guinea each, and if General Buonaparte felt 
 extremely anxious to give something more, I 
 would, though reluctantly, say he might give 
 as far as five napoleons ; but that that sum 
 was the utmost I could allow of under existing 
 circumstances. The Grand Marechal, in reply, 
 endeavoured to persuade me that what General 
 Buonaparte should give on such an occasion 
 ought not to be weighed by what was given by 
 officers of the profession, and that the sum of 
 one hundred napoleons was the least which 
 such a person could offer on so extraordinary 
 an occasion as his crossing the Equator. His 
 rhetoric, however, as usual, not having the 
 slightest effect towards changing my determina- 
 tion, he was forced to return back to his master 
 with my answer, who very wisely let the matter 
 
78 
 
 then drop, and did not say anything further on 
 the subject, nor did he by his manner at dinner 
 show that he was hurt or piqued by the refusal. 
 I understand, however, he did not send the five 
 napoleons for which I granted permission. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that this day we have 
 passed zero of latitude and zero of longitude, 
 and the sun the zero of its declination. 
 
 From the 2^rd September to this day, the 
 6th October (which period, like the preceding, 
 I combine to avoid uninteresting monotonous 
 details), we have had the wind with little or no 
 variation from S.W., accompanied with a heavy 
 swell from the westward, the weather being 
 cloudy and very cool, almost indeed amounting 
 to cold, but without rain. By continuing 
 pertinaciously on the starboard tack for the 
 purpose of gaining all the southing possible, in 
 the hope of thereby meeting sooner the S.E. 
 trade-wind, we have got as near as within 
 30 leagues of the coast, in latitude g° 36', but 
 the wind having to-day veered somewhat more 
 to the southward has at last enabled me to 
 put the ship's head to the westward with some 
 prospect of advantage, and gives me reason to 
 hope our distance from St. Helena will now be 
 quickly diminished, which indeed is not less 
 
79 
 
 anxiously desired by myself than by my pas- 
 sengers, as restless Frenchmen with a foul wind 
 make but unpleasant messmates. They have, 
 however, continued better in health than could 
 be reasonably expected considering the changes 
 of climate they have gone through, the length 
 of time since their first embarkation in the 
 ** Bellerophon," and the inactive life they have 
 led in comparison with that to which they 
 have been accustomed. Of the whole party 
 Madame de Bertrand only has experienced a 
 few days' confinement from a feverish attack, 
 which, however, yielded almost immediately to 
 bleeding, and amongst all the rest there has 
 not been a complaint beyond a cold or sore 
 throat of trifling nature and short continuance. 
 General Buonaparte himself is certainly fatter 
 and looking better than when he first came on 
 board the '' Northumberland," and I must say 
 he has throughout shown far less impatience 
 about the wind or the weather, and made less 
 difficulties, than any of the rest of the party. 
 Subsequently to the 23rd ultimo, in our con- 
 versations, he has mentioned to me that he 
 caused, a short time back, a survey to be taken 
 throughout France of the grown oak timber it 
 contained fit for ship building, the report 
 
8o 
 
 made to him upon which stated that there 
 was actually sufficient quantity for building a 
 thousand sail of the line; but, he said, France 
 failed altogether in trees fit for masts, and those 
 they were therefore obliged to get from the 
 Baltic ; but he having understood that the 
 Corsican firs were strong and tough enough 
 to serve for masts during the two years imme- 
 diately after they were cut down (after which 
 only they lost their elasticity and became brittle), 
 and as nine of them could be brought to 
 France at as little expense as one from the 
 Baltic, he had latterly endeavoured to bring 
 the Corsican spars into use in the French navy, 
 authorising their being sawn up for plank or 
 other use after having served as topmasts for 
 two years. But this plan, he said, did not 
 appear to be much approved of by the people 
 of the Marine Department, as there existed 
 extraordinary prejudice throughout the French 
 Navy against masts made from any spars 
 except those brought from the Baltic. He 
 told me there was a large quantity of masts 
 belonging to the French Government at Copen- 
 hagen when Lord Nelson made the attack and 
 consequent convention there ; that he (the 
 General) had been therefore, at the time. 
 
8i 
 
 alarmed for the safety of his spars, but the 
 Danes kept their faith with him and he after- 
 wards got them all safe to France. Some of 
 them, he said, he was obliged to have brought 
 almost the whole way by inland navigation, 
 being much in want of them, and the coast 
 being too closely watched by our cruisers to 
 allow of his trusting them round by sea. 
 
 Speaking of the present navy of France, he 
 told me some of the superior officers were 
 tolerably good seamen, he believed, but none 
 of them were good officers ; that the best of 
 them had been taken during the Revolution 
 from the India and other merchant service, 
 and, the French Navy having been so little 
 employed, they were quite unaccustomed to 
 command in any very difficult or trying 
 circumstances ; therefore, that when they had 
 accidentally fallen into such situations, they 
 always appeared to have lost their heads, and 
 become quite confused, and that whatever they 
 did was generally precisely what they ought 
 not. He said Admiral Gantheaume did very 
 well while with him (the General) at his elbow 
 when they were coming from Egypt ; but, he 
 added, if Admiral Gantheaume had been left to 
 himself he would have been taken twenty times 
 
 F 
 
82 
 
 over, for he was constantly wanting to change 
 the ship's course to avoid one enemy or another, 
 and would have, by such over-precautions, 
 lost as much by night as he gained by day. 
 He therefore, he said, obliged the Admiral 
 always to explain to him upon paper the exact 
 situation of the ship and the apprehended 
 danger, after which it almost always occurred 
 that he took upon himself to desire the Admiral 
 to continue on a straight course for Frejus ; and 
 to this alone he attributed their having got safe 
 in, as the Admiral's anxiety would certainly 
 have induced him to have acted very differently 
 had not he (the General) so interfered with 
 him, and thus left it to the Admiral only to exert 
 his seamanship to press the ships forward. He 
 told me also it was a curious fact that Admiral 
 Bruix, on their way up to Alexandria, had 
 actually explained to him very minutely the 
 decided disadvantage a fleet must labour under 
 by receiving at anchor an attack from an hostile 
 fleet under sail ; and yet, from want of recollec- 
 tion and presence of mind upon emergencies, 
 which the General had alluded to, this Admiral, 
 a few weeks afterwards, received at anchor 
 Lord Nelson's attack, losing his own life and 
 nearly his whole fleet to exemplify the correct- 
 
83 
 
 ness of his ideas and the impropriety of his 
 conduct ; but which General Buonaparte said 
 he was positive would not have happened (at 
 least inasmuch as relates to the fighting at 
 anchor) had he, the General, been on the spot. 
 He added, on the same subject, that it struck 
 him the French Admirals had generally, upon 
 coming to action, lost too much time and been 
 too anxious about forming lines and making 
 manoeuvres which had ultimately proved of no 
 adequate advantage ; he had therefore desired 
 they might be instructed that, for the future, 
 on approaching an enemy, a signal to form a 
 line, as convenient for mutual support, and 
 afterwards a signal to engage, would always be 
 deemed fully sufficient to make to those under 
 their orders ; and after this the captain of every 
 ship of the fleet was to be held individually 
 responsible to the Government for getting the 
 ship he commanded quickly into close battle, 
 and doing his best towards the destruction of 
 some one of the enemy ; which would at all 
 events prevent the captains from covering their 
 own neglect (as Dumanois had done) by 
 attributing errors to their chief. He had, how- 
 ever, he said, latterly resolved (unless some 
 extraordinary emergency made it necessary) 
 
84 
 
 not to venture any more line-of-battle ships to 
 sea until he should have had it in his power to 
 have sent from his different ports at once 120 
 sail of the line, for the making up of which 
 number, he said, he had laid all his plans ; and 
 he affirmed that, from the efforts he intended 
 to have made for the object, he believed very 
 much time would not have elapsed before he 
 would have completed them. In the meantime, 
 he said, whatever it might have cost him, he had 
 determined on always keeping ten sail of French 
 frigates at sea for the purpose of making and 
 improving his officers. He added that when his 
 frigates had been sent on distant cruises they 
 were apt to consider their danger pretty well 
 over when once safely through our line of 
 cruisers on the French coast, after which they 
 generally relaxed their vigilance and pre- 
 cautions. He had, therefore, decided to 
 order these ten frigates for the future to cruise 
 only in the neighbourhood of England or 
 Ireland, where they would be certain to have 
 enemies, bad weather and dangerous coasts ,^ 
 to keep them always on the alert ; and those 
 who managed to escape being wrecked or 
 captured must, of course, do much more 
 mischief to our commerce than had ever been 
 
85 
 
 done by the French frigates heretofore sent 
 into the open seas and southern latitudes ! 
 To the commanders of all those, he said, who 
 returned safe from such service, he should have 
 given great promotion and rewards, and as fast 
 as he heard of any being taken or lost he 
 should have supplied their places with fresh 
 ones. On my remarking to him the difficulty 
 I conceived he would have found in obtaining 
 seamen to have followed up this plan, he told 
 me, by the system of conscription for the 
 marine, which he had lately established in all 
 the maritime counties of France, he would 
 have had as many seamen as he pleased. Its 
 customary production, without any vexation, 
 would have given him 20,000 men a year; and, 
 he added that, already, for want of ships to put 
 these seamen in, he had been obliged to form 
 them into regiments for the protection of the 
 coast. (These men, however, it must be obser- 
 ved herefrom, would only have been seamen 
 because he chose to have them designated 
 as such; not from any claim of having been 
 to sea or of having served on shipboard, but 
 merely because they had been born and raised 
 in a maritime county). 
 
 In a conversation respecting the late cam- 
 
86 
 
 paigns, he told me that at the Battle of Wagram 
 he had had under his command, actually engaged 
 in the field, a greater number of men than in 
 any of his other battles ; they amounted, he 
 said, to about 180,000, and that he had had at 
 the same time in the field 1,000 pieces of 
 cannon. At Moscow, he said, though not 
 much short of the same number, yet he cer- 
 tainly had not quite so many ; and at Leipsic he 
 did not think that he had more than 140,000. 
 In answer to a question I put to him, he told 
 me he considered a General Clausel to be 
 decidedly the most able military officer now 
 in France. Marechal Soult and others of the 
 marechals were, he said, brave and able men 
 for carrying into execution operations pre« 
 viously planned ; but to plan and execute with 
 large armies, in his opinion, none of them were 
 by any means equal to this General Clausel. 
 
 The troopships having fallen considerably ta 
 leeward to-day, I have determined not to wait 
 any longer for them ; being now so far on the 
 voyage they must, at all events, get to St. 
 Helena a day or two after me. 
 
 From the 6th October the wind, remaining 
 from S.S.W." to S., allowed us to continue on 
 the larboard tack without losing ground to the 
 
87 
 
 northward, until we got at last the S.E. Trade 
 on the nth inst., having, however, previously 
 passed the thirteenth degree S. latitude ; and 
 even then the Trade hung considerably to the 
 southward, but the ship being so much to 
 windward this became immaterial to us, and 
 with a fine, strong, fair wind we made between 
 two and three hundred miles a day until we 
 reached St. Helena this morning (the 15th), 
 the sixty-sixth day since we quitted the Lizard. 
 During the latter part of the voyage, General 
 Buonaparte, speaking to me of himself, told 
 me that it was the want of officers at the 
 beginning of the Revolutionary War which 
 caused him to be sent for (though then a very 
 young Captain of Artillery) from the Northern 
 Frontier, where he was serving, to take the 
 command of the Artillery before Toulon ; that 
 almost immediately after his arrival at this 
 station he had pointed out to General Corteaux 
 the necessity of making a great effort to get 
 possession of the place which was called Fort 
 Mulgrave by us, which Buonaparte engaged 
 to succeed in doing if General Corteaux would 
 allow him, and foretold that that place, once 
 taken, would oblige the English, immediately 
 afterwards, to entirely evacuate Toulon. This 
 
88 
 
 proposal, however, General Corteaux would 
 not listen to, and they therefore went on 
 some time longer according to their former 
 plans of attack without materially advancing 
 in the siege or doing any real good, until, one of 
 the Representatives of the People coming to 
 the army to overlook what they were about 
 (as was customary in those days), Buonaparte 
 directly laid before him his plans, and, obtain- 
 ing his approval, Corteaux was overruled and 
 obliged to adopt the measures which Buona- 
 parte had before proposed to him ; which 
 succeeding precisely according to his pre- 
 diction, he was in reward immediately pro- 
 moted to the rank of General of Brigade. 
 He afterwards went with part of the same 
 army into Savoy, where he rendered some 
 further services ; but it having been just then 
 determined, in consequence of a scarcity of 
 officers for the Infantry, to draft into it some 
 of the officers of the Artillery, and it faUing to 
 his (General Buonaparte's) lot to be one of 
 these, he quitted the army and went to Paris 
 to remonstrate, and to endeavour to avoid being 
 so exchanged ; but meeting with an unfavour- 
 able reception from a General of Artillery, who 
 was a Representative of the People and had 
 
89 
 
 the chief management of these arrangements, 
 after some high words passing between them 
 he (Buonaparte) retired in disgust, and putting 
 on the dress of the Institute of Paris, to which 
 he then belonged (having been elected into it 
 in consequence of his proficiency in mathe- 
 matics), he continued in Paris endeavouring to 
 keep quiet and from the armies ; which, he said, 
 however, he should have been obliged to have 
 joined (perhaps in a subordinate capacity), had 
 not the advance of the Austrian General, 
 De Vins, into Italy, and the retreat and alarm 
 of the French Army opposed to him, spread 
 considerable consternation in Paris ; which 
 induced the Committee of Public Safety (that 
 knew General Buonaparte was well acquainted 
 with the geography of that country) to send for 
 him to consult with him on the best measures 
 to be adopted ; and they were so satisfied with 
 what he laid before them on the subject that 
 they immediately caused him to draw up 
 instructions for their General in Italy founded 
 upon his (Buonaparte's) advice ; and the Com- 
 mittee then directed that General Buonaparte 
 might remain near them at Paris to assist 
 them on such military points as they might 
 wish to consult him upon. The advice he 
 
90 
 
 gave, as above mentioned, proved efficacious; 
 their Italian Army took up the position he had 
 pointed out, and thereby was enabled to stand 
 its ground without falling any further back, 
 in spite of every effort of the Austrian General 
 to force it, until it became strong enough to 
 attack in its turn ; which it ultimately did, and 
 then (as is well known) defeated De Vins, and 
 was completely successful. Considerable credit 
 accrued to General Buonaparte on this account, 
 and he remained at Paris attached to the 
 Committee of Public Safety until the 13th 
 Vendemaire, the day on which the Convention 
 was attacked by the revolted sections of Paris ; 
 which last having gained considerable advan- 
 tages over the troops of the Convention, then 
 under the command of General Menon, Buona- 
 parte was sent for by the Convention and 
 placed in command of the troops, in lieu of 
 General Menon ; and he (Buonaparte) soon 
 succeeding in defeating the people of the section 
 and in restoring order, was as a reward im- 
 mediately made Commandant of Paris ; which 
 situation, he said, gave him considerable con- 
 sequence and in which he continued until he 
 was made Commander-in-chief of the Army of 
 Italy. But he told me it was not until the 
 
91 
 
 Battle of Lodi that any idea of his rising 
 sufficiently in consequence to authorise his 
 some day interfering in the Government of 
 France, entered his imagination ; but then, 
 finding all his plans succeed so beyond even 
 his own expectations, he began to look forward, 
 though without any decided plan, to such 
 events as afterwards took place ; and he said 
 the quantity of money which he sent from 
 Italy to France, with these views, increased very 
 considerably his popularity ; but after his cam- 
 paign of Italy and the consequent suspension 
 of hostilities with Austria, he said the Directory 
 became very jealous of him and were therefore 
 anxious to get him into a scrape, to avoid 
 which required his utmost caution and finesse, 
 and induced him to refuse an appointment 
 which had been offered to him to conduct the 
 diplomatic discussions then going on with 
 Austria, as also soon afterwards an appoint- 
 ment offered to him to command an Army for 
 the invasion of England ; but when the com- 
 mand of an expedition to Egypt was proposed 
 to him, he immediately saw the advantage it 
 offered him for getting out of the way of a 
 jealous arbitrary Government, by its measures 
 running itself to ruin, and by placing him at 
 
92 
 
 the head of an army for an expedition almost 
 certain to be successful, leaving it open to 
 him to return with increased popularity when- 
 ever he might judge the crisis favourable ; there- 
 fore, he said, the Directory being anxious to 
 get him out of France and he being equally 
 anxious to get away from them, the Egyptian 
 Expedition did not fail to please both parties, and 
 he warmly entered into it the moment it was pro- 
 posed ; but he assured me that the proposition 
 did not originate with himself, as has been 
 generally supposed. He said, having left 
 France with these ideas, he was anxiously 
 looking for the events which brought him back 
 even before they happened ; and on his return 
 to France he was soon well assured that there 
 no longer existed in it a party strong enough 
 to oppose him. He, therefore, immediately 
 planned the Revolution of the i8th Brumaire, 
 and though he might, he said, on that day 
 have run some little personal risk owing to 
 the general confusion, yet everything was so 
 arranged that it could not possibly have failed, 
 and the Government of France from that day 
 became inevitably and irretrievably in his 
 hands and those of his adherents ; and there- 
 fore, he said, all the stories I might have heard 
 
93 
 
 of intentions of arresting him about that time, 
 and of opposing his intentions, were all non- 
 sense and without foundation in truth, for his 
 plans had been too long and too well laid to 
 admit of being so counteracted. After he be- 
 came First Consul he said plots and conspiracies 
 against his life had, however, been very fre- 
 quent, but by vigilance and some good fortune 
 they had all been discovered and frustrated. 
 He told me the one nearest proving fatal to him 
 was that in which Pichegru and Georges (and, he 
 added, Moreau) were concerned. He said thirty- 
 six of this party had been actually in Paris six 
 weeks, without the police knowing anything 
 of it ; which was at last discovered by means 
 of an emigrant apothecary who, being in- 
 formed against and secured after landing from 
 an English man-of-war (and the police having 
 entertained some suspicions in consequence of 
 the numbers that had been reported to have 
 been clandestinely landed about the same 
 time), it was judged would be a likely person 
 to bring to confession if properly managed; 
 therefore, being condemned to death and 
 every preparation made for his execution, 
 his life was offered him if he could give 
 any intelligence sufficiently important to 
 
94 
 
 merit such indulgence ; when he immediately 
 caught at the offer and gave the names of 
 the thirty-six persons before mentioned, every 
 one of whom, with Pichegru and Georges, 
 were (by the vigorous measures immediately 
 adopted) found and secured in Paris within a 
 fortnight. He said that, previous to this plot 
 being discovered, it would probably have proved 
 fatal to him, had not Georges insisted upon being 
 appointed a consul, which Moreau and Pichegru 
 would not hear of, and therefore Georges and 
 his party could not be brought to act. He told 
 me also that it was to be at hand for the pur- 
 pose of aiding in these conspiracies, and to 
 take advantage of any confusion they might 
 create, that the Due D'Enghien took up his 
 residence in the neighbourhood of Strasburg, 
 in which town he (Buonaparte) maintained 
 that he had certain information of the Duke 
 having been in disguise several times. On my 
 asking him if a report I had heard was true of 
 his having sent an order for the Duke's reprieve, 
 but which, unfortunately, arrived too late, he 
 told me it certainly was not true ; that the Duke 
 was condemned for having conspired against 
 France, and he (Buonaparte) was determined 
 from the first to let the law take its course 
 
95 
 
 respecting him, to endeavour if possible to check 
 these frequent conspiracies. And in answer to 
 my remonstrating against his having taken the 
 Duke from the territories of the Duke of 
 Baden, he said this did not, in his opinion, at 
 all alter the case between France and the Due 
 D'Enghien ; that the Duke of Baden might 
 certainly have had some reason to complain of 
 the violation of his territory, but that was an 
 affair for him to settle with the Duke of Baden 
 and not with the Due D'Enghien ; whom when 
 they had got within the territory of France (no 
 matter how), they had full right to try and 
 punish for any act against the existing Govern- 
 ment committed by him in France. 
 
 Thus does this man reason, who now exclaims 
 so violently against the legality of our conduct 
 in refusing to receive him in England, and 
 sending him to reside at St. Helena. 
 
 22nd October. — Since General Buonaparte's 
 arrival at St. Helena I have been so occupied 
 that I have seen but little of him. I went with 
 him, however, one day to Longwood, and he 
 seemed tolerably satisfied with it, though with 
 his attendants he has since been complaining 
 a good deal; and having stated to me that he 
 could not bear the crowds which gathered to 
 
96 
 
 see him in the town, he has, at his own request, 
 been permitted to take up his residence (until 
 Longwood should be completed) at a small 
 house called the Briars, where there is a pretty 
 good garden, and a tolerably large room, 
 detached from the house, of which he has taken 
 possession, and in which and the garden he 
 remains almost all day ; but in the evenings I 
 understand he has regularly invited himself to 
 join the family party in the house, where he 
 plays at whist with the ladies of the family for 
 sugar-plums until his usual hour of retiring for 
 the night. 
 
 FINIS 
 
 Printed by the Army & Navy Co-operative Society, Limited, Westminster, S.W. 
 
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