FACTS, 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE TREATMENT 
 
 OS 
 
 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE 
 
 IN
 
 ISAAC FOOT 
 LIBRARY 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 60, line 6, for " were" read " was." 
 
 Page 95, line 15, read " the moiety of a fowl per ttay.
 
 Sir, — It is pleasant to recognise the kindly ton* 
 of your Paris Correspondent towards Sir Hudsott. 
 Lovre, in your issue of Saturdav last; at the sam« 
 lima his remarks upon matters of fact are so 
 amazingly erroneous that I am quite unable to 
 account for them. Probably it will mterest y)ur 
 correspondent and your readers generally to know 
 the real facts upon the points raised by him. I 
 therefore beg to make the following 8lateni3nt 
 upon the best possible authority— that rf AIjm 
 Lowe, the only sxir\aving daughter of Sir xli <.60d 
 Lowe : -n ti 
 
 1. Sir Hudson Low© is not buncd at Passy. He 
 is buried in St. Mark's Churoh, North Ax-.dlev-street, 
 and there is a tablet to his memory at the entranca 
 to that Church. , 
 
 2. Sir Hudson Lowe and his family never 8Mt+le4 
 at Passy or elsewhere in France. He and his family 
 were at Passy only for a very few days previously 
 to his journey by the overland route to Ceylon la 
 1825, and it was during bis short stay m France on 
 tliis occasion that young Lafl Oasas wounded himself 
 (as it is thought), and caused himself to be Pickwl 
 up by the wayside in order to bring against bir J±. 
 Lowe a charge of murderous assault, 
 
 3. Sir Hudson Lowe had only two sons. iho 
 elder died while still a young man. He never was 
 a doctor, nor did he ever change his na.mo. iho 
 younger son was the late Major-Generkl Ldward 
 William do Lancy Lowe, who was in command of 
 the 32iid Regiment at Lucknow during the siege. 
 There is a notice of him in the "Dictionary of 
 National Biography." -, t ^^^ > 
 
 I may add that Miss Low© honours her tather (i 
 memory most of all because during his tenure 
 of office at St. Helena ho brought about the aboh- 
 tion of slavery in that island.— Yoi^ obedi^t sar- 
 vant, R- ^- oJiiAiUiN. 
 
 Oxford and CSambridge Club.
 
 * F A C T S, 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE TREATMENT 
 
 xVAPOLEON BUONAPARTE 
 
 ^aint Helena. 
 
 BEING THE RESULT OF 
 
 MINUTE INQUIRIES AND PERSONAL RESEARCH 
 IN THAT ISLAND. 
 
 WITH THREE VIf:WS. 
 
 *' Ogiii mevlaglia ha il suo reveiso." 
 
 Prov. Ital. 
 
 " D'un meusonge aussi noir justeraent irrit6 
 " Je devrais faire ici parler la verite." 
 
 Racine. 
 
 " Tell truth and shame the devil." 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR WILLIAM STOCKDALE, 
 No. 161, Piccadilly. 
 
 1819.
 
 PrintPd hy J. Bjettell, 
 Rupert Street, Ha>matket, London.
 
 / « 
 
 
 SANTA BAJtlAHA 
 
 >^/^-^ ^^ 
 
 
 
 '^ Statement of facts, 
 
 'I ■ 
 
 ^c, J^c. 
 
 A HAVE been induced to give publicity to the 
 following pages, from a desire to afford my Coun- 
 trymen some information on that which cannot 
 fail to be considered an highly interesting subject : 
 The personal attainment of such information is, to 
 them, rendered rare and difficult by the distance 
 at which they are, by Nature, placed from the scene 
 and object of my little work ; and if they feel as 
 much in the cause as I do, I trust I shall be for- 
 given by them, for venturing to print, when I 
 candidly avow my only object in so doing, to be 
 that of throwing as much Hght upon the conduct of 
 Napoleon Buonapaute in his captivity, and on 
 that of those appointed to hold him in custody, as mi- 
 nute inquiries made on tlie spot can possibly afford.
 
 2 
 
 or the circumstances of the case with propriety 
 permit. 
 
 Affairs, not " germane to the matter," and in 
 themselves wholly unimportant and uninteresting 
 to the generality of readers, having thrown me 
 upon the Island of Saint Helena, I determined to 
 appropriate the period of my stay in the Colony to 
 a close investigation of the treatment of that man, 
 on whom for years the eyes of Europe were fixed 
 as on a meteor, 
 
 " Sent to prove there is a Deity who rules the ti-orld." 
 
 and having, during a long residence in foreign 
 countries, met with several works on the subject, 
 as well as debates in the upper House of Parliament, 
 I confess it was not without a degree of pleasure 
 that I found myself placed by circumstances in a 
 situation, where, by comparing facts with assertions, 
 I could fairly and dispassionately examine, and 
 honestly report upon a case, in which, as I consider 
 it, the honour of our Country generally, and the 
 characters of its administration, and their repre- 
 sentatives in Saint Helena particularly, are deeply 
 and seriously involved.
 
 .1 
 
 Attention, in matters of opinion, to the feeble 
 voice of an Individual, humble and unknown, I 
 never should have had the vanity to have expected ; 
 but details of truths, plain and unvarnished, col- 
 lected carefully, fairly, and accurately, at the 
 fountain head, must have their weight in the scale 
 of public feeling and popular judgment. In the 
 following communication, I claim one only merit 
 — Veracity. It is to the correctness of my 
 Statements I boldly pledge myself, and I defy 
 
 ANY MAN BREATHING TO CHARGE ME, IN THE 
 COURSE OF THESE PAGES, WITH EQUIVOCATION, 
 PERVERSION OF FACT, OR MISREPRESENTATION 
 
 OF CIRCUMSTANCE : — I have given my reasons for 
 obtruding myself upon the notice of the World ; 
 nothing but the nature of the work I have under- 
 taken would have emboldened me to commit myself 
 so far ; but, Seneca says, " Qucb veritati operam 
 " dat Oratio, incomposita sit et simplex; " and if it 
 be allowed to say the same of a written narrative, 
 I trust I shall deprecate the severity of criticism, by 
 the humility of my pretensions. 
 
 The book I had most recently read on tlie 
 subject of Buonaparte's treatment before my nr-
 
 rival at Saint Helena, I met with in the Society- 
 House at the Cape of Good Hope : — it is a work 
 purporting to be letters from that colony, and 
 addressed by Count Las Casas to Lady Clavering 
 in London. The statements of unnecessary harsh- 
 ness and capricious tyranny, exercised by His 
 Excellency Sir Hudson Lowe and his subordinates, 
 towards the late Emperor of the French, with which 
 that book abounds, re-kindled in me a dormant 
 feeling of indignation towards the persons impUca- 
 ted, which had been originally excited in my breast 
 by the speeclics of Lord Holland, and other dis- 
 tinguished patriotic persons. Tliere is in the 
 pedigree of the noble Baron I have just mentioned, 
 an illustrious name, which gives a certain import- 
 ance to all he says in the cause of liberty ; and I am 
 free to avow, that my sentiments on this particular 
 subject lost none of their weight, by the considera- 
 tion that from the length of time which had elapsed 
 between the debate in the House of Lords, and the 
 date of Count Las Casas' letters, it was clearly evi- 
 dent that no change had taken place in the conduct 
 of the Government, (at least the local government,) 
 towards the fallen Chief I therefore cheerfully
 
 made up my mind to the task of an Inquisitor, 
 resolved that no consideration should influence me 
 in my progress, coupling with that determination 
 another, which was, after collecting facts, to — 
 
 " Tell truth and shame the Devil:" 
 
 and so I will ! 
 
 As my best guides in my search I took the Count 
 Las Casus' Letters, and the " Observations on Earl 
 " Bathurst's Speech," in reply to Lord Holland. — 
 The one work written by an old Adherent of Na- 
 poleon, the other forwarded for publication by an 
 apostate Partisan. The result of my inquiries on 
 the points alluded to in these pubHcations I shall 
 first lay before my readers. 
 
 As an Englishman it may perhaps be ceded to 
 me, to consider eating and drinking subjects of no 
 small importance; and I confess in the Count's asser- 
 tion relative to the animal treatment of Napoleon, 
 where he says, " Food Ijarely fit to eat is witli 
 " difficulty procured," there was something particu- 
 larly annoying to the feelings. Common Humanity 
 would prompt us not to starve the caged tiger, 
 whose lawless rovings in tlie search of [)r(>y wq liad
 
 6 
 
 ourselves restricted. It was therefore with a full 
 proportion of nationality in my disposition, that in 
 the first instance I personally and minutely inquired 
 into the quality and quantity of provisions furnished 
 to the Longwood Establishment. 
 
 I can only say that, from experience, having 
 several days partaken of beef, veal, and mutton, 
 parts of the animals forwarded for Buonaparte's 
 use, I do positively declare, that I never saw such 
 excellent meat any where out of Europe, and very 
 seldom tasted better in it. — The beef (by prescrip- 
 tive right a British staple,) furnished by a man of 
 the name of Barker, in Arno's Vale, would have 
 done honour to an Alderman's Christmas dinner ; 
 the sheep (particularly the EngUsh breed,) thrive 
 here uncommonly weU, and the abundance of beau- 
 tiful pasture, with which this " harren rock'' 
 abounds, gives to the meat a flavour extremely 
 delicious. 
 
 Having vouched for the quality of two leading 
 articles in a bill of fare, I subjoin an account of 
 the quantity of eatables furnished monthly to 
 Longwood ; — tlie establishment consists of Buona- 
 parte, Count and Countess Bertrand, and three
 
 children (I believe), Count and Countess Montho- 
 lon, and two children, six men servants, and the 
 female attendants on the ladies. 
 
 The statement annexed happens to be of articles 
 actually supplied during the month of June last. — 
 I did not select it for any particular reason, but 
 took it accidentally from a bundle of similar papers 
 w^hich I had access to, through the kindness of a 
 gentleman to whom I mentioned the object of my 
 inquiry. The amount, however, of each month's 
 consumption is generally the same, with merely a 
 variation in the minor articles suppHed according 
 to the change of season*. 
 
 * A similar statement, I find, has been published in England 
 — the only difference I believe in the one annexed from that 
 which has already been before the public, consists in the change 
 of mode of supply. — Till latterly, the establishment at Long- 
 wood was furnished by a person of the name of Balcombe, at 
 whose house Buonaparte first lived, and of whose daughters so 
 many ridiculous sto-ries were told by the Saint Helena anecdote 
 hunters. This person, however, having left the Island, the 
 duties of purveyor were placed in the hands of the chief 
 Commissariat officer, Dtnzil Ibl)etson, Esquire, by which 
 change the comforts of the family are materially increased, 
 and an equal degree of economy observed ; — the profit ne- 
 cessarily allowed to Mr. Balcombe as purveyor, (who v.as also 
 a mercliant,)onarlicles purcliased, not being of coursecharged 
 by the (iovcnunent officer.
 
 s 
 
 Itenhs of Swpplies furnished to Longwood in the 
 Tnonth of June 1818. 
 
 Claret 240 Bottles. 
 
 Vin de Grave - - - - 60 ditto 
 
 Madeira ------ 30 ditto 
 
 Teneriffe ------ 150 ditto 
 
 Champaigne ----- 15 ditto 
 
 Constantia ----- 15 ditto 
 
 Cape Wine ----- 630 ditto 
 
 Ale and Cyder - - - - 180 ditto 
 
 And asiHuch draught Beer as might have been required. 
 
 Candles - 240 lbs. 
 Potatoes - 15 Bushels 
 Sugar Candy 300 lbs. 
 Coals - - 1440 Bushels 
 Beef & Veal 1200 lbs. 
 
 1 500 lbs. 
 1800 lbs. 
 1080 
 
 420 Quarts 
 SO 
 4 
 
 Flour - - 100 lbs. 
 
 Rice - - 150 lbs. 
 
 Butter - - 300 lbs. 
 
 Cheese - - 60 lbs. 
 
 Salt - - - 80 lbs. 
 
 Vermicelli- 45 lbs. 
 
 Maccaroni 45 lbs. 
 Salad Oil - 32 Quarts 
 Vinegar - 41 Bottles 
 Lard - - 60 lbs. 
 Pepper - - 10 lbs. 
 Mustard - 5 Bottles 
 Pickles - 6 ditto 
 Olives - - 12 ditto 
 Hams - - 12 
 Tongues - 12 
 Soap - - 30 lbs. 
 Wood - 20,160 lbs. 
 
 Vegetables, Fruit, and Fish, as much 
 
 according to the season. 
 
 Confectionary of all sorts, Liqueurs and Preserves, &.c. 
 
 from Hoffman, included only in the daily accounts. 
 
 *_ I inquired why this article was included, and found it 
 Was used for tying pudding bags ' 
 
 Mutton 
 Bread - 
 Eggs - 
 Milk - 
 Pigeons 
 Roasting Pigs 
 Geese - - 
 Ducks 
 Fowls - - 
 Black Tea 
 Green Tea 
 Rum - - 
 Twine 
 
 16 
 240 
 15 lbs. 
 15 lbs. 
 2 Bottles 
 1 lb * 
 
 as required,
 
 Upon this Statement I made a remark, that the 
 quantity of Champaigne bore no proportion to the 
 other wines ; — and I found that Count Montholon, 
 at Buonaparte's desire, fixed the quantity himself, 
 as well as the number of Hams, it having been 
 intended to have sent up more — ^but the remark of 
 the Count to Mr. Ibbetson, the Commissary in 
 charge of the stores, was, that more of either 
 article would be useless. 
 
 I had the curiosity twice to visit these Stores at 
 Huts Gate. Fitted up and arranged expressly 
 for Longwood — they contained every article of 
 the first quality from London : abundance of 
 confectionary and grocery, and the best wines, 
 cyder, ale, porter, and liqueurs. 
 
 Count Las Casas speaks of the badness of the 
 bread and the water : the bread which is made 
 expressly and solely for Buonaparte's establish- 
 ment, of the very best flour, is excellent*; and the 
 water pure, fine, and clear : one man's whole daily 
 duty is to furnish Longwood with it, from the 
 
 * The bread I allude to is not even fiimished to tlie 
 Governor's Table.
 
 10 
 
 spring near Doctor Kay's house. Although no water- 
 drinker, I took a tumbler of it at Longwood, that 
 I might experimentally satisfy myself on every 
 point on which I profess to give information. 
 
 There is something apparently frivolous in dwel- 
 ling on such details, but as the charge of starvation 
 is recorded, it is necessary to be thus minute in its 
 refutation. 
 
 In the Observations on my Lord Bathurst's 
 Speech, it is remarked, speaking of Napoleon, 
 that, " The Great Man is dying on a rock ;" — 
 this decided falsehood is best and most pointedly 
 answered by the evident fact, " that the little man is 
 " living on ^ fertile plainP — In these Observations, 
 page 70, it is said, " The House of Longwood 
 " is destitute of shade, water, and coolness :" — now 
 the House derives its name from its contiguity to 
 a long wood, which extends in a right line nearly 
 four miles, the shade it affords being so luxuriant, 
 that at three hundred yards distance the House is 
 imperceptible amongst the trees, which spring 
 healthily from turf as fine and fresh as ever was 
 trodden. Mr. Las Casas says, — " It was expected
 
 11 
 
 " they" (not we) " would have been lodged in 
 " Plantation House, a very handsome residence 
 " built by the Hon. East India Company for their 
 " Governor :" — by the same rule, had Napoleon 
 Buonaparte been suffered to have remained in 
 England, he might have considered Windsor 
 Castle, or some other palace or public building, 
 as a pleasant retirement for his Imperial Majesty ; 
 for why a house, built as the Count Las Casas 
 himself distinctly says, by a great public body, 
 expressly for one of themselves, should be appro- 
 j)riated to the residence of a foreign prisoner, one 
 cannot easily imagine. However, so indulgent were 
 our Government towards him, that application was 
 actually made to The Honourable East India Com- 
 pany for the use of Plantation House ; to which 
 they answered, with an independence which shews 
 that ministers cannot do exactly as they like in 
 Saint Helena, that Plantation House was built 
 by them for their Governors, and so long as they 
 had a Governor there, it should be his. 
 
 It might appear by this application on the part 
 of the King's Government to the Company, that 
 Plantation House was infinitely superior to Long-
 
 13 
 
 wood ; — this, however, is by no means the case. 
 The Government House has in its interior arrange- 
 ment, that, which any other house of the same 
 calibre would have, in the hands of a superior 
 well-regulated English family, — more of the smig 
 and comfortable than the establishment of the 
 Frenchman, who, in his whole dictionary, has no 
 such two words, nor any fifty words, which by 
 combination, could afford the same two meanings. 
 But the locale of Longwood is decidedly the better 
 of the two ; — the country surrounding it in every 
 direction is beautifully adapted for riding or driving; 
 the whole of which, to the extent of twelve or 
 thirteen miles, Napoleon has the undisturbed 
 
 PRIVILEGE OF ENJOYING UNSEEN AND UNAT- 
 TENDED. The motive for making the request for 
 Plantation House I should imagine to have Ijcen 
 the wish to have accommodated the prisoner 
 immediately on liis arrival, without the delay 
 necessarily required for fitting up Longwood for 
 his reception. 
 
 The account Las Casas gives of Longwood is 
 pre-eminently aljsurd. — The raging w hid of w hich 
 he speaks, is llie refreshing Soutli-East Trade,
 
 13 
 
 which renders the climate healthy and temperate, 
 and the blights which accrue to the vegetation 
 from its parching effects, exhibit their influence in 
 a most surprising manner, in the luxuriant produce 
 of a Kitchen garden ; which, although the Count 
 affirms " that no such convenient appendage ever 
 " could he established at Longwood," coven at 
 this moment about three or four acres of ground, 
 within two hundred yards of the house, and under 
 the superintendance of a man of the name of Por- 
 teus, produces remarkably fine vegetables, for the 
 excellence of which I can vouch, from the unques- 
 tionable authorityJ[^quoted in favour of Mr. Bar- 
 ker's heef—perso?ml experience. 
 
 The drawing sentinels round the house at night, 
 gives Mr. Las Casas great offence; — it prevents 
 Buonaparte's taking exercise at the only time it 
 can be done in a tropical climate. In the first 
 place, where the mercury ranges generally be- 
 tween 60° and 75", Exercise may be taken at 
 all times of the day, with no more personal in- 
 convenience, or prejudicial consequence to health 
 in a troi)ical climate, than in London or Paris ; and
 
 14 
 
 in the second place, in tropical climates, the interval 
 between sun-set and total darkness is so short, that 
 unless under favour of the Moon, it would hardly be 
 desirable to take exercise at that particular point 
 of time. 
 
 The drawing sentinels round the garden after 
 dark, has, even should it be a little irksome, been 
 proved to be by no means an unnecessary caution* ; 
 but it should be taken into the calculations of the 
 great man, that no sentinels whatever are 
 
 PLACED WITHIN SIGHT OF THE HOUSE DURING 
 THE DAY WHEN THEY CAN BE VISIBLE TO HIM : 
 
 nay, such particular attention has been paid to his 
 rooted antipathy (easily enough accounted for) to 
 English red coats, that an objection having been 
 
 * Nothing could have proved more strongly the importance 
 of having a guard near his person than the circumstances de- 
 tailed in a long published account of Buonaparte's escape from 
 Longwood, and almost miraculous journey to the Beach, (of 
 which, by the way, there is none in Saint Helena) put forth 
 by the faction : but unfortunately the whole of that remarkable 
 history is of the same nature with most of their statements — 
 wholly untrue. It is singular, however, that these persons at 
 the moment they are censuring the local government for its 
 unnecessary severity, illustrate their doctrine by a narrative, 
 the only tendency of which must be to prove a too great 
 laxity in tlie confinement of the prisoner.
 
 15 
 
 started by some of his followers to his using the 
 high road to James Town farther than Huts Gate, 
 because there was an English picquet there. Sir 
 Hudson Lowe instantly directed the picquet to be 
 removed entirely out of sight of the road. — In 
 a similar manner, it being supposed that the Bar- 
 racks at Dedwood, although more than a mile from 
 his lawn, might prove an unpleasant object from 
 his windows, orders have been given to place them 
 entirely out of his view, previously to his occupying 
 the new house erecting for his residence. 
 
 Equal delicacy is observed in seeing him. — The 
 Captain who lives at Long wood House is placed 
 there nominally, not as a guard over his person, 
 nor a spy on his actions, but as an orderhj officer 
 in attendance upon liim^ ready to accompany him 
 should he wish to pass the limits of Country through 
 which he may travel unattended. 
 
 The stories I have seen in some of the English 
 papers about " sighting him,'' are perfectly ridi- 
 culous; for so cautiously is the daily view taken of 
 him, that unless he has been told the fact by his 
 minion, it is very probable that he is as little aware
 
 16 
 
 of the circumstance, as he may be of the signal 
 which is made every morning and evening to the 
 Governor, announcing his safety. — I insert a copy 
 of one of these signals, which has the double merit 
 of shewing the nature of the thing itself, and esta- 
 blishing the fact of Buonaparte's security up to 
 that date : — 
 
 From Dedwood. 
 All is well with respect to General Bownaparte. 
 
 J. Clarke, 
 
 S. M. (Signal Man. J 
 
 Wednesday Evening, 
 IpcistQ^Nov. 25, 1818. 
 
 I have left Mr. Clarke's mis-speUing of the Gene- 
 ral's name unchanged, rather than invalidate the 
 correctness of the document by the slightest alter- 
 ation. 
 
 Another great grievance of which the Napoleons 
 complain, is the interdiction of Newspapers. " Is 
 " it not," say they, " with an apparent degree of 
 plausibility, very hard that public journals, which
 
 17 
 
 *' are open to your active enemies, and the meanest 
 " of yourselves, should be denied to us, restrained as 
 " we are, and harmless as we must be here." The 
 answer is evident. — In the first place. Count 
 Bertrand has openly declared, with a degree of 
 complaisance towards our national character, which 
 we could very well have spared, that he can at all 
 times ensure the safe delivery of Letters to their 
 address in Europe, without the slightest apprehen- 
 sion of failure:—" For," said he, " the first respect- 
 " able looking stranger I meet in the roads, I shall 
 *' ask him if he be an Englishman; on his answering 
 " in the affirmative, I shall beg to know if he be a 
 " Man of Honour ; if his reply (as I conclude it 
 " will be) be in the affirmative also, I shall con- 
 " fide my Letters to him, with a perfect assurance 
 " of their safe conveyance." The Count has suc- 
 ceeded in some instances, and one in particular ; — 
 he will not, however, probably have an opportunity 
 of tr}dng the Exj^erimettt with the same person 
 again. — But what if he do ? say the partisans of 
 Buonaparte — Buonaparte can tell his friends Uttle 
 more than they know already — that he is at Saint
 
 18 
 
 Helena, and very likely to remain there malgre lui^ 
 and moreover, that he would rather be any where 
 else. — To do mischief, replies must be had to his 
 despatched Letters, and a communication established 
 between him and his continental confederates — 
 how so easily as through the medium of the public 
 papers ? To those who doubt this, I not only say, 
 that such communications are possible, or probable, 
 but I will tell them in plain, unqualified terms, that 
 such communications have been made, and such 
 a correspondence has been established. In the 
 Anti-GalUcan! Monitor, of all papers, one ad- 
 vertisement particularly, appeared on the 3rd of 
 November, 1816, pecuHar in its form, curious in its 
 contents, and pointedly, and purposely placed in a 
 most conspicuous part of a Journal, not, as I believe, 
 ordinarily admitting advertisements. Now this ad- 
 vertisement will be seen on a reference, (which it 
 is really worth while to make,) to be in cypher — 
 the key is the Letter X. which stands amongst 
 the figures, and the cypher was discovered several 
 months afterwards at Vienna! — This I offer with- 
 out remark, as a fact illustrative of the use intended
 
 19 
 
 to be made of an indulgence the Longwood people 
 seem to insist upon, which I should think might 
 stagger the advocates for the admission of News': 
 papers into their circle. 
 
 That the Foreign Residents at Longwood, 
 
 velut aesfri somnia vanae 
 
 Finguntur species- 
 
 reckon on great results from the maintenance of a 
 correspondence with Europe, may be gathered from 
 the notions they have of the interest which their 
 Idol every where creates : — Bertrand recently said, 
 that " the whole world might fairly be divided 
 " into two great parties : the Friends and Enemies 
 " of the Emperor r 
 
 All the complaints and protests, aU the discon- 
 tents and sulkinesses of Buonaparte, go to effect (if 
 possible) a removal from the only spot on earth, 
 whence escape is impracticable. 
 
 Las Casas has this object in view in all his Let- 
 ters : " He would be much better off," says he, " in 
 " a house in England or Scotland." Now as to 
 Scotland being a more congenial chmate to a Corsi-
 
 20 
 
 can constitution than Saint Helena,! much doubt it. 
 As proofs that Saint Helena is positively and de- 
 cidedly healthy, I adduce the children of Bertrand 
 and Montholon — not children living in any other 
 part of the Island, but at Longwood, in the house 
 with Buonaparte, composing part of his family: — 
 I never saw more decided marks of salubrity, than 
 in the rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes of these little 
 traitors. 
 
 Mr. Las Casas is rather unlucky in quoting in 
 support of his statement of the unhealthlness of 
 the climate, the number of deaths in the Sixth 
 Regiment, inasmuch as that regiment never has 
 been in the Island; it is evidently a blunder, and 
 much of a piece with the bungling manner in which 
 he betrays the real date of his Letters, by beginning 
 his fifth Epistle from the Cape of Good Hope, IVIay 
 8, 1817, with telling his dear Lady C. to " behold 
 " him now at Saint Helena." 
 
 The fact is, that Mr. Las Casas does not seem 
 to have had the same advantages which Mr. San- 
 tini possessed, in the preparation of his work for 
 the press. The production of the \?diex gentleman
 
 21 
 
 was ushered into the world under verj extraordi- 
 nary patronage and protection ; no less than that of 
 an English General. We have lately witnessed 
 an extraordinary event in the liberation of Lava- 
 lette by Sir Robert Wilson. However romantic 
 his conduct must have appeared to all the thinking 
 part of the people of England, still there was in 
 the character and conduct of the enterprise, a bold 
 and open daring, on principles sufficiently wild to 
 astonish the ignorant, and sufficiently hostile to the 
 interests of the legitimate government of France to 
 charm the patriots. But what would these people say, 
 if, turning from this political Quixote, I were to hold 
 up to their notice a General in our pay — in our 
 uniform — in the act of cherishing INIr. Santini, and 
 putting his pamphlet into as good English as he 
 was able, involving the national character of 
 his own country ; stigmatizing honourable indivi- 
 duals, and deliberately giving the best colour to 
 falsehoods, propagated in the cause of that man who 
 avowedly hates England with his whole heart and 
 soul ; who shuns, as a basilisk, tlie very sight of the 
 uniform which that General wore, whUst fighting a*
 
 22 
 
 k were, with his pen, under French colours, and 
 using, for no good purposes, the dregs of an Italian 
 private soldier's brains: — to point him out to the 
 People, would be to mark him as an object for 
 their suspicion — not their confidence. I shall ab- 
 stain from saying more ; — he knows while he 
 reads this paragraph, that I know him ; let him 
 with moderation enjoy the advantages he has ob- 
 tained, but let him beware of too much patriotism. 
 With the state of Buonaparte's health it was my 
 active endeavour to make myself as well acquainted 
 as possible ; and I had the satisfaction of having a 
 positive declaration made to meinLongwood House, 
 that he had never been in better health since his 
 arrival, than he was at the time I was there. — I saw 
 him twice. — The trick of standing with his hands 
 in his breeches pockets he almost invariably adopts, 
 rarely altering their position, except to take snuff, 
 or place them in the pockets of his coat. The 
 strong peculiarity in his appearance which strikes 
 every beholder, arises from the almost preternatural 
 size of his head, relatively to his body and limbs. 
 On the 10th of November he was in the varhandha
 
 23 
 
 adjoining his billiard room, witfi a red night-cap 
 on his head; and on the 12th of the same month, 
 was walking and whistling in the same place, 
 with every appearance of excellent spirits : — he 
 did not come into the garden, because it was not 
 his roLiCY. 
 
 This policy of his, of which he speaks openly, 
 and of which Bertrand and Montholon speak 
 openly too, is the most downright, and least arti- 
 ficial piece of chicanery he ever adopted. All the 
 fabrications about the pains on his chest, and the 
 sweUings of his legs, are so many political stage 
 tricks, to keep alive the attention of his half of 
 the world, and induce, if possible, the great event — 
 
 REMOVAL. 
 
 It is of course well known, that since the demis- 
 sion of his favourite, O'Meara, he has refused to 
 see Doctor Verling, the medical man appointed to 
 the Longwood Establishment by Sir Hudson Lowe. 
 Through Montholon, he has gone so far as to let the 
 Doctor understand, that this stul)born invisibility on 
 his part, is not the result of disrespect towards either 
 his person or abilities. That the rest of the party
 
 24 
 
 at Longwood have a favourable opinion of his 
 professional qualifications, is evident from the fact 
 of his being the constant attendant and adviser of 
 both famiUes ; but, as Buonaparte says, it is not his 
 policy to see him, because he was not placed about 
 his person by the Privy Council. 
 
 This manoeuvre he considers masterly, because, 
 were Doctor Verling admitted to his presence, and 
 an acquaintance with his constitution, the fallacy 
 of all his tales of ill health would of course be 
 discovered : by the determination, therefore, not to 
 see him, he, without fear of contradiction, puts 
 forth stories of his malady, in which he feels certain 
 of being supported by his late physician ; while, at 
 the same time, he is enabled to complain that a 
 medical man, in whom he has no confidence, has 
 been appointed to attend him by an incompetent 
 authority. 
 
 Instead of state Hejjatitis and poUtical Anasar- 
 ca, were Buonaparte really to feel animal indis- 
 position, I shrewdly suspect that the love of Hfe 
 would induce him to abandon his worldly 'policy^ 
 and call in the present unqualified attendant.
 
 25 
 
 Buonaparte is no Roman: — It may be confidently 
 relied on, that the man who could scamper from 
 Waterloo to Paris to pack up plate, china, and 
 table linen, as a feUow would rob his furnished 
 lodgings, the night before he had made up his mind 
 to abscond, will never allow himself to be seriously 
 ill, without taking advice from a source which 
 himself allows to be highly respectable, and on 
 which all his adherents successfully rely ; nor kill 
 himself by inches after his faU, when, with his views 
 of rehgion, he might have ended his life with more 
 eclat on the point of his own sword at the moment 
 of his final defeat, and when he might justly have 
 exclaimed 
 
 Nimirum hac die 
 
 " Una plus vixi mihi quam vivendum fuit*." 
 
 Effect ! is all he appears anxious about, and he 
 resolutely sacrifices a great deal of comfort for its 
 maintenance. His determined abstinence from 
 riding, with twelve of the best horses which could 
 be procured, in his stable, from the doors of which, 
 for twelve miles, roads have been made, expressly 
 
 * Macrub. Saturna!. lib. ii. c. 7.
 
 36 
 
 for his use ; his relinquishment of gardens teeming 
 with flowers, and in which he had caused an arbour 
 to be built ; the refusal to play his favourite game 
 of billiards, in his own house with his own adhe- 
 rents; are so many proofs of his rigid devotion 
 to that system of charlatanerie which he calls — 
 policy. 
 
 This pohcy was brought into play lately by 
 a particular attention paid to his wishes. — Sir 
 Hudson Lowe, on a suggestion that the shade I 
 mentioned at page 10, in the park at Longwood, 
 Was not so immediately close to the house that 
 Buonaparte could bury himself in it, without passing 
 along one walk from the billiard room through the 
 flower garden (of the length perhaps of eighty 
 yards), immediately offered to hire for him, as a sum- 
 mer retreat, the dehghtful residence of IMiss Mason, 
 within his private limits, about three miles from 
 Longwood, by which one of the roads leads, which 
 have been made purposely for him, and in the 
 grounds of which there is, close to the doors, a deep 
 wood, impervious not only to the " noon-tide ray," 
 but to human eye, where, unseen, he might from 
 " morn till night" have enjoyed his swlkiness, in
 
 S7 
 
 all the luxury of solitude : — the offer was refused — 
 from policy. 
 
 During my stay in the Island, he had a littie 
 relaxed — shewn himself more frequently than 
 he had done for several months before, and had 
 gone so far as to send a message of acknowledg- 
 ment for some favour, to the Governor. The least 
 alteration in the manoeuvres of a man like Buona- 
 parte, deserves notice, inasmuch as it demands 
 increased vigilance : — as he, and his adherents 
 openly declare all his acts to be political, a change, 
 however trifling in his behaviour, which savours of 
 civility towards a man whom he has personally 
 affected to despise, and who, in his memoranda on 
 Sir Thomas Reade's letter toBertrand, he designates 
 by the curiously combined epithets of Coxcomb 
 and Assassin, (the latter of which designations the 
 English papers, for what reason I cannot divine, 
 thought proper to suppress) is more likely to be 
 the effect of a determination to commence a new 
 system of circumvention, than the result of any 
 proper feeling ; — no shift, no artifice, however mean, 
 base, and contemptible in its nature, or worrying to
 
 28 
 
 himself, has been wanting to induce the change of 
 place of confinement ; and it is curious to observe^ 
 wherever circumstances have been adverse, how 
 entirely his assumed dignity of character and great- 
 ness of mind have abandoned him : not unlike the 
 rider of a winning horse ; while taking the lead of 
 his competitors, one cannot fail of admiring the 
 grace of his attitude, the firmness of his seat, and 
 the command he has of the fine animal bounding 
 under him ; — see him passed — see him fall into the 
 rear, all the elegance and self-possession which 
 charmed, have vanished, and a scene of wriggling, 
 twisting, spurring, and flogging ensues, with all the 
 shabby manoeuvres which bad temper, disappointed 
 hopes, and lost ascendancy can suggest, or the liberal 
 laws of the turf admit. 
 
 The cool bare-facedness with which all the 
 French at Saint Helena speak of the system he has 
 so long adopted, and of which it appears to me he 
 begins to be weary, would, one might think, coun- 
 teract any object they might expect to gain by an 
 adherence to it. — In a conversation which Count 
 Montholon had a short time since with the Marquis
 
 29 
 
 de Montchenu, the French Commissioner, the Mar- 
 quis (alluding to some attention which had been paid 
 to Napoleon's wishes) observed, that they ought to 
 be satisfied ; — " That," said the Count, " we never 
 *' shall be, here, — it is not the policy T 
 
 The warm bath in which Buonaparte stews 
 himself, as it were, for hours together, and the 
 abandonment of exercise, might, in an unhealthy 
 situation, have enervated and emaciated him ; but 
 the excellence of the climate has maliciously de- 
 feated all his efforts to become interesting ; and in 
 spite of his exertions, a more ungraceful, thick- 
 legged, fat, little feUow never existed on the face 
 of the earth. 
 
 Concerning his domestic habits, I made the 
 minutest inquiries : my information must of course 
 have been hearsay ; but it was gathered from the 
 best authority. He rises about eight or nine, and, 
 after breakfast, is employed either in reading, (in 
 which case he usually establishes himself in his 
 warm bath,) or writing, or sometimes in merely 
 dictating to Montholon, who is actively employed 
 as his amanuensis, in preparing his memoirs : — he
 
 30 
 
 dines at three, or rather earlier — frequently alone ; 
 occasionally Bertrand and his wife dine with him ; 
 occasionally the Montholons; but for some time 
 past, not together. After dinner, when not par- 
 ticularly sulky, he goes into the varhandha, or the 
 billiard room, with which it communicates, and 
 walks there with some of the little party till Coffee 
 be served. 
 
 In alluding to the memoirs of his life, on which 
 he is employed, another instance of his love of 
 effect may be adduced. — When Las Casas was at 
 Saint Helena, he officiated as Secretary; and, 
 amongst his papers, when seized in consequence of 
 his having violated the regulations, and smuggled 
 away letters, were found two manuscript volumes 
 of the History of Napoleon ; — Buonaparte claimed 
 them, and they were immediately sent to him ; — 
 on the receipt of them, without opening, he threw 
 them both into the fire, and commenced his task of 
 re-writing them, with renewed vigour and activity. 
 
 I have mentioned that the Bertrands and Mon- 
 tholons were latterly not invited to dine with 
 Buonaparte together ; I inquired the cause of this
 
 31 
 
 cautious separation, and found that the ladies had 
 quarrelled. 
 
 It brought to my mind the old story of the two 
 men, who, having been doomed to take charge of 
 the Eddy stone Light House for three years, con- 
 trived to disagree ; when upwards of two years of 
 their term of banishment had expired, some visi- 
 tor asked one of them how he liked living on the 
 rock ? " Why," said the fellow, " it might be 
 " pleasant enough with company, but partner and 
 " I haven't been on speaking terms for the last 
 " eighteen months." 
 
 I had the curiosity to inquire the ground of dif- 
 ference between the Saint Helena ladies, and was 
 told it was jealousy : — on the bare mention of the 
 " green-eyed monster," I thought I had discovered 
 some new historical fact, when, to my utter surprise, 
 I found that these fair ones, jealous of each other's 
 mode of dress, stationed their soubrettes on the 
 alert for the arrival of new miUinery from James 
 Town, and the lady whose aide dii cJiamhre was 
 sufficiently fortunate to fall in with the consign-
 
 32 
 
 ment, made it a point to leave none for the adorn- 
 ment of the other's person. 
 
 Should, however, any of my readers be at all 
 interested in the little quarrels of these soi-disant 
 Countesses, I can inform them that just previous to 
 my departure, through the mediation of their hus- 
 bands, a reconciliation, to a certain degree, had 
 taken place; at least I saw the two families walking 
 together in the road to James Town, on the evening 
 of Saturday, Nov. 21. 
 
 Of these two Brentford Queens, Madame Mon- 
 tholon is the quieter and more amiable ; Madame 
 Bertrand has more the air of an Intriguante, (I 
 mean a political one,) and sometimes tries her 
 hand at the popular game of effect. — While 
 I was in the Island, she borrowed two shillings 
 of a soldier's wife of the name of Snell, to do 
 some charitable action, and did not repay her for 
 three or four days : her 'policy being to have it in- 
 ferred, that, with the sweetest and most benevolent 
 feelings in the world, she had no money at her 
 disposal; this, considering they actually receive
 
 33 
 
 four hundi'ed pounds sterling per month, every 
 article, either necessary, or of luxury being fur- 
 nished them, is much of a piece with Buonaparte's 
 political sale of plate, to pay household expenses, 
 with ten thousand poimds at command, besides 
 the favourite necklace of the Princess Hortense, of 
 which cadeaii he became master, much in the 
 same manner as Mr. Warden did, in his turn, of 
 Buonaparte's knee-buckles; which necklace, by 
 the way, may have been disposed of, in a manner 
 somewhat more profitable than being worn in a 
 neckcloth. 
 
 As to the knee-buckles, it has been reported by 
 some facetious story-teller in London, that Buona- 
 parte took from his person a pair of those articles, 
 and presented them to Mr. Warden, the Surgeon 
 of the Northumberland, with a piteous political 
 tale, that he had nothing else at his disposal to 
 mark his esteem, regard, &c. &c. &c. It may be 
 as well, for the better elucidation of this apparent 
 partiality of Buonaparte towards the medical officers 
 of our navy, to mention, that when Mr. Warden 
 was on the eve of departure for England, he begged 
 Las Casas to get him something belonging to Buo- 
 
 13
 
 3t 
 
 napartc to shew his friends; and moreover, that 
 when the request was made, Las Casas went into 
 Napoleon's dressing room, took a pair of his old 
 knee-buckles, and gave them to Mr. Warden, of 
 which little transaction the g'reat man was ignorant 
 then, and may be to this present moment for all 
 that appears to the contrary: and for all that ap- 
 pears to the contrary, the said knee-buckles may 
 have been Las Casas' own, and never have be- 
 longed to Buonaparte at all. 
 
 Whether it be this story, or others which have 
 reached England, in which Mr. Warden is mixed 
 up, which have irritated the people at Longwood, 
 I know not; but General Gourgaud, previously to 
 his departure from Saint Helena, puljlicly treated 
 Mr. Warden's name with as little respect as the 
 Quarterly Review has done, and added a threat 
 more unpleasant to a vnim personally, than even the 
 justice of literary criticism ; for the General openly 
 announced it to be his determination, wherever 
 ]i(' craiglit Mr. Warden, to cut his ears off! — Gene- 
 ral Gouigaud, I saw by the Times Newspaper of 
 July, has been in London; and as he has advertised 
 himself to be living in Kenton Street, Brunswick
 
 35 
 
 Square, any interested person miglit ascertain the 
 sincerity of his intentions on that head*. 
 
 I remember to have heard, that when Buona- 
 parte was at Paris, the chair in which he commonly 
 sat was cut and hacked in all dii'ections: and a 
 French Gentleman has told me, that at Malmaison 
 he himself saw the remnants of nearly forty pen- 
 knives, which had fallen victims to his fancy of 
 stumping them, and sticking them into a large 
 mahogany table at which he used to write: — ^his 
 peculiar taste at Saint Helena is breaking wine 
 glasses, (as the repeated indents on a man of the 
 name of Darlingwill prove,)and which, when he hap- 
 pens to dine alone, he does in a very masterly style. 
 
 It may be necessary to remark, that whenever 
 the great man is j)articularly displeased, he has a 
 knack of drawing down the corners of his mouth 
 and grunting, — literally ^;v^»//w^. He commences 
 after dinner luimming a tune, beating time on the 
 table with the foot of his glass ; during this opera- 
 tion, thoughts of other days flash across his mind, 
 and the air and motion become more animated, till 
 
 * Since my arrival, I find that General Gouro^aud has shewn 
 the cloven foot in England, and has been reniove<l— so much 
 the better.
 
 'J6 
 
 the reverie closes with one of his loudest grunts, to- 
 which sound the action is so vehemently adapted, 
 that the glass falls a victim to his energy. 
 
 Of these grunts he is particularly profuse, when 
 any former failure of his own is brought, however 
 accidentally, to his recollection. — At one time his 
 Cook conceiving himself ill used, proceeded to 
 Plantation House, to complain to the Governor of 
 the ill treatment he had received; Sir Hudson Lowe 
 having heard what he had to say, considered the 
 man to have been in the wrong, and ordered him 
 back to Longwood; when he arrived, Buonaparte 
 would not allow him to enter the house, and on his 
 return back to Plantation, Sir Hudson immediately 
 sent his own Cook to Buonaparte, begging that he 
 would make use of him as long as he found it con- 
 venient; Buonaparte saw the man, whose name is 
 Albey, and with his characteristic inquisitiveness, 
 asked him what countryman he was, " A German, 
 Sir," said the Cook; " In what part of your coun- 
 try," said the General, " do they speak the best 
 German?" " At Leipsic, Sir," said the Cook. Buo- 
 naparte uttered one of his fiercest grunts, and 
 ordered Mr. Albey to be sent back to Government
 
 57 
 
 House immediately, which he was, and Longwood 
 supplied with a cook from the suite of Lord Am- 
 herst, who happened to touch at Saint Helena on 
 liis return from China. Now the chances ai-e, that 
 Buonaparte at some period may find it his policy 
 to assert, that this man was instructed to throw 
 Leipsic in his teeth, although the conversation was 
 commenced by himself, and Mr. Albey is as matter 
 of fact a cook as ever made minced meat. 
 
 On anotlier occasion. Colonel Dodgin, of the 
 Sixty-sixth Regiment, a distinguished officer, deco- 
 rated with the Order of the Bath, and several clasps 
 and medals, was introduced to him ; he entered 
 into conversation, and inquired about his services. 
 The clasps told a good deal of tlie story; but in the 
 continuation of his interi'ogatories, he asked the 
 Colonel where he had serve-d previously to going 
 on tlie Continent : — " I served against you in 
 Egypt, Sir," was the Colonel's reply ; the rejoinder 
 was di grunt, which put an end to the conversation. 
 
 It is evident that, to restrain the natural violence 
 of a temper, whicli, wliile in the possession of abso- 
 lute power, he allowed to manifest itself on all 
 occasions, must require an effort. He must be
 
 3^ 
 
 conscious that the paroxysms of rage, into wliich 
 his choleric disposition often betrayed him while 
 on a throne, would only be ridiculous in Saint 
 Helena, where his dominion is so curtailed, that 
 the loss of tvv o or three untractable mihjects, woidd 
 leave him bare of followers : the effect of smother- 
 ing this flame is gloom and sulkiness ; 
 
 Macjno vt'luti cum flamma sonore 
 
 Virgea suggeritur costis undantis aheni, 
 Exsultantque sestu latices: furit intus aqufE vis, 
 Fumidus atque altc sputnis exuberat amnis 
 Nee jam se capit unda — volat vapor ater ad auras*. 
 
 the disposition remains unaltered, although cir- 
 cumstances and poUcy have rendered the results 
 different. An anecdote or two, illustrative of his 
 character when uncurbed and uncontrolled, I can- 
 not refrain from mentioning here, — my authority 
 for them is Marshal Augereau. 
 
 One day, while dining with the Empress Josephine 
 and some of the IMarshals, she being attended by 
 her page and relation Mr. Senois, Napoleon finished 
 his meal considerably sooner than Her Majesty, and 
 rose to quit the room; he " stood not on the order 
 "' of going," but instead of passing down from his 
 * Virunl.
 
 39 
 
 place to the doors, walked round behind the seat of 
 the Empress, and uttering one of his grunts, gave 
 Mr. Senois, who had stepped back against the wall 
 to make way for him, a most violent kick, and then 
 passed on: — Mr. Senois never received the slightest 
 communication on the subject, nor, according to the 
 regime of the Imperial Court, did he consider it 
 prudent to make any farther inquiries : — The Em- 
 press, indeed, when she heard Mr. Senois utter a 
 moan, asked what ^\ as the matter ; on his telling 
 her that His Imperial Majesty had been gi'aciou$ly 
 pleased to kick him, the obedient consort appeared 
 to know her duty too well to make any remark on 
 the subject, either to her august spouse, or her 
 degraded relative. 
 
 In a similar manner one of his pages, the son of 
 a Colonel in his household, having brought Na- 
 poleon a letter which contained some unpleasant 
 news. His Majesty having read the contents of 
 the dispatch, gave its astonished bearer a most 
 violent slap on the face : — the lad remonstrated 
 with the rest of the pages, they advised him to 
 beai' it quietly, and on a reference to his father, he 
 received the same counsel.
 
 40 
 
 But that which I consider to be the most abomi- 
 nable littleness of malice I ever heard of, or could 
 have imagined possible, betrayed itself in his con- 
 duct to his dear and so much lamented wife, the 
 Empress Maria Louisa : — He had, previously to 
 his going out one day on a sporting party, (in the 
 Bois de Boulogne,) in which the ladies of the court 
 joined, had a discussion with his fair consort; while 
 engaged in the chace. Napoleon all at once pro- 
 posed their dismounting and following tlie game 
 on foot; the Empress pleaded a hurt which she 
 had received a few days before, in her ancle, of 
 which her spouse was fully aware : — *' On ne me 
 "Jait point question sur mes ordres, Madame^ 
 said the Emperor : she dismounted ; and after 
 several torturing efforts to continue with the party, 
 sat down literally incapable of standing. This 
 wound up his imperial rage to an awful pitch — 
 deep it was, although silent, — he took no farther 
 notice of the circumstance at the moment, although 
 unable to conceal the workings of his countenance : 
 
 " nigrescunt sanguine vena^ 
 
 Lumiiia Gorgoneo saevius igne micant*." 
 * Ovid.
 
 41 
 
 In the evening the royal party were at Marshal 
 Berthier's, at Gros-Bois ; and in the course of the 
 entertainment, after a dramatic exhibition, there 
 was a ball. The Marshal solicited the hand of the 
 Empress, who told liim, that in consequence of her 
 exertions to obey the Emperor in the morning, her 
 foot was so much inflamed, and so painful, that she 
 felt quite unable to dance. Shortly after, as Ber- 
 thier was crossing the ball-room. Napoleon asked 
 him why he did not dance ; he replied, that he was 
 in search of a partner : — " Why do you not ask the 
 "Empress," said Buonaparte; — Berthier stated 
 that he had done so, and gave her answer. — " Bah ! 
 " Bah ! " said the illustrious man, screwing down 
 his mouth, and grunting, " the Empress not dance ? 
 *' — I say she shall — take her hand — I order her 
 " to dance with you!'' and, to enforce his commands, 
 he actually seized her with a degree of personal 
 violence, not perfectly consistent with the supreme 
 good breeding of a courtly circle ; — dance, however. 
 Her Imperial Majesty did ! 
 
 After this fact, for the truth of which I vouch, 
 DTie might be apt to suppose that a good deal
 
 42 
 
 we hear of the lamentable effects of Buonaparte's 
 separation from his beloved consort, had its origin, 
 like most others of his grievances, in policij. He 
 abandoned one woman, whom he has confessed he 
 really was attached to- — from policy; and the 
 display of fine feeling for the loss of the other, 
 whom he married decidedly from iioUcij, may be 
 equally fictitious with most of the exhibitions with 
 which he favours the world ; unless, as it is said, 
 the separation of two pei'sons, " once linked in a 
 " heavenly tie," has the same effect on their minds 
 while thinking of each other, that gazing on 
 the far-off land of our fathers has upon the eye; — 
 all the charms are })resent to the heart, — all the 
 defects are lost in the distance. 
 
 The same spirit of contemptuousness which he 
 displayed as Emperor, manifested itself in Buo- 
 naparte with respect to the Commissioners sent 
 out to Saint Helena from the different continental 
 powers. The ideas he entertained of them assi- 
 milated very little with tliose which they had of 
 their own powers and importance : — they seemed to 
 consider themselves embassadors from their respect-
 
 43 
 
 ive courts, rather tlian persons sent to watch a 
 prisoner, who refused to see them, in their official 
 capacity, or in Sir Hudson Lowe's presence. 
 
 The French Commissioner, tlie only one now 
 resident at Saint Helena, is the Marc^uis de Mont- 
 chenu, and he might as well be in Ispahan or Port 
 Jackson, or any other more agreeable retreat. 
 This nobleman, Buonaparte would admit to his 
 presence on no consideration whatever; he abuses 
 and ridicules him in the most unqualified and 
 undisguised manner ; and in a conversation with 
 Mr. O'Meara, some time after the Marquis's arrival, 
 Napdleon told him, that lie always felt mortified 
 for the honour of France, (with which, by the way, 
 he has as much to do, as the Baron Neuhofi" had 
 with the honour of England,) when he saw men like 
 the Marquis, employed by the Government ; " for," 
 said he, " the English must have a very mean opi- 
 " nion of the French Nation, when they see such 
 " specimens exported*." 
 
 I dare say, this said INIartpiis is a very honourable 
 
 * Buonaparte seems in his elevation, amongst other things, 
 to have forgotten where he was born; in one of his procla- 
 mations to the French army, he calls France their common 
 mother. — What could he have been thinkinof of?
 
 44f 
 
 mail, and as well adapted for the post he holds, as 
 any other [)erson of his age and standing : Ijut I 
 confess, with the highest respect for the qualities 
 of his heart, 1 Avas excessively surprised to sec him 
 one morning attend Count Montholon (who liad 
 called on him) to his horse, at the door of his 
 house in James Town, shake him cordially by 
 the hand, and separate from him with an un- 
 constrained air of excessive friendship, when he 
 himself was at the moment, as well aware as / am 
 nou\ that Montholon was never backward in the 
 Longwood Cabinet, to bestow epithets upon him, 
 emanating originally from Napoleon, which, though 
 ^adapted to the style and politics of an Ex-Imperial 
 Court, are too indecent, as well as contemptuous, 
 to appear in print before English readers. 
 
 This Marquis, as I said before, is the only 
 Commissioner resident, at present, in Saint Helena. 
 Count Balmain, a Scotsman, and Commissioner 
 from Rjussia, after having knelt in vain to one of 
 the sweetest of the Island belles, and received a 
 refusal to his offer of marriage, which he could not 
 Brook, has gone on a tour to Rio Janeiro : the 
 Baron Sturmer and his lady have also quitted the
 
 45 
 
 Island, — the Baron not forgetting to take with him 
 his vahied rice Hkeness of Buonaparte, which he 
 regarded with as much veneration as if it had been 
 presented to him by tlie Ex-Empress Maria Louisa 
 herself. 
 
 The residence of these persons at St. Helena does 
 not seem in tlie slightest degree necessary; — they 
 are shut out by his whim and sulkiness from the 
 opportunity of seeing the only person in the Island 
 they have any thing to do with : and their presence 
 in tlie colony, which must be irksome to themselves, 
 and expensive to their respective courts, is with the 
 precautions taken for, and attention paid to, the 
 security of the Exile, as far as one can see, a matter 
 of perfect indifference. 
 
 The only excuse which can be found for the 
 capriciousness and freaks of Buonaparte, towards 
 these said Commissioners, and indeed on all points 
 connected with his jeopardy, where his great 
 policij is out of the question, is the influence which 
 the outlaw Bertrand has over him. — This fellow, 
 whose insolence and absurd assumption of con- 
 sequence arc perfectly ridiculous, has the faculty of 
 romancing with greater gravity and assurance than
 
 46 
 
 the generality of his countrymen; — point ])lank 
 denials of conversation, hardly dry on the lip, he 
 considers fair stratagems : indeed, so completely is 
 his character for poeticising prose now established 
 in Saint Helena, that no officer having business 
 to transact with him, will do it, unless in the 
 presence of a third person. 
 
 His character as a man of honour, (I mean in the 
 fashionable acceptation of the word) has suffered 
 no slight tarnish, from an affair which occurred 
 with Colonel Lyster. The being an old and valued 
 acquaintance of Sir Hudson Lowe, was a suffi- 
 cient reason for this officer's being marked for 
 insult; and while he was resident at Longwood 
 Count Bertrand took upon himself to write a most 
 scurrilous and abusive letter to liim, the terms of 
 which were ])y no means equivocal. — Colonel 
 Lyster instantly called him out; — he refused to 
 meet him ; giving as a reason (I am told) that 
 although in a staff situation. Colonel Lyster was 
 not actually in the army. Tliis is an agreeable 
 evasion for a fellow who is an outlaw ; whose life 
 is forfeit, and who dares not to set his foot on the 
 shores of his own country. ]\L Le Comte, how-
 
 47 
 
 ever, did not choose to fight ; and so apprehensive 
 was he of personal cliastisement in the streets of 
 James Town, with w^ich he had been publicly 
 threatened, that he would not venture down to 
 superintend the mounting of a carriage which had 
 arrived for him from the Cape, and which, after 
 remaining several weeks unopened, was eventually 
 sent up to Longwood. 
 
 On my arrival in England, much to my surprise, 
 I found that this carriage had been made the sub-' 
 ject of a published letter from Saint Helena. — Of 
 the statements contained in that letter, I have 
 only to state that they are decided false- 
 hoods. In the first place, the fact I have above 
 mentioned, that the carriage was kept several 
 treeks in its case, in order that Bertrand might 
 have it mounted under his own inspection, (which 
 fact I set down four months since) will prove that 
 the vehicle did not create the violent sensation 
 described, nor suffer martyrdom the " moment it 
 ** landed." In tlie next place, it so happens, that 
 this carriage, which is a light pliaeton, was taken 
 out of the packing case, in which Harrington, the 
 shopkeeper at tlie Cape liad sent it down, in the
 
 48 
 
 open square at ten o'clock in the morning, in front 
 of the Government House ; and, that so far from 
 the slightest damage having been done to the car- 
 riage in any way or manner, it w^as most carefully 
 mounted and sent out to Longwood. The per- 
 sons present at the time were Sir Thomas Reade, 
 and Mr. Hooke, the Treasurer of the Isle of 
 France, (who was at Saint Helena on his way 
 home,) myself, two workmen, the sentry at the 
 castle gate, two lads of the name of Tracey, and a 
 young man, whose name at this moment I forget, 
 who happened to be passing, and waited to see the 
 operation of slinging it. 
 
 It may appear singular, that a circumstance then 
 apparently of no weight, should have made any im- 
 pression on my mind ; but the coincidences are so 
 strong as to recal every minute part of the trans- 
 action to my recollection ; for the observation, that 
 probably the Hnings might be used as a mode of 
 conveyance for secret communications to Long- 
 wood, I i^iADE to Sir Thomcwi Reade, who hap- 
 pened to be standing near me. The remark 
 produced only a smile, and that no measme 
 V. as taken to ascertain the probability of the sug-
 
 49 
 
 gestion I do most positively assert ; and as posi- 
 tively deny, that any damage whatever was done 
 to any part of the vehicle. — That it was not injured 
 may be gathered farther, from the fact, that Ber- 
 trand, on its arrival, desired Captain Nicols, of the 
 66th, the orderly-officer at Longwood, to present 
 his compliments to Sir T. Reade, and thank him 
 for his attention in having had it niounted and 
 sent to him. Now had Bertrand received his 
 phaeton in tlie state described in the letter, " body, 
 " pannells, and every atom of it broken to pieces;" 
 it is not very probable that he (who is by no means 
 inclined to be over-civil,) would have made his ac- 
 knowledgments for the receipt of the fragments*. 
 
 Madame Bertrand, who, to do her justice, though 
 long and lanky, and sallow and shapeless, is some- 
 what interesting, tried her influence over Dr.Verling, 
 
 * Injustice to Harrington, the man I before mentioned, I 
 ought to say, that in my remark to Sir T. Reade, I never 
 meant to imply that he had wilfully connived at the impor- 
 tation of letters in the linings of the carriage : nobody (who 
 has ever seen the man) would suspect him of a plot; but in 
 designing hands, the greatest fools may be rendered equally 
 dangerous with the most consummate knaves.* 
 
 E
 
 the medical attendant, on tlie subject of her hus- 
 band's affair with Colonel Lyster ; for finding that 
 instead of being noticed by almost all the military 
 men in their neighbourhood, her husband (whose 
 policy does not lead him so cordially to hate red 
 coats as his master,) was universally cut by them ; 
 she made an attack upon the Doctor to endeavour, 
 l)y his interference, to effect a reconciliation be- 
 tween the Count and the Colonel. — His answer 
 silenced all farther requests : — " Madam," said he, 
 " I can have nothkig to say on the subject : the in- 
 " suit was offered to Colonel Lyster in writing ; — ■ 
 " in writing the apology must be made ; and only 
 " in writing can it be conveyed to that Gentle- 
 " man." 
 
 Bertrand is still called by his wife and the 
 nursery-maids the " Grand Marechal du Palais,'" 
 and he and Montholon run Ukc gre-hounds to 
 fetch the Emperor's snuff-box from its ordinary 
 resting place, the chimney-piece, whenever His 
 Majesty indicates a desire to take a pinch. Now 
 really this trait in the Grand Marechal du Palais, 
 who has followed the man's fortune, and been raij^ed
 
 51 
 
 in his serv ice from the plebeian rank of plough-boy 
 to that of Count, would be rather creditable, if one 
 did not recollect that he cannot desert his master 
 advantageously. Madame Bertrand, with all her 
 policy, has a certain share of the candour inherent 
 in her sex, and occasionally lets slip expressions, 
 which might be construed into an arddnt wish to 
 BE OFF ! but having no convenient retreat to fly 
 to, they most faithfully and patriotically remain 
 where they are. 
 
 One thing struck me very forcibly in Saint He- 
 lena, which was the total indifference of all the 
 inhabitants, as to Buonaparte's movements or pur- 
 suits. — His name is hardly ever mentioned in any 
 Society, except occasionally in reply to the inquiry 
 of some stranger on the subject ; and I declare, that 
 the only time I ever heard any native speak about 
 him, was one day passing through that beautiful 
 and romantic spot Sandy Bay, when I met a man 
 loaded with beef, — I asked for wliom it was destined; 
 — " for Boncy, Sir," said he in a tone, which, cou- 
 pled with the homely abbreviation of his illustrious
 
 52 
 
 name, did not seem to indicate the slightest respect 
 for his fallen greatness, or commiseration for his 
 pretended sufferings*. 
 
 There is something in this consciousness of de- 
 clining notoriety, which gives new energy to the 
 discontents and complaints of Napoleon; for if they 
 fail of effecting his removal, they at least serve to 
 keep his hated name aUve in our memories, — I say 
 in our memories, for in those countries whence have 
 been repeatedly culled anticipated conscriptions, or 
 through which he has taken his ambitious strides 
 to greatness, the childless parent, the fatherless or- 
 phan, and the houseless inhabitant, need no refresh- 
 eners to recal to their recollection the fallen Tyrant, 
 — to whom might fairly have been addressed the 
 words of Rousseau : — 
 
 * This silence the writers of the opposite party, attribute to 
 an apprehension on the part of the people, that their conduct 
 may be misconstrued, and their conversations misinterpreted ; 
 b«it I aver, that it proceeds wholly from indifference, which 
 indifference existed, even before Buonaparte's self-seclusion, 
 when he was in the habit of riding about the Island, at which 
 period he passed the dwellings of most of the inhabitants 
 unnoticed.
 
 53 
 
 " Tigrc, k qui la pitic ne peut se faire entendre, 
 " Tu n'aimes que le meurtre et les embrasernens; 
 *' Les remparts abattus, les palais mis en cendrcs, 
 *' Sont de ta cruaute les plus doux monumens." 
 
 The last publication which has emanated from 
 Longwood, is the Collection of Memoranda on Sir 
 Thomas Reade's Letter, to which I alluded curso- 
 rily in another place. All I had seen before, 
 whether coming from an illiterate fellow like San- 
 tini, or a shrewd adherent like Las Gasas, or in 
 the shape of Observations on Earl Bathurst's 
 Speech, falls far, far short of these brief and pithy- 
 commentaries of Napoleon's; there is a sort of 
 satisfaction in having in these remarks, his opinion 
 pure and ungarbled; and, thanks to truth, they are 
 all and each of them as easily combated and defeated, 
 as the effusions of any of his outlawed followers, or 
 denationalized minions. 
 
 If I grow warm as I advance in my task, I have 
 to entreat my reader's forgiveness for my change 
 of style: but I entered Saint Helena, — I commenced 
 my notes on what I saw, influenced, — prepossessed 
 in favour of insulted, fallen greatness, and pitying
 
 54 
 
 Napoleon: those feelings, I confess, were excited, 
 (as I before declared,) by the patriotic speeches of 
 men, whose principles in the cause of freedom were 
 known, whose hatred of oppression was registered, 
 and who, I concluded from the liberaHty of their 
 dispositions, the powers of their minds, and the 
 numberless opportunities they must have had of 
 procuring the best intelligence on the subject, had 
 possessed themselves of the most correct informa- 
 tion, before they with boldness and confidence 
 espoused a cause, not the least delicate to handle 
 in the political world. 
 
 That influence, those prejudices which I laboured 
 under, have, during my stay in Saint Helena, gra- 
 dually vanished before the sun of truth, and as the 
 mist clears up in the progress of my inquiries, I 
 feel warmed in the cause of those who have been 
 attacked, vilified, and traduced. — But to the re- 
 marks. — 
 
 In the first place, as to the facts they contain, 
 and the terms in which they are couched, it is 
 hardly to be imagined how greatness like 
 Napoleon's could have descended to accompany
 
 55 
 
 his flagrant falsehoods with such gross scurrility of 
 invective, or couch them in such absurdly inflated 
 terms. In the commencement of his choice pro- 
 duction, while alluding to the removal of O'Meara, 
 he hints at a criminal plot. The association of 
 ideas is natural enough, not combined as he would 
 have us understand, but as I shall take leave to 
 point out. He murmurs that no house is built for 
 him, reiterating the old story of the " Unhealthy 
 " Barn," which the illustrious foreigners have cou- 
 pled in their complaints with the " Barren Rock," 
 and made a cry of, in a manner similar to that in 
 which our domestic disturbers of the public peace, 
 couple words for particular ends, to which no solid 
 meaning can be attached, and whence no rational 
 inference can be drawn. 
 
 Now, as for Longwood, after my account of its 
 situation, it cannot be considered unhealthy. As 
 for its appearance and accommodations, — lest my 
 plebeian ideas of comfort should not accord with 
 those of my readers, or that I should have too 
 mean an opinion of the wants and wishes of Buo- 
 naparte, I subjoin two Sketches of the house.
 
 56 
 
 It is certainly not equal to the Tliuilleries, nor 
 are the gardens comparable with Versailles ; but 
 General Buonaparte will please to recollect, that 
 when he inhabited palaces, he was where he had 
 no right to be. — His residence at Saint Helena is 
 such, in extent of convenience and advantages, as 
 might, by a bounteous Sovereign, have been appro- 
 priated to a favored General, retired with honour 
 from the legitimate service of his country, covered 
 with wounds received in its cause ; and I am apt, 
 from a slight knowledge of the rate of pay of 
 foreign officers, to imagine that it must have been 
 a very highly favored General, of great interest 
 and personal connection with the Continental 
 crowned heads, who would, in addition to such 
 a retreat, have received from his king a stipend of 
 little less than twenty thousand pounds per annum 
 to maintain an establishment. 
 
 Of the new house, which Buonaparte roundly 
 asserts is not commenced, I also subjoin a View. 
 For elegance and neatness, combined with real 
 comfort in the plan and finishing, for beauty of 
 situation, and fineness of cHmate, it is perfectly
 
 57 
 
 unequalled in the Colony, and (for its extent) cer- 
 tainly not excelled in the Mother Country. 
 
 In the view of Old Longwood from the flower 
 garden, it may not be uninteresting to some read- 
 ers, to point out the private apartments of Buona- 
 parte. The projecting part of the front contains 
 the billiard room, and a drawing room ; and at 
 the back, in the body of the house, the salle a 
 manger. — Three of the four windows on the nearer 
 side open from the library, and the four distant 
 ones from the bed room, and dressing room ; behind 
 these are the bath and an inner closet, in which 
 Buonaparte's favorite valet invariably sleeps. 
 
 In the new house, the View of which is taken 
 from the kitchen garden, between the gates and the 
 cottage of Lieutenant Jackson of the Royal Staff 
 Coi^DS, the windows in the corridor give light to 
 a drawing room and billiard room ; the large win- 
 dow in the left wing opens into the library, a 
 superb room of beautiful proportion, which, by a 
 vestibule, communicates with Buonaparte's bed 
 room, dressing room, bath, valet's room, and all 
 necessary conveniencies. — The salle a manger is
 
 58 
 
 in the middle of the house, and communicates 
 with the apartments in front ; the right wing, con- 
 taining a capital suite of apartments, is, at his 
 desire, appropriated to the Montholon family, who 
 at present reside in that part of Old Longwood 
 (plate 1), which appears from the road, with a 
 pediment over fouf windows, opening to the 
 park. 
 
 The distant buildings adjoining the new house, 
 are the kitchens, stables, servants' offices, &c. — 
 Count Bertrand's residence is not visible in the view 
 which I have made, but stands within twenty 
 yards of the gates, and has been fitted up for him 
 very comfortably. 
 
 . In his Note, Buonaparte says, or rather the 
 translation has it, " They have made attempts on 
 " my Physician, and forced him to resign, rather 
 " than remain here a passive instrument. " If any 
 attempts were made upon Mr. O'Meara at Long- 
 wood, to render him a passive instrument, they 
 were most likely made by the great man himself*. 
 
 * Till I arrived in England, this memorandum appeared to 
 me inexplicable, nor could I imagine the inference which
 
 59 
 
 But now, of this Physician^ who, perhaps I ought 
 to observe, is the volunteer surgeon of the Belle- 
 rophon, who accompanied Buonaparte to Saint 
 Helena, much is to be said. Probably, before I 
 reach my beloved country so much will have been 
 disclosed, as to have anticipated many of my re- 
 marks, and superseded the necessity of my being 
 explicit. However, to shew how much reason Buo- 
 
 Buonaparte intended should be drawn from it; but I was 
 enlightened by a question put to me by a man endowed with 
 a certain degree of common sense, and put to me with such 
 earnestness, as really to induce me to believe him serious; 
 this question was, Whether I had not heard in Saint Helena, 
 that Sir Hudson Lowe had tampered with Mr. O'Meara to 
 imdermine the health of Buonaparte by art ? 
 
 I could not have conceived such an idea to have entered 
 into the imagination of any human being — it is hardly cre- 
 dible — for under the circumstances of Mr. O'Meara's de- 
 mission, it is not very probable that he would allow such a 
 transaction to remain in doubt a moment, nor pause to satiate 
 his revenge on Sir Hudson, in the decided manner, proof of 
 '•uch an act would enable him to do. What motive Sir Hud- 
 son could possibly have for such a desire it would be difficult 
 to surmise ; for putting the secondary crimes of murder, as- 
 sassination in cold blood, the violation of the faith of nations, 
 I&.C. &c. wholly out of the question, policy would hardly lead 
 one man to destroy another, purely for the sake of losing 
 tivelvc thousand pounds pa' annum.
 
 60 
 
 naparte has to lament the loss of a sincere friend, 
 I shall merely mention, that a conversation took 
 place at the house of Mr. Porteus, in James Town, 
 a few days subsequent to the arrival of the Nor- 
 thumberland at Saint Helena, in which several 
 persons participated, and at which were present, 
 amongst others, a lady of the name of Knipe*. In 
 the course of that day's dialogue Mr. O'Meara said, 
 he considered Napoleon as an oppressed man, 
 
 AND THAT IT WAS THE DUTY OF EVERY BODY 
 
 TO ASSIST HIM. I ask whether such an expres- 
 sion, — if not verhatim, at least containing all the pith 
 and matter, did not drop from Mr. O'Meara ? — I 
 answer, I know it did. 
 
 I shall now call my reader's attention to a para- 
 graph in the " Secret History of the Cabi- 
 " NET ©F Saint Cloud," published by Mr. Lewis 
 
 * A name not soon to be forgotten at Saint Helena, — though, 
 on this occasion, some persons would be as well pleased not to 
 remember it. 
 
 " Against the blown rose, may they stop their nose, 
 " Who kneeled to the bud." 
 
 Shakspeare, Ant. and Cleop.
 
 61 
 
 Goldsmith, once editor of an English Journal in 
 Paris, and now, as I believe, proprietor of a paper 
 called the Anti-Gallican Monitor*, in which ap- 
 peared the advertisement in cypher before alluded 
 to. — In this Secret History, at page 18, " on 
 " Treaties," is a paragraph containing a list of per- 
 sons openly and fearlessly denounced, as having 
 been employed by Napoleon to negociate measures 
 for a co-operation in Ireland, in case of an invasion 
 of that kingdom by the armies of France ; in which 
 list ajipears the name of O'Meaea. 
 
 It would be highly satisfactory to the public if 
 Mr. Goldsmith would inform them whether the 
 Mr. O'Meara, of whom such honourable mention 
 is made by him, as having been used " pour es- 
 " piomier ses camarades,'' the most debased and 
 contemptible of all spies, be any relation of Napo- 
 leon's Physician, on whom attempts have been 
 
 made at Saint Helena? Goldsmith's O'Meara 
 
 is described as having been in the army ; — Napo- 
 leon's Physician was in the army too before he 
 entered the navy : — why he quitted it, official do- 
 
 * 1 am inclined lo believe this paper is no lons^er published.
 
 62 
 
 ciiments will shew. — That he has been also struck 
 out of the navy, it is hardly necessary to add. 
 
 I do not pretend to identify the person ; but 
 should it be, and it is within the pale of possibiUty, 
 nay, of probability, the very individual, — it would 
 be a most curious coincidence. 
 
 And another most curious coincidence is, that 
 Mr. Lewis Solomon, a jeweller and watch-maker, 
 at James Town, (whose name, hj the way, I be- 
 lieve not to be Solomon,) is an acquaintance, and 
 may, for all I know, be a relation of Mr. Leivis 
 Goldsmith ; He was also the intimate acquaintance 
 of Mr. O'Meara, at Saint Helena, and was in the 
 habit of furnishing newspapers for his peivate 
 AMUSEMENT AT LoNGWOOD. Doubtless the per- 
 son who inserted the advertisement in the Anti- 
 Gallican Monitor, was well avvare of this intimacy, 
 and did not consider it unlikely that Mr. Gold- 
 smith's own paper would be amongst tiiose lent 
 by his friend to the Longwood Physician. — To 
 ehew that iMr. O'Meara and Lewis Solomon we/e 
 on terms of confidential correspondence, I shaJl 
 take leave to mention an anecdote concerning Fi
 
 63 
 
 snuff-box, whicli will, I trust, not prove uninterest- 
 ing on other accounts. 
 
 The Reverend Mr. Boys, one of the colonial 
 chaplains, some time previous to O'Meara's removal, 
 being on the eve of departure for Europe, received 
 as a gift from Buonaparte, by the hands of 
 O'Meara, a snuff-box. — Mr. Boys felt very auk- 
 ward in accepting a present from the foreigners, 
 not through the medium of the English Govern- 
 ment, and being obliged to sail without seeing 
 O'Meara, he sent the box to his (O'Meara's) friend, 
 Mr. L. Solomon, leaving it at his shop, with a let- 
 ter for the Physiciaiiy telling him that he should 
 be happy to take it if he could get it sent to him 
 through the proper channel, as laid down by the 
 Island Regulations on the subject : but that from 
 him he begged to decline receiving it. At the same 
 time Mr. Boys wrote to the Reverend Mr. Ver- 
 non, the other Island chaplain, acquainting him 
 with the circumstance, and, I believe, requesting 
 Mr. Vernon to obtain the Governor's sanction to 
 the present. 
 
 The matter creating some surprise, Mr. O'Meara
 
 64 
 
 was called wpon for an explanation, which he gave 
 in a letter to Lieutenant-Colonel Wynyard, the 
 military secretary. In this letter, he stated, that 
 Cipriani, Buonaparte's butler, having died, Ijoth 
 Mr. Vernon and Mr. Boys, although the man was 
 a Roman Catholic, attended his corpse to the 
 grave ; that Montholon was directed by Buonaparte 
 to inquire what remuneration those gentlemen 
 expected for their trouble, and that he, O'Meara, 
 had taken upon himself to say, that no pecuniary 
 recompence would be received by either of them ; 
 on which Montholon and he agreed, that a snuff- 
 box should be presented to each of the clergymen, 
 and twenty-five pounds to the poor. 
 
 This story, plausible and well arranged as it was 
 (for Boys was gone), unfortunately did not reach 
 the Governor, till Mr. Vernon had mentioned Mr. 
 Boys' letter, which, in some degree, weakened the 
 assertions made in it, by proving that JMontholon 
 had nothing to do ivith the box, which came direct 
 through O'Meara to Boys ; that Mr. Vernon, who 
 had shewn equal respect to Cipriani's remains, had 
 never heard of such a present being intended, and,
 
 65 
 
 moreover, that the poor were minus their twenty- 
 five pounds, said to have been promised by JVIon- 
 tholon. 
 
 Mr. Vernon having mentioned the matter, pro- 
 ceeded to shew Mr. Boys' letter to Sir Hudson 
 Lowe, and coming down to James Town for the 
 purpose, one of the first persons he met was O'Meara, 
 to whom he mentioned tlie cii'cumstances as they 
 had occurred, and his consequent business in town. 
 " Written to you has he ?" said O'Meara ; " then 
 " he has taken the surest method in the world of 
 " ruining me for ever." — One thing remained to be 
 done, and O'lMeara tried it ; — he licgged Mr. Xav- 
 non to destroy Boys' letter, which he actually liad 
 in his hand at the moment. — Mr, Vernon argued 
 the impossibility of doing such a thing, inasmuch 
 as he had informed the Governor of his having 
 received it: — " Destroy it for God's sake," said 
 O'lAIcara, " or give it to me now, and I'll tear it up 
 " before your face, and the) I you can say it has been 
 '•' destroyed." — Mr. Vernon refused to do any such 
 tiling; " for," said lie, " T have declared that I have 
 '* this letter, and supposing I were now to equivo- 
 
 F
 
 66 
 
 " cate, as you wish me and destroy it, what advan- 
 " tage would it be, since the contents are known 
 " verbatim by the Governor ? " — " Oh," said 
 O'Meara, " as for what is said, that can 
 
 " BE DENIED, AND I DO NOT CARE ABOUT IT, 
 " BUT WHAT IS WRITTEN, REMAINS AGAINST 
 " 3IE ! ! !" 
 
 This matter of fact detail of a conversation 
 somewhat illustrative of character, I give as nearly 
 verbatim as my recollection has allowed me; — what 
 motive Buonaparte had in making the present to 
 Mr. Boys, we have yet to learn, but there can be 
 little hesitation in pronouncing the conduct of that 
 Gentleman, in the instance of this transaction, 
 exactly that which it ought to have been. 
 
 Mr. O'Meara's friends at home, however, appear 
 to have been more successful in their unintentional 
 exertions to r?im him for ever, than even Mr. 
 Boys; for shortly after the P/?y5/ci«w had left Saint 
 Helena, a letter, accompanied by a parcel of French 
 Books, arrived from England, addressed to James 
 Fo7'hcs, Ksq. — No such person as IMr. Forbes being 
 in tlic Island, and no person appearing at the house
 
 67 
 
 of the person, where the packet was to be left till 
 called for, that person begged to decline having 
 any thing to do with the books ; and, in order to 
 ascertain to whom they ought to be forwarded, 
 the letter accompanying them was opened by the 
 proper authorities ; when lo and behold, the Epistle, 
 proving more than was necessary, began, *' Dear 
 " O'Meara" — This circumstance, had no other 
 occurred, would have fully warranted the removal 
 of the Physician from Longwood. Never was 
 contrivance more bungling : — surely the man who 
 would recognise a letter as Ijeing for him, under 
 the address of James Forbes, would be equally 
 aware for whom its contents were intended if it 
 had been continued in the same name within*; 
 but luckily for all good causes, 
 
 " Magna est vt-ritas, et prevalebit." 
 
 * I find that the person who wrote this letter, and sent the 
 books, has most openly and candidly avowed himself, — his 
 frankness is very amiable, and loses not the least of its value, 
 by the consideration that his name was perfectly well known 
 at Saint Helena five months a(,^o: why the masquerade style 
 of correspondence should have been adopted I do not so clearly 
 perceive; there are doubtless good reasons for it, and strong 
 ones too, which could induce a VJiysician like Mr. O'Meara, 
 iu tack an uliui to his name.
 
 68 
 
 and Providence so ordains it, that the omissions of 
 plotters themselves, oftener discover the most in- 
 famous conspiracies and machinations, than the 
 exertions of those conspired against, or the most 
 rigorous search the law can institute. 
 
 I would ask any man, by way of reply to Buo- 
 naparte's complaints about Mr. O'Meara, or Mr. 
 O'Meara's complaints about himself, whether the 
 Governor of Saint Helena was not fully justified 
 in removing from attendance on his prisoner, a 
 man of whom we know so much, (deny it who 
 DARE !) and of whom doubtless he knows much 
 more. 
 
 As for the bulletins issued about Buonaparte's 
 health, to deceive the Prince and the People of 
 England, I confess I never heard of them. Had 
 Doctor Verling seen him, and issued accounts con- 
 trary to truth, they might have had (supposing it 
 worth ^vhile) the effect of a temj)oi'ary deception, 
 or at least indicated a desire to deceive; but, as 
 Buonaparte states that he has never seen the 
 Medical Man, and the Medical Man says precisely 
 the same thing, of course the IMedical Man is not
 
 69 
 
 very likely to take upon himself to say any thing 
 more about him. General Buonaparte should know 
 that it is neither in the nature nor power of the 
 English Government to deceive the people on such 
 points : — even were it their policy, — the Constitution 
 of the Country does not permit it. — He judges of 
 the possibility of concealment from his personal 
 experience in Government ; — but not aU the influ- 
 ence of the King of England, Lords, Commons, 
 and Ministers, can stifle the voice of truth ; — what 
 would be the object if they could? Buonaparte's 
 object every body must see through; — to be removed 
 from Saint Helena: — if he chose to submit himself 
 to medical advice, the real state of his constitution 
 would be easily ascertained ; — that he is anxious 
 for more reasons than one to conceal. In short, 
 in the persiflage of his eighth note, he is, if possible, 
 more incomprehensible than in his fifth and sixth, 
 in which he makes assertions unsupported by any 
 fact whatever, and neither gives us a reason for what 
 he says, nor an explanation of what he means. He 
 states that he is hindered from using horse exercise, 
 by having the uncoritrolied privilege of riding ; tliat
 
 70 
 
 from being permitted to receive company, he is de- 
 barred from seeing visitors; and in the eighth note 
 he tells us that he is deprived of medical advice, by 
 having a Doctor of Physic in attendance on him : 
 he next complains that this Doctor is ignorant of his 
 constitution and disorder, and then, lest he should 
 be better acquainted with them, which would 
 remedy that grievance, he positively refuses to see 
 him. Now, as I before said, the publicity of the 
 fact which he mentions, and which doubtless is as 
 notorious in England as at Saint Helena, that he 
 has not yet seen Doctor Verling professionally, 
 puts it out of the power of any human being, (sup- 
 posing such a thing to be wished,) to impose upon 
 people by bulletins, or professional inteUigence of 
 Buonaparte's health, of which nothing can be 
 known farther than can be collected from the 
 casual view taken of him by the orderly officer at 
 Longwood, the testimony of those in attendance 
 on liim, or his general appearance wlien he conde- 
 scends to come out. In short, the whole of the 
 production is a string of Paradoxes, which tlie great 
 Author leaves unexplained and unenlightened, and
 
 71 
 
 when dispassionately looked at with facts, resem- 
 bles more the senseless sputterings of a fretful child, 
 than the rational remonstrance of a suffering 
 Hero. 
 
 He says, " They indulge in a ferocious smile at 
 " my increased sufferings." They, — who does he 
 mean? not the commissioners, for reckless of their 
 frowns or smiles, he has never seen them : — it must 
 be either Sir Hudson Lowe, the Assassin, for 
 whose public punishment he calls, or Sir Thomas 
 Reade, — who, to do him justice, is very frequently 
 smiling, how ferociously, those who know him 
 best can best determine. That I came into Saint 
 Helena prejudiced by various publications against 
 Sir Hudson Lowe's system of government, and 
 consequently in some degree against himself per- 
 sonally, I have before avowed. I knew nothing of 
 Sir Hudson, — or had ever seen him. Conformably 
 with the intention of searching after truth, which 
 I mentioned in page 5, the view I took of his 
 conduct was a strict vicAV — a jealous view ; it was 
 not with the anticipation or desire of finding out 
 good traits in liis cliaracter ; — it was in tlie expec-
 
 72 
 
 tation of discovering and exposing bad ones, that I 
 commenced my scrutiny, — I let no opportunity slip 
 of carrying my point. 
 
 When I say that I resolved to examine a Gover- 
 nor's character with the determination of finding 
 fault, I would be understood distinctly to mean not 
 that I went into a Colony with " malice prepense 
 and afore-thought," to accuse or criminate; but that 
 the general impression which had been made uix)n 
 my mind by the still unanswered assertions of 
 persons, in some cases individually respectable, and 
 in all evidently possessing information on the sub- 
 ject af which they treated, was, that in the course 
 of my ifiquiries I should have seen such conduct as 
 would have called upon me to speak in terms of 
 reprobation of the Governor's conduct towards his 
 charge. 
 
 Had not the merest chance in the world placed 
 me on Saint Helena, Mr. Las Casas' description 
 of Sir Hudson Low e's character, on which I founded 
 my opinion, coupled with Napoleon's stronger 
 designations, would have remained impressed on 
 my mind as a resemblance. I should have seen
 
 73 
 
 the tyrant keeper worrying his captive through the 
 gratings of his den ; and led on by the writers of 
 the opposite party and the force of imagination, 
 beheld him pursuing his system of torment, tiU 
 his exhausted charge gave up the ghost, and " be- 
 
 " QUEATHED THE OrPEOBRIUM OF HIS DEATH 
 " TO THE EEIGNING HOUSE OF ENGLAND !" 
 
 It must be confessed that one of the minor evils 
 attendant on that constitutional blessing, " the 
 " freedom of the press," is the weight which pub- 
 lished assertions have on the mind until replied to ; 
 and a greater evil for that part of the population 
 of England, who, like myself, are led by what they 
 read, is the apathetic indifference which our Go- 
 vernment, at home and abroad, universally display 
 for the literary labours of tlieir opponents. — It is 
 true that men, conscious of their innocence, disdain 
 such attacks, and in their own circle stand honour- 
 ably acquitted : but a work like that of Mr. Santini, 
 or Mr. Las Casas, or the Observations on my Lord 
 Bathurst's Speech, goes into the world, and how 
 can I, or thousands of humble subjects, not in the 
 secret, be aware of the fallacv of tliino-s set forth in
 
 74 
 
 such publications, unless it be pointed out in some 
 equally public manner; and the contradiction of 
 equally easy access, disseminated amongst an equal 
 number of unenlightened people. 
 
 It was for the want of some such refutation that 
 I became completely bigotted against the proceed- 
 ings at Saint Helena, and the principal persons 
 concerned, without knowing any thing about them, 
 more than I had gathered from these demi-official 
 although anonymous works ; — what then was my 
 surprise to find in the man characterised by 
 Buonaparte and his adherents, both in the Colony 
 and at home, as a tyrant and an assassin, a being 
 not only amiable in the highest degree in private 
 life and general society, but with a rigid sense of 
 duty, feelingly alive to the peculiar situation of 
 his prisoner, and actively employed in the con- 
 trivance of comforts for him. A day scarcely 
 passes in which Sir Hudson Lowe is not personally 
 superintending the building of the new house at 
 Longwood, nor in which he does not endeavour, 
 with perfect regard to his captive's security, to 
 contribute to his accommodation.
 
 75 
 
 Let us see how Sir Hudson Lowe fulfils all the 
 social duties of life, as father, husband, and friend ; 
 — trace him into the bosom of his family, sur- 
 rounded by all the beauty, accomplishments, bloom- 
 ing gaiety and healthful innocence of its various 
 branches; — let us, while we contemplate this excel- 
 lent man in his domestic circle, remember the noble 
 traits of munificence which have marked his con- 
 duct during his government; and then for a moment 
 imagine, the heart in which valour, friendship, and 
 charity flourish, the soil for feelings which could 
 induce him to aggravate wantonly and unnecessarily 
 the pains and privations of a prisoner committed 
 to his charge. 
 
 The instances of Sir Hudson Lowe's munificence 
 to which I have alluded, I could easily record, but 
 the- feelings of others are to be spared. Justice 
 demanded that I should say thus much, delicacy 
 forbids my saying more. 
 
 Why Buonaparte, in referring to the great ques- 
 tion of the right of England over him, sliould mix 
 up Sir Hudson in his observations and attacks, no 
 better reason can be given, tlian for the personal
 
 76 
 
 atiirtlosity (now so fashionable) of convicted crimi- 
 nals toward the judges who pass sentence on them 
 for violation of law, previously proved to the satis- 
 faction of a jury: — nay, Buonaparte can have hardly 
 so much cause for his violence as those men; for 
 neither was the question of his confinement sub- 
 mitted to Sir Hudson, nor the sentence conveyed 
 to Napoleon through him. — All these matters were 
 settled by higher authorities than either Generals 
 Lowe or Buonaparte; and the result was, that the 
 latter was declared a prisoner, and the former 
 appointed to the important trust of keeping him 
 one. 
 
 How these persons could come in contact per- 
 sonally, it would be difficult to find out ; save, 
 that it formed part of Buonaparte's i)olicy to quar- 
 rel even with the representative of the Enghsh 
 government. He must know what the Governor's 
 duty is in Saint Helena, and one would think, as a 
 disciplinarian, he would, if he liad one grain of 
 candour or generosity in his composition, esteem 
 the man who fulfilled that duty scrupulously and 
 conscientiously. On one occasion when Sir Thomas
 
 77 
 
 Reade, (who is Deputy- Adjutant-General,) went to 
 him to make some communication, Buonaparte be- 
 gan, with his characteristic impetuosity, to foam 
 and grunt, on which Sir Thomas told him, that he 
 hoped he would not fly into a passion ; that such 
 an order was given, and that his duty was merely 
 to convey it to him. Buonaparte curbed his violence, 
 (which, by the way, was not likely to have made 
 any very forcible impression on Sir Thomas, if he 
 had not) and said, " True, true, — you are a soldier 
 — you have only to obey." If he were to apply 
 the same words to Sir Hudson, he would probably 
 consider his conduct in a different point of view 
 from that in which he appears to regard it now ; 
 or rather, he would confess what his real feelings 
 towards him were; — those, I mean, which his policy 
 induces him to conceal ; for as to his considering 
 himself tyrannically treated, sincerely he does 
 NOT — HE CANNOT ; but it is in Jiis mind the 
 game to play, to work upon tlie generosity and 
 humanity of the English nation, and induce the 
 people to call for his removal from his distant jeo- 
 pardy ; — Uke Philoctctus calling on Pyrrhus to
 
 78 
 
 fescue him from Lcmnos, he is careless of the mode 
 in which he is to be relieved ; and as he considers 
 the end to justify the means, would submit to 
 every possible artifice and stratagem to get any 
 where else : — 
 
 " ■ Tire-moi des lieux oil ma misire 
 
 " M'a long-temps sepaie dc la nature entiere ; 
 
 " Jette-moi dans iin coin du vaisseau qui te porta, 
 
 " A la poupe, a la proue, ou tu voudras, — n'iinporte*." 
 
 One circumstance strongly marks the general 
 character of the Longwood Court. — In the recapi- 
 tulation of all their grievances, or the enumeration 
 of their wants and wishes, none of them have ever 
 expressed the slightest desire for religious assist- 
 ance. On their departure from England, Madame 
 Bertrand called for cards, and the illustrious Na- 
 poleon for a back-gammon board, but none of them 
 ever thought of a spiritual comforter. 
 
 When Emperor of the French, Napoleon at- 
 tended Mass with a brace of Cardinals at his 
 chair's back, posted there to turn over the leaves 
 of his book. One day, when Cardinals Fesch and 
 
 * La Ilarpe.
 
 79 
 
 Caprari were on this honourable duty, and Buona- 
 parte had been wholly inattentive to the service, he 
 called an Aid-du-Camp, desired his carriage might 
 be drawn up, and the drums beat for his departure ; 
 this was done ; he immediately rose, and, selon la 
 regie, every body else in the church rose too. 
 Marshals, Princes, Bishops, Cardinals, Judges, and 
 Ladies, all were on their feet in an instant, to pay 
 respect to the Emperor. All the Court attended 
 his Imperial Majesty to his coach-door, where he 
 reheved them from attendance, desiring them to go 
 back and pray; and the Court having accordingly 
 bowed and fawned, and smiled and humbled them- 
 selves to the Emperor! returned in due order to 
 complete their secondary duty to God ! 
 
 His perfect carelessness on the important subject 
 of Religion, now, proves the sincerity of his con- 
 duct then, and completely estabHshes him as one 
 of those, who, Moliere says — 
 
 " ■ . par une ame a I'interet soumise. 
 
 " r(3iit de devotion, metier et marcliaiidise, 
 
 " Et veulenl achcter credit et di,u;nilcs, 
 
 " A prix dc faux clius d'yeux ct d'clans aflfcctcs."
 
 80 
 
 of which order of personages England herself, by 
 the way, possesses no small number at this pre- 
 sent moment. 
 
 One would think, however strongly the seared 
 conscience of Napoleon might hold it out without 
 the aid of religion, that the Bertrands and Mon- 
 tholons, who have families growing up around 
 them, would feel some anxiety upon this subject ; 
 superadded to wiiich it is surprising that no de- 
 mand has been made for a Roman Catholic Priest 
 on the score otj^olici/ — as it might, if refused, be a 
 fresh cause of complaint ; and if granted, be the 
 means of introducing into their circle a personage 
 who would, if well educated, and well recommended 
 by some of the Ex-Emperor's political friends in 
 England, be found, by no means an useless addition 
 to a family, wliere deception and intrigue are the 
 orders of the day. 
 
 The sabbath is marked at Longwood by no other 
 form or ceremony, than the observance of so much 
 of the Decalogue as directs abstinence from labour. 
 Buonaparte does not write or employ JVlontholon 
 on Sundays ; — no other distinction is made, and it
 
 81 
 
 is really melancholy to see a community, than 
 whom none of God's creatures more require the 
 aid of religion, passing their hours not only without 
 the fulfilment of its external forms, but apparently 
 having lost sight of the necessity of its duties, and 
 the comfort of its observances. 
 
 Several works, I believe, have been written, 
 which treat of Saint Helena, although I do not 
 recollect to have seen any of them, and I do not 
 profess to give any account of the Island as a 
 traveller; yet, as in all the letters, papers, remarks, 
 memoranda, and observations of the Napoleons, 
 they are pleased to call it " a barren rock," I shall 
 take leave to say so much upon the subject, as may 
 tend to undeceive those persons who have formed 
 their opinion on this erroneous designation. 
 
 On an approach, the island has nothing to re- 
 commend it. Any hopes a very sanguine man 
 might liowever form on making the land, are 
 crushed on a nearer view at the anchorage ; the 
 brown barren fronts of the almost perpendicular 
 mountains (surrounding James Town), on whose 
 rugged soil notliing seems to thrive but cannon,
 
 8a 
 
 impart but one idea — that of a natural fortress of 
 stupendous size, formed by the hands of Providence 
 as a place of confinement for some general enemy 
 of mankind. Madame Bertrand, on her first view of 
 it, was stricken with a notion, which, very French 
 as it is, has some humour in it ; she, (as I believe it is 
 generally known) attributed its origin to a source 
 little less romantic, though somewhat less elevated 
 than that to which I have traced it ; — " Le diuhle^ 
 
 said she, *' 6r cette isle en volant des cieuxr 
 
 which though extremely naive while rolling over 
 a French Countess's lips, I would rather not repea*t 
 verhatimy lest it should meet some less exalted 
 Englishwoman's eye — such is either the habitual 
 difference between the females of France and those 
 of England, or such my unfortunate prejudice in 
 favour of the good taste and delicacy of my own 
 country-women. 
 
 On landing at James Town, the prospect is 
 pleasingly changed and presents to the eye a re- 
 markably neat, well-built, though small town. 
 
 Proceeding into the country, by either Side Path 
 or Ladder Hill, the stranger is completely surprised,
 
 83 
 
 after travelling three miles, to find liimself at the 
 height of twelve or fourteen hundred feet above 
 the level of the sea, in a most luxuriantly fertile 
 country. For miles on every side the eye rests on 
 valleys of the most beautiful verdure, thickly 
 studded with highly cultivated farms; — the road 
 from Plantation House to Sandy Bay, one of the 
 most lovely and romantic spots in the world, winds 
 through European hedges of hawthorn and black- 
 berry bushes, and at Kason's Gate brings the tra- 
 veller to a view almost unequalled for boldness of 
 scenery, richness of foliage, verdure, and cultivation; 
 so strong a contrast of country, and so varied an 
 assemblage of objects, are rarely, if ever concen- 
 trated, as in the prospect from the hiU above Mr. 
 Doveton's villa at Sandy Bay *. 
 
 * Of the iinsophistication of the Saint Heknians, or, as tliey 
 are called, the Yamstalks! Mr. Doveton, a native, and for 
 many years Member of Council, affords a living example, 
 not less extraordinary than tlie Lady of the Island, who in- 
 quired whether London was not very dull after the China 
 Fleet had sailed ! — This Gentleman, almost immediately on his 
 arrival in Town, happened accidentally to meet Lady i*ulteney 
 Malcolm, in one of the streets of the City; rejoiced at recog- 
 nising a well-known face, he addressed her, but finding thi"
 
 84 
 
 The whole of the country, from this spot rouncE 
 to Rock Rose Hill, where a romantic cottage be- 
 longing to the widow of Captain Barnes, offers its 
 hospitable shelter to the weary traveller, is literally 
 superb, and the fine bold view stretching to Pros- 
 perous Bay, is beautifully contrasted with the ver- 
 dant sweetness of Amo's vale, and the cloud-topped 
 wood on the summit of Diana's Peak; hence gaining 
 the road to Hut's Gate, and passing along the range 
 of country, by the road made expressly for Buo- 
 naparte, the eye is gratified with an entirely new 
 and lovely prospect, — the house and grounds of Miss 
 Mason. Ross Cottage with its shady ponds and 
 drooping willows, and Prospect Hall, on its rising 
 terrace, enliven the deep vale round which the way 
 
 crowd rather troublesome, he asked her whether the}- had 
 not better wait to converse till ihe. procession hud passed ! — 
 And another native, a Lady, on landing at Gravcsend, asked 
 the first person she met on the shore, if he could tell her 
 whereabouts in the Island Blajor Pery lived. Since my 
 return to Europe, Mr. W. W. Doveton has received the 
 lionour of Knighthood ; and never was mark of favour be- 
 stowed more likely to be gratifying to a community, than this, 
 to that, in v/hich, for amiability of disposition, and goodne-is 
 of heart, he has heen so Ions; esteemed.
 
 85 
 
 leads. — Turning on tlie right, towards Longwood, 
 an entirely different face of country presents itself, 
 and the bold ravine, known by the name of the 
 Devil's Punch Bowl, (or, as General Gourgaud used 
 to call it, '• the DeviVs howl of punch^') forms a 
 grand and decided opposition to the verdant Race 
 Course and Camp Ground of Dedvv^ood, and the 
 Park and Plantations of Longwood House, which' 
 stands in a commanding situation, on the right 
 hand of the road, from which it is distant about 
 a quarter of a mile. 
 
 Returning towards Town, a cottage near the 
 Alarm House, belonging to Sir Thomas Reade, 
 meets tlie eye: (this post is the boundary of Buona- 
 parte's rides unattended, on this side of the Island :) 
 good taste and great attention, arc fast rendering 
 this once barren spot richly fertile, and it soon pro- 
 mises to vie in luxuriance with the residence of 
 JMr. Brook, the Chief Secretary, which is placed 
 on the other side of the liill. — From this spot looking 
 towards Plantation House, the eye traverses another 
 tract of higlily cultivated country, and the villas of
 
 86 
 
 Sir George Bingham, Mr. Desfontaine, and others, 
 diversify the view with the different coloured 
 foliages in which they are half buried. 
 
 Plantation House is a comfortable residence, 
 placed on an extensive lawn, and surrounded 
 by a profusion of magnificent trees : — here the 
 bamboo of India, the oak of England, and the 
 pine of Norway flourish together, and form a novel 
 and charming embellishment for the retreat of the 
 Governor from the cares of business. 
 
 In the course of a wandering life, I never saw so 
 great a variety of objects combined, as are thrown 
 together in Saint Helena. — The bold and imposing 
 appearance of High Knoll, rising from a calm and 
 lovely valley ; the rich softness of the verdure, 
 opposed to the brown and barren rocks which 
 skirt the shore, and here and there intrude them- 
 selves on the sight ; the well-stocked farms mingled 
 with patches of country evidently volcanic, and 
 the magnificent extent of horizon which bounds 
 almost every view, render the Island of Saint He- 
 lena, so far from being an uncomfortable or un-
 
 87 
 
 pleasant residence, a retreat replete with interest 
 and attraction. Under the government of Sir 
 Hudson Lowe every spot, where cultivation can 
 be introduced, is growing into utility ; and taken 
 altogether, there can be no hesitation in pro- 
 nouncing the colony to be so rapidly improving, 
 that in a few years, under the same system of 
 encouragement, it may be independent of any 
 foreign aid for supplies of grain ; at least it is fair 
 to imagine so, judging from what has been done 
 already, and w hat is actually doing : should this be 
 achieved, no power on earth could subdue the 
 possessors of Saint Helena. 
 
 It has been erroneously supposed, and indeed 
 stated, by Mr. Las Casas, that the Island is injured 
 by being the residence of Napoleon ; — it is, pro- 
 bably, the only country which has not suffered 
 from his presence. Two or three shopkeepers in 
 James Town, feel the difference, inasmuch as since 
 his detention, the East India Compay, with their 
 acknowledged liberality, have established stores, 
 whence the military or others, are suppUed with
 
 88: 
 
 all articles of English or Indian produce, at a 
 moderate rate. This destruction of a monopoly, 
 carried on in its full vigour by the tradesmen of 
 the place, while ships were in the habit of touching 
 here, lessens their profits, and the interruption of 
 the American trade is also felt by them : but the 
 inhabitants of the country, generally, the farmers 
 and planters, are greatly benefitted by the influx 
 of troops, and of the detenus themselves, from the 
 increased demand for all the necessaries of life, and 
 the consequent encouragement given to industry 
 and labour*. 
 
 Of the excellence of the climate it is only neces- 
 sary to adduce, as proof, the general appearance of 
 
 * The Letter about the carriage, which \ have before 
 noticed, contains a statement of a debt due from the people 
 at Longvvood, which the tradesmen cannot get hold of, from 
 the fact of their being prohibited from having any com- 
 munication with the servants of the establishment ; — this is a 
 very curious reason for a delay in the payment of this 
 imaginary debt, for Marchand, Buonaparte's Valet de Place, 
 is generally in James Town two or three times during the 
 week, and in all the shops in the place making purchases, and 
 executing commissions for his great master.
 
 the inhabitants. — The men are commonly powerftil 
 and athletic ; the women, healthftil and robust ; 
 the younger females are most bountifully furnished 
 ■^ith feminine attractions, — the figure of a girl of 
 fifteen in Saint Helena, is that of a mother a*^ 
 thirty any where else; and as for women of a 
 maturer age, it really appeared to me, as if one of 
 the treaties mentioned in the Spectator, had taken 
 place between them and an opposing male army, 
 about eight months before my arrival, for I cannot 
 at this moment call to mind having met one 
 individual female of a certain standing, who was 
 not 
 
 " As ladies wish to be, who love their lords." 
 
 In the town, as well as the country, improve- 
 ments are making; — a new sessions house and 
 prison, a new guard room, and an assembly room, 
 are about to be constructed, which will add to the 
 appearance, security, and amusements of the little 
 capital of the Island : new batteries are also erecting 
 at certain parts of tlic coast. It struck me as 
 curious, that not so much attention appears to have
 
 90 
 
 been paid to the strengthening one position, as its 
 importance seems to deserve; — I mean Rupert's 
 Hill, This mountain rises nearly perpendicularly 
 from the sea, and separates James Valley (in which 
 the town stands) from Rupert's Valley; — from both 
 sides it is unassailable : — a fort capable of containing 
 from two to three hundred men, erected on this 
 hill, would command the two valleys, the town, and 
 the whole of the anchorage. It is approachable 
 only from the interior, by a narrow path over a 
 steep ridge of country, between two ravines, which 
 can only be gained at a distance of three miles 
 inland, if the land side were fortified, a fort on 
 the height would be invulnerable. It is true, 
 it might be commanded on one of its flanks by 
 Ladder Hill, but not within breaching distance : 
 there are probably some weighty reasons for not 
 taking advantage of this spot, which, being no en- 
 gineer, I am unable to discover ; but, to a person 
 unskilled in arms, it seems a most formidable fast 
 hold, and fully as worthy notice as any other point 
 in the Island. 
 
 Although not strictly within my province, or the
 
 91 
 
 object of my search, I cannot avoid touching here, 
 on the subject of the pay of His Majesty's Naval 
 Officers, in the Colony of Saint Helena. 
 
 From the exorbitancy of the price of every 
 article of life in the Island, and on the general 
 system of liberality in all pecuniary matters, 
 uniformly acted upon by the Honourable East 
 India Company, the whole of the Military Officers 
 in the garrison, receive an allowance exactly dou- 
 bling their pay, and this, with a few variations in 
 the mode of payment, is the case universally where- 
 ever the King's troops are in the Company's 
 territories : in the same manner the commanders 
 and officers of His Majesty's ships on the India 
 station, receive similar allowances- At Saint He- 
 lena, although the rule is observed with respect to 
 the military, although it is a colony avowedly 
 belonging to the East India Company, officered by 
 their civiUans, and garrisoned, in a great measure, 
 by their troops, the navy receive no extra allow- 
 ance whatever. 
 
 If in India it be considered just and fair to the 
 navy, to grant tlie additional pay as a remimeration
 
 for distant setvide, oi* its generally iiiiprbfitable 
 sameness, tliti navy at Saint Helena have a stronger 
 claim upon the consideration of the Company, for 
 the wearisome and uninteresting duty of cruising 
 to windward and leeward. If in India it be granted 
 t6 meet the expenses of living, how much stronger 
 are the reasons for according it at Saint Helena, 
 where the price of every article of consumption is 
 at least three hundred per cent, dearer than in 
 England ; and, as far as provisions are concerned, 
 five hundred per cent, dearer than in India. In 
 Madras a sheep will cost about half a crown, in 
 Saint Helena the price of a consumptive duck is 
 ten shillings! 
 
 It is melancholy to think, that a gallant Captain 
 of the Navy, who after a series of hard services is re- 
 warded with a Post-ship, and as a still greater mark 
 of his merit employed in peace, should, while on 
 this irksome station, where neither credit nor profit 
 can accrue to him, be obliged to consolidate half 
 a week's income in the purchase of a roasted tur- 
 key, and a couple of boiled fowls. Such is, how- 
 ever, the case, hard as it may appear. It may be
 
 argued, that Saint Helena, in fact belongs, as far 
 as naval matters go, to the Cape station : — it is 
 true, literally speaking, that it does : — but under 
 the circumstances, instead of one ship being de- 
 tached from the Cape to the Island, as formerly, 
 when the flag was at that place, the whole squar 
 dron, together with the Admiral, are fixed in Saint 
 Helena; which must in eveiy point of view (expect 
 the name) be now considered the naval head- 
 quarters. 
 
 It may also be argued, that the residence of Buo- 
 naparte in Saint Helena, is no advantage to the 
 East India Company, and that therefore it is not 
 incumbent upon them to burthen themselves with 
 allowances to officers who would not be there, wqyg 
 it not his place of confinement. This, however, is 
 without much difficulty answered, by adducing the 
 fact, that Mauritius, a king's government, with 
 which the Company have no more to do than I 
 have, is supplied with ships from the Indian squa- 
 dron, and the officers on that station, receive the 
 additional allowance-, — not from the Island, but 
 from the Conipnni/.
 
 94 
 
 That the necessity of granting an increased pay, 
 has been under discussion, may be easily ascer- 
 tained, by observing, that the Admiral receives an 
 allowance of fifteen hundred pounds per annum, 
 as table-money, in addition to his six guineas per 
 diem, as Naval Commander-in-Chief, from the 
 Crown. 
 
 As the Company, I believe, pay all their allow- 
 ances monthly, it might be so arranged, that the 
 naval allowance at Saint Helena should cease from 
 the period at which any ship took its departure for 
 the Cape, at which settlement, the additional pay 
 would neither be expected nor required. 
 
 The hospitalities of Plantation House are such, 
 as to render it difficult for a Captain of the Navy 
 often to engage himself on shore any where else ; 
 (except now and then, as in duty bound, to the Ad- 
 miral), but it is not to the kindness or attention of 
 an individual family, that Officers on service are to 
 be seriously indebted for the evitation of pecuniary 
 inconvenience. 
 
 If these remarks apply to the Captains com- 
 manding, how much more strongly so to the Offi-
 
 95 
 
 cers, of the several gun-rooms on the station. In 
 India, I believe, excepting the Captain, the Officers 
 of King's ships do not receive any separate allow- 
 ance; but a certain sum is granted annually to the 
 mess of each man-of-war collectively. If this were 
 ever done. Saint Helena is of all places in the world, 
 the spot to do it. — Conceive a Lieutenant in the 
 Navy, Fanking probably with the senior Captain in 
 the garrison, living at Saint Helena, on £.11 10 
 per month, which, if disbursed in fresh provisions, 
 would barely furnish the moiety of a fowl, — 
 independent of vegetables. 
 
 Surely the case has not been fairly represented 
 at home, through the channel most conducive to 
 its success, or there must be some strong reason 
 not immediately evident, for "withholding the almost 
 necessary increase of income on the part of the 
 Company, who have always been distinguished 
 as the most liberal and munificent paymasters in 
 the world. 
 
 I have to apologise for this digression, but as I 
 treat of the security of Buonaparte, I hope it will not
 
 96 
 
 be taken amiss, either by my readers, or the OflScers 
 of the Navy themselves, that I have taken leave 
 to notice the actual inconveniences of some of his 
 most active guardians; but trust, that an effort, 
 however humble, to be useful to that class of men 
 to whom we have for ages looked up as the pro- 
 tectors of our laws, our liberty, and constitution, 
 will be forgiven by all those who enjoy the bless- 
 ings, they have so eminently tended to preserve. 
 
 I have subjoined a copy of the Port Regulations 
 of the Colony, which will serve to shew the rigid 
 attention paid coast-wise to the prisoner's security. 
 After sun-set the gates of James Town are shut, 
 and the bridge drawn up, so that communication 
 with the shore is impracticable. — This deserves to 
 be mentioned, as it adds not a little to the de- 
 sagremens of the junior branches of the Naval 
 service. 
 
 I cannot here avoid noticing, that since my re- 
 turn to Europe, I have by chance met with a pam- 
 phlet, called, " Letters from Saint Helena,'' writ- 
 ten by tlie blaster of a Merchant ship, to whom
 
 97 
 
 (without then suspecting him of authorship on the 
 subject) I shghtly have alluded to in the foregoitig 
 pages. This gentleman is a Lieutenant on the 
 half-pay of our Navy ! and was a prisoner in FrancCi 
 and treated with the utmost rigour under the 
 government of Napoleon* It must, however, be al- 
 lowed, that by his own confessions on the subject, he 
 admits that the severities to which he was for a 
 time exposed, were brought upon himself by viola- 
 tion of parolcj and other irregularities of conduct ; 
 and that any government would have been justified 
 in using the coercion he for a time suffered, and 
 from which he was released by order of the then 
 Emperor. 
 
 Be all this as it may, his pamphlet abounds not 
 only with insinuations against Sir Hudson Lowe, 
 but with a number of specific charges, all of whicli 
 it would have been perfectly easy to have combated 
 and refuted, had it been necessary ; but the author 
 has kindly taken upon himself the duty of upsetting, 
 by facts adduced by himself, the very accusations 
 he previously makes ; and, as far as I can see, 
 leaves no one accusation against Sir Hudson 
 
 H
 
 98 
 
 Lowe, unrefuted. He makes them by dozens, 
 but, like Penelope, destroys I'egularly in one page, 
 the web of aspersions which he has woven in 
 another. 
 
 In the outset of his book, lie says, that having 
 landed at James Town, and mentioned Napoleon's 
 name, calling him at the same time the Empei'or, 
 (he might with as much propriety have called him 
 the Pope,) his Saint Helena friend cries, " Hush, 
 " hush — don't speak so loud ; it is a crime to call 
 '* him Emperor here, or to say any thing that is 
 " good of him." — This, considering the difficulty of 
 the task, I conclude the friend thought, might have 
 been meritorious. To this our literary schipper 
 answers very characteristically, if not elegantly, — 
 " What, what do you mean ? — Zounds ! am I not 
 " in an English harbour ? am I not an Englishman ? 
 " I will speak my mind, and that freely, as becomes 
 " one,'' — (said feehngs, being of course to be ex- 
 pressed in a sohloquy}— " Those who don't lihe it 
 " may lump ?V— come, here's his health in a bum- 
 '' per, he is no longer our enemy." 
 
 Well then, the friend Iiaving hushed his newly-
 
 99 
 
 Jirrived guest into a corner when tliey were alone, 
 lest they should be overheard, invites him to din- 
 ner — at which every body's opinion — that is, the 
 opinion of two other Masters of merchant ships, 
 perfectly coincided with the author's ; nobody else 
 spealiing, for fear of some despotic power which 
 bound them ; " they all preserved a profound 
 " silence, and appeared like so many slaves ;" that 
 is, they were all afraid of Sir Hudson Lowe, and 
 Sir Thomas Reade ; but with all this extreme awe 
 and terror, when the author asks them what they 
 are afraid of, and whether there are no courts 
 and juries in the place, — " Tii'o or thi^ee at once 
 of these panic-struck mutes, cry out, each it would 
 seem, by their eagerness, anxious to be heard be- 
 fore his neighbour, — " Oh ! you are greatly mis- 
 " taken ; there is no occasion here for courts of 
 " justice, juries, or trial ; our Governor here has 
 "' it in his power to bundle whoever he likes, with- 
 " out trial, or condemnation, on board of a ship, and 
 " send them off the Island. The poor devil's shop, 
 " his private affairs, and family, may go to h — // 
 ''/or aught he caresT
 
 100 
 
 This, considering the state of dreadful appre- 
 hension the master of the house (wlio I take 
 to have been Solomon the Jew, or Porteus the 
 gardener) had Ijeen thrown into during the morn- 
 ing, lest they should have been overheard, nlu&t 
 have been somewhat appalling to his feelings ; for, 
 considering that men were not in the habit of 
 speaking out at that time, the prose trio detailed 
 above, appears to have been as explicit and plain, 
 as could possibly have been expected. 
 
 This, however, as we go on, is nothing in com- 
 parison with things which are said in every other 
 part of this awe-stiiick, tongue-tied Island. — At the 
 53rd mess, where the author sits over the bottle till 
 two o'clock, the Officers (speaking of whom, he calls 
 them a " set of devilish fine fellows") enter into a 
 conversation, (probalily rather earlier in the even- 
 ing,) pleasing, instructive, and liberal ; they, he 
 says, have but a very indifferent opinion of Sir 
 Hudson Lowe, and think, that some derangement 
 qfhrain is at times visible. On another day, (page 
 49,) " after the wine had circulated pretty freely," 
 some other Officer related an anecdote of the Govcr-
 
 101 
 
 nor, and gave a narrative of liis seizing a servant 
 by the collar under Napoleon's window ; and a day 
 or two after that, the author makes one of a party 
 of five, " all of the same 'political sentiments y 
 
 The author then dines at a " little seaf in the 
 country, where he hears " a most horrible 
 story!" — Two gentlemen, (evidently fixtures on 
 this Isle of mystery, coercion, and secrecy, from their 
 having dined with " somchochf on it, some months 
 before) told him that someho(lij,\\]\eTv they had dined 
 with him, said, he thought it a great pity Buona- 
 parte's son had not been strangled. — A few days sub- 
 sequent to this he goes on board of a ship to Tiffin ; 
 " after the madeira had circulated 'pretty freely^'' 
 one of the gentlemen related a story which must 
 have startled the author, from its close resemljlance 
 to his own: — now had he been candid enough to 
 have told the tale of himself, as it really happened, 
 an excuse might have been found on the plea of 
 gratitude for liis taking a morning Ijumper to Na- 
 poleon, and for his smuggling papers and docu- 
 ments from the Island, contrary not only to local 
 proclamations, but the Act of ParHament.
 
 102 
 
 But for the specific charges : — 
 
 In the first place, a Mr. Manning, drest after 
 the manner of the Chinese, brings some fans, toys, 
 and a couple of bottles of snuff, for Buonaparte ; — 
 about the same time a little bust of Napoleon's boy- 
 is sent fi'om England, under the care of the gunner 
 of tlie ship Baring; and a collection of books 
 for the edification of Madame Hertnind' s daugh- 
 ters from Lady Holland ! — nearly too, at this period 
 Captain Heaviside, of the East India Company's 
 service, appears with a splendid set of chess-men 
 as a present from Mr. Elphinston. 
 
 Sir Hudson, through some twenty pages is be- 
 laboured with abuse for withholding the bust, hiding 
 the books, keeping back the chess-men, and stop- 
 ping the snuff; — superadded to which, his infamous 
 conduct in not allowing any person to visit 
 Longwood, proves how necessary concealment is 
 to his black views ; and that all comforts are 
 withheld from the innocent sufierers, and their 
 illustrious master, and that they always remain 
 in ignorance of the arrival of any little soti- 
 lagcmcns.
 
 103 
 
 After all this — after these assertions and decla- 
 rations of Sir Hudson's tyranny and shameftil con- 
 duct, we find (at page 52) our old Chinese fi-iend, Mr. 
 Manning, very agreeably engaged in a tete-a-tcte 
 with Madame Bertrand, " to whom, in the " space 
 ^'^ of one half Jioitr" he recounts his travels through 
 Thibet, and his presentation to the grand Lama ; 
 at which precise epoch — upon the principle I sup- 
 pose, of the appearance of great personages when 
 spoken of — " Napoleon drops in," and then, 
 without restraint, coercion, or any thing which 
 could be uncomfortable, he enters into conversa- 
 tion with Mr. Manning, and displays a wonderful 
 deal of knowledge. 
 
 I am glad to take this story their own way, 
 because it proves how unconstrained the prisoner's 
 actions are ; but looking at dates, I am inclined to 
 believe, that at the period alluded to, Buonaparte 
 never left his house. I may be wrong in this cal- 
 culation, and trust I am*. 
 
 * At page 37, the author says — " I asked if Napoleon had 
 ever visited the camp, but found, that he had not stirred out 
 for a year. Quere — Where did he drop in when he saw Mr. 
 Manning ?
 
 104» 
 
 Weir then, Mr. Manning saw Buonaparte. — ^At 
 page 53, we find, that on the 10th, the Governor 
 himself went to Longwood, and told Bertrand, 
 that he had some cases for Buonaparte, which had 
 been brought by Mr. Manning, but he had not 
 sent them till he knew whether he would accept 
 of them. Bertrand begged they might be sent, — 
 Then Sir Hudson mentions Lady Holland's moral 
 present for the children, and (what the author 
 calls) some " astronomical playthings,^^ and adds, 
 that although they had not been forwarded through 
 Earl Bathurst, as prescribed, he would take upon 
 himself to send them up also: — then he mentions 
 the bust of the boy, which, coming by the hands of 
 so very inconsiderable a personage as the gunner 
 of a ship without guns. Sir Hudson was incHned 
 to believe, was of no value, but merely sent out 
 on speculation ; — the moment, however, Bertrand 
 says, " that any likeness of a son, must be dear 
 to his father," the bust is sent with the moral 
 books, the astronomical playthings, the fans, and 
 the bottles of snuff: — but Mr. Elphinston's chess- 
 men, and the Cai)tain who brought them — these 
 chess-men, adorned with N's and imperial crowns,
 
 105 
 
 and all sorts of things entirely out of place — 
 what became of them ? — the old story of tyranny 
 and oppression. — I concluded, that Mr. Heaviside 
 had been ordered off the Island, and his chess-men 
 confiscated ; but, at page 92, we find the Captain 
 proceeding to Longwood with the usual pass, and 
 although the indelicacy of having marks of impe- 
 rial dignity displayed on the toys, was evident, yet 
 Sir Hudson decided upon sending them up — again 
 0)1 his own respoHsihility. 
 
 Now, fairly and candidly, let any man say, what 
 all this proves ; that Sir Hudson Lowe, instead of 
 acting with unnecessary rigour, or assuming an 
 arbitrary power over his prisoner, or even acting 
 up to his orders, which would have prevented the 
 admission of any of the articles (particularly those 
 from Europe), took upon himself to waive the 
 glaring objection against their admission, and gra- 
 tify the wishes of the Longwood people. I really 
 do think, that the author of the Letters could not 
 have proved the personal attention paid to their 
 desires more satisfactorily by any means than by the 
 statement he himself has made on these subjects.
 
 106 
 
 Further, as a proof that no feeling of hostility or 
 disapprobation existed in Sir Hudson Lowe's mind 
 against the master of the ship in which the bust was 
 exported from England, the author tells us that 
 he subsequently dined several times at Plantation 
 House ; and when he quitted Saint Helena, con- 
 veyed a strong detachment of the 53rd to India. 
 
 But then the gunner of the Baring — who is 
 here made of importance, and called by the endear- 
 ing epithets of " poor fellow," — " honest tar," — 
 " poor devil," — and others of a similar nature, 
 he is produced as an ill-used man; — it is really 
 charming to see such sympathy between masters 
 of merchant ships and gunners. But how was 
 he ill-used ? — why, notwithstanding the peculiar 
 recommendation of confidentially bringing out a 
 bust to Buonaparte, the poor interesting gunner 
 was confined to his ship ? — coercion again — British 
 Hberty shackled — Sicdian police. But, at page 
 109, we find said gunner proceeding, at the sugges- 
 tion of the author, to Plantation House to dun 
 the Governor for three hundred pounds, Avhich 
 Bertrand had desired he might have. — Here Sir
 
 107 
 
 Hudson gets more mud — more belabouring: — what 
 do you think he did? — nobody, I believe, ever heard 
 of any thing so oppressive : — he gave the gunner 
 an order on London for the amount immediately. 
 If that be i^ot tyranny — what is ? 
 
 In the course of the Letters there is an anec- 
 dote of IMr. Fox, at Saint Cloud, finding his owi|i 
 bust with its nose against the wail— the point 
 or meaning of which I do not clearly perceive; 
 and another about Mrs. Darner's chiselling out 
 anotlier bust for Buonaparte, and getting a snuff-box 
 in payment ; and a third, which the author learned 
 from the Captain of the P. R. storesliip — which I 
 presume means Prince Regent ; — this, to use a col- 
 loquial phrase, is one of the author's own, fathered 
 upon this unfortunate wight, and is remarkable 
 only from the leading incident in the hero's adven- 
 tures. A seaman endeavoured to make his escape 
 from Verdun, and put together a little bitrk, with 
 the branches of trees, covered with linen, which 
 he procured by tearing up his shirt, in which bark 
 he proposed making a sea vo2/age — and then comes
 
 108 
 
 this remarkable passage : — The shirt, however, 
 being unfortunately not sufficient, he went " into 
 " a neighbouring village and stole a sheets — the 
 narrative goes on to say, that Buonaparte was so 
 pleased with the ingenuity of this lad, that he sent 
 him back to England, with a new suit of clothes, 
 and pockets full of money. 
 
 But lo ! and behold ! after all the attacks on 
 Government for the interdiction of strangers at 
 Longwood, we find to our great surprise, at page 
 104, our author himself actually engaged in a per- 
 sonal interview with Napoleon Buonaparte ; who is 
 very picturesquely described as sitting with a three- 
 cornered hat on his head, on the stone steps of his 
 house, the sun setting opposite to him. 
 
 The author who declares the power of fascina- 
 tion to be possessed by Buonaparte in so eminent 
 a degree, that every body sinks into admiration, 
 respect, love, esteem, and veneration in the course 
 of one interview (which, by the way, if the case, is 
 the strongest possible reason for keeping him a 
 close prisoner); — this author arrives at Longwood
 
 109 
 
 at a most critical point of time, and finds the iwa 
 great luminaries of the world, Buonaparte and the 
 sun, engaged in a sort of distant tete-a-tete: here 
 his feelings overcome him ; much like those of 
 Humphrey Gubbins towards his mistress, — 
 
 " Who, when he got to her, 
 
 " The devil a word could he say !" 
 
 He was paralysed, and after looking, according to 
 his o\v n account, vastly siUy for a certain period of 
 time, Buonaparte, in his usual Jiiscinating maimer, 
 gave him a look, which he says implied, " there, go 
 " about your husiness:''' and accordingly he retired, 
 not having gained much by his unrestrained inter- 
 view with the Idol of his affections. 
 
 The author gives not more than one otlier 
 specimen of Buonaparte's fascinating manners, 
 the opportunity for the display of which offered it- 
 self while he was at Elba. — He went on board the 
 Cura^oa Frigate, when tliey were dancing, and 
 " perceiving the Surgeon, who was a short, fat little 
 " fellow, he," (it must have been with a sort oi April 
 sensation), " cried, laughing, ' Voila le portrait dc 
 
 3
 
 110 
 
 •^ * John tiuUr — ' This,' said the Midshipman who 
 " heai-d him, * set us all ready to split our sides with 
 " * laughing at the poor Doctor;' " and this contemp- 
 tuous sneer at our national characteristic, this un- 
 feeling wound to an unoffending officer's feelings, 
 coming from this fellow, is recorded as a specimen 
 of fascinating manners, judgment, wit, and par- 
 ticular good taste. 
 
 The author remarks, that except a ribband and 
 a star, there was nothing to distinguish Buonaparte 
 from any ordinary man — why, what did he expect? 
 some hisus ^laturce ? probably of the same nature 
 as the country boy who went to the play when the 
 King was there, and somebody pointed out His 
 Majesty to the lad, who had never had a glimpse of 
 royalty beforCj " La," said he, " be that the King, 
 " why where be his arms?" — evidently expecting a 
 lion and vmicorn in waiting on the person. 
 
 After this interview with Buonaparte, we find 
 our author engaged in another, which, on many 
 accounts, is particularly interesting; — in the first 
 place, (not that I should charge any man with wil- 
 fui misrepresentation, from a trifling mistake as to
 
 Ill 
 
 facts or dates,) the author tells us, page 73, that 
 having met Mr. O'Meara at the 53rd mess, 
 he inquired about Buonaparte very particularly, 
 and the state of his health ; Mr. O'Meara's answer 
 deserves remark, because it was made (probably in 
 confidence) to a partisan of the prisoner : — he says, 
 " I asked him if it was true that Napoleon had 
 " been dangerously ill ? " He replied, ' that few 
 ' men had a better constitution ; that he was very 
 ' regular in his mode of life, never exceeding either 
 
 * in eating or drinking; — generally cold and calm ; 
 
 * that he possessed one of those favored constitutions 
 ' which nature appeared to have destined for a long 
 ' life ; but that want of exercise, especially on 
 ' horseback, was extremely prejudicial to him, and 
 ' that some symptoms of decay were already per- 
 ' ceptible ; that he was subject to catarrhs and 
 ' head-aches, caused by his sedentary life.' 
 
 Now here, upon the faith of a decided Buona- 
 j)artist, we are told, that in July 1817, the hody 
 l^hysician of the prisoner declares, that bating 
 " some symptoms of decay" visible at fifty, he was 
 subject to catarrhs and head-aches, and to nothing
 
 112 
 
 else; for let it be again remai-ked, the author of 
 the Letters was known to be a partisan (not only 
 by the people at Long wood, but by the Governor), 
 and therefore Mr. O'Meara spoke fairly to him, 
 and told him the truth, which strongly shews the 
 absurdity of Buonaparte's memorandum, where he 
 talks of Doctor Verling's ignorance of his consti- 
 tution, of that healthy fine constitution, which, 
 according to O'Meara, was only impaired by an 
 occasional cough and head-ache, and sundry little 
 inroads, which a Ufe of fifty years actively spent 
 would make. 
 
 But now comes another curious fact ; here we 
 have the Author in a 'predicament ; — it was at 
 the mess of the 53rd Regiment, probably " after 
 " the wine had circulated pretty freely," that 
 O'Meara told him all this. — When he gets to 
 Longwood, he sees O'Meara there ; he goes most 
 anxiously to his room, not because he had met 
 him, and talked to him about the great man, but, 
 (mark the words,) " because he had unfortunately 
 " missed an opportu?iiti/ of dining in company 
 " with himr — In his letter of the 5th of July he
 
 113 
 
 has met him at the 53rd mess ; and in his letter of* 
 the 20th he has missed the opportunity of dining 
 in company with him. This is curious ; not that 
 I mean to say that this master of a merchant-ship 
 might not have dined with this surgeon of a King's 
 ship fifty times, and no human being would care 
 about it : but it is worthy of remark, because, 
 if O'Meara did say to the author all he states 
 him to have said, the stories of Buonaparte's 
 serious disorders fall to the ground, upon the simple 
 declaration of the very man who is brought to 
 prove their existence ; and if O'Meara did not 
 dine with him at the 53rd mess, we may easily 
 estimate all the other Jcicts which are contained in 
 these letters by the one which is detected not to be 
 truth ; and how he could have missed an opportu- 
 nity of dining in company with him, liaving met 
 him at tlie mess, I do not see. However, he goes 
 to liis room, and is tlumder-struck at tlie employ- 
 ment he finds him engaged in. One would have 
 imagined, by the way it is noticed, that the body 
 physician had been flying a kite with Master Na- 
 poleon Bertrand, or playii^g marbles with little 
 
 1
 
 114 
 
 Bliss Montholon : but instead of this, he finds him 
 "pounding drugs in a mortar." Now, whether 
 his astonishment arose from finding him pounding 
 drugs, or at finding him pounding them in a mor- 
 tar, does not appear ; certainly there does not seem 
 any thing miraculous in the circumstance, nor can 
 I see the bearing of his wonder. Drug-pounding 
 is precisely the duty to which Mr. G'Meara was 
 adapted, and formed part of his professional la- 
 bours, and the pounding them in a mortar appears 
 to have been the usual and readiest process of pul- 
 verisation. 
 
 But the most facetious, and yet really the most 
 melancholy part of all this production, is the com- 
 mencement of the fourth Letter, page 47, in which 
 the author displays his great care for the comfort 
 and prosperity of all his Saint Helena friends. He 
 says, speaking of his correspondence, — " Should 
 " you, however, even by any chance, make their 
 " contents known, I entreat you to suppress every 
 " thing which might, in the most trifling degree, 
 " tend to discover my authors, which would infal- 
 *' libly be the cause of their ruin," &c. &c-.
 
 115 
 
 Having premised that he is anxious not to shev/ 
 any body up, he begins by informing us how Sir 
 Pulteney and Lady Malcolm were vastly interested 
 about the prisoner, and how Lady IMalcolm went 
 to see him, and Irow he gave her a cup and saucer 
 of the beautiful porcelain of the Lei>e manufactory, 
 (which I conclude means Seve) of a very extra- 
 ordinary pattern, according to the author's literal 
 description of it, "a superb representation of 
 " Cleopatra's needle, and a view of Alexandria 
 ' on it," /'. e. the needle ; and how her Ladyship 
 was so delighted with this cup and saucer, that 
 she brought it down to town herself, and being a 
 lady of great me7'it and goodness (which I have no 
 doubt she is) is, therefore, — (that is, because she is 
 clever and good,) perfectly capable of appreciating 
 any gift of Buonaparte's. That Sir Pulteney 
 should be a Buonapartist seems to be natural 
 enough ; for it seems the first time Napoleon sav/ 
 him, he said, " There is the ])]iysiognom.y cf a real 
 •- gentleman ;" which, 1 corjfesi, I sliould like to have 
 heard said in Fi-ench ; for, except Homme comme 
 il faut. the French have ny expression to meet
 
 Il6f 
 
 our term of gentleman, and even Homme comme ii 
 faut does not give the meaning. — The author of 
 the Letters concludes that Sir Pulteney being a; 
 very sensible man, and attached to the interests of 
 his country, did not choose, whatever his desires 
 might be, to visit Longwood frequently. Here 
 the author confesses that the attachment to Long- 
 wood does militate a little against an attachment 
 to the interests of one's country. If he does not 
 mean that, he means that Sir Pulteney was too 
 careful of his own interests to betray his real feel- 
 ings. This compliment — for compliment it is de- 
 cidedly meant to be, is as aukward a compliment 
 as ever was made, and proves the letter-writer to 
 be like a dirty dog, who bespatters those most whom 
 he likes best. 
 
 In the same cautious spirit of co7icealment he 
 tells us (p. 79), that he dined with Sir George and 
 Lady Bingham r — "He is an excellent officer, and 
 " universally esteemed." — Most true. — "LadyBing- 
 " ham is a charming and affable woman." — Nobody 
 denies it ; but she, poor soul, is lugged forward by 
 an observation, that although she has only seen
 
 117 
 
 Napoleon twice, it appears to tlie author that 
 she wishes to have some more intercourse with 
 Longwood; but then Sir George is afraid of 
 Sir Hudson. Nothing can be better than all this. 
 Then there is Mr. Irving and a Major Fehrgen ! 
 and Captain Poppleton : all these he shews up 
 as ready to say a great deal, and Sir Pulteney 
 and Lady IMalcolm at their head — and this he 
 calls shielding the *' poor devils" from the power 
 of the tyrannical Governor, with whom, in the 
 midst of all this, we find him dining at the 
 Castle, 
 
 With much taste and discernment he pronounces 
 Lady Lowe to be a sprnglithj woman ; but she is 
 not amiable, nor affable, nor charming, because 
 she is not in love with Buonaparte. The term 
 sp?'ightbj, applied to an accomplished woman pos- 
 sessing a power of fascination, with which slie 
 gladdens every circle of which she is the centre, 
 is, as praise, much on a par with his compliments 
 to Admiral Malcolm's prudence and Sir George 
 Bingham's apprehensions. 
 
 That Sir Hudson did not speak much at dinner
 
 118 
 
 niav be easily accounted for. The author found 
 liis oratorical talents damped at Longwood by the 
 sublimity of his companion. The opposite ex- 
 treme of society sometimes produces similar effects. 
 He states, however, that he was not frightened 
 out of his dinner, which was excellent. This was 
 literally foraging upon the enemy, and the very 
 fact of going to dine with a man from whom he 
 appears to have had at the period an utter aver- 
 sion and against whose character he was actually 
 employed in writing libels, marks so complete a 
 want of good taste and delicacy, that I quit him 
 at the dinner table never to resume him on the 
 subject of his liCtters more, except to observe that 
 liis accounts of supplies for Ijongwood, if correct 
 at the time he obtained them, are perfectly erro- 
 neous now as to the quantity ; and that as to the 
 quality of water and bread, I have heard that at 
 the period he speaks of, v,ater was exhibited to 
 strangers of the sort he describes, to carry on the 
 policy ; but that tlie water for the table can neither 
 Ije green, nor taste of the cask, is evident from 
 the fact that Buonaparte's silver flaggons are taken
 
 119 
 
 daily to the spring at Doctor Kays'. The bread, 
 for the excellence of which I vouch, is, as I before 
 stated, made of the very finest flour, which not 
 being plenty in the island, the Governor does not 
 use in his oivn establishment. 
 
 An extract of a letter, given in the Morning 
 Chronicle of the 23rd of February, states, that " no 
 " person is seen to speak to Count Bertrand, or 
 *' even to poor Madame Bertrand, as, independent 
 " of the proclamation, Sir Hudson Lowe has offi- 
 " cially prohibited all intercourse with them." 
 
 As far as the first part of this paragi'aph goes, I 
 may probably have accounted for the shyness of 
 people towards Bertrand, by the statement of his 
 conduct in the affair with Colonel Lyster : for the 
 lattePi, it is false ; for shortly before the date of 
 that letter, I saw Lieutenant Jackson of the Staff 
 Corps, Doctor Verling of the Royal Artillery, and 
 Captain Nicols of the 66th, walking with Ma- 
 dame Bertrand, and subsequently with Madame 
 IMontholon (who, because she is a quiet good sort 
 of body, none of these letter-vv riters seem to pity 
 in the least). Two of these officers were in uni-
 
 120 
 
 form, and walking in the Park of Longwood, at 
 the moment while Sir Hudson Lowe was super- 
 intending the building of the new house ; and 
 clearly, by being then in the society of these la- 
 dies, they did not conceive they were doing any 
 thing which could be offensive. Would they have 
 done so had it been prohibited ? The most sea- 
 sonable advice to give to our friends on all these 
 statements may be extracted from Las Casas' first 
 Letter to Lucien Buonaparte, where he judiciously 
 says : — " Once for all, Sie, place no ee- 
 
 " LIANCE ON THE NEWSPAPERS, OR THE GLAR- 
 " ING ABSURDITIES THEY CONTAIN." 
 
 I now take my leave of my Readers, and have 
 only to assure them, that on a re-examination of my 
 statements, I see no one fact recorded which is not 
 given on the best authority. I am aware that ano- 
 nymous pviblications have not equal claims on the 
 attention of tlie world with avowed works. The 
 declaration of a name, obscure and unknown as 
 mine is, would, however, add little weight to my 
 communications. Besides, the publications, the 
 falsehoods of which T notice in the course of the
 
 121 
 
 preceding pages, with the exception of Napoleon's 
 memoranda on Sir Thomas Reade's letter, have all 
 been anonymous. Surely an anonymous defence 
 may claim as much credit as an anonymous attack. 
 The great truths which I wish to impress upon 
 the minds of all who think upon this subject 
 are those, in support of which I have adduced 
 such facts as I could positively vouch for from my 
 own 'personal hiowledge, that the treatment of 
 Napoleon Buonaparte in Saint Helena, so far from 
 being capricious or annoying, — is in every respect 
 (with proper regard to his security) mild and gen- 
 tle ; — ^that, as I have shewn, the minutest attention 
 is paid to the most trifling of his whims and fan- 
 cies ; — that, as I think I have satisfactorily proved, 
 his table is abundantly and luxuriously supplied ; 
 his stables filled with the best horses in the island ; 
 — that every accommodation is afforded him in his 
 residence, Avhich is pleasant and commodious ; — that 
 his health is perfectly good, and that the climate, 
 which is excellent, has never had a prejudicial 
 effect upon his constitution, Ijut tliat his com- 
 plaints on all subjects arc tlic eflccts of a concerted
 
 122 
 
 POLICY. — That so far from being the man of 
 soiTow in his exile, wliich he would have it 
 imagined he is, his spirits are good, and his 
 mind, instead of being ahhatii by the coercion and 
 restraint he affects to murmur at, is actively at 
 work forming contrivances for a removal from 
 Saint Helena. 
 
 Convinced, as he is, that force can never move 
 him, and that art, nor stratagem on the spot, can 
 ever succeed with men, whose love erf their coun- 
 try and sense of duty are blended with a perfect 
 knowledge of his character, he tries a higher game, 
 and endeavours, upon the faith of his assertions, 
 to work upon the feelings of the world to induce, 
 as it were by acclamation, a change of place of 
 confinement as his only chance of escape. That 
 his gross and shameful attacks upon Sir Hudson 
 Lowe are made against a conviction of the truth, 
 in cold blood, as unprovoked and barbarous as the 
 murders at Jaffa (vouched for, and recorded as 
 truths by Sir Robert Wilson), to carry a point, to 
 gain an end, by the destruction of character, with- 
 out regard to decency or truth, is most evident.
 
 123 
 
 A French noblemari, of the new school, tdd me 
 that he had heard Napoleon say, that the wish 
 nearest his heart when he mounted the throne of 
 France was the destruction ( ankantissement ) of 
 England! His heartfelt hatred of our country 
 (which shews itself in the horror he feels at the 
 sight of a British soldier) is the real source of his 
 hatred of confinement under an English Governor ; 
 and by blackening Ms reputation, and stigmatizing 
 his conduct, he hopes not only to be removed to 
 some other place, but put under some other guar- 
 dian. 
 
 But let us hope, and hope earnestly, that the 
 Govei'nment of England will never be led away by 
 his assertions, till better proof of Sir Hudson 
 Lowe's tyranny or oppression can be foimd, than 
 in his tirades, or those of Santini or Las Casas. 
 The latter gentleman says, speaking of Sir Hud- 
 son, "■ One man may be capricious, passionate, 
 " hasty, cruel, and prone to abuse authority con- 
 " fided to his arbitrary will." If INI. Las Casas 
 would look at Longwood, he might find a splendid 
 illustration of bis position.
 
 124- 
 
 These observations and philippics, although they 
 had a strong effect upon my mind, and do most as- 
 suredly deceive the middling classes of people, and 
 have a certain baleful influence over the community 
 when coupled with discussions on the subject at 
 home, can have no weight with the European 
 Powers, whose Commissioners have been on the 
 spot, and must know how exactly the reverse of all 
 this is the truth ; and while the truth is attainable, 
 and in a country like ours, where, thank God, fair 
 opportunities are always given for investigation and 
 defence, the English Nation are not likely to be 
 moved to any very violent efforts in favour of the 
 Prisoner. — If Napoleon Buonaparte fancies that 
 he has the smallest influence in our country, far- 
 ther than the excitement of a desire that he may 
 not be treated with unnecessary harshness, I can 
 only say to General Buonaparte in the last words 
 Sir Hudson Lowe ever addressed to him : — " Ge- 
 " neral, i lament your ignorance of the 
 " English national character *." 
 
 * Tliis was Sir Hudson's reply to a torrent of the grossest 
 scurrilily and abuse of England, and its inhabitant:', that the
 
 125 
 
 As for the complaints which he makes, that Sir 
 Hudson Lowe takes upon himself to originate mea- 
 sures, and establish regulations, without previous 
 reference to England, they are perfectly ridiculous. 
 He would from these complaints have us infer that 
 the Governor is neither more nor less than a jailor, 
 who has no power or authority whatever of him- 
 self. While Buonaparte is within his limits, he 
 does riot assume to have any power over his person 
 or pursuits, witness the facts that he has not seen 
 Buonaparte for two years. That he never sought 
 an interview with him after he decUned seeing him 
 voluntarily, and that he never visits Longwood, 
 except to superintend the new buildings, where 
 he is certain of not disturbing the prisoner, or 
 intruding on his privacy; that personage never 
 having condescended even to look at the house 
 erecting for him during its progi'ess from its foun- 
 dation *. 
 
 Italian language (in which Xapoleon and the Governor al- 
 ways conversed) could afford, and whieh lasted, on the part 
 of the prisoner, literally three (juarters of an hour without 
 interruption. 
 
 * In the letter said to have been received from Saint He- 
 lena, in V, liich the seurnldiu f.i^ehood alxmt l^ertrnnd^
 
 126 
 
 As for issuing orders, and originating regula- 
 tions, it evidently forms the most important part 
 of the Governor's duty, as far as they relate to 
 the better security of his charge ; but according to 
 Buonaparte's doctrine, if Sir Hudson Lowe find a 
 spy in the bosom of the Longwood establishment, 
 or discover a dangerous conspiracy on foot, he be 
 to wait six or seven months for a reply to Jiis 
 representations home, before he take any means 
 of scotching the serpent, or crushing the pci^china- 
 tions with which he may have found hipa ipt^r- 
 
 phaeton was inserted, it is said that the house is building in 
 a hollow, in a bad situation, will cost thousands, and not be 
 finished for four years. In answer to these assertions, it may- 
 be necessary to remark, that building any house is generally 
 attended with expense ; but that if the writer of the letter 
 had considered for a moment, he would not have censured 
 the position of the house as being in a hollow. The trade 
 wind during part of the year blows with a certain degree of 
 strength, and it will be found that all the houses in Saint 
 Helena are carefully contrived so as to have the front towards 
 the South-East sheltered. On this quarter of the new house 
 the ground rises considerably, and the spot w;is chosen more 
 particularly from the fault which Buonaparte found with his 
 present residence, that during the seasons when the trade 
 wind blows fresh it is too much exposed. As to the time it will 
 require to finish the building, I state from the authority of the 
 persons employed on it, that it will be ready for papering 
 and decorating in April ntxt !
 
 127 
 
 coikd. The man appointed to keep Napoleon Buo- 
 napai'te secure must have discretionary powers. 
 The rapid shiftings of his attacks require rapid 
 counteraction. That he is all artifice, all policy, 
 he does not even affect to conceal ; dilatory steps 
 and half measures are not the means by which the 
 workings of a mind like his, solely directed with all 
 its energies to one point, are to be opposed. In 
 whose hands, then, could the necessary powers be 
 better placed, than in those of one who unites with 
 the mildest manners, firmness of decision, clearness 
 of mind, and quickness of apprehension. Attached 
 to Prince Bliicher through a march of conquests. 
 Sir Hudson Lowe has seen enougli of the public 
 career of Bonaparte to enable him to gaze stedfastly 
 on him, and not be dazzled ; of his private dispo- 
 sition, and the sinuosities of his character, he is 
 master. Add to these quahties the unceasing and 
 imwearied attention to the great object, his safe 
 custody, and the desire to soften, as much as is 
 consistent, the rigour of a confinement imposed by 
 the Kings of the eartli on a general enemy tn 
 mankind ; and little reason will be found, for the 
 sake of humanity, the honour of our national clia-
 
 128 
 
 racter, or the safety of tlie prisoner, to induce a 
 change in the place of confinement, the Governor 
 in charge, or the regulations adopted regarding 
 him. 
 
 Unconnected in the remotest degree with Sir 
 Hudson Lowe, neither seeking his favour, nor 
 fearing his anger, I speak this impartially and 
 sincerely, from conviction founded on cLje ob- 
 servation ; his firmness of duty to his Prince 
 and country, the fortitude of a clear conscience, 
 and the strength of his integrity, will maintain 
 this Governor against the malice of party, or 
 the cavillings of discontent. And indeed, while 
 Napoleon Buonaparte is by every favourable op- 
 portunity saluted with the best regards of an 
 Opposition Duke, and receives presents and marks 
 of high esteem from an Opposition Baron, it 
 cannot much mortify his guardian (however cour- 
 teously remembered privately by these noblemen,) 
 to find himself the object of attack for men of the 
 same views and the same principles, whether in 
 Spa-Fields, Covent Garden, or the more exalted 
 assembhes of Westminster !
 
 Within the last few days some additional Let- 
 ters from Count Las Casas have been offered to the 
 world. — Had there been any thing in them worthy 
 of observation, I should have delayed this publi- 
 cation to have noticed it. They turn out to be 
 part of a correspondence three years old, and 
 merely serve to mark the intemperate insolence of 
 their writer, and the extraordinary forbearance of 
 the Governor, to whom they are addressed. 
 
 An additional Letter, said to be from Bertrand, 
 dated August 1818, is introduced into the col- 
 lection, which appears to be a factitious compo- 
 sition, corroborative of the statements made in the 
 " Letters from Saint Helena," and made u^Jrom 
 the inteUigence furnished by the author of them. — 
 Precisely the same ideas present themselves, pre- 
 cisely the same subjects of attack are broached, 
 and nearly in the same words. — What strengthens 
 the doubts as to the authenticity of this Letter, is, 
 that M. Las Casas boasts that his infringement of
 
 130 
 
 the regulation against smuggling letters is the only 
 one which can be established. Now, if this letter 
 could be traced to Bertrand, it would afford another 
 example of the same violation, and it would more- 
 over be the duty of Sir Hudson Lowe to send him 
 off the Island the moment he could ascertain the 
 fact. Las Casas himself has furnished a good pre- 
 cedent, and if the Grand Marshal be sent to 
 France, he will, most assuredly, be shot by virtue 
 of the sentence of a Court Martial now in force 
 against him. Thus M. Las Casas and his Editor 
 are rather in a dilemma ; for if they have got up 
 the letter between them, it will lessen the weight 
 of their publication ; and if they have not, they 
 have placed the life of their dear Grand JVIarshal 
 in the scale against the vanity of pubHshing one of 
 his very stupid and impertinent tirades. 
 
 In this letter the literary schipper's story of the 
 bust of young Buonaparte is repeated totidem i^er- 
 his ; but a most important piece of information is 
 added, by which we find that Sir Hudson Lowe 
 had fallen under the censure, not only of the 
 Emperor and his half of the world, but that even
 
 131 
 
 Ladj Malcolm ! ! ! was disgusted — and who 
 
 else? — The Gommanders of the store-ships at Saint 
 Helena were disgusted too. 
 
 What Lady Malcolm had to do with the business 
 at all, is one question. — Who cares one straw 
 whether Lady Malcolm was disgusted or not ? is 
 another question. — A third is. What importance is 
 to be attached to the disgust of the Masters of two 
 store-ships ? — And a fourth is. How an Admiral's 
 wife, in which capacity alone Lady Malcolm is 
 known, could happen to be so associated? — Sir 
 Pulteney's name is not brought forward as having 
 been disgusted ; for, as his eulogist says, " He is a 
 " very sensible steady man, greatly attached to the 
 " interests of his country ;" and, excepting the one 
 fact of having selected an enormously large turtle 
 for Longwood, nothing positive appears as to his 
 conduct. 
 
 With the highest respect and admiration for the 
 sex, to which Lady Malcolm in her proper sphere 
 is doubtless an ornament, it might have been as 
 well had she taken a hint from Lady Lowe, or any 
 other woman of good sense, and have abstained
 
 132 
 
 from political interference, particularly in favour of 
 the man, .whose joint guardian her husband was 
 paid for being '^. 
 
 Bertrand, in this letter, notices the affair with 
 Colonel Lyster ; and, alluding to the challenge, 
 
 * There is a sacredness ahout the very name of Enghsh- 
 woman, which makes it a kind of sacrilege to hold her up to 
 public notice, even to meet with public approbation. It was 
 this feeling which induced me to withhold many traits of 
 female excellence which might have been recorded in this 
 work. As the opposite party have not the same view, and 
 to prove that proper delicacy on the part of Lady Lowe, 
 did not in the slightest degree interfere with attentions and 
 politeness to the Longwood people, and still further to prove 
 thai in spite of all the published abuse of Sir Hudson, no 
 spark of improper animosity was kindled either in his breast, 
 or in that of any of his family, I shall take leave to state, that 
 on the 11th of November last, IMadamc Bertrand sent a note 
 to Lady Lowe, requesting a pattern of dresses worn by her 
 little boy Hudson, in order that she might have some made 
 of a similar sort for the young Bertrands; and that Lady 
 Lowe, in the presence of Sir Hudson and a large party indis- 
 criminately formed, lamented that from the lateness of the 
 hour she should not be able to send the dress to Longwood 
 till the morning. — If Madame Bertrand had ever felt the 
 effects of personal disrespect, or violence done to her feelings, 
 would she have sent such a note (only four months since) r 
 or if a disposition to annoy or wound existed in tlovernment 
 House, would Lady Lowe have spoken or acted as she did on 
 the subject r
 
 133 
 
 says, — " The old man who wrote it must be out of 
 " his senses." — This anticipated verdict of lunacy 
 (as soothing as a Coroner's) is an easy subterfuge; — 
 it has not however succeeded as well as the Count 
 might have wished, for while mounted on the pin- 
 nacle to which his presumption has exalted him, 
 and whence he looks down on an old English officer, 
 he is much in the same situation as a man on the 
 top of Saint Paul's, while every body appears little 
 to him, he appears little to every body. 
 
 Much of Buonaparte's original composition is 
 not to be found in this new publication — the fasci- 
 nation and elegance which he is described to pos- 
 sess in society pervade even his writings, scarce as 
 they are. Take for example a note on Sir Hudson 
 Lowe's letter, of the 18th of November, 1817. 
 " This letter, and that of the 26th of July, and that 
 " of the 26th of October, aveftdl of lies /"—There 
 is a quaintness in the style of this imperial me- 
 morandum which is pleasing, as a testimony of 
 the finished accompHshments of the illustrious 
 author. 
 
 There is one curious passage in a letter from Las
 
 134 
 
 Casas to Lucien Buonaparte, whicli is worthy of 
 being extracted.— It cannot but be remembered 
 that Buonaparte every where complains of the Go- 
 vernor's presuming to originate regulations with 
 himself — to alter old restrictions and make new 
 ones ; and through all the writings on the subject 
 it is attempted to be shewn, that Sir Hudson is 
 led into a thousand intemperate acts by personal 
 liatred and violent animosity towards the foreign- 
 ers : — Now, in page 22, Las Casas speaking of the 
 Governor in confidence, sincerely, candidly, and 
 without disguise to Lucien, characterises him in 
 these words : " I should inform your Highness, that 
 " Sir Hudson Lowe is a man avho never 
 
 " THINKS BEYOND THE STRICT LETTER OF HIS 
 " INSTRUCTIONS, AND HAS NO FEAR BUT THAT 
 " OF BEING BLAMED FOR S^VERVING FROM IT." 
 
 A more complete or perfect acquittal from all 
 the charges they are, or have been, labouring to 
 set up against Sir Hudson could not have been 
 recorded, than in this undisguised description of his 
 character. — He does his duty and no more, and 
 his only fear is deviating from Iiis instructions. —
 
 135 
 
 Here is no quibbling, evading, or perverting, and 
 yet see how it agrees vrith a passage in a letter of 
 the same Las Casas to the same Governor about 
 the same time : — " Characteristic bitterness, native 
 " irritability, and personal hatred stimulate all 
 " your measures, and not the stern necessity of 
 '' your public duty." 
 
 After this M. Las Casas says, that he was 
 treated with every attention subsequent to his 
 aiTest, and that Sir Hudson offered to allow him 
 to return to Longwood to await the decision of 
 Ministers on his case. This he confesses he did 
 not do, because, if he had gone back, there would 
 have been nothing to complain of; and the policy 
 was to provoke other measures, and furnish grounds 
 for new accusations. — In short, wherever Sir Hud- 
 son has swerved from his line of duty, he has re- 
 laxed, not increased severity. Of this Earl Ba- 
 thurst appears fully aware ; for his Lordship con- 
 cludes one of his despatches by pointing out the 
 expediency in certain cases of not " permitting any 
 " feeling of dehcacy to interfere with the strict 
 " execution of his instructions."
 
 136 
 
 With reference to my remarks on the state of 
 religion at Longwood, I observe that Las Casas 
 says he did once ask somebody to mention the sub- 
 ject to the Governor. I v/as not aware they had 
 gone even so far as this. The reason Las Casas 
 gives for not having made the request is, that he 
 was afraid of being laughed at. This shews a cer- 
 tain degree of consciousness of what public opinion 
 is as to the morals of Buonaparte and his Court. — 
 No man, without a very strong internal conviction 
 of his own un worthiness, could imagine that re- 
 quiring the aid of a Minister of the Church would 
 subject him to ridicule*. 
 
 The introduction to the Letters of Las Casas 
 contains some indecent allusions to the conduct of 
 the Monarchs who have consigned Buonaparte to 
 Saint Helena, which must do more harm than 
 good to the cause in support of which they are 
 written, because the great question of Buonaparte's 
 exile has nothing to do with the svibject under dis- 
 
 * A Priest Vias actimlly embarked for Saint Helena, at 
 the request of Cardinal Ftsch. Probably this measure has 
 been taken to meet similar observations to those which I 
 made at page 78; — at all events, the coincidence is curious,
 
 137 
 
 cussion. All the flourishes about his healing the 
 wounds of France, and fatally trusting to Eng- 
 land, might have been spared ; for after wasting 
 many pages in endeavouring to prepossess his Eng- 
 lish readers in favour of the cause, by abusing the 
 British nation and character, the author is obliged 
 to sink the question before he can commence his 
 attack. 
 
 These invectives, coming from the pen of a 
 native of the United Kingdom, are injudicious, 
 and the allusions to the probable purposes to which 
 Saint Helena may shortly be appropriated, still 
 more so : — that they are perfectly nonsensical is no 
 qualification, because every man, however much he 
 may wish (and who does not ?) that Buonaparte 
 should enjoy every accommodation consistent with 
 his situation, must revolt at the insinuation that 
 Saint Helena may become the prison of those to 
 whom, not only the laws and constitution, but 
 the best feelings of our nature, bind us in ties of 
 duty and affection. 
 
 The author of the Introduction and Notes, who 
 has betrayed himself by his personal violence against
 
 138 
 
 Sir Hudson, informs us that this officer was 7iot 
 bom in the United Kingdom, but in some foreign 
 garrison. What is meant to be gained by this 
 information ? — If it be the case, it matters little 
 where a man first see the light, nor can he very 
 well be accountable for it : but suppose that Sir 
 Hudson were born on the shores of the Mediter- 
 ranean—let us go farther — suppose (which is not 
 the case) that his parents had been born on the 
 shores of the Mediterranean before him — ^what 
 then ? — Upon their own system he would not make 
 the worse English General for that, — Napoleon 
 Buonaparte was bom in Corsica, of Corsican pa- 
 rents, and yet they say he made a great Emperor 
 of the French. 
 
 With respect to the Introduction, it goes to the 
 old point — removal. — It is this gi-eat object which 
 they have in view, and for wiiich every struggle is 
 to be made. — Indeed Las Casas himself (p. Ill), in 
 a letter to Sir Hudson, after having said with a 
 sly cunning not likely to deceive his correspondent, 
 " No one amongst us believes escape possible, and 
 " therefore it is not thought of^' informs him that
 
 139 
 
 " as to the Emperor Napoleon, he still continues to 
 " cherish the same ideas and desire by which he 
 " was animated upon his free and confiding em- 
 " barkation on board the Bellerophon, that of 
 " endeavouring to seek tranquillity and retirement 
 " in the United States of America, or even Eng- 
 " land, under the protection of its laws." 
 
 No man however, I should hope, would be weak 
 enough to be imposed upon by the expressed mo- 
 deration of Buonaparte's wishes — by him who has 
 been (doubtless for some wise purpose) so miracu- 
 lously exalted, the shade of difference between a 
 residence in Scotland and one in Saint Helena 
 would not be considered an object worthy of the 
 struggle he is making for a change of place of con- 
 finement. — With him removal and escape are 
 SYNONIMOUS — With his opinion of his own weight 
 and influence, what does escape not present to 
 his view ? — Wars, desolation, and murder for 
 his enemies ; fame and revenge for himself — the 
 thirst for the latter of which is now added to his 
 detestation of our country, and all his other demon- 
 Hke qualities. The world should recollect the stake 
 he plays for, and recollecting that, should doubt
 
 140 
 
 €very assertion he makes, question every word lie 
 utters, and suspect every action he commits. Is it 
 to be supposed that he would hesitate to criminate, 
 even to destruction, those who are bound to shackle 
 his will, and bind him in custody? — Why should 
 he ?— Is there more crime in libelling Earl Bathurst, 
 or Sir Hudson Lowe, to carry the greatest point 
 man probably ever had to carry, than in the mur- 
 ders of the Due D'Enghien, our poor countryman 
 "Wright, or the five hundred helpless wretches de- 
 stroyed in cold blood at one swoop as a mere matter 
 of convenience ? — Is the man capable of all this to 
 be believed, with every thing depending on his 
 efforts to escape, in his assertions affecting others, 
 those assertions tending to that object ? — Is he who 
 went back from Elba the instant an opportunity 
 offered, to be trusted when he talks of retirement, 
 and living quietly under the laws of England? — He 
 respects no laws — he keeps no faith — Country- 
 men ! TRUST HIM AND YE AKE DECEIVED. 
 
 Where he is, there let him re:^iain, and 
 the curse of an outraged avorld be on 
 ■lhe head of him avho would release him,
 
 ISLAND OF SAINT HELENA 
 
 The Ships of the Honourable East India Company, and 
 all other Vessels approaching this Island, being 
 visited hy the Boats of the Flag Ship before thet/ are 
 permitted to atichor, it is presumed they are, on such 
 occasion, made acquainted with the Instructions of 
 the Admiral commanding on the Station, for their 
 guidance, ziihUst off the Island, or during the time 
 they may remain anchored off it, and that they con- 
 form themselves in all respects thereto. 
 
 The following General Port Regulations are further to 
 be observed : — 
 
 I. — The Commanders of the Hon. East India Company's 
 Sliips, and the Masters or Commanders of all Merchant Ves- 
 sels permitted to touch at this Island, are not to land them- 
 selves, or suffer any person whatever belonging to their Ships 
 or Vessels to come ashore, until the following Regulations 
 have been made known to all persons on board, — a List of 
 Passengers, and a Roll of the Ship's Company sent to the 
 Governor, and his permission obtained for such as are to 
 land.
 
 142 
 
 II. — The Commander of every Ship or Vessel is required 
 most exphcitly to declare in the first instance, whether any 
 Disorder whatever prevails, or has prevailed, on Board, with- 
 out regard to its being considered by him, or his Surgeon, 
 to be contagious or otherwise, and report any deaths that may 
 have taken place, and the causes of the same, during the 
 course of his voyage. 
 
 III. — All Letters and Packets, for whatever person ad- 
 dressed, residing on shore (except such as come by regular 
 Mails, which are to be sent to the Post-Office), are to be 
 delivered to the Officer by whom these Regulations are com- 
 municated, who will leave the same at the Office of the Se- 
 cretary of Government, where those to whom they are ad- 
 dressed will receive them. 
 
 IV. — Should the Commander, or any of his Passengers, 
 ©r any person whatever on board his Ship, have under his or 
 her charge any Letters, Packages or Parcels, to the address 
 of or destined for any of the Foreign Persons under deten- 
 tion on this Island — it is desired they will make it known 
 forthwith to the Governor himself, putting the Letter or 
 Parcel, if of small bulk, under a sealed Envelope, to his 
 address, and waiting his directions respecting any Package 
 of a larger species. 
 
 V. — The Commander of the Vessel only, after these 
 Regulations have been read and published on Board, is at 
 liberty to land, when he will immediately wait on the Gover- 
 nor, if in Town, as well as the Naval Commander in Chief — 
 and if the Governor should not be in Town, will call to 
 report his arrival at the Quarters of the Deputy Adjutant 
 General. 
 
 VI. — The Commanders, Officers, and all Passengers v.'ho
 
 143 
 
 are afterwards permitted to land, will call at the Town Ma- 
 jor's Office to read and sign the Island Regulations, before 
 they proceed to their Lodgings, or visit any House or Person 
 whatever. 
 
 VII. — No Passenger or other Person landing from Ships 
 touching there, is to leave James's Valley without permission, 
 for which they are to apply to the Deputy Adjutant General. 
 
 VIII. — No Person whatsoever, having permission to land, 
 is to visit Long Wood, or the Premises belonging thereto, 
 nor to hold communication of any sort, by writing or other- 
 wise, with any of the Foreign Personages detained on this 
 Island, without communicating directly his intentions and 
 wishes thereupon to the Governor, and obtaining his per- 
 mission for the same. — And should any letter or other com- 
 munication, from any of the Foreign Personages above 
 alluded to, be received by any person whatsoever, it is to be 
 brought without loss of time to the Governor, previous to 
 answering or taking any further notice whatever thereof. 
 The same r\ile to apply to all Packages which may be re- 
 ceived, or attempted to be delivered. 
 
 IX. — The Commanders of the East India Ships, and the 
 Masters of all descriptions of Merchant Vessels permitted to 
 touch at this Island, are not to allow any Persons whatsoever, 
 on board of, or belonging to their Ships or Vessels, to come 
 on shore on leave, without the Governor's authority, nor is 
 any person to sleep on shore without his permission. 
 
 X. — No Boat belonging to the Ships of the East India 
 Company, or to Merchant Vessels of any description, is to 
 land between Sun-set and Sun-rise, nor at any time durin 
 the Day, without a proper Officer being in charge of hei 
 and if she is ordered to remain on shore for any purpose, he
 
 144 
 
 must take care to keep her laying at a distance from the 
 Wharf to admit of other Boats landing without interruption. 
 Boats loading or unloading, are to use every expedition to 
 get out of the way of others. 
 
 XL — All Boats belonging to the Company's Ships, or 
 Merchant Vessels of every description, are to quit the shore 
 by Sun-set, and are immediately afterwards to be hoisted in 
 on board their respective ships, except under such circum- 
 stances as the Admiral may direct, 
 
 XII. — No Boat belonging to a Company's Ship, or a Mer- 
 chant Vessel of any description, shall board or send a boat 
 alongside any vessel coming in. — No Boat will be permitted 
 to land at any other place than at the Wharf. 
 
 XIII. — No Company's Ship or Merchant Vessel of any 
 description, is to anchor at this Island between Sun-set and 
 Sun-rise, nor sail after Sun-set, nor before ten o'clock in the 
 Morning — nor are they to make sail at any time until the 
 Permission Flag is hoisted to each Ship or Vessel. 
 
 XIV.— If the Permission Flag should be hoisted to any 
 Vessel a short time before Sun-set, and she not already 
 hove her Anchor up and under weigh, she is not to attempt 
 to move until the signal may be repeated the morning 
 following. 
 
 XV. — The Commander of all Ships or Vessels are 
 strictly prohibited from permitting any Fishing Boat belong- 
 ing to the Island to go alongside, without a Permit, signed 
 by the Governor, or suflering any Boat belonging to their 
 Ship to board or otherwise communicate with a numbered 
 Fishing Boat of the Island. 
 
 XVI.— -Should a Fishing Bout attempt to conunuuicatc
 
 145 
 
 with any vessel, either approaching the Island, or at anchor 
 off it, or with any Boats belonging to such Vessel, the Cum- 
 mander of her, or his Officers, are required to e^ive imme- 
 diate notice thereof to the Flag Ship, and to the Deputy 
 Adjutant General, taking the No. of the Boat, or detaining 
 her, as circumstances may direct. 
 
 XVII,~-The Commanders of Ships possessing News- 
 papers, which may contain late or interesting intelligence, 
 are requested to deliver them to the person by whom these 
 Regulations are communicated, for the information of the 
 Governor, who will cause them to be carefully returned. 
 
 XVIII. — No Gunpowder is to be landed without pre- 
 vious notice being given to the Commissary of Stores, and 
 the Master Attendant, in order that proper precautions may 
 be adopted to prevent accidents. 
 
 XIX. — No Horse, Mare or Gelding, can be landed 
 without a Permit from the Secretary to Government. 
 
 XX. — No Wines of any sort whatsoever shall be landed 
 without a Permit, signed by the Secretary to Government. 
 
 XXI. — The Honourable Court of Directors having pro- 
 hibited the importation of India Spirits, it is regulated, that 
 whoever shall violate this Order, shall incur a Fine of cflOO. 
 Sterling — nor is Brandy, Gin, West India Rum, Cordials, 
 and the like to be landed, except in small quantities, upon 
 obtaining a Permit for tlie same, and upon paying a Duty 
 at the rate of 12s. per Gallon ; but the landing of any Spirits, 
 in whatever Quantity, without a Permit, will subject the 
 offender to the Penalty as above. 
 
 XXII. — The Whaling Vessels are not to throw their 
 Try-Works overboard, whilst al this Anchorage, uiider the 
 
 L
 
 146 
 
 Penalty oi' otaO.— half of which Sum will be paid to the 
 informer. 
 
 XXIII.— The Commanders or Masters of all Ships or 
 Vessels are to give 18 Hours notice previous to their depar- 
 ture — provided they intend to remain for so long a period. 
 This notice is to be left in writing at the Office of the Secre- 
 tary to Government, and the Master Attendant, between the 
 hours of ten in the forenoon and two in the afternoon.— The 
 Fore-lop-sail is likewise to be kept loose 48 hours previous to 
 the Ship or Vessels' departure. 
 
 XXIV. — The Commander or Master of any Ship or 
 Vessel is not, on any pretence whatever, to leave any person 
 upon the Island, or take any person from it, of whatever 
 description, without written permission from the Governor. 
 
 XXV. — No Commander, Passenger, or any other person 
 whatever on board the Honourable Company's Ships, or any 
 other, that may anchor at this Island, is to take charge oi 
 any Letters or Packets for conveyance to Europe, the Cape 
 of Good Hope, South America, or elsewhere, unless such as 
 are made up in a regular Mail at the Post-Officc, or have 
 been received from the Secretary to Government, or the 
 Deputy Adjutant General. 
 
 The Commander of the Ship or Vessel will fill up the 
 Report, of which the form is annexed, for the Governor's 
 information, and transmit the same by the Officer who com- 
 municates these Resculations. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 Printed by J. Brettcll, 
 Rupert Stieet, Haymarket, Lmdon.
 
 Hi. 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
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