Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume V

LONGWOOD

The stormy dispute, which took place on the 16th May, 1816,246 left every thing unsettled with respect to the house; and indeed it may be conjectured, without injustice, that Napoleon preferred the old and inconvenient mansion, with the right to complain of it as a grievance, to the new and commodious one, the possession of which must have shut his lips upon one fertile subject of misrepresentation. Repeated and equally nugatory discussions on the subject took place during the course of two or three years, all which time Napoleon complained of the want of the promised house, and the governor, on his side, alleged, there was no getting Napoleon to express a fixed opinion on the situation or the plan, or to say whether he would prefer a thorough repair of the old house, occupying M. Bertrand's apartments in the mean while, until the work should be accomplished. Sometimes Napoleon spoke of changing the situation of the house, but he never, according to Sir Hudson Lowe's averment, intimated any specific wish upon that subject, nor would condescend to say distinctly in what place it should be erected. Napoleon on his part maintained that he was confined for three years in an unhealthy barn, during which time the governor was perpetually talking about a house which had never been commenced. While the blame is thus reciprocally retorted, the impartial historian can only say, that had Sir Hudson Lowe delayed willingly the building of the house, he must have exposed himself to severe censure from his government in consequence, since his despatches were daily urging the task. There was nothing which the governor could place against this serious risk, except the malicious purpose of distressing Napoleon. On the other hand, in submitting to indifferent accommodation, rather than communicate with a man whom he seemed to hold in abhorrence, Napoleon only acted upon his general system, of which this was a part, and sacrificed his convenience, as he afterwards did his health, rather than bend his mind to comply with the regulations of his place of captivity. Mr. Ellis, an unprejudiced witness, declares that the original house seemed to him commodious and well furnished.

The fate of the new house was singular enough. It was at last erected, and is said to be a large and comfortable edifice. But it happened, that the plan directed the building to be surrounded, as is common in England, with something like a sunk ditch, surrounded by cast-iron railing of an ornamental character. No sooner had Napoleon seen these preparations, than the idea of a fortification and a dungeon entered into his head; nor was it possible to convince him that the rails and sunk fence were not intended as additional means of securing his person. When Sir Hudson Lowe learned the objection which had been started, he ordered the ground to be levelled, and the palisade removed. But before this was accomplished, Napoleon's health was too much broken to permit of his being removed, so that he died under the same roof which received him after his temporary residence at Briars.

Another subject of complaint, which Napoleon greatly insisted upon, was, that the governor of St. Helena had not been placed there merely as a ministerial person, to see duly executed the instructions which he should receive from Britain, but as a legislator, himself possessing and exercising the power to alter the regulations under which his prisoner was to be confined, to recall them, to suspend them, and finally, to replace them. To this it must be answered, that in such a situation, where the governor, holding so important a charge, was at so great a distance from the original source of his power, some discretionary authority must necessarily be lodged in him, since cases must occur where he was to act on the event as it arose, and it was indispensable that he should possess the power to do so. It must also be remembered, that different constructions might possibly be given to the instructions from the Secretary of State; and it would, in that case, have been equally anomalous and inconvenient should the governor not have had it in his power to adopt that explanation which circumstances demanded, and not less so if he had been obliged to litigate the point with his prisoner, and, as a mere ministerial person must have done, wait till a commentary on the disputed article should arrive from England.

It is a different question, and on which we are far from having so clear an opinion, whether Sir Hudson Lowe, in every case, exercised this high privilege with sound discretion. It would be unjust to condemn him unheard, who has never fairly been put upon his defence, and the evidence against whom is, we must again say, of a very suspicious nature. Still it appears, that alterations of the existing regulations were, as far as we have information, more frequent than necessity, the best if not the only apology for varying the manner of such proceedings, seems to have authorised.

For example, one of the heaviest of Napoleon's complaints is made against the restriction of the limits within which he might take exercise without the company of a British officer, which, instead of extending to twelve miles in circumference, were contracted to two-thirds of that space. Every thing in this world is relative, and we can conceive the loss of one-third of his exercising ground to have been, at this moment, a more sincere subject of distress to Napoleon, than the loss of a kingdom while he yet governed Europe. The apology alleged for this was the disposition which Napoleon seemed to show to cultivate the acquaintance of the inhabitants of St. Helena, more than it was advisable that he should have the opportunity of doing. We can easily conceive this to be true; for not only might Napoleon be disposed, from policy, to make friends among the better classes by his irresistible conciliation of manners, and of the lower class by familiarity and largesses; but he must also be supposed, with the feelings natural to humanity in distress, to seek some little variety from the monotony of existence, some little resumption of connexion with the human race, from which, his few followers excepted, he was in a manner excluded. But this aptitude to mingle with such society as chance threw within his reach, in his very limited range, might perhaps have been indulged without the possibility of his making any bad use of it, especially since no one could enter these grounds without passes and orders. The limits were shortly after restored by Sir Hudson Lowe to their original extent, Napoleon having declared that unless this were the case, he would not consent to take exercise, or observe the usual means of keeping himself in health.

The injunction requiring that Buonaparte should daily be seen by an orderly officer, was, under Sir Hudson Lowe's authority, as it had been under that of Sir George Cockburn, the subject of Buonaparte's most violent opposition. He affected to apprehend that it was to be enforced by positive violence, and carried this so far as to load fire-arms, with the idea of resisting by force any attempt of an orderly officer to insist upon performing this part of his duty. He alludes resentfully to the circumstance in his angry interview with Sir Hudson Lowe upon the 16th May, 1816. Yet, of all unpleasant regulations to which a prisoner is subjected by his captivity, that appears the least objectionable, which, assuring us from space to space that the person of the prisoner is secure, enables us, in the interval, to leave him a much greater share of personal freedom than otherwise could be permitted, because the shortness of each interval does not allow him time to use it in escape. Nevertheless, Sir Hudson Lowe, as already hinted, was content in this case to yield to the violent threats of Napoleon, and rather suffer the duty to be exercised imperfectly and by chance, than run the risk of his prisoner perishing in the affray which his obstinacy threatened. Perhaps the governor may be in this case rather censured as having given up a point impressed upon him by his original instructions, than blamed for executing them too strictly against the remarkable person who was his prisoner. We cannot but repeat the opinion we have been led to form, that, could Buonaparte's bodily presence have been exactly ascertained from time to time, his rambles through the whole of the island might have been permitted, even without the presence of a military officer.

This regulation was another circumstance, of which Napoleon most heavily complained. He regarded the company of such attendant as a mark of his defeat and imprisonment, and resolved, therefore, rather to submit to remain within the limits of the grounds of Longwood, narrow as they were, than, by stirring without them, to expose himself to the necessity of admitting the company of this odious guardian. It may be thought, that in thus judging, Napoleon did not adopt the most philosophical or even the wisest opinion. Misfortune in war is no disgrace; and to be prisoner, has been the lot before now both of kings and emperors. The orderly officers, also, who were ready to accompany Napoleon in his ride, might be often men of information and accomplishment; and their society and conversation could not but have added some variety to days so little diversified as those spent by Napoleon.

The prisoner, however, was incapable of deriving amusement from any such source. It might be as well expected that the occupant of a dungeon should amuse himself with botanizing in the ditches which moat it round. Napoleon could not forget what he had been and what he was, and plainly confessed by his conduct that he was contented rather to die, than to appear in public wearing the badge of his fate, like one who was sitting down resigned to it.

While so averse to this regulation, Napoleon had not taken the proper mode of escaping from its influence. Sir George Cockburn, upon his remonstrance after his first arrival, had granted to him a dispensation from the attendance of an orderly officer, at least in his immediate company or vicinity. This privilege was suddenly withdrawn while the admiral was yet upon the island, and both Napoleon and the various St. Helena authors, Las Cases in particular, make the most bitter complaints on the tantalizing conduct of Sir George Cockburn, who gave an indulgence, as it would seem, only with the cruel view of recalling it the next morning. The truth is here told, but not the whole truth. Napoleon had engaged to the admiral, that, in consideration of this indulgence, he would not enter into any intercourse with any of the inhabitants whom he might meet during the time of his excursion. He chose to break through his promise the very first time that he rode out alone, or only with his suite; and hence Sir George Cockburn, considering faith as broken with him, recalled the permission altogether. It was not, therefore, with a good grace, that Napoleon complained of the want of inclination on the part of the governor, to restore an indulgence to him, which he had almost instantly made a use of that was contrary to his express engagement. The truth is, that the Ex-Emperor had his own peculiar manner of viewing his own case. He considered every degree of leniency, which was at any time exercised, as a restoration of some small portion of that liberty, of which he conceived himself to be deprived illegally and tyrannically; and scrupled no more to employ what he got in endeavouring to attain a farther degree of freedom, than the prisoner whose hand is extricated from fetters would hesitate to employ it in freeing his feet. There can be no doubt, that if by means of such a privilege as riding without the attendance of an officer, he could have arranged or facilitated any mode of final escape, he would not have hesitated to use it to that effect.

But, on the other hand, such being his way of thinking, and hardly disguised, it put the governor strongly on his guard against granting any relaxation of the vigilance necessary for effectually confining him. Indulgences of this nature are, so far as they go, a species of confidence reposed in the captive by the humanity of his keeper, and cannot, in perfect good faith, be used to purposes, which must lead to the disgrace, or perhaps the ruin, of the party who grants them. If, therefore, Napoleon showed himself determined to hold a closer and more frequent intercourse with the natives of St. Helena, and the strangers who visited the island, than Sir Hudson Lowe approved, it only remained for the latter to take care that such interviews should not occur without a witness, by adhering to the restrictions, which required that a British officer should attend upon the more distant excursions of the hard-ruled captive.

GOURGAUD – LONGWOOD

It is to be remarked, that this intercourse with the inhabitants, and others who visited St. Helena, was no imaginary danger, but actually existed to a considerable extent, and for purposes calculated to alarm Sir Hudson Lowe's watchfulness, and to transgress in a most material respect his instructions from government. The disclosures of General Gourgaud are on these points decisive.

That officer "had no difficulty in avowing, that there has always existed a free and uninterrupted communication betwixt the inhabitants of Longwood and the country, without the knowledge or intervention of the governor; and that this has been made use of, not only for the purpose of receiving and transmitting letters, but for that of transmitting pamphlets, money, and other articles, of which the party in Longwood might from time to time have been in want; and that the correspondence was for the most part carried on direct with Great Britain. That the persons employed in it were those Englishmen who from time to time visit St. Helena, to all of whom the attendants and servants of Buonaparte have free access, and who, generally speaking, are willing, many of them without reward, and others for very small pecuniary considerations, to convey to Europe any letter or packet intrusted to their charge. It would appear also, that the captains and others on board the merchant ships touching at the island, whether belonging to the East India Company, or to other persons, are considered at Longwood as being peculiarly open to the seduction of Buonaparte's talents; so much so, that the inhabitants of Longwood have regarded it as a matter of small difficulty to procure a passage on board one of these ships for General Buonaparte, if escape should be at any time his object."

In corroboration of what is above stated, of the free communication betwixt St. Helena and Europe, occurs the whimsical story told by Dr. Antommarchi, of a number of copies of Dr. O'Meara's book being smuggled ashore at St. Helena, under the disguise of tracts distributed by a religious society. Another instance is mentioned by Count Las Cases, who, when removed from Longwood, and debarred from personally communicating with his master, felt considerable difficulty in discovering a mode of conveying to him a diamond necklace of great value, which had been intrusted to his keeping, and which Napoleon might want after his departure. He addressed at hazard the first decent-looking person he saw going to Longwood, and conjured him in the most pathetic manner, to take charge of the packet. The stranger slackened his pace without speaking, and pointed to his coat-pocket. Las Cases dropt in the packet; and the jewels, thus consigned to the faith of an unknown person, reached their owner in safety.247

It is honourable to humanity, that distress of almost any kind, but especially that which affects the imagination by exciting the memory of fallen greatness, should find assistants even among those who were enemies to that greatness when in prosperity.

But it was the duty of the governor to take heed, that neither overstrained notions of romantic compassion and generosity, nor the temptation of worse motives, should lead to any combination which might frustrate his diligence; and Napoleon having at once avarice and the excess of generosity to solicit in his favour, the governor naturally secluded him as much as he could from those individuals who might be liable to be gained over to his interest by such powerful seductions.

Upon the 7th January, 1818, the Government of Britain intimated their approbation of the enlargement of Napoleon's bounds of exercise to the ordinary limits which had been for a time restricted; and, in order to preserve for him the opportunity of keeping up society with such of the people of the island as he might desire to receive on business, or as visitors, the following regulation was adopted: —

"Respecting the intercourse with the inhabitants, I see no material objection to the placing it upon the footing recently suggested by Count Bertrand, as it is one which he represents would be more consonant to General Buonaparte's wishes. The count's proposition is, that a list of a given number of persons, resident in the island, should be made out who shall be at once admitted to Longwood on the general's own invitation, without a previous application being made to your excellency on each invitation. You will, therefore, consider yourself at liberty to accede to the suggestions of Count Bertrand; and you will for this purpose direct him to present to you for your approbation, a list of persons, not exceeding fifty in number, resident in the island, who may be admitted to Longwood at reasonable hours, without any other pass than the invitation of General Buonaparte, it being understood that they are on each occasion to deliver in the invitation as a voucher, with their names, at the barrier. In giving your approbation to the list, you will, as far as is consistent with your duty, consult the wishes of General Buonaparte; but you will let it be clearly understood, that you reserve to yourself a discretionary power of erasing from the list, at any time, any of those individuals, to whom you may have found it inexpedient to continue such extraordinary facility of access; and you will take special care, that a report be always made to you by the orderly officer, of the several persons admitted to Longwood upon General Buonaparte's invitation."

We have touched upon these various subjects of grievance, not as being the only causes of dispute, or rather of violent discord, which existed betwixt the Ex-Emperor of France and the governor of St. Helena, for there were many others. It is not in our purpose, however, nor even in our power, to give a detailed or exact history of these particular quarrels, but merely to mark – as our duty, in this a very painful one, demands – what was the character and general scope of the debate which was so violently conducted on both sides. Of course it follows, that a species of open war having been declared betwixt the parties, every one of the various points of discussion which must necessarily have arisen betwixt Sir Hudson Lowe and Napoleon, or through their respective attendants and followers, was turned into matter of offence on the one side or the other, and as such warmly contested. It is thus, that, when two armies approach each other, the most peaceful situations and positions lose their ordinary character, and become the subjects of attack and defence. Every circumstance, whether of business or of etiquette, which occurred at St. Helena, was certain to occasion some dispute betwixt Napoleon and Sir Hudson Lowe, the progress and termination of which seldom passed without an aggravation of mutual hostilities. It is beneath the dignity of history to trace these tracasseries; and beyond possibility, unless for one present on the spot, and possessed of all the minute information attending each subject of quarrel, to judge which had the right or the wrong.

It would be, indeed, easy for us, standing aloof and remote from these agitating struggles, to pass a sweeping condemnation on the one party or the other, or perhaps upon each of them; and to show that reason and temper on either side would have led to a very different course of proceeding on both, had it been permitted by those human infirmities to which, unhappily, those who have power or pretensions are more liable than the common class, who never possessed the one, and make no claim to the other.

Neither would it be difficult for us to conceive a governor of St. Helena, in the abstract, who, treating the reviling and reproaches with which he was on all occasions loaded by Buonaparte, as the idle chidings of a storm, which must howl around whatever it meets in its course, would, with patience and equanimity, have suffered the tempest to expend its rage, and die away in weakness, the sooner that it found itself unresisted. We can conceive such a person wrapping himself up in his own virtue, and, while he discharged to his country the duty she had intrusted to him, striving, at the same time, by such acts of indulgence as might be the more gratifying because the less expected, or perhaps merited, to melt down the sullenness which the hardship of his situation naturally imposed on the prisoner. We can even conceive that a man of such rare temper might have found means, in some happy moment, of re-establishing a tolerable and ostensible good understanding, if not a heartfelt cordiality, which, could it have existed, would so much have lessened the vexations and troubles, both of the captive and of the governor. All this is very easily conceived. But in order to form the idea of such a man, we must suppose him, in the case in question, stoically impassive to insults of the grossest kind, insults poured on him before he had done any thing which could deserve them, and expressed in a manner which plainly intimated the determination of Napoleon to place himself at once on the most hostile terms with him. This must have required the most uncommon share of calmness and candour. It is more natural that such a functionary as the governor of St. Helena – feeling the impulse of ill usage from a quarter where no regular satisfaction could be had – if he did not use the power which he held for the time, to the actual annoyance and vexation of the party by whom he had been deliberately insulted, should be apt at least to become indifferent how much, or how little, his prisoner was affected by the measures which he adopted, and to go forward with the necessary means of confining the person, without being so solicitous as he might otherwise have been, to spare the feelings. An officer, termed to his face a liar, a brigand, an assassin, a robber, a hangman, has few terms to keep with him by whom he has been loaded with such unworthy epithets; and who, in using them, may be considered as having declared mortal war, and disclaimed the courtesy, while he defied the power, of the person to whom he addressed them.

In the same manner, judging with the coolness of a third party, we should be inclined to say, that the immediate attendants and followers of Napoleon might have here served their master more effectually, by endeavouring to accommodate the subjects of dispute with Sir Hudson Lowe, than by aggravating and carrying them still farther by their own subordinate discussions with the governor and his aides-de-camp, and thus heating their master's passions by their own. But while that was the line of conduct to be desired, it is impossible to deny that another was more naturally to be expected. Generals Bertrand, Montholon, and Gourgaud, were all soldiers of high reputation, who rising to fame under Napoleon's eye, had seen their own laurels flourish along with his. In the hour of adversity, they had most laudably and honourably followed him, and were now sharing with him the years of solitude and exile. It was not, therefore, to be wondered at, that they, wearied of their own restrained and solitary condition, enraged, too, at every thing which appeared to add to the calamitous condition of their fallen master, should be more disposed to increase the angry spirit which manifested itself on both sides, than, by interposing their mediation, to endeavour to compose jars which might well render Napoleon's state more irritable and uncomfortable, but could not, in any point of view, tend to his comfort, peace, or even respectability.

But perhaps we might have been best entitled to hope, from the high part which Napoleon had played in the world, from the extent of his genius, and the natural pride arising from the consciousness of talent, some indifference towards objects of mere form and ceremony, some confidence in the genuine character of his own natural elevation, and a noble contempt of the change which fortune could make on circumstances around him. We might have hoped that one whose mental superiority over the rest of his species was so undeniable, would have been the last to seek with eagerness to retain the frippery and feathers of which the wind of adverse fortune had stripped him, or to be tenacious of that etiquette, which now, if yielded to him at all, could only have been given by compassion. We might have thought the conqueror in so many bloody conflicts, would, even upon provocation, have thought it beneath him to enter on a war of words with the governor of an islet in the Atlantic, where foul language could be the only weapon on either side, and held it a yet greater derogation, so far to lay aside his high character, as to be the first to engage in so ignoble a conflict. It might, we should have supposed, have been anticipated by such a person, not only that calm and patient endurance of inevitable misfortunes is the noblest means of surmounting them, but that, even with a view to his liberty, such conduct would have been most advisable, because most politic. The people of Europe, and especially of Britain, would have been much sooner apt to unite in the wish to see him removed from confinement, had he borne himself with philosophical calmness, than seeing him, as they did, still evincing within his narrow sphere the restless and intriguing temper which had so long disturbed the world, and which now showed itself so engrained in his constitution, as to lead him on to the unworthy species of warfare which we have just described. But the loftiest and proudest beings of mere humanity are like the image which the Assyrian monarch beheld in his dream – blended of various metals, uniting that which is vile with those which are most precious; that which is frail, weak, and unsubstantial, with what is most perdurable and strong. Napoleon, like many an emperor and hero before him, sunk under his own passions after having vanquished nations; and became, in his exile, the prey of petty spleen, which racked him almost to frenzy, and induced him to hazard his health, or perhaps even to throw away his life, rather than submit with dignified patience to that which his misfortunes had rendered unavoidable.