DECLARATION.
“The Governor having duly considered all the circumstances, relative to the affair of Count Las Cases, has adopted the following decision:—
“Count Las Cases having committed a direct and premeditated violation of the regulations established at St. Helena, by virtue of the authority of the British Government, relative to General Bonaparte, in corrupting the fidelity of an inhabitant of the island, so far as to render him, in a criminal and underhand way, the bearer of secret and clandestine letters for Europe; and having thus broken one of the indispensable conditions to which he voluntarily acquiesced when he signed his declaration to obtain leave to reside at St. Helena, the said Count Las Cases has been separated from the person of General Bonaparte; and, in conformity with the instructions of the British Government, he will be transported to the Cape of Good Hope.
“Count Las Cases is permitted to take with him all his property and papers, excepting, however, such of the latter as may have reference to General Bonaparte, since the time he has been under the authority of the British Government, and also such correspondence as may not have passed through the official channel of the English authorities.
“The Governor will await the orders of the British Government respecting those papers, the nature of which may be the subject of dispute.
(Signed) “HUDSON LOWE.”
“Plantation House, Dec. 20, 1816.” */ #/
LETTER FROM SIR HUDSON LOWE, WHICH ACCOMPANIED
THE PRECEDING DOCUMENT.
“Sir,—In communicating to you the enclosed decision, permit me to mention, what I have already stated verbally, that I shall make no objection to your remaining on the island, if you prefer to do so, rather than proceed to the Cape of Good Hope, there to wait until I receive instructions from the British Government respecting you.
“In case you should prefer remaining at St. Helena, I conceive it necessary to require from you a declaration, expressing your wish to that effect, and a promise to submit to the same restrictions under which you have hitherto been permitted to reside here.
“Thus, Sir, it is entirely at your own option, either to proceed to the Cape of Good Hope, or to remain here, with your papers under seal, until I shall receive instructions from Government.
“I have the honour to be, &c.
(Signed) “HUDSON LOWE.”
I immediately acknowledged the receipt of these two documents, at the same time requesting an acknowledgment of the receipt of all my letters, for as yet I had had no intimation of any one of them having been received. Wishing to reply to the Governor’s offer of allowing me to return to Longwood, I instantly addressed a letter on this subject to the Grand Marshal, which I sent to Sir Hudson Lowe, in order that he might peruse it, and forward it to its destination.
It will scarcely be credited that Sir Hudson Lowe sent back this letter. He had drawn a pencil mark across every passage to which he objected, and had reduced the whole to a few lines, thus assuming the privilege of dictating to me what I was to write to Count Bertrand. The returned letter was accompanied by a communication, which the Governor observed would serve as an answer to all my preceding correspondence.
CORRESPONDENCE CONTINUED.—THE GOVERNOR DISCONCERTED
BY MY FINAL DETERMINATION.
22nd, 23rd.—The Governor came to ascertain the effect of his declaration and his two letters. He doubted not that they had produced a great impression, and he calculated on finding my letter to the Grand Marshal ready written, with the corrections he had suggested; which communication, he expected would bring about my return to Longwood. But I coolly informed him that, since he had taken upon himself to dictate to me, I would not write at all. At this, he appeared surprised and disconcerted, and, after some reflection, he went so far as to inquire whether the corrections which he had made were the only obstacles that deterred me. This unusual condescension on his part was a sufficient guide for me. I therefore continued firm; and cut the matter short by observing that, in the evening, he should receive from me my irrevocable determination and the reasons on which it was grounded, together with my remarks on the different letters which he had addressed to me.
My letter was as follows:—
“Sir,—You have sent back to me, with your corrections, the letter which I wrote to Count Bertrand, respecting your verbal offer of granting me permission to return to Longwood. But as it almost always happens here, this offer was sincere only in appearance, and it was doomed to expire in the details of its execution. I was not much surprised at this. After your departure, the other day, when I came to reflect on the offer you had made, I foresaw that the matter would terminate as it really has done. You had the candour to tell me that you could not permit me and the individuals at Longwood to combine our ideas; or, in other words, to ascertain our real wishes. You have, doubtless, very good reasons for this. I say nothing against it; only I cannot suffer myself to be duped, or to be the means of leading into error those who take an interest in my fate.
“You[“You] are too advantageously situated, Sir, between Longwood and me; and if I must write to Count Bertrand, not my own sentiments, but what you may think proper to dictate, I decline holding any communication with him. I shall regard your offer as never having been made, because it cannot possibly be accepted; and I must refer irrevocably for my thoughts, sentiments, and decisions on this subject, to my letter of the 30th of November.
“You mistake, Sir, if you suppose that I wished for answers to all the arguments and articles contained in my letters. I am aware of the importance of your occupations, and the value of your time, and therefore I merely requested an acknowledgment of the receipt of my letters for the sake of regularity. I presumed you could have no reason to refuse this.
“You seem surprised, Sir, at the deplorable state of my own and my son’s health; and you twice express astonishment that I should not have complained to you on the subject, when I was at Longwood. I thought but little about my health, Sir, when I was at Longwood; and besides, when I felt indisposed, I considered it more advisable to complain to the Doctor than to the Governor. With regard to my son, I am surprised you should have heard nothing of his situation, considering the consultations that have been held on his case, the fits he has had, and the many times he has been bled. Is it to be wondered at if our present circumstances increase our infirmities?
“I now come to your order for my removal to the Cape. I find that all the papers which have any reference to the august individual to whom I have devoted my existence are to be detained. What other papers, Sir, can I be possessed of? What is meant by saying that I am free to carry away all the rest? Is not this making an offer, and yet granting nothing?
“You detain my Journal, the sole and real object of all this misunderstanding; the depository, yet incomplete and incorrect, in which I daily registered all that I thought, saw, or heard. Can any of my papers be more valuable to me than this? You cannot pretend to have been ignorant of its contents, since I suffered you to peruse it for two hours at your own discretion. Will you not be responsible for having abused this privilege? Will you not, perhaps, one day, have to justify yourself for the false notions which you have doubtless transmitted to the English Ministers respecting this manuscript? You have called it a Political Journal. I had no right, you have observed, in the situation in which I was placed, to keep any account of what was said by the Emperor Napoleon, and you particularly object to my having introduced official documents into my Journal. As if all that I saw, read, and heard, did not by right, and without impropriety, belong to my own thoughts, and form a part of my own property, so long as the record was kept private and secret! Who would suppose that such principles could have been imbibed amidst the liberal ideas of England? Do they not rather partake of the odious police maxims of the continent? And, after all, what are the contents of this Journal? It describes the sublime language and conduct of the august individual who is the object of it, the incidents of his life, and also many things which are probably not very agreeable to you! But who will have given publicity to these facts? The whole was to have been re-touched, altered, and corrected. Who has prevented this? However, Sir, you may rest assured, that the circumstances which have just taken place shall never induce me to say any thing concerning you which I do not firmly believe to be true.
“In your decision of the 20th of October, you declare that I shall be removed from Longwood, and sent to the Cape of Good Hope. From the form and language of this decision, it might naturally be supposed that it was hostile to my wishes; while, in reality, you thereby pronounce a sentence which is now, and has been for many days past, foreign to the new question that has risen up between us. You remove from Longwood one who, twenty days ago, withdrew from the subjection to your authority in which he had voluntarily placed himself; and who, for the last eighteen days, has been formally demanding his removal from the island. Who would ever guess these facts from a perusal of your document? You enclose your decision in a letter, in which you leave me the choice of submitting to your sentence or returning to Longwood. But by embracing the happiness which you thus hold out to me, I should secure to you the triumph and satisfaction of being master of my most private papers; I should again become your captive, and should be liable to the same searches and seizures, whenever you might be pleased to make them.... No, Sir! I can make no choice. I can only repeat what I have already said before. I resign myself to the laws. If I am guilty, let me be tried; if I am not guilty, restore me to liberty. If my papers are unconnected with this affair, return them to me. If you think it proper to submit them to serious examination, transmit them to the English Ministers, and let me be sent with them. Besides, as my own and my son’s health imperatively require every kind of medical assistance, I earnestly implore you to send us to England.
“Nothing was more simple than this affair, and yet it has been involved in difficulty. In vain you refer to your instructions; they never can be made to apply to cases so peculiar as this. Your own wavering determination proves to me that your instructions are neither clear nor precise. You wished at first to keep me on the island in solitary confinement and separated from Longwood; you did not think it right to send me to the Cape. You now torture the literal meaning of your instructions, in order to give them a forced interpretation. But recollect that you will be held responsible to your Government for having misconstrued them, and to me for having violated the law in my person. Recollect that most of your measures will ultimately appear to have been vexatious and arbitrary acts. I know not what rights, what resources, your laws will afford me; but I slumber in this ignorance; for I trust they will protect me in some way or other. You expect to be rid of me when I shall be removed to the Cape, separated from my papers, which you intend to detain in your possession. But even should I be kept a prisoner there, the winds shall waft my complaints hitherward. I will make known the mental wounds and bodily sufferings which you will thus have been the means of aggravating; for, if I should be detained at the Cape, it must be through you, either by your direct orders or secret instructions. Sealed papers cannot be opened except in the presence of the party interested. Will you have me brought back from the Cape, for the purpose of breaking the seals that are affixed to mine? Or will you detain me at the Cape until you receive orders to send my papers to England? What object is to be gained by all this? There was, and still is, a simple mode of arranging every thing! My natural disposition to accommodate made me, as it were, anticipate every difficulty. I was ready to obviate all. I would willingly have subjected myself in England to any preliminary measures, however arbitrary, that might have been equivalent to the quarantine of the Cape. The state of my own and my son’s health was a valid reason for so doing.
“The fear of departing from the literal meaning of any particular point in your instructions has, with you, been more powerful than the necessity and the right of yielding to their spirit, to the force of circumstances, and the feelings of humanity. It is not yet too late to grant what I solicit. I am willing to believe that humanity will determine you; and if so I shall remain your debtor. The circumstance of the papers being claimed at Longwood and by me cannot be regarded as a reasonable obstacle. Besides, it may be asked what you have done to remove it? Do you wish that I should myself write on the subject? Three words would suffice to bring us to an understanding.
“At all events, Sir, whatever determination you may come to, whatever vexation you may reserve for me, nothing can be comparable to what I suffer in being detained on this horrible island, separated from the august individual whom I followed hither. The hours and minutes that I pass in this situation are like years in my unfortunate life, and dangerously aggravate my son’s precarious state of health. I therefore again demand, and shall incessantly demand, that you will remove me from this hated place. I am,” &c.
The Governor was very much vexed by my determination of not returning to Longwood, though I could not exactly guess the reason why. However, my resolution was fully confirmed on the following day, when he came to me, and, after a long and very obscure preamble, respecting his sincerity and good intentions, he told me that, to facilitate my communication with Longwood, he would consent to forward my first letter to Count Bertrand, in the form in which I had myself written it; and moreover to send along with it a copy of all my correspondence; a thing which he had hitherto constantly refused to do. But the more he made concessions, the more firmly I rejected them:—“’Tis too late,” said I, “the die is cast. I have pronounced sentence upon myself. I will not write to Longwood, and I demand, for the hundredth time, that you will remove me hence without further delay.”—“At least, then,” said the Governor, “will you communicate to Longwood my offers and your refusal?”—“I have no objection to do that,” I replied. Sir Hudson Lowe then departed, very much disconcerted, mentioning, as a last inducement, that he could only send us away on board a transport, that he did not know when the vessel might sail, and that there was no medical man on board, which would be a serious inconvenience, considering the state of my son’s health.
OUR REMOVAL FROM BALCOMBE’S COTTAGE TO
THE TOWN.
24th.—My son was exceedingly ill during the night, and I was myself very much indisposed. At daybreak I sent to request the immediate attendance of Doctors Baxter and O’Meara; and, in the extremity of my despair, I also wrote to Sir Hudson Lowe, assuring him that it was impossible we could longer endure the treatment we were now suffering. I reminded him that, in spite of my son’s dangerous condition, it was now more than seven days since we had seen a medical attendant; and that, owing to our inconvenient situation, the Doctors, in spite of their good intentions, found it impossible to visit us. I therefore urged the necessity of our quitting the cottage without delay: and I begged that we might be conveyed to the town, even to the common jail, if he found it necessary. This letter produced an immediate effect. I received, on the return of the orderly, a note from the Governor, stating that I should that day be conveyed to his own residence in the town. In the evening, an officer came to conduct us thither. How anxiously did we turn our eyes towards Longwood at the moment of departure! What were our thoughts and sensations as we proceeded along the road! What a wound was inflicted on my heart when, for the last time, I turned to look on Longwood, and saw it gradually disappear from my sight!
OUR RESIDENCE AT THE GOVERNOR’S CASTLE.—BETTER
TREATMENT, &C.
25th to 28th.—We now found ourselves removed to the Governor’s residence, which is called the Castle. It is a spacious building and agreeably situated. Our condition was now changed very much for the better. We were still guarded by sentinels, it is true; but every thing was under my orders, and there seemed to be an endeavour to furnish us profusely with every thing. “Do not spare,” the major-domo often repeated, “the Honourable East India Company pays for all.” But these tardy attentions produced little effect upon me. I had but one object in view, namely, a prompt decision, and that I could not obtain. The Governor came to me every day, but it was merely to utter a few complimentary phrases, and not a word of my affairs. However, it was now indispensable to come to the point. The endless difficulties that had arisen, and my endeavours to avert them, had kept me in a continual state of agitation; and vexation of mind was combined with grief of heart.
I was absolutely in a critical state when I arrived in the town. The Governor was struck with my extreme debility and the change that had taken place in my appearance. Apparently with the intention of rousing me, Sir Hudson Lowe mentioned that the Emperor had expressed a very great wish to see me before my departure. On hearing this, I was deeply moved. My son afterwards informed me that the Governor appeared very much embarrassed by the condition to which he saw me reduced. However, making an effort to collect my strength, I once more begged that Sir Hudson Lowe would give orders for my removal as speedily as possible. He at length determined that my departure should take place two days afterwards. He informed me that he had procured a ship of war, which would be more suitable for my conveyance, while at the same time I should enjoy the advantage of having a medical attendant on board.
THE EMPEROR’S MESSAGE TO ME.—THE GRAND
MARSHAL’S FAREWELL.
29th.—Early this morning, an officer came to request that we would pack up our things to be conveyed on board the ship, as it was determined that we should depart very shortly. This we looked upon as the hour of our deliverance. In a few minutes, all that we possessed was packed up, and we were in perfect readiness. At length the wished-for moment of departure was at hand. How our feelings vary according to the circumstances in which we happen to be placed. But a short time ago I should have considered it the greatest misfortune that could befal me to be separated from the Emperor, and removed from St. Helena. But my late resolutions, the manifest wish of Sir Hudson Lowe, the positive words of the Emperor: “I request you, and in case of need, I command you, to quit this island;” together with other important observations which fell from him in the course of previous conversation, and which I cannot hint at here, though they are entirely foreign to politics; and finally, the chimeras which my own imagination had conjured up; all now caused me to dread the thought of being longer detained. The hour of departure had already been specified; I nevertheless experienced the most cruel suspense, which the Governor seemed to justify by keeping away nearly the whole of the day. Impatience and anxiety had thrown me into a fever; when, about six o’clock in the evening, the Governor, whom I now despaired of seeing, made his appearance. After a little preamble, in his usual way, he informed me that he had brought the Grand Marshal to take leave of me, and he conducted me into the adjoining apartment, where I had the happiness of embracing that esteemed companion of my exile. The Emperor had instructed the Grand Marshal to tell me that “he should see me desert with pleasure, and see me remain with pleasure.” These were his words. He added, that he knew my heart and my sentiments; and that he reposed full and entire confidence in me. As to the chapters of the Campaign of Italy, which I had requested permission to keep as a dear and precious memento, he granted them without hesitation, as well as any thing else that might happen to be in my possession; for he was pleased to say that, while they were in my hands he should consider them as being still in his own. Sir Hudson Lowe was with us during this interview, at which his presence was indispensable. The Grand Marshal commissioned me to make some purchases of books, and other things, necessary or useful to the Emperor, and he particularly requested me to send the Moniteur. Finally, he took leave of me, telling me significantly to act in all things as I should judge best.
As I expected, the friendship of the Grand Marshal served only to increase my distress. He expressed his regret for my departure, and tried to suggest reasons for inducing me to remain. “His absence,” said he, in a very graceful manner, addressing himself to the Governor, “will be regretted by us all. It will be a loss to the Emperor, and it will even be a loss to you, Sir Hudson Lowe. You will soon be convinced of this.” The Governor replied by an approving bow; and both endeavoured to prevail on me to change my resolution. I could easily guess the Governor’s reasons for this; but I could not so well divine the cause of the Grand Marshal’s entreaties, particularly after the message which he had just delivered to me from the Emperor. Besides, he was aware that, in addition to the numerous powerful motives which urged me to depart, Sir Hudson Lowe, as I believe I have already mentioned, offered not the least concession on his part. He insisted on retaining my papers, and required my implicit submission. By this means, I should, as it were, have legalized all his measures. By the precedent thus granted I should have authorized him to seize and imprison any one of us, whenever he might take a fancy to do so. I could not, without the Emperor’s express command, submit to such outrages; and, therefore, I firmly resisted them.