LETTER OF COUNT DE LAS CASES TO LORD BATHURST.
My Lord,—Were I to bear in silence the arbitrary and tyrannical acts, the infraction of the laws, the contempt of all forms, the violation of principles, of which I have been a victim, for upwards of a year that I have been in the hands of your agents, my silence might be construed into a tacit acquiescence, which would render me guilty towards myself, towards you, and towards society at large. Towards myself, because I have ample cause to seek for redress; towards you, who are ignorant of my grounds of complaint, and might perhaps hasten to grant me that redress; and towards society, on whose behalf every upright man ought sternly to resist the encroachments of power, for the honour of the laws, and for the protection of those who come after him.
My Lord, if I have so long delayed stating my grievances to you, the blame attaches to yourself, to the persecution that has assailed me upon your shores, and to that to which you have given the impulse in neighbouring countries. It would appear, in fact, as if a species of torment had been invented for me; a deportation along the high roads. I have been carried from town to town like a malefactor, though I was in a dying state, without any motive having been assigned for such conduct, and without being allowed to take any rest. How then was it possible for me to write to you?
If I now address your Lordship personally respecting what concerns me, it is because all the acts of which I have to complain have originated, and have been continued, in your department, and under your name; and if other hands have since oppressed me, I am indebted to your Lordship for being placed within their reach, and to your suggestions for the treatment which they have inflicted upon me.
My Lord, I am one of the four to which your orders at Plymouth had reduced the number of those who eagerly sought the happiness and glory of following the illustrious victim of the dreadful hospitality of the Bellerophon; I followed my sacred occupation at Longwood to the best of my power; all the faculties of my heart and soul were engaged in soothing the bitterest captivity ever known, when the Governor of St. Helena suddenly tore me away from that island. Perhaps he was right: I had infringed his regulations. But, after all, I was guilty of no other crime than that of using the right, which every prisoner possesses, of endeavouring without any scruple to deceive the vigilance of his gaoler; for between us nothing had been left to delicacy, confidence, or honour. I have not complained of the proceedings enforced against me. I was only grieved at the uncalled-for insult inflicted upon him from whom I was separated. It was almost by his side, almost under his eye, that I was arrested; on which occasion he wrote, what you no doubt will have read, that, seeing me from his windows hurried off on the plain, in the midst of waving plumes and horses prancing around me, he had fancied he saw the savages of the South Sea, who, in their ferocious joy, dance round the victim whom they are about to devour.
My Lord, it was natural for me to believe that the cause of what has happened to me, the confiding of secret documents to my servant at his own request, was but the result of a snare laid for me. The Governor himself agreed with me that appearances might justify my suspicion; but he gave me his word of honour that he had nothing to do in the business, and I believed him. It had originally been intended, however, that those secret documents should pass through the Governor’s hands; they would have been addressed to him, if he had not informed me, a short time before, that if I continued to write in the same style he would separate me from him to whom I devoted my existence. So true is this assertion, and so unimportant in themselves were the documents, that they have never since been mentioned; they have remained entirely unconnected with the event to which they gave rise.[[33]]
My Lord, my captivity in St. Helena was only voluntary. According to your own regulation, it was to cease at my pleasure. As soon, therefore, as I found myself separated from Longwood, I signified to Sir Hudson Lowe, that I, from that moment, withdrew from his personal control, and placed myself again under the protection of the civil and general laws; that if I had committed any offence, I required to be sent into the presence of my judges; that if he thought it necessary to submit to the inspection of Ministers my papers, which I had given him sufficient time to examine and to understand, I desired they might be sent to you, my Lord, and that I might be sent with them. And in order that he should have the less difficulty in taking this determination, I represented to him the dreadful state of my health, and the imminent danger of my son, which required our being sent to where we might procure the first medical advice; and I further added that I submitted willingly and unreservedly to every restriction, however illegal, that your Lordship might deem it necessary to impose upon me when I should have arrived in England. Sir Hudson Lowe did not think himself at liberty to take this step; and, after he had long hesitated, and had kept me a close prisoner in the Island for five or six weeks, he at last sent me off to the Cape of Good Hope, according to the letter of his instructions; a measure which he might and certainly ought to have adopted within a few days after my arrest. This Governor, at the same time, kept back such of my papers as he thought proper, without allowing me to affix my seal to them, or he would only allow me to do so under the derisive condition of my express consent to his breaking the seal in my absence if he thought proper, which was equivalent to a prohibition of sealing them at all.
By the aid of such subterfuges, Sir Hudson Lowe might likewise assert that it was in my power to return to Longwood; it is true, that, being urged by my arguments and by the delicacy of his position with respect to me, he offered to let me go back thither, because that would have released him from his embarrassment. But at the same time that he made the offer, he rendered it impossible for me to accept it: ‘You have disgraced me and dishonoured me,’ said I to him, ‘in arresting me in Napoleon’s presence; I could no longer be an object of consolation to him, but one rather that would bring painful and injurious recollections to his mind. I could not appear again at Longwood except at his express desire.’ I asked leave to write; I did even write to inquire whether there existed such a wish; but Sir Hudson Lowe insisted upon dictating or controlling the expressions of my letter, and I was bound to refuse. His advantages were by far too great already, placed as he was amongst close prisoners, whose actions he separately directed at his will. Besides, if I even went back, he did not consent to return me my papers. The very next day he might renew upon me, or upon my unfortunate companions, the example of such degrading acts of authority; I had the grief of having opened the door to such an abuse of power, and my return would give to it the sanction of precedent for the future: no alternative, was, therefore, left to me, but to quit the Island with an aching heart.
I think, my Lord, I have stated to you every thing relating to my affairs at St. Helena; this account is proved and developed in my correspondence with Sir Hudson Lowe, all the documents of which, carefully arranged and put in order by myself, were seized in the Thames by your directions, and are at present in your possession.
My Lord, when I arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, I thought myself better situated for enjoying the protection of your laws. Away from the fatal island, where certain irregularities might perhaps find a colouring in the importance of the motive which had occasioned them, I found myself at a distance of five hundred leagues, in a quiet colony, governed by the uncontrolled operation of your excellent laws, so deservedly extolled. How great was my astonishment! Lord Charles Somerset found no difficulty in doing at the Cape what Sir Hudson Lowe had not dared to do at St. Helena—to detain me a prisoner. In vain I made the same entreaties, and urged the same arguments; in vain I offered the same concessions that I offered to Sir Hudson Lowe, in order that I might be sent to your Lordship in Europe; all was useless: he detained me. And this was an act of his own will and caprice, for Sir Hudson Lowe was not his superior, and could not therefore give him any orders. Lord Charles Somerset governed without controul; he held a discretionary power; he could and ought to have been a summary judge in my affair, but he constantly refused to listen to me, rejected all explanation, and, notwithstanding my warm and urgent representations, contented himself with coolly inquiring of my natural judges, at a distance of three thousand leagues, whether he should do right in sending me to them; thereby inflicting upon me, from that moment, the most dreadful sentence that any tribunal could ever have pronounced; an exile, and an imprisonment of seven or eight months’ duration, separated by three thousand leagues from my family, my private affairs, my country, my connexions, and all my affections.
My Lord, according to the sanctity of your laws, and to the principles which have been transmitted to you by your forefathers, Lord Charles Somerset has become guilty towards me of the greatest of crimes; a crime which in the eyes of many people is equal to that of homicide, and which, from the torments I have been made to endure, exceeds it in mine. I denounce it to you, and demand justice at your hands. There is not an Englishman, valuing his noble privileges, whose voice does not unite with mine, and who does not form to himself a correct idea of the torments I have suffered. In vain it will be alleged that the Cape is but a colony governed by a military power, and still, to a certain extent, by Dutch laws. My Lord, the justice and protection of the British laws ought to reign wherever the British name extends. What would be a crime on the banks of the Thames cannot be a matter of indifference in a part of Africa over which the British standard waves.
I was not a prisoner of war; I could only be a prisoner amenable to the tribunals. To have kept me eight months separate from my judges is a denial of justice that would make an Englishman shudder; to have punished me without either trial or sentence is an act of tyranny which is revolting to your legislation. What did I ask of Lord Charles Somerset? Did I demand my liberty? No; I only requested that I might be sent a prisoner to you, and undergo a trial, if there was cause for one. But he sported in this instance with that which reason holds most sacred, which is most pleasing to the heart, and dearest to man. What could be his motives? What excuses could he plead? He constantly and obstinately refused to give any. And here, my Lord, I desire it may be understood that indignation and grief do not carry me so far as not to distinguish in Lord Charles Somerset the private attentions with which he endeavoured to soften my captivity from the infamy of the public act by which he doomed me to it; although it is true that, towards the end of my residence, the warmth of my expressions, and no doubt the importunity of my appeals, exasperated him so far as to induce him to keep me confined in the country, in spite of my entreaties and of the deplorable state of my health, out of the daily reach of physicians and medicines.
At last, my Lord, after a captivity of seven months, it was signified to me, no doubt in consequence of orders arrived from your Lordship, that I had only to procure a vessel to carry me to England. In vain I asked that some opportunity might be selected, which would afford some of those comforts which the distressing state of my health, and that of my son, required; every suitable ship was refused me under some pretence or other; and the choice that was left to me was reduced to the only vessel on the eve of sailing; and even that was pointed out to me by the Governor himself. I was compelled to embark in it as a prisoner, and yet at my own expense; (this, by the way, appears a little contradictory;) and in this brig, of the burden of two hundred and thirty tons, and having a crew of twelve men, we had to endure a voyage of nearly one hundred days, without a physician, and subject to all the inconveniences, all the privations, all the evils, attendant upon so small a vessel.
This, my Lord, is all that concerns my affair at the Cape of Good Hope, the proof and particulars of which are to be found in my correspondence with Lord Charles Somerset, which was seized in the Thames by your orders, and is at present in your possession.
On reaching your shores, my Lord, I thought I had arrived at the end of my troubles. On my arrival at the Cape, I had the honour of addressing a letter to the Prince Regent, to implore his royal protection; I had also written one to your Lordship upon the same subject, and I had no doubt that the order given for my return was owing to those letters. Already I felt my sufferings alleviated by the pleasing prospect of seeing some friends I have in London, and of resuming the management of my private affairs, which had been either neglected, or totally ruined, during an absence of upwards of three years; but what was my surprise! On arriving in the Thames, I was instantly placed in solitary confinement, and had seals put upon my papers. A few hours afterwards, one of your messengers came to seize my person in the middle of the night, signified to me the order for my being conveyed to the Continent, and conducted me to Dover for the purpose of sending me thither. A delay of three days having occurred, his zeal led him to turn this time to account: he restored my papers to me; procured me every facility for writing; did all he could to encourage me to write, and watched for the very last moment previous to my departure, in order to make the most minute search after my papers, and carry every one of them away, to the very last written line. This, my Lord, is a kind of snare which I am far from attributing to any other cause than to the baseness of the person who laid it.
A similar circumstance had occurred at St. Helena. Sir Hudson Lowe, after having kept me confined for five weeks, during which he had allowed me every facility to write, wished at my departure to search again amongst my papers; but it was sufficient for me to observe to him how strange it would appear that he had afforded me the facility of confiding to paper ideas which I should otherwise have kept within my own breast. Sir Hudson Lowe instantly gave up the thought; it is an acknowledgment which, in justice to the Governor, I am bound to make.
What appears most strange, my Lord, and what will hardly be credited, is, that your messenger should have packed up all my papers, in spite of my remonstrances, and have taken them away from me, without writing down an inventory of them, or attending to any of the formalities required by all received notions of jurisprudence throughout the world. Persuaded that this deviation from first principles proceeded from the ignorance of the subaltern, and not from the orders of the Minister, I sought for your own interest, my Lord, to remedy the evil, by obtaining, and hastening to affix my seal to the papers, in order that you might rectify in time the errors of your agents. I am anxious that your Lordship should appreciate the motive of this proceeding; it was solely intended, as will be made evident to you by the nature of my papers, to afford you an insight into my character and a proof of my moderation. I had the honour of writing to Lord Sidmouth to this effect, on the spur of the moment, and of pointing out to him, at the same time, how necessary my presence would be at the examination of my papers, which are very easily understood by the most trifling explanation from myself, but which might remain quite unintelligible in my absence. Lord Sidmouth has not honoured me with a reply.
Your agent, however, my Lord, outstepping the bounds of that decency and generous feeling which particularly characterize the individuals of your nation, contrived to add more bitterness to his mission than could well be imagined. After having offended me once, by grossly insulting the person whom I venerate above all others in this world, he heaped upon myself every expression of insult which language affords, for no other reason than that I would not enter into conversation with him. He had received your orders to guard me; but could he suppose that you wished to extend your power so far as to force me to associate with him? This man had an assistant, of whom I have no reason to complain, although he took a part in inflicting the treatment I experienced; I could, however, occasionally remark a certain reserve in him towards me; and he was besides urged on and excited by the other.
Your messenger, my Lord, in signifying to me, in the middle of the night, the order for my removal, left me no other choice than Calais or Ostend. I had hardly recovered from my surprise, when I had to make an immediate decision. A few hours afterwards, I asked, upon further reflection, whether I could not be allowed to go to America, or to some other part of the Continent. The messenger replied in the negative, and that he had already written to the Government, to communicate the choice I had made; I again urged the subject, but he assured me he was persuaded that all my endeavours would be vain. Could his assertion be true, my Lord? I have difficulty in believing it; nevertheless it determined my fate.
I have seen, but have not been allowed to hold in my hands, the order of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, which commands me instantly to quit England. Was this refusal a mere matter of form? Was it a precaution taken? Would this royal act involve any responsibility, or was it feared that I might pride myself upon it? And, in fact, could it be otherwise, when, without laying any crime to my charge, it seemed only to punish an act of the most rare devotedness, that of a servant sacrificing himself with his master when fortune had deserted him.
My Lord, when your Lordship limited my choice, I selected Ostend in preference to Calais, from pure motives of delicacy suggested to me by tender love of my country; it would have been too painful to me that my countrymen should ever be accused of having persecuted me for a virtuous action. This conduct on their part might perhaps, however, have been at least excusable; on yours, my Lord, my removal from England proceeded from a mere caprice, a severity that nothing can palliate.
I am now, however, upon the Continent, where I have been thrown by you against my will. Allow me, my Lord, to pause here for a moment. I know every circumstance of my life; and happily there is not a corner in Europe where I may not tread with an easy heart, an open countenance, and a firm step. But you, my Lord, who neither have the leisure, nor the will, nor the means of inquiring into my obscure career, if by chance I had been brought into danger through the effects of political dissensions, during the existence of which, all actions that are proscribed are not therefore crimes, if I had fallen a sacrifice, I should have been called a victim; but you, my Lord, who would have delivered me up, what name might not have been given to you? Were you not exposing yourself to have it said of you, ‘Whilst the English legislature prides itself upon having abolished the trade of black slaves in the islands of America, the British Ministers are trading in white flesh on the continent of Europe!’
My Lord, in consequence of the impulse which your Lordship has given to my destinies, I have been seized and conducted across the kingdom of the Netherlands like a malefactor; and, though in a dying state, have been treated without mercy. I have loudly complained of this conduct. On this subject, my Lord, shall I venture to repeat to you some unpleasant truths that were told me? But why not? All your countrymen have a right to tell the truth fearlessly to a British Minister, and this is much more incumbent upon a foreigner who has such just motives of complaint and sorrow. Well then, my Lord, when I complained of so revolting an abuse of power against me, I was asked from what part of the world I came, and whence proceeded my astonishment? Some persons said to me, ‘We have a good King; do not find fault with him; he is only the instrument that strikes you; the tyrannical hand that wields it is farther off.’ Others added, ‘The English nation had settlements in India a long time since for the benefit of its commerce, and the English Ministers are now establishing some upon the Continent to favour their despotism. When their authority is eluded in England, they protract it upon the Continent. They have placed amongst us their instruments of torture and their executioners, and you will neither escape from their inquisition, nor from the punishments it inflicts.’ Then followed a volley of animadversions and imprecations against England and Englishmen. No doubt, my Lord, that people who are wise, well informed, and free from passions, are not mistaken on this subject, and know with whom alone the blame rests. They can very well distinguish the excellence of the laws from their violation, and from the abuse of power; they know that true Englishmen abhor and detest all species of tyranny, whether at home or abroad; that in their island they are the most ardent defenders, the most zealous guardians, of the great and noble truths which upon our Continent are the objects of our hopes and of our wishes. But the majority of the people do not consider the question so closely; they find it the shortest way to attack a whole nation, and to involve it in one general condemnation.
But, my Lord, what is, after all, my crime? I demand what can be the motive of so cruel a persecution? and the countries in which that persecution has been continued by the impulse which you have given, unite with me in demanding it. Every where the authorities, who have exercised their jurisdiction over my person, have carefully avoided seeing me. The rights which I possessed would have embarrassed them, and they could not have assigned any motive for their acts. They are ignorant of the origin and of the cause of them. From the Cape of Good Hope to the place where I now am, whenever I have asked what sentence had been pronounced, what charge had been preferred against me, I have been answered by the production of an order; and when I have required a motive to be assigned, I have received no answer at all.
My Lord, I had the honour of addressing to you from the Cape the following observations, which I now repeat:—What rational objection can be raised against the wish which I expressed to inhabit your country, and to reside among you? Was it feared that I should converse and write upon political subjects? But if I had, what inconvenience could result therefrom to England? Was it feared that I should publish unwelcome complaints respecting your administration? But is there a spot on the Continent where I am forbidden to give vent to those complaints, and where I should not find every body disposed to listen to them? Placed on your own territory, and within your reach, was not that the situation in which you would have had the surest hold upon me, and the greatest authority over me? If I became guilty, had you not your general laws? If I became obnoxious, had you not your private laws; and, moreover, your Alien Bill? Lastly, and above all, you had, as a pledge of my reserve and moderation, my wish to remain near you. That wish was great, my Lord, and I will tell you why. My residence in England would have enabled me to fulfil the hopes and the destiny of my life, by devoting myself for ever to procure (consistently with your regulations, and through the legal channel allowed by you) some consolations and comforts for him for whom I mourn. I suppose, my Lord, that you and your colleagues have a sufficient degree of elevation of mind to fulfil, on this occasion, a political duty, and at the same time, to remain strangers to all motives of personal animosity. Having secured the safe custody of the captive, you cannot grudge the enjoyment of any indulgence that is not a burden to you; you will, on the contrary, facilitate the means of his obtaining them. I implore, therefore, to be allowed to undertake the sacred duty of bestowing them; my heart feels the want of fulfilling it: I will do it in good faith. I should have convinced you, my Lord, had I been able to see you, and I do not despair yet; I still solicit again....
I had also considered, my Lord, I must confess, that another chance of my admission existed in the wish which your Lordship must have felt to take advantage of so favourable an opportunity to learn the truth. I thought that both your situation and your character would prompt you to do so. And what conflicting evidence would you not thus have obtained to direct you in your noble functions as jury! I should have replied to all your questions with candour and without passion; I should have convinced you quietly, if you had wished it, of all the errors in which the multiplicity and importance of your affairs compel you to remain with respect to us. I have read in three different papers, the Times, the New Times, and the London Chronicle, your answer to Lord Holland, on his motion relative to St. Helena; and I can assure you that almost every line of it is founded on error.
God forbid, my Lord, that I should suspect that you do not believe yourself what you state! But your information has been erroneous. Your Lordship has affirmed, for instance, that none of the relations of the Emperor Napoleon had written to him; whereas I myself delivered to him three or four letters, sent by you through Sir Hudson Lowe, from Madame Mère, from the Princess Borghese, and from his brother Lucien. The fact in itself, my Lord, is unimportant; but the want of accuracy on this point must excite your doubts upon others, and corroborate, in some degree, my assertions upon the remainder. Again, that part of your speech concerning myself is so garbled that, notwithstanding the unfavourable prejudice which I have a right to entertain against Sir Hudson Lowe, I am persuaded that he will himself exclaim against the incorrectness of the statement. Be that as it may, my Lord, in the heat of opposition, and of conflicting parties, two true conclusions are invariably drawn from the same fact, and my conclusion cannot possibly be precisely yours. The public are aware of this, and would therefore have wished to establish theirs upon official documents. But you have thought proper to refuse to produce these documents; will you not have thereby fixed public opinion?
My Lord, it is time to sum up, after so long a statement.
1.—I demand justice and redress for the abuse of power, the arbitrary and tyrannic act, by which Lord Charles Somerset deprived me of my liberty during so long a period, and in direct violation of the laws of his country.
2.—I demand justice and redress for the irregular forms with which all my papers have been seized in the Thames, without an inventory having been made of them, notwithstanding all my remonstrances.
3.—I demand justice and redress for having been sent to the Continent as a captive, in open violation of all principles, and, in consequence of an impulse given, or instructions transmitted, obliged to pass through the Netherlands and adjacent countries as a malefactor.
4.—I demand the examination and prompt restitution of my papers seized in the Thames. Most of them had been respected by Sir Hudson Lowe, and others are absolutely necessary to me in the daily occurrences of my domestic affairs; they contain all my titles of property and fortune; without them I am deprived of every thing.
5.—I demand the restitution of my papers of St. Helena, the inventory of which, duly certified and signed by Sir Hudson Lowe, is amongst the papers that have been seized in the Thames. My papers of St. Helena consist almost solely of a manuscript, in which are recorded, day by day, during eighteen months, but as yet confusedly, and without being settled, the conversations, the words, and perhaps even the gestures, of him who so long guided the destinies of Europe.
This manuscript, sacred by its nature and its object, was unknown, and was intended to remain unknown to all. I allowed Sir Hudson Lowe to peruse it sufficiently to be convinced of its inoffensive nature in political matters. On arriving at the Cape, I had the honour to write to the Prince Regent, through the channel of Ministers, as well as to Ministers themselves, to place these precious materials under their special protection; I appealed to them in the name of justice and of history. They are, according to all laws, my sacred property, the property of my children, and of posterity.
6.—Lastly, and above all, I demand the restoration of the letter which the Emperor Napoleon did me the honour to address to me in my prison, in the Island of St. Helena. A letter entirely foreign to politics, read by the Governor of St. Helena, read by Ministers themselves, if they have thought proper to do so, cannot, consistently with any code of laws, be taken from the person whose property it is, however strong it may be in the tenor of its confidential expressions. This sacred and precious object is the reward of my life, a title for my children, a monument for my family.
My Lord, as I am by nature and reflection a friend to propriety and moderation, it is to you that I first address the enumeration of my grievances. It is of you alone that I quietly ask their redress.[[34]] But if your Lordship should not think proper to reply, it is then to your tribunal that I shall feel compelled to appeal; after that to the tribunal of public opinion; and lastly, and above all, to that dread tribunal, which, holding the balance with an equal hand between tyrants and victims, secures in eternity the infallible triumph of all rights and the final chastisement of all injustice.
“I have the honour to be,” &c.
It was about this time that my petition to the British Parliament also appeared. I had forwarded it from the deserts of Tygerberg to London: but, whether it did not reach its address, or whether obstacles occurred to its being brought forward, not a word had been said about it. My return brought the circumstance to light. A member of the House of Commons, struck with the sensation which its publication had just caused, offered to present it himself; and for that purpose a paper was sent to me from England, to which I affixed my signature. But this formality was not sufficient; and this circumstance, added perhaps to other considerations, prevented its being laid before the House. I transcribe it here. It is so nearly allied to my subject that I trust I shall be forgiven for so doing. Besides, that document and others which are found in this volume have been mutilated, disfigured, and re-translated into French from a foreign text: I am therefore interested in their being restored in all their integrity. Besides, if they were not found here they might be considered as apocryphal, and that is what I wish to avoid.