LETTER OF COUNT LAS CASES TO LORD LIVERPOOL.
My Lord,—I have this instant received a long letter from Count Bertrand; and at the same moment, to my great surprise, have seen that letter printed in the Vrai Liberal, of Brussels, re-translated from the Morning Chronicle of London.
To inform your Lordship how that has happened is beyond my power; but I can assure you, with great truth, that it is without my participation, and that I sincerely regret the circumstance. I can only explain it by supposing that one of your countrymen only consented to take charge of the packet from Longwood, upon condition of receiving it open, and being assured that it concerned the honour of his country; and that, on his arrival in London, he communicated its contents to the public, and forwarded it to me at the same time. Things would not have been so, my Lord, if, agreeably to my continued solicitations, I had obtained permission to reside in England. Persuaded as I am, and as Count Bertrand seems to suspect, that the atrocious vexations and the indignities which are daily inflicted upon Longwood may be unknown to the Administration, it would have been to you, my Lord, who are at the head of that Administration, and to you alone, that I should immediately have applied to inform you of such unheard-of grievances; thus furnishing you with the means, and leaving to you the merit, of redressing them.
I entreat your Lordship to believe that it would have been only after I had in vain exhausted every step required by decorum, after I had, in vain, applied, in the order of their rank, to the different authorities, that I should have adopted the extreme measure of addressing myself at last to public opinion, which will only be appealed to and pronounced[pronounced] in the last instance. I gave a proof of this disposition, my Lord, when, after eight months of absolute silence on the part of Lord Bathurst, to the statement which I addressed to his Lordship of various grievances, of which I had the honour of asking redress at his hands, and which I should, at least, have been justified in publishing, I did not however do so, until some ill-timed observations of one of your Members of the House of Commons rendered it a matter of positive necessity. I gave a proof of it, my Lord, at the period of the earnest entreaties which my heart prompted me to make at Aix-la-Chapelle, when I carefully transmitted to Lord Castlereagh himself a copy of the solicitations and complaints which I respectfully laid at the feet of the Allied Sovereigns. Lastly, my Lord, it is to give, as much as lies in my power, an additional proof of that disposition, that I hastily cause a copy to be made of the letter of Count Bertrand, in order that your Lordship may possess direct and authentic knowledge of that document, and lay it before his Royal Highness the Prince Regent.
A prey to bodily sufferings, caused by the insalubrious climate of St. Helena, as well as to the moral sufferings by which my separation was aggravated; the deplorable state of my health is such that every kind of application is forbidden to me by the faculty. I cannot, therefore, add any thing to the letter, of which I have the honour of addressing you a copy. Besides, what commentary could equal the bare recital of the facts which it contains?
I have the honour to be, with the highest consideration, my Lord, &c.
P. S.—After having addressed your Lordship on the subject of interests of so high and sacred an importance, may I be allowed to take advantage of the opportunity thus naturally afforded to descend to the consideration of objects that are merely personal to me?
Am I not to expect any redress, or to obtain any answer concerning the numerous grievances of which I have complained? Am I, above all, to continue to be deprived of the papers which have now been detained at St. Helena two years, notwithstanding the many protestations which I made to Sir Hudson Lowe himself; notwithstanding the letter which I had the honour of addressing to his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, on that subject, from the Cape of Good Hope; the letter which I wrote to one of your colleagues from the same place, and on the same subject; and, lastly, notwithstanding the letter which I addressed to Lord Bathurst from Frankfort? Can this obstinate and absolute silence, to demands so just and so often reiterated, be intended as a formal denial of justice? I cannot believe it, my Lord. I know the power and superiority of your laws, and the respect which every Englishman is bound to shew to them, whatever his rank or situation in life may be; and I must therefore suppose that the fault lies with me, who, not knowing how to act, transgress, in all probability, the established rules and formalities. But, in that case, my Lord, would it not be proper, just, and considerate, to inform me of those rules, or even to dispense with them?—My Lord, I demand that favour of your generosity. Those papers, which I allowed Sir Hudson Lowe to peruse at the time, are, from their nature, entirely foreign to the object of the custody of your prisoner; they cannot be of any importance to you in that point of view; and to me they are dear and invaluable beyond all expression.