[266] [The book in question was The Substance of some Letters written by an Englishman in Paris, 1816 (by J. C. Hobhouse). It was inscribed "To the Emperor Napoleon." Lowe's excuse was that Hobhouse had submitted the work to his inspection, and suggested that if the Governor did not think fit to give it to Napoleon, he might place it in his own library. (See Napoleon in Exile, 1822, i. 85-87; and Forsyth, 1853, i. 193.)]
[dy] Weep to survey the Tamer of the Great.—[MS.]
[267] [Lieutenant-General Sir Hudson Lowe, K.C.B. (1769-1844), was the son of an army surgeon, John Hudson Lowe. His mother was Irish. He was appointed Governor of St. Helena, August 23, 1815, and landed in the island April 14, 1816. Byron met him at Lord Holland's, before he sailed for St. Helena, and was not impressed by his remarks on Napoleon and Waterloo (Letters, 1901, v. 429). He was well-intentioned, honourable, and, in essentials, humane, but he was arrogant and tactless. The following sentence, from a letter written by Lowe to O'Meara, October 3, 1816 (Forsyth, i. 318, 319), is characteristic: "With respect to the instructions I have received, and my manner of making them known, never having regarded General Bonaparte's opinions in any point whatever as to matter or manner, as an oracle or criterion by which to regulate my own judgment, I am not disposed to think the less favourably of the instructions, or my mode of executing them." It must, however, be borne in mind that this was written some time after Lowe's fifth and last interview with his captive (Aug. 18, 1816); that Napoleon had abused him to his face and behind his back, and was not above resorting to paltry subterfuges in order to defy and exasperate his "paltry gaoler.">[
[268] {546}[There is reason to think that "the staring stranger" was the traveller Captain Basil Hall (1788-1844), who called upon Byron at Venice (see Letters, 1900, iv. 252), but did not see him. His account of his interview with Napoleon is attached to his narrative of a Voyage to Java, 1840. It is not included in the earlier editions of Hall's Voyage to the Corea and the Loochoo Islands, but is quoted by Scott, in his Life of Napoleon, 1827.]
[269] [Barry Edward O'Meara (1786-1836) began life as assistant-surgeon to the 62nd Regiment, then stationed in Sicily and Calabria. In 1815 he was surgeon on board the Bellerophon, under Captain F. L. Maitland. Napoleon took a fancy to him because he could speak Italian, and, as his own surgeon Mengeaud would not follow him into exile, requested that O'Meara might accompany him, in the Northumberland, to St. Helena. His position was an ambiguous one. He was to act as Napoleon's medical and, quoad hoc, confidential attendant, but he was not to be subservient to him or dependent on him. At St. Helena Lowe expected him to be something between an intermediary and a spy, and, for a time, O'Meara discharged both functions to the Governor's satisfaction (statements by Dr. O'Meara are quoted by Lowe in his letter to Lord Bathurst [Life of Napoleon, etc., by Sir W. Scott, 1828, p. 763]). As time went on, the surgeon yielded to the glamour of Napoleon's influence, and more and more disliked and resented the necessity of communicating private conversations to Lowe. He "withheld his confidence," with the result that the Governor became suspicious, and treated O'Meara with reprobation and contempt. At length, on July 18, 1818, on a renewed accusation of "irregularities," Lord Bathurst dismissed him from his post, and ordered him to quit St. Helena. He returned to England, and, October 28, 1818, addressed a letter (see Forsyth's Napoleon, etc., iii. 432, 433) to J. W. Croker, the Secretary to the Admiralty, in which he argued against the justice of his dismissal. One sentence which asserted that Lowe had dwelt upon the "benefit which would result to Europe from the death of Napoleon," was seized upon by Croker as calumnious, and in answer to his remonstrance, O'Meara's name was struck off the list of naval surgeons. He published, in 1819, a work entitled Exposition of some of the Transactions that have taken place at St. Helena since the appointment of Sir Hudson Lowe as Governor, which was afterwards expanded into Napoleon in Exile, or a Voice from St. Helena (2 vols., 1822). The latter work made a great sensation, and passed through five editions. It was republished in 1888. O'Meara was able, and generously disposed, but he was not "stiff" (vide infra, 489). "He was," says Lord Rosebery (Napoleon, The Last Phase, 1900, p. 31), "the confidential servant of Napoleon: unknown to Napoleon, he was the confidential agent of Lowe; and behind both their backs he was the confidential informant of the British Government.... Testimony from such a source is ... tainted." Neither men nor angels will disentangle the wheat from the tares.]
[270] {547}[Buonaparte died the 5th of May, 1821.]
[271] [At the end of vol. ii. of O'Meara's Voice, etc. (ed. 5), there is a statement, signed by Count Montholon, to the effect that he wished the following inscription to be placed on Napoleon's coffin—
"Napoléon.
Né à Ajaccio le 15 Août, 1769,
Mort à Ste. Hélène le 5 Mai, 1821;"