The Governor, after examining the gunner on oath, and having had him carefully searched, gave him leave to see Napoleon, but Captain Poppleton was ordered not to allow him to speak to the French unless in his presence. This arbitrary condition was resented with quiet, scornful dignity, and the gunner was asked to withdraw. It is hard to believe that a man could be so perversely crooked as Sir Hudson Lowe. How human it was for the exile to long to hear a message from the lips of one who was credited with having seen and spoken to the mother of his son, and how inhuman of Lowe to put any obstacles in the way of his desire being gratified!
The incident became common talk, and in proportion to its circulation, so did Lowe's reputation suffer. It is questionable whether he could have found any one unfeeling enough on the island to justify so despicable an act, except perhaps Sir Thomas Reade, whose baseness in this and other transactions cannot be adequately described, and whose nature seems to have been ingrained with the daily thought of achieving distinction by excelling his master in some form of cruelty.
It is a piteous reflection to think of these two plants of grace, the one at all times imbued with the idea of some sanguinary plan of punishment, while the other varied the plan of his doubtful transactions, at the same time telling the exiles that he was actuated by the sweetest and purest of motives.
In contrast to Lowe and Reade, the chroniclers speak in the highest praise of Major Gorriquer. The officers and soldiers of the garrison, as well as the men of the navy, extended their touching sympathy to the hero who described his imprisonment as being worse than "Tamerlane's iron cage." Captain Maitland, in his narrative, relates a story which indicates the magnetic power of this great soldier. Maitland was anxious to know what his men thought of Napoleon, so he asked his servant, who told him that he had heard several of them talking about him, and one of them had observed, "Well, they may abuse that man as much as they please; but if the people of England knew him as well as we do, they would not hurt a hair of his head." To which the others agreed.
There are many instances recorded where sailors ran the risk of being shot in order that they might get a glimpse of him, and there is little doubt the poor gunner-messenger was subjected to inimitable moral lectures on the sin and pains and penalties of having any communication whatsoever with the ungentle inhabitants of Longwood. This good-hearted fellow was as carefully shadowed as though he had been commissioned to carry the Emperor off. Lowe was infected with the belief that he had some secret designs, and if he were not kept under close supervision he might take to sauntering on his own account and really have some talk with the French, and then what might happen? This episode was brought to a close by the Emperor directing that a kind letter should be written to the enterprising sailor, and that a draft for £300 should be enclosed. O'Meara says, "By means of some unworthy trick he did not receive it for nearly two years."
The reason so much is made of the bust affair is accounted for as follows:—
Lowe, on first hearing of it being landed, intended to have it seized and thrown into the sea. He afterwards took possession of the article, with the idea of making Napoleon a present of it himself. This idea did not pan out as he expected, and in consequence of public indignation running so high, he had the bust sent to Longwood immediately after his conversation with Bertrand. While Las Cases was waiting at Mannheim in the hope that the pathetic appeals he had made to the sovereigns on behalf of Napoleon would bring to him a favourable decision, the Dalmatian gunner heard of him. He was passing through Germany to his home after a fruitless attempt in London to get the money Napoleon had enclosed in his letter. The reason given was that the persons on whom it was drawn were not then in possession of the necessary funds. Las Cases paid him, and received his appropriate blessings for his goodness. Imprecations against Lowe were lavishly bestowed by the gunner. He had been prevented from landing at St. Helena on his way back from India, and but for this spiteful act of Lowe's the money would have been paid at once.
Meanwhile the touching appeals of Las Cases to the sovereigns were unheeded. Even Napoleon's father-in-law, the Emperor of Austria, who had given his daughter in marriage to the arbiter of Europe, did not deign to reply, though only a brief time before he had received many tokens of magnanimity from the French Emperor. So, indeed, had other kings and queens of that time, not excluding Alexander of Russia; but more hereafter about these monarchs who had once clamoured for the honour of alliances with Napoleon and with his family, but who now were conspirators in the act of a great assassination.
Some three years before, Lord Keith was horrified when Captain Maitland informed him on board the Bellerophon, in Torbay, that the Duke of Rovigo, Lallemand, Montholon, and Gourgaud had said that their Emperor would not go to St. Helena, and if he were to consent, they would prevent it, meaning that they would end his existence rather than witness any further degradation of him. Lord Keith is indignant, and replies to Sir Frederick Maitland, "You may tell those gentlemen who have threatened to be Bonaparte's executioners that the law of England awards death to murderers, and that the certain consequence of such an act will be finishing their career on a gallows." Precisely!
The noble lord's fascinating little speech is quite in accord with justice, but did he ever raise a finger to prevent his colleagues and their renowned deputy from committing the same crime at St. Helena, and after this same Bonaparte's demise, were any steps taken to call to account those whom the great soldier had consistently declared were causing his premature death? Lord Keith, with his eyes uplifted to heaven, had said, "England awards death to murderers," and in this we are agreed, but there must be no fine distinction drawn as to who the perpetrators are or their reason for doing it. Whether a person for humanity's sake is despatched by a friendly pistol-shot or the process of six years of refined cruelty, the crime is the same, the only difference being (if life has to be taken) that it is more merciful it should be done expeditiously.