No wonder that this Ministry of little men were suspected of tricks degrading and treacherous. The recitals of their distorted versions of their woes affected the public imagination like a dreary litany. Vast communities of men were beginning to realise that a tragedy was being engineered in the name of sanctity and humanity.
Every agency composed of cunning, unscrupulous rascals was enlisted to picture the Emperor as a hideous monster who should not be allowed to enjoy the liberty so charitably given him, and who, if he got his proper deserts, should be put in chains. He was depicted as having a mania for roaming about the island with a gun, shooting wild cats and anything else that came within range. Madame Bertrand's pet kids, a bullock, and some goats were reported to have fallen victims to this vicious maniac. Old Montchenu and Lowe became alarmed lest he should kill some human being by mistake; they perplexed their little minds as to the form of indictment should such an event happen. Should it be manslaughter or murder? This knotty question was submitted with touching solemnity to the law officers of the Crown for decision, and it may be assumed that even their sense of humour must have been excited when they learned of the quandary of the Governor and the French Commissioner. The shooting propensity set the ingenious Lowe a-thinking, and in order to satisfy it he evolved the idea of having rabbits let adrift, but, as usual, another of his little comforting considerations is abortive, and the plan has a tragic finish. Shooting is off. The Emperor's hobby has changed to gardening. The rabbits become an easy prey to the swarms of rats that prowl about Longwood, and soon disappear.
It is quite probable that Napoleon did have a fancy for shooting, but it is well known he was never at any time a sportsman in the sense of being a good shot—indeed, everything points to his having no taste for what is ordinarily known as sport, and that he ever shot kids, goats, or bullocks is highly improbable. That he occasionally went shooting and got good sport in killing the rats and other vermin which made Longwood an insufferable habitation to live in is quite true. It is also quite true that Lowe became demented with fear in case the shooting should have sanguinary and far-reaching effects. Hence the foregoing communication to the law officers.
There is little doubt as to the use that was made of the ludicrous inquiry by Lowe. It must have been handed over to the army of loathsome libellers—men and women who were willing to do the dirtiest of all work, that of writing and speaking lies (some abominable in their character) of a defenceless man, in order that their vindictiveness should be completely satisfied. Vast sums were annually expended for no other purpose than to put their afflicted prisoner through the torture of a living purgatory.
Napoleon did not heed their silly stories of shooting exploits, though he knew the underlying purpose of them. It was the darker, sordid wickedness that was daily practised on him that ate like a canker into mind and body until he was a shattered wreck. It was the foul treatment of this great man that caused Dr. Barry O'Meara to revolt and openly proclaim that the captive of St. Helena was being put to death. As an honourable man he declared he could behold it no longer without making a spirited protest. He knew that this meant banishment, ostracism, and persecution by the Government. He foresaw that powerful agencies would be at work against him, and that no expense would be spared in order that his statements should be refuted, but he hazarded everything and defied the world. He came through the ordeal, as all impartial judges will admit, with cleaner hands and a cleaner tongue than those who challenged his accuracy.
Make what deductions you may, distort and twist as you like the unimportant trivialities, the main facts related by O'Meara have never been really shaken. What is more, he is backed up by Napoleon himself in Lowe's personal interviews with him, and more particularly by his letters to the Governor—to say nothing of the substantial backing he gets from Las Cases, Montholon, Marchand, and Gourgaud—that shameless, jealous, lachrymose traitor to his great benefactor.
And then there is Santini, whose wish to kill the Governor was not altogether without good reason, and who was deported from the island for this and other infringements of the regulations. The publication of his pamphlet, previously mentioned, created a great sensation, and it sold like wildfire. It was said to be fabrications, but it was not all fabrications. Montholon reports that Napoleon criticised the work, and remarked that some one must have assisted him. Well, so it was. The story was related to Colonel Maceroni, an Italian, by Santini, and put into readable form by him, but this does not detract from that which is really true in it, and a good deal of what O'Meara contends is confirmed therein.
Then O'Meara's successor, Antommarchi, has even a worse story to relate. These chronicles vary only in phrase and detail, and even in these there is wonderful similarity. But when we come down to the bedrock foundation of their complaints, i.e., the policy and treatment by Lowe and his myrmidons, incited by the Home Government and their followers, each record bears the stamp of truth—the indictment is the same though it may be related differently.
Some writers have cast doubt on the authenticity of the St. Helena chroniclers without having a peg to hang their contentions on. The answer to all this is, that if never a line had been written by these men, the State papers, cunningly devised and crafty though most of them are, would have been ample evidence from which to draw unfavourable conclusions. Indeed, without State papers being brought into it at all, there is facing you always the glaring fact of a determined assassination perpetrated in the name of humanity, and if I felt any desire to be assured of this, I would take as an authority William Forsyth's three volumes written in defence of Sir Hudson Lowe. No author has so completely failed to prove his case. Moreover, no valid reason has ever been given, or ever can be, for doubting the veracity of O'Meara and other gentlemen of Napoleon's suite who have written their experiences of the St. Helena period.
In the first place, those sceptical writers who deal with the different books that have been published relative to this part of Napoleon's history were not only not there to witness all that went on, but some of them were not born for many years after Napoleon and his contemporaries had passed on. So that it really narrows itself down to this: the knowledge the sceptics have attained is taken from documents or books written for the most part by the very men who they say are not to be relied on as giving a true version of all that took place during their stay at St. Helena. It cannot be disputed that these gentlemen were in daily and hourly contact with England's prisoner, and, as they aver, jotted down everything that passed in conversation or that transpired in other ways between themselves and the Emperor, or anybody else.