MY CONVERSATION WITH AN ENGLISHMAN.
26th.—The Emperor continued indisposed.
One of the English gentlemen, whose wife had yesterday been refused admittance, in company with the Admiral, paid me a visit this morning, with the view of making another and a final attempt to get presented to Napoleon. This gentleman spoke French very well, having resided in France during the whole of the war. He was one of those individuals who were known at the time by the title of detenus: who, having visited France as travellers, were arrested there by the First Consul, on the rupture of the treaty of Amiens, by way of reprisal for the seizure of our merchant-ships by the English Government, according to its custom, before the declaration of war. This event gave rise to a long and animated discussion between the two Governments; and even prevented, during the whole of the war, a cartel for the exchange of prisoners. The English ministers persisted in refusing to consider their detained countrymen as prisoners, lest they should, in so doing, make an implicit renunciation of what may perhaps be called their right of piracy. However, their obstinacy cost their countrymen a long captivity. They were detained in France more than ten years; their absence was as long and as irksome, though not so glorious, as that of the besiegers of Troy.
This English gentleman was a brother-in-law of Admiral Burton, the Commander on the Indian station, who lately died. This circumstance might very possibly procure for him an immediate communication with Ministers on his arrival in England. He might perhaps have been appointed by the Admiral to be the bearer of intelligence respecting us. Instead, therefore, of declining conversation, I prolonged it. It lasted more than two hours, and was all calculated on my part with a view to what he might repeat to the Admiral, or communicate to the Government or private circles in England. I will not tire my readers by a recital of it. They would only find the same eternal recapitulation of our reproaches and grievances: a repetition of our complaints and vexations: a continued exposure of the violation of those laws that are esteemed most sacred; of the outrage on our good faith; of the arrogance, impudence, and petty insolence of power. I dwelt particularly on the ill-treatment to which we were here exposed; and on the caprices of the individual who was appointed our keeper. “His glory,” said I, “should consist, not in oppressing, but in relieving us. He should endeavour to make us forget, by his attentions, all the rigour and injustice of his country’s policy. Can he court the reprobation of mankind, when his good fortune enables him to connect his name gloriously with that of the man of the age, the hero of history? Can he object that he is bound by his instructions? But even then, in the spirit of our European manners, honour enables him to interpret them in a suitable manner.”
The Englishman listened to me with great attention. He seemed occasionally to take particular interest in what I said; and expressed his approbation of several of my remarks. But was he sincere, and will he not express very different sentiments in London?
Whenever a ship arrives in England from St. Helena, the public papers immediately give insertion to various stories relative to the captives at Longwood, of so false and absurd a nature, as must necessarily render them ridiculous to the great mass of the public. When we expressed our indignation at these idle reports in the presence of honourable and distinguished Englishmen here, they replied: “Do not deceive yourselves, these false accounts proceed not from our countrymen who visit you; but from our Ministers in London; for, to the excess and violence of power, the administration by which we are now ruled adds all the meanness of the lowest and vilest intrigues.”
ON THE FRENCH EMIGRANTS.—KINDNESS SHEWN BY
THE ENGLISH.—RESOURCES OF THE EMIGRANTS.
27th.—The Emperor felt himself better, and rode out on horseback about one o’clock. On his return he received the officers of the 53rd, and behaved to them in the most amiable and condescending manner.
After this visit, the Emperor, who had desired me to remain with him, walked in the garden. I there gave him an account of the conversation I had had the day before with the Englishman. He then asked me some questions relative to the French emigrants, London, and the English. I told him that though the emigrants in a body did not like the English, yet there were few who did not become attached to some Englishman or other: that though the English were not fond of the emigrants, yet there were few English families who did not shew themselves friendly to some of the French. This is the real key to those sentiments and reports, so often contradictory, that are met with on the subject. With regard to the kindness we received from the English, particularly the middle class, from whom the character of a nation is always to be learned, it is beyond all expression, and has entailed a heavy debt of gratitude upon us. It would be difficult to enumerate the private benefactions, the benevolent institutions, and the charitable measures, by which our distresses were relieved. The example of individuals induced the Government to assist us by regular allowances; and even when these were granted, private benevolence did not cease.
The Emperor here asked me whether I had been a sharer in the grants supplied by the English Government: I told him that I had felt more pleasure in being indebted for support solely to my own exertions; and that the state of society and encouragement of industry in England were such that with this feeling a man was sure to succeed. On two occasions I had had an opportunity of making my fortune: Colbert, Bishop of Rhodez, a native of Scotland, who was very fond of me, proposed that I should accompany his brother to Jamaica, where he was appointed to the head of the executive power, and where he was one of the most considerable planters. He would have intrusted to me the direction of his property, and would have obtained for me other employment of the same kind. The Bishop assured me that I should make a fortune in three years. I could not, however, prevail on myself to go; I preferred continuing a life of poverty, to removing to a greater distance from the French shore.