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.
LETTER FROM COUNT BERTRAND TO COUNT DE LAS CASES.
My dear Las Cases,—I received, on the 7th of June, the letter which you did me the honour to write to me on the 15th of January last; and I have since then received, on the 13th of this month, your letters of 15th February, 15th March, and 15th April;[[39]] the contents of which I have communicated to the Emperor, and which have determined him to desire me to write to you. I received, four months ago, a box of books and pamphlets, addressed to me by Mr. Goulburn; and since then, a very obliging offer to send a picture, which was in the bed-chamber at St. Cloud, representing the christening of little Napoleon. Mr. Henry Goulburn had been kind enough to bargain with the owner of the picture for its purchase, and to get the price reduced to half the original demand. No answer has been returned to that offer, because it has seemed to form so strange a contrast with what takes place here, that it has been looked upon as a measure connected with parliamentary discussions, something like those relative to the wooden house. I have been much struck by the polite behaviour observed towards you, and by all you tell me in your last letter.[[40]]... Can it be, that the horrible vexations which we are made to experience are not sanctioned by the English Government, and that the Emperor is dying here a victim of the individual hatred of the Governor? Governments and Princes may be so easily deceived that I write this letter under strong feelings of doubt on the subject.
Things are much altered since your departure in 1817. And in this year, 1818, the vexations to which the Emperor has been exposed are such that they must be considered as an attempt against his life. You will judge by the detail. You must have read in the papers of March some observations upon the speech of Lord Bathurst. But things have grown considerably worse since then; and the hatred of the Governor of this Island has known no bounds.
When you left us, the Emperor had renounced riding, in order to avoid the snares laid, and the affronts intended, for him, by causing him to be insulted by the sentries. He has since been obliged to give up walking, in order to avoid the same inconveniences. During the months of March and April, the Emperor went out sometimes to call upon my wife, and sometimes he would sit upon a certain bench, which you know, about fifty paces from the house, and where he would stay half an hour or an hour. But means have been found to prevent him from doing that, and to oblige him to confine himself strictly to the house. They knew that this was not very difficult. A soldier of the 66th regiment was placed as gardener, and a serjeant had been stationed at my house. Both were very useful, either in rooting out weeds, which might poison the air, for no garden can exist in such a situation; or in repairing the house, which is in a ruinous state, and admits water whenever it rains. That arrangement appears very rational; but the Governor had invested these two soldiers with a right to stop whomsoever they thought proper, even at the doors and under the very windows of the Emperor. From that moment he has not stirred out of the house, and one hundred days have now elapsed since he has even put his head outside of a window.
This climate, this absolute want of exercise, added to the badness of the habitation, have affected his health to such a degree that you would not recognise him. Since the end of September, 1817, he has had the first symptoms of a chronic hepatitis, which, as you know, is mortal in this country. He had to attend on him the worthy O’Meara, in whom, you know, he has confidence; but, in the month of April, at the moment when he was most in want of his attention, Sir Hudson Lowe obliged him to tender his resignation, wishing to force the Emperor to have Baxter, whom you also know. The Emperor has refused to see any doctor; from the 10th April to the 10th May, he had none. At last, the Russian and Austrian Commissioners, indignant at this treatment, informed the Governor that, if the Emperor were to die under these circumstances, they themselves should not know what to say, should an opinion prevail in Europe that he had been murdered. This seems to have determined the Governor to reinstate the Doctor; but he has subjected him to every species of ill treatment. He attempted to get him expelled from the mess of the 66th regiment; and, as these brave officers refused to share in so arbitrary an act, he himself caused an order to be given to the Doctor, through the Colonel, to cease to dine with the officers of the 66th. He has written to London, and it is probable that O’Meara will be sent away. The Emperor will not, however, receive any other Doctor; and if the Prince Regent, or Lord Liverpool, do not take cognizance of the fact, he will die here of his disease, deprived of even the assistance of his physician. The Emperor has, however, been very ill for the last two months. He rises at eleven o’clock in the morning, and lies down again at two o’clock p. m. A few days ago, he experienced a very violent crisis, produced by the mercury which Dr. O’Meara administered to him for a liver complaint. Dr. O’Meara, alarmed at his responsibility, proposed to me to send for Mr. Baxter and the surgeon of the Conqueror; they are the two first medical men here. You know the dislike which the Emperor had to Mr. Baxter, founded upon his having been formerly Staff-surgeon of the Italian division commanded by Sir Hudson Lowe. That dislike has much encreased since, in consequence of his having lent himself,
from October, 1817, to March, 1818, to the production of bulletins filled with falsehoods, and which have deceived his Government and all Europe. But the Emperor did not see any inconvenience in O’Meara’s calling in Mr. Stokoe, although he did not much like it; and that gentleman consequently came to Longwood at three o’clock in the afternoon of the same day, but would not go into the Emperor’s apartment, fearing lest he should compromise his responsibility, and lose a situation obtained after forty years’ service. This appeared to me so extraordinary that I would not believe it. I therefore spoke to him, and he expressed his regret at not being able to comply with our wishes; for he is a very respectable man. His refusal is, however, easily explained; it proceeded from a hint that had been given to him, in the same manner as had been done to Cole, the banker, whom you know. Having some money matters to settle with him, I sent for him; but, on arriving at my house, he declared that he could not speak to me but in presence of the officer on duty, because he should be ruined if he did. Of course I refused. The same thing happened, a few days since, with a Mr. Fowler, arrived from England, with whom I had an account of a few hundred pounds to settle, for clothes ordered in London. It is true that you are not acquainted with the situation in which we are now placed, and which cannot be compared to what it was in your time. It was even then sufficiently unpleasant; and, knowing the Emperor as you do, you ought to have strenuously opposed the idea of any member of his family coming out hither. The spectacle of the humiliations, the vexations, and the hatred to which he is exposed, would be altogether unbearable for him, if his mother or any of his brothers were to share in it. Even to Count Montholon and myself, who are now the only two with him, he has often said that he wished us to quit St. Helena, to free ourselves from such a treatment, and to leave him alone; and that his agony would be less bitter if he did not see us share in it. You know that the officers had long since discontinued to come to my house; but, when we met them on the road, they would very politely stop and speak to my wife; this has now been forbidden to them, not in writing, it is true, but by hints; so that it has often happened that when they have seen us at a distance they have gone out of the road.
Things have come to such a pass that our dirty linen remains several days, to be examined by the Captain on duty, and sometimes by the Staff; a most indecent proceeding, and most dishonourable for them, but the object of which is to degrade and insult us.