[20]. A Royalist.
[21]. A man of the revolutionary party.
[22]. See Letters from the Cape.
[23]. Mr. O’Meara’s work informs me, after a lapse of six years, that I had guessed precisely the Emperor’s feeling on this occasion.
[24]. “This letter is similar to eight or ten others, which you have written to the same person, and which you have sent unsealed. The Governor having had the indelicacy to pry into the expressions which you confide to friendship, has latterly reproached you with them, threatening to send you out of the island, if your letters continued to be the bearers of complaints against him. He has thus violated the first duty of his situation, the first article of his instructions[instructions], the first sentiment of honour; he has thus authorized you to seek for means to open your heart to your friends, and inform them of the guilty conduct of this Governor. But you have been very simple; your confidence has been easily beguiled!
“A pretext was wanting to seize upon your papers; but your letter to your friend in London could not authorize a visit from the police to you; since it contained no plot, no mystery: since it was only the expression of a heart noble and sincere. The illegal and precipitate conduct observed on this occasion bears the stamp of a base feeling of personal animosity.
“In countries the least civilized, exiles, prisoners, and even criminals, are under the protection of the laws and of the magistrates; those persons who are intrusted[intrusted] with the keeping of them have superior officers in the administration who watch over them. On this rock, the man who makes the most absurd regulations, executes them with violence, and transgresses all laws; there is nobody to check the outrages of his passions.
“The Prince Regent can never be informed of the acts carried on under his name; they have refused to forward my letters to him; they have, in a violent manner, sent back the complaints made by Count Montholon; and Count Bertrand has since been informed that no letters would be received if they continued to be libellous as they had hitherto been.
“Longwood is surrounded by a mystery which it is sought to render impenetrable, in order to conceal a guilty line of conduct which is calculated to create a suspicion of the most criminal intentions!!!
“By reports insidiously circulated, it is endeavoured to deceive the officers, the travellers, the inhabitants, of this island, and even the agents whom, it is said, Austria and Russia have sent hither. No doubt the English Government is deceived, in like manner, by artful and false representations.