"His warlike mind, his soul devoid of fear;
His high-designing thoughts were figured there."

His character was spoilt, or at least not adapted to the purposes of freedom, by a military education. The Bourbons brought him up at one of their military schools, where his head was filled with Cæsar and Alexander, and then complained of him for his ambition: that is to say, the legitimate monarchs will let you be as ambitious and warlike as you please, provided you assist their ambition and

[[70]]wars; but if not, you are a blood-thirsty conqueror and a tyrant. Some writers have attempted to confound, on this occasion, ambition with mere ordinary selfishness. This is paltry and ridiculous. Napoleon was never so cool as when contemplating eminent success. Those who have carried him the news of victory have frequently supposed that he had learnt it before, or that he did not credit them. It warmed no feature of his countenance; it lit up no additional lustre in his eye. Yet this was not indifference; he had acquired a habit of subduing the ordinary emotions of mankind. Defeat and error certainly enraged him towards those who contributed to such mortifications; but they never had power to hurry him into any efforts to repair disaster. His intemperance never extended itself to his plans or resources, as a general. Let us look to the course of his feelings when the thunderbolt of his fortune was expended at Moscow. He had recourse to no dribbling efforts on which to hang the flame of military hope. He negotiated the plan of his retreat with all the precision of an attorney, who leaves nothing unprovided for. Trifles alone disturbed Napoleon. The offence of an inattention on the part of an attendant would make him angry; but if the world had burst asunder, and only left him a place to stand upon, he would have regarded it through his eye-glass as an experiment in natural philosophy!

Had Napoleon lived in times of less turbulence, he would have been a still greater statesman than a warrior. It is a fact not to be disputed, that it was

[[71]]this great man who definitively freed the entire Continent of Europe from that democratic mania, of all other tyrannies the most cruel, savage, and unrelenting, and which was in full, though less rapid, progress when he, by accepting the diadem of France, restored the principles of monarchy to its vigour, and, at one blow, overturned the many-headed monster of revolution. To attain this beneficial end, HE SPILT NO BLOOD! The decapitation of Louis, in which he could have had no concern, completely overwhelmed the Bourbon dynasty; but Napoleon, in one single day, re-established that monarchial form of government which the imbecile ministers of England had, with so much expense of human life and treasure, been for many years unsuccessfully attempting to restore!

One of Napoleon's greatest admirers was Mr. Fox, who, speaking of him one day, said, "If we even shut our eyes on the martial deeds of this great man, we must allow that his eloquence alone has elevated the French people to a higher degree of civilization than any other nation in Europe,—they have advanced a century during the last five years. Bonaparte combines the declamation of a Cicero with the soul-stirring philippicks of a Demosthenes; he appeals to the head and the heart, to honour and to self-interest, at the same time. Had this wonderful man turned his attention to poetry, instead of war, he would have beaten Homer out of the field! Whatever his manner of delivery may be, and I understand it is impressive, he is certainly the

[[72]]greatest orator that the world ever produced. The soaring grandeur of his conceptions is admirable, and his adaptation of the deeds and sayings of the heroes and statesmen of ancient times to present circumstances, not only shows the extent of his reading and the correctness of his taste in their application, but also serves to assure the French people that he is as capable of governing as he has proved himself to be in leading them forth to conquest. But it is in his power of simplification that he shines most; although as romantic as Ossian, he disdains all rodomontade and circumlocution; and, by stripping his subject of all extraneous matter, he reduces the most complex proposition down to the laconic simplicity of a self-evident axiom."

What, then, are we to think of a British minister, who could violate his most sacred pledges of protection to a man of this exalted description? But Lord Castlereagh's mind was not capable of estimating the worth and talents of Napoleon, and the mean expedient to which his lordship resorted to gain possession of the emperor's person will ever reflect the greatest possible disgrace upon his character, both as a man and a minister. The petty, vexatious, and unjustifiable conduct, to which the Emperor Napoleon was afterwards subjected at St. Helena, was equal in meanness to his capture. When the emperor quitted the Bellerophon, on the 8th of August, the officers and ship's company were in consternation; they felt implicated in the shame and the injustice of such a procedure. Napoleon traversed

[[73]]the deck to descend into the sloop, with calmness and a smile upon his lips, having at his side Admiral Keith. He stopped before Captain Maitland, charged him to testify his satisfaction to the officers and crew of the Bellerophon, and, seeing him extremely grieved, said to him, by way of consolation, "Posterity cannot, in any way, accuse you for what is taking place; you have been deceived as well as myself." Napoleon enjoyed, during twenty-four days, the protection of the British flag; he sojourned in the inner roads of Torbay and Plymouth; and it was not until after that lapse of time, on the 8th of August, when passing on board the Northumberland, that Admiral Keith disarmed the French,—the delivering up of arms being one of the characteristics of prisoners of war. The arms of the emperor, however, were not demanded.

It would be unnecessary to give a copy of the "official" regulations, which Lord Castlereagh ordered to be observed towards the illustrious Napoleon; their tyrannical operation will be made manifest in the following correspondence: