"The names of those who were drowned and found again. They were drowned in the haven coming from Donwich fayer, on St. James's day in a bote, by reason of one cable lying overwharf the haven, for by reason the men that brought them down was so negligent, that when they were redie to come ashore the bote broke lose, and so the force of the tide carried the bote against the cable and so overwhelmed. The number of them were xxii, but they were not all found. The widow Robson, Johne Bates, Mary Yewell, Susan Frost, Margaret Blackbourne and the widow Taylor, were all buried on the 26th day of July, being all cast away, coming from Donwick fayer, on St. James's daye.
"Widow Poster was buried the 27th day of Julye. Bennett Allen was buried the 30th daie, Goodie Kerrison same daie. Edward and Elizabeth Younges, daughter and son to me, C. Younges, vicar and minister, was buried the 31st Dae of Julie.
"All these were found again in this towne and buried."—Southwold Register A. D. 1616.
ANECDOTES OF NAPOLEON.
BY THE LATE LORD HOLLAND.[27]
HIS EARLY PURSUITS.
Napoleon was born at Ajaccio in 1769. It was affirmed by many that he was at least a year older, and concealed his real age from an unwillingness to acknowledge his birth in Corsica, at a period when that island formed no part of the French dominions. The story is an idle one. A yet more idle one was circulated that he had been baptized by the name of Nicholas, but from apprehension of ridicule converted it, when he rose to celebrity, into Napoleon. The printed exercises of the military school of Brienne, of the years 1780, 1781, 1783, preserved in the Bibliothèque at Paris, represent him as proficient in history, algebra, geography, and dancing, under the name of Buona-Parte de l'Isle de Corse; sometimes d'Ajaccio en Corse. Many traits of his aspiring and ambitious character, even in early youth, have been related, and Pozzo di Borgo quoted (1826) a conversation with him when 18 years of age, in which, after inquiring and learning the state of Italy, he exclaimed, "Then I have not been deceived, and with two thousand soldiers a man might make himself king (Principe) of that country." The ascendency he acquired over his family and companions, long before his great talents had emerged from obscurity, were formerly described to me by Cardinal Fesch and Louis Bonaparte, and have been confirmed since by the uniform testimony of such as knew him during his residence in Corsica, or before his acquaintance with Barras, the Director. When at home he was extremely studious, ardent in some pursuit, either literary or scientific, which he communicated to no one. At his meals, which he devoured rapidly, he was silent, and apparently absorbed in his own thoughts. Yet he was generally consulted on all questions affecting the interests of any branch of his family, and on all such occasions was attentive, friendly, decisive, and judicious. He wrote at a very early period of his life, a History of Corsica, and sent the manuscript to the Abbé Raynal, with a flourishing letter, soliciting the honor of his acquaintance, and requesting his opinion of the work. The abbé acknowledged the letter, and praised the performance, but Napoleon never printed it. Persons who have dined with him at taverns and coffee-houses when it was convenient to him not to pay his reckoning, have assured me, that though the youngest and poorest, he always obtained, without exacting it, a sort of deference or even submission from the rest of the company. Though never parsimonious, he was at that period of his life extremely attentive to the details of expense, the price of provisions, and of other necessary articles, and, in short, to every branch of domestic economy. The knowledge thus early acquired in such matters, was useful to him in a more exalted station. He cultivated and even made a parade of his information in subsequent periods of his career, and thus sometimes detected and frequently prevented embezzlement in the administration of public accounts.
HIS ATTENTION TO DETAILS.
Nothing could exceed the order and regularity with which his household both as consul and emperor was conducted. The great things he accomplished, and the savings he made, without even the imputation of avarice or meanness, with the sum comparatively inconsiderable of fifteen millions of francs a year, are marvelous, and expose his successors, and indeed all European princes to the reproach of negligence or incapacity. In this branch of his government, he owed much to Duroc. It is said, that they often visited the markets of Paris (les halles) dressed in plain clothes and early in the morning. When any great accounts were to be submitted to the emperor, Duroc would apprise him in secret of some of the minutest details. By an adroit allusion to them or a careless remark on the points upon which he had received such recent and accurate information, Napoleon contrived to impress his audience with a notion that the master's eye was every where. For instance, when the Tuilleries were furnished, the upholsterer's charges, though not very exorbitant, were suspected by the emperor to be higher than the usual profit of that trade would have warranted. He suddenly asked some minister, who was with him, how much the egg at the end of the bell-rope should cost? "J'ignore," was the answer. "Eh bien! nous verrons," said he, and then cut off the ivory handle, called for a valet, and bidding him dress himself in plain and ordinary clothes, and neither divulge his immediate commission or general employment to any living soul, directed him to inquire the price of such articles at several shops in Paris, and to order a dozen as for himself. They were one-third less dear than those furnished to the palace. The emperor, inferring that the same advantage had been taken in the other articles, struck a third off the whole charge, and directed the tradesman to be informed that it was done at his express command, because on inspection, he had himself discovered the charges to be by one-third too exorbitant. When afterward, in the height of his glory, he visited Caen, with the Empress Maria Louisa, and a train of crowned heads and princes, his old friend, M. Mechin, the Prefect, aware of his taste for detail, waited upon him with five statistical tables of the expenditure, revenue, prices, produce, and commerce of the department. "C'est bon," said he, when he received them the evening of his arrival, "vous et moi nous ferons bien de l'esprit sur tout cela demain au Conseil." Accordingly, he astonished all the leading proprietors of the department at the meeting next day, by his minute knowledge of the prices of good and bad cider, and of the produce and other circumstances of the various districts of the department. Even the royalist gentry were impressed with a respect for his person, which gratitude for the restitution of their lands had failed to inspire, and which, it must be acknowledged, the first, faint hope of vengeance against their enemies entirely obliterated in almost every member of that intolerant faction.