"If, then, it should be admitted that a previous disposition of the parts to this disease did exist, might not the depressing passions of the mind act as an exciting cause? It is more than probable that Napoleon Buonaparte's mental sufferings in St. Helena were very poignant. By a man of such unbounded ambition, and who once aimed at universal dominion, captivity must have been severely felt.
"The climate of St. Helena I consider healthy. The air is pure and temperate, and Europeans enjoy their health, and retain the vigour of their constitution, as in their native country."
Dr. Arnott proceeds to state, that notwithstanding this general assertion, dysentery, and other acute diseases of the abdominal viscera, prevailed among the troops. This he imputes to the carelessness and intemperance of the English soldiers, and the fatigue of the working parties; as the officers, who had little night duty, retained their health and strength as in Europe.
"I can therefore safely assert," continues the physician, "that any one of temperate habits who is not exposed to much bodily exertion, night air, and atmospherical changes, as a soldier must be, may have as much immunity from disease in St. Helena as in Europe; and I may therefore farther assert, that the disease of which Napoleon Buonaparte died was not the effect of climate."
In support of Dr. Arnott's statement, it may be observed, that of Napoleon's numerous family of nearly fifty persons, English servants included, only one died during all their five years' residence on the island;[263] and that person (Cipriani, the major-domo) had contracted the illness which carried him off, being a species of consumption, before he left Europe.
Dr. Arnott, to whose opinion we are induced to give great weight, both from the excellence of his character and his having the best opportunities of information, states that the scirrhus, or cancer of the stomach, is an obscure disease; the symptoms which announce it being common to, and characteristic of, other diseases in the same region; yet he early conceived that some morbid alteration of the structure of the stomach had taken place, especially after he learned that his patient's father had died of scirrhus of the pylorus. He believed, as already hinted, that the disease was in its incipient state, even so far back as the end of the year 1817, when the patient was affected with pain in the stomach, nausea, and vomiting, especially after taking food; which symptoms never left him from that period, but increased progressively till the day of his death.
From this period, therefore, Napoleon was in a situation which, considering his great actions, and the height of his former fortunes, deserved the compassion of his most bitter enemies, and the sympathy of all who were disposed to take a moral lesson from the most extraordinary vicissitude of human affairs which history has ever presented. Nor can we doubt that such reflections might have eventually led to much relaxation in the severity with which the prisoner was watched, and, it may be, at length to his entire emancipation. But to attain this end, it would have been necessary that Napoleon's conduct, while under restrictions, should have been of a very different character from that which he thought it most politic, or felt it most natural, to adopt. First, to obtain the sympathy and privileges due to an invalid, he ought to have permitted the visits of some medical person, whose report might be held as completely impartial. This could not be the case with that of Dr. O'Meara, engaged as he was in the prisoner's intimate and even secret service, and on the worst terms with the governor; and Napoleon's positive rejection of all other assistance seemed to countenance the belief, however unjust, that he was either feigning indisposition, or making use of some slight symptoms of it to obtain a relaxation of the governor's vigilance. Nor was it to be supposed that Dr. Antommarchi's evidence, being that of an individual entirely dependent on Napoleon, could be considered as more authentic, till corroborated by some indifferent, and, at the same time, competent medical authority.
Secondly, It is to be remembered, that the fundamental reason on which Napoleon's confinement was vindicated, was, that his liberty was inconsistent with the tranquillity of Europe. To prove the contrary, it would have been necessary that the Ex-Emperor should have evinced a desire to retreat from political disputes, and shown symptoms of having laid aside or forgotten those ambitious projects which had so long convulsed Europe. Compassion, and the admiration of great talents, might then have led the states of Europe to confide in the resigned dispositions of one, whom age, infirmities, and sufferings, appeared to incline to dedicate the remainder of his days to ease and retirement, and in whom they might seem a sure guarantee for his pacific intentions. But so far were such feelings from being exhibited, that every thing which emanated from St. Helena showed that the Ex-Emperor nourished all his former plans, and vindicated all his former actions. He was not satisfied that the world should adopt the opinion that his ambition was allayed, and his pretensions to empire relinquished. On the contrary, his efforts, and those of the works into which he breathed his spirit, went to prove, if they proved any thing, that he never entertained ambition of a culpable character—that his claims of sovereignty were grounded upon national law and justice—that he had a right to entertain them formerly, and that he was disposed and entitled to assert them still. He was at pains to let the world know that he was not altered in the slightest degree, was neither ashamed of his projects, nor had renounced them; but, if restored to Europe, that he would be in all respects the same person, with the same claims, and little diminished activity, as when he landed at Cannes to recover the empire of France.
This mode of pleading his cause had the inevitable consequence of confirming all those who had deemed restrictions on his freedom to be necessary in the outset (and these were the great majority of Europe,) in the belief that the same reasons existed for continuing the restraint, which had originally caused it to be imposed. We are unwilling to revert again to the hackneyed simile of the imprisoned lion; but certainly, if the royal animal which Don Quixotte desired to set at liberty, had, instead of demeaning himself peaceably and with urbanity, been roaring, ramping, and tearing the bars of his cage, it may be questioned whether the Great Redresser of Wrongs himself would have advocated his freedom.
LAS CASES.