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when his mind was guided by the same feelings as during his passage to the island of St. Helena in 1815, and he appears unwilling to forget the style of his bulletins, which serves as a proof that habit is a second

nature.'

The climax, however, of his audacity, is his claim upon the gra titude of the king of Prussia, because after the battle of Friedland he did not place another prince on the throne of Berlin." (p. 43.) Does Buonaparte forget the injuries he inflicts, as a generous man forgets the benefits he confers? or does he think that Prussia can forget what he made her suffer in the three dreadful years after the treaty of Tilsit? Does he suppose that we can forget his base and unmanly insults of the Queen of Prussia while she lived, or that we are ignorant of the more base and unmanly calumnies with which, in his atrocious jocularity, he still persecutes her memory?-By the treaty of Tilsit, Prussia was to have been evacuated on the 1st October, 1807. It may be truly said that it never was evacuated till after the battle of Leipsic, and every day of that long and disastrous period afforded fresh instances of the treachery, the rapacity, and the cruelty of Buonaparte and his myrmidons. We do not believe (and it is saying a great deal) that any other portion of this man's public life is more disgraceful to his character as a soldier, a statesman, a man, than the whole of his proceedings in Prussia, and yet he has claims, forsooth, on the gra titude of her king!

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Having thus insulted her allies, he next honours England with reproaches for secluding him in St. Helena-he wished only for retirement in England, under the protection of the English laws, and in the bosom of a 'great, generous, and free people.'

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Hectore!

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How this Hector has lowered his tone!-we are, it seems, no longer the English of the Moniteurs:-no longer a people without shame or decency; no longer the incendiaries of mankind;' no longer an infamous horde of pirates who shudder at the sight of the peace of the world as the devil did at the happiness of our first parents. We have ceased to be the objects of the malediction of every virtuous heart'-it is no longer our distinctive' character to make a jest of every thing the most sacred to be pusillanimous to our enemies, and treacherous to our allies. These delicate compliments to the GREAT, GENEROUS, and FREE people, are selected from the very first Moniteur which we happened to open, that of 30th January, 1810. And on what subject will our readers believe that this torrent of Billingsgate is let loose ?-truly upon our base, infamous, pusillanimous, and treacherous determination to assist Spain and Portugal in their ill-judged opposition to the

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fraternal embraces of Buonaparte-a fraternity which, as was wittily said of his friend Marat's,* resembled that of Cain to Abel. ཙྪཱ ༔, Buonaparte now complains that this great and pusillanimous generous and treacherous-free and shameless people, are insensible to the démarche franche, NOBLE et pleine de confiance' of Buonaparte; (we assure our wondering readers we use his own modest expressions ;) and have transported him to a rock in the ocean, 2,000 miles from Europe, the climate of which is the most inimical in the whole world to the health of his imperial Majesty. We should like to ask whether it is a much worse climate than Egypt, where he deserted one army? or St. Domingo, where he confesses that he sent another to perish? Is his prison more damp than the tower of the Temple in which Captain Wright was murdered, or closer than the castle of Valencey in which he cooped up Ferdinand? Is the weather worse or the dungeon damper than those to which he wantonly exposed the Earl of Elgin, whose sacred character of an ambassador only aggravated the virulence of his imperial persecutor? He was not used to be so nice about climates, this emperor-when the Moniteur was so good as to assuage the anxiety of Europe with grave assurances that in the snows of Russia, and the arid sands of Castille, where his followers were perishing by thousands, sa Majesté Impériale était toujours bien portante. But this story of the climate is, like all the rest, a falsehood; as we shall show in a subsequent part of these observations.

'Rancour only,' says the much injured Napoleon, could have chosen such a residence for me.'—p. 49.—

The truth is, that with a needless attention to the health and comforts of him who never attended to those of any human being but himself, the island of St. Helena was selected as the place where the greatest security to Europe could be combined with the greatest personal indulgence to the prisoner, an indulgence which, as we shall see by and by, has been carried much too far..

The next complaint is one which, at first, sounds very light, but is, in fact, very serious; not only on account of the obstinacy and: virulence with which it is urged, but of the consequences which would be deduced from a compliance with Buonaparte's wishes.

He insists on being called EMPEROR and MAJESTY!

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He resents with great indignation the title of General Buonaparte, which is given to him, as if the English wished to oblige him to consider himself as never having reigned in France:' (p. 49) to style him General now is to declare that he has neither beeni that he ha

* Buonaparte was so obscure during Marat's reign that we dare not assert that there * was a personal friendship between these two worthies, but it is known that there was as perfect congeniality of sentiment; and his Majesty Joachim n of Naples, Napolione's brother-in-law, publicly requested permission to change his name from Murat to Marat, in honour of the deceased patriot.

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chief magistrate of the republic, nor a sovereign of the fourth dy nasty (p. 51.) And he asserts, with that dashing kind of logic which characterises his school, that we were bound to give him this title because we sent an envoy to the republic when he was first consul, and in 1807 and 1813 offered to treat with France, by Lords Lauderdale and Castlereagh, To all this the answer is simple, that this country never did consider him as reigning-never | did acknowledge the fourth dynasty-never did recognize him in any other character than that of General Buonaparte holding the office of first consul of the French republic; and though he affects to consider that the title of First Consul, which we recognized, obliterated that of General, to which we recur, we can shew on his own evidence that it did not.-The following extract from the Moniteur, (after the rupture of the peace of Amiens, and only six months before he began to call himself Emperor,) proves that the titles of General and First Consul were not quite inconsistent, and will amuse our readers, as a specimen of the ridiculous insanity and presumptuous contempt of the free and generous English, with which he was at that period intoxicated.

Boulogne, 18 Brumaire, an xii. 'On Tuesday last, the First Consul reviewed the army, and put it through several manœuvres-the Boulogne flotilla has been reinforced by 60 vessels carrying twenty-four pounders.

It has been remarked, as a happy omen, that in digging the ground for the First Consul's camp, a battle-axe was found, which belonged to the Roman army which invaded England. In pitching the First Consul's tent also, at Ambleteuse, medals of William the Conqueror were found. It will be admitted that these coincidences are at least extraordinary; but they will appear much more singular if we recollect that GENERAL BUONAPARTE, on visiting the ruins of Pelusium in Egypt, found an engraved head of Julius Cæsar.' (Mon. 12th Nov. 1803.)

This is really very pleasant; and we entertain ourselves with fancying the grimace which this modern William, this Corsican Cæsar will make, when this ominous passage is brought to his recollection. We beg to add he has quite as much reason to expect that we should call him William the Conqueror, or Julius Cæsar, as Emperor! as far as we are concerned he has equal claims to all three.

Our refusal, however, to admit this absurd pretension which asks from us, his conquerors and masters, more than he could obtain in the plenitude of his power, is the most grievous of all his griefs, and we suspect that the climate of St. Helena would be greatly improved if Sir Hudson Lowe would only be so good as to intersperse his communications with those two little words Emperor and Majesty.

But how does this anxious pertinacity to keep the imperial rank accord with his wish to live in retirement, and to occupy a private

station,

station, of which we hear so much? Is it not, on the contrary, like the whole of his preceding conduct, a reach at political character and power? Why did he walk about the decks of the Bellerophon bareheaded? but that he might exact an involuntary mark of respect from our countrymen-why, when he endea voured to play off the same trick on board the Northumberland, and when Sir G. Cockburn put on his hat, did he suddenly and sullenly quit the deck? but that he was resolved to spare no trick to maintain this empty mark of sovereignty-and why does he now so scrupulously exact from his followers at St. Helena the full ceremonies of the Tuileries?-The reason is obvious:-he neither abandons his own schemes of criminal ambition, nor is willing to permit the partisans of revolution in Europe to forget that their emperor is still alive and still an emperor. It is this which makes what would be otherwise ridiculous, important; and we have no hesitation in saying, that this obstinate assumption of a rank which England never recognized imposes an obligation on our government to put an end to this scandal at once, by directing that no such forms and ceremonies shall be used, and that, if those who have accompanied Buonaparte do not choose to conform to our usages, and persist in giving him a title which it were treason to admit, they shall be removed to some situation where their folly can have no other consequences than making themselves ridiculous.

This imperial mummery did no harm while played off in their own private circle, and without any public claim: but it has now been publicly avowed, and an appeal to the world has been made, in behalf of this pretension, and therefore our ministers have no alternative they can no longer connive at, without approving, the practice and if they do not immediately put a period to the farce, they will be responsible for scenes of a more serious nature, which may follow.

Our readers would smile if we had room to enumerate the little arts with which Buonaparte labours after this shadow of a shade. Whenever any visitor approaches Longwood, his coming is watched

-the chairs are put out of the way-his majesty places himself in great state, with his cocked hat under his arm, leans against a table, pulls out a fine snuff-box, and copies to the minutest particular the attitude in which he used to give his audiences in the Tuileries. When he drives out, in the hottest weather, the obsequious Bertrand and Las Cases sit in the front of the barouche, bareheaded, with their hats under their arms. Poor Mr. Warden, when he went to dine with them, was quite astonished at the forms and ceremonies which they practised, and was particularly surprized and pleased that at table a vacant chair was left for the Empress Maria

Louisa to which they all showed great gallantry and attention. The surgeon, our readers will recollect, makes Buonaparte quote Macbeth-we are therefore surprized that the empty chair at his banquet did not rather remind him of Banquo and the Duke d'Enghien, than of the Austrian Arch-duchess.

One of Buonaparte's projects on this point is curious, and characteristic of the fraudulent and tricky turn of his mind: he affected, it seems, to lament the difficulties which had occurred about this title, and intimated that, if Sir Hudson Lowe would engage to acknowledge it, he would assume what is called an incognito name, such as Colonel Meuron or Baron Duroc. This was accordingly conveyed to Sir Hudson, as a great condescension, and as the proof of a spirit of humility and conciliation; but Sir Hudson Lowe, it appears, was not to be deceived with these professions of moderation; he knew, we dare say, that none but princes are in the habit of using the incognito individuals who are not of royal blood, like Napolione Buonaparte or Maximilian Robespierre, have their proper christian and surnames, which they have no right to lay down or take up at pleasure; and he must have seen that an admission of Buonaparte's proposition would have contravened our laws, and have led to the very result which Sir Hudson wished to avoid. Buonaparte must, therefore, be content to be neither Colonel Meuron, nor Baron Duroc, nor the Emperor Napoleon, nor Napoleon the Great, but plain Napolione Buonaparte, son of Carlo Buonaparte and Letzia Raniolini, born at Ajaccio in Corsica, on the 5th February, 1768,* heretofore general in the service of the French republic, and now a prisoner both of war and of state in the island of St. Helena.

His next complaint is, of a continuation of the same spirit of malice which dictated

the order by which the Emperor Napoleon was prevented from writing or receiving any letter which had not previously been opened and read by the English Ministers and the officers of St. Helena.

The possibility of his receiving letters from his mother, his wife, his son, or his brothers, has thus been interdicted; and when he wished to remove the inconvenience of having all his letters read by subaltern officers, and to send sealed letters to the Prince Regent, he was informed, that none but open letters could be passed-such were the orders of the Ministry.'

This is not true. The general and his suite have been told that they shall not send or receive letters except through the hands of the governor, and that these letters must be open for his perusal; but

See the note in page 239 of our 12th volume, in which is shewn that Buonaparte, ou his rise in the world, falsified the date of his birth, his own christian and surnames, and the names of his first wife and of all his family.

VOL. XVI. NO. XXXII.

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