No More Learning

), reports
complaints on the part of Napoleon with regard to the reduction of
expenses suggested or enforced by Sir Hudson Lowe, and gives specimens
of the nature and detail of these reductions. For a refutation of
O'Meara's facts and figures (as given in _Napoleon in Exile_, 1822, ii.
Appendix V. ), see the _History of the Captivity of Napoleon_, by William
Forsyth, Q. C. , 1853, iii. 121, _sq_. ; see, too, _Sir Hudson Lowe and
Napoleon_, by R. C. Seaton, 1898. It is a fact that Sir Hudson Lowe, on
his own responsibility, increased the allowance for the household
expenses of Napoleon and his staff from ? 8000 to ? 12,000 a year, and it
is also perfectly true that opportunities for complaint were welcomed by
the ex-Emperor and his mimic court. It was _la politique de Longwood_ to
make the worst of everything, on the off-chance that England would get
to hear, and that Radical indignation and Radical sympathy would gild,
perhaps unbar, the eagle's cage. It is true, too, that a large sum of
money was spent on behalf of a prisoner of war whom the stalwarts of the
Tory party would have executed in cold blood.
But it is also true that
Napoleon had no need to manufacture complaints, that he was exposed to
unnecessary discomforts, that useless and irritating precautions were
taken to prevent his escape, that the bottles of champagne and madeira,
the fowls and the bundles of wood were counted with an irritating
preciseness, inconsistent with the general scale of expenditure, which
saved a little waste, and covered both principals and agents with
ridicule. It is said that O'Meara, in his published volumes, manipulated
his evidence, and that his own letters give him the lie; but there is a
mass of correspondence, published and unpublished, between him and Sir
Thomas Reade, Sir Hudson Lowe, and Major Gorrequer (see Addit. MSS.
Brit. Mus. 20,145), which remains as it was written, and which testifies
to facts which might have been and were not refuted on the spot and at
the moment. With regard to "disputed rations," the Governor should have
been armed with a crushing answer to any and every complaint. As it was,
he was able to show that champagne was allowed to "Napoleon Buonaparte,"
and that he did not exceed his allowance. ]

[263] {545}[In his correspondence with Lord Bathurst, Sir Hudson Lowe
more than once quotes "statements" made by Dr. O'Meara (_vide post_, p.
546). But the surgeon may be William Warden (1777-1849), whose _Letters
written on board His Majesty's Ship the Northumberland, and at St,
Helena_, were published in 1816. ]

[264] [Henry, Earl of Bathurst (1762-1834), Secretary for War and the
Colonies, replied to Lord Holland's motion "for papers connected with
the personal treatment of Napoleon Buonaparte at St. Helena," March 18,
1817. _Parl. Deb.