health required, on pretext that
it did him more harm than good when he knew himself to be riding within
view of English sentinels (which was not necessary at all within four
miles of Longwood), or attended by an English officer--which was not
necessary unless at the distance of twelve miles from Longwood: above
all, opposed every obstacle to the enforcement of that most proper
regulation which made it necessary that his person should, once in every
twenty-four hours, be visible to some British officer. In a word,
Napoleon Buonaparte bent the whole energies of his mighty intellect to
the ignoble task of tormenting Sir Hudson Lowe; and the extremities of
degradation to which these efforts occasionally reduced himself, in the
eyes of his own attendants, are such as we dare not particularise, and
as will be guessed by no one who has not read the memoir of his Italian
doctor, Antommarchi.

Meantime, the great object was effectually attained. The wrongs of
Napoleon, the cold cruelty of the English government, and the pestilent
petty tyranny of Sir Hudson Lowe, were the perpetual themes of
table-talk all over Europe. There were statesmen of high rank in either
house of the British parliament, who periodically descanted on these
topics--and the answers as often elicited from the ministers of the
crown, only silenced such declamations for the moment, that they might
be renewed with increased violence after time had elapsed sufficient to
allow the news to come back to England with the comments of Longwood.
The utter impossibility of an escape from St. Helena was assumed on all
such occasions, with the obvious inference that there could be no use
for sentinels and domiciliary visitations at Longwood, except for the
gratification of malignant power. But it is now ascertained, that,
throughout the whole period of the detention, schemes of evasion were in
agitation at St. Helena, and that agents were busy, sometimes in London,
more frequently in North America, with preparations which had no other
object in view. A steamship, halting just beyond the line of sight,
might undoubtedly have received Napoleon at certain seasons of the year
without difficulty, could he only contrive to elude the nocturnal
vigilance of the sentinels about the house of Longwood: and that this
was impossible, or even difficult, General Gourgaud himself does not
hesitate to deny. The rumours of these plots reached from time to time
Sir Hudson Lowe; and, quicke