ced our name at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Even
allowing that it was inevitable we should wage war against the head of
the French nation, nothing can ever blot out the stain of having
refused him the asylum he asked for, after we had taken so large a
share in bringing about his downfall. He asked in the following letter
to the Prince Regent to be the guest of England, and England made him
its prisoner. Here is the document:--

"The sport of those factions which divide my country and an object of
hostility to the greatest Powers of Europe, I have finished my
political career, and come, like Themistocles, to sit down by the
hearth of the English people. I place myself under the protection of
their laws, which I claim from your Royal Highness as the most
powerful, the most constant, and most generous of my enemies." Had it
been left to the English people instead of to the Government and His
Royal Highness, I do not think this dignified appeal would have been
altogether ignored, as Napoleon's quarrel was not with the people.

They knew that it was the oligarchy that feared and detested him. It
has been said that even His Royal Highness would have granted
hospitality, and it would have saved the nation over which he ruled
the blight of eternal execrations had he been strong enough to stand
against the blundering decision of a revengeful Ministry.

No impartial student of the part played by Napoleon during twenty
years of warfare will deny that the institutions he founded, the laws
that he made, and his mode of government wherever established, were
beneficent, and entirely aimed at the adjustment of inequalities that
had culminated in a great national uprising. His dictatorship was
wielded with a wholesome discipline without unnecessarily using the
lash. He had no cut-and-dried maxim of dealing with unruly people, but
his awful power made them feel that he distinguished between eternal
justice and tyranny. He knew, and he made everybody else know, that
under the circumstances too much liberty would be like poison to some
people. When he said, "No more of this," the aggressors realised that
the doctrine of fraternity as they understood it must not be stretched
further.

Notwithstanding his methods of reproof and restraint, he was idolised
by the masses, even by those he led his armies against and so often
conquered. Even in our own country, where enmity against him was
assiduously nursed by the press and othe