with Christian
fortitude, and ought to have borne in mind that he was in the custody
of a Christian King and a Christian people. Dr. Max Lenz, who has
written a most interesting and on the whole moderate account of
Napoleon, considering his nationality, drifts into the same
stereotyped closing phraseology of how Napoleon worried and almost
wore out the good Sir Hudson Lowe, who only did his duty, and gave in
to Napoleon whenever he could see his way to do so.

But on the authority of Gourgaud, whom Lord Rosebery would appear to
regard as the most truthful of all the St. Helena chroniclers, this
eulogy is totally unwarranted, for truly there is no reliable
contemporary writer who would have risked his reputation by making so
reckless a statement that could so easily be proved to be a deliberate
fabrication. This is not to say that fabrication was an uncommon
trick, but the Governor's reputation in relation to Napoleon was so
well and widely known, that no person who claimed to have a clear,
balanced judgment could defend his silly, vicious conduct.

Napoleon never altered his opinion of Lowe's perfidy towards him. On
one occasion, in conversation with the truthful Gourgaud, he exclaims,
"Ah! I know the English. You may be sure that the sentinels stationed
round this house have orders from the Governor to kill me. They will
pretend to give me a thrust with a bayonet by mistake some day."
Gourgaud reports him as saying on another occasion, "Hudson Lowe is a
Sicilian grafted on a Prussian; they must have chosen him to make me
die under his charge by inches. It would have been more generous to
have shot me at once."

It would be absurd to affirm that Napoleon said these things without
sound foundation, and although, when his personal vanity and abnormal
jealousy was aroused by some fancied injury to himself, Gourgaud
would resort to the most remarkable fibbing, what he relates as to his
master's opinion of the Governor may be relied on, being, as it is,
confirmed in a more complete form by O'Meara, Las Cases, Montholon,
Bertrand, Antommarchi, and each of the Commissioners. The former
sacrificed everything rather than be a party to what he termed
treatment that was an "outrage on decency."

These are only a few of the men who bear witness against Sir Hudson
being termed "good"; and I may add one other to the galaxy, poor Dr.
Stokoe, who shrank from having the abominable indignity of inquisitor
and spy tacked on to his h