ead)
with any dishonourable suspicion. But Sir Hudson Lowe cannot be blamed
for watching such a captive with all imaginable vigilance. The
recollection of the facility which too much dependance on his honour
gave to Napoleon's escape from Elba, justly sharpened the caution of the
governor. The fear of another European conflagration made the safeguard
of the Ex-Emperor an object of essential policy, not merely to England,
but to Europe; and the probability of similar convulsions rendered his
detention at St Helena as high a duty as ever was intrusted to a British
officer.

We are not now about to discuss the charges made against Sir Hudson
Lowe; but it is observable, that they are made solely on the authority
of Napoleon, and of individuals dismissed for taking too strong an
interest in that extraordinary man. Those complaints may be easily
interpreted in the instance of the prisoner, as the results of such a
spirit having been vexed by the circumstances of his tremendous fall;
and also, in the instance of those who were dismissed, as a species of
excuse for the transactions which produced their dismissal. But there
can be no doubt that those complaints had not less the direct object of
keeping the name of the Ex-Emperor before the eyes of Europe; that they
were meant as stimulants to partisanship in France; and that, while they
gratified the incurable bile of the fallen dynasty against England, they
were also directed to produce the effect of reminding the French
soldiery that Napoleon was still in existence.

Yet there was a pettiness in all his remonstrances, wholly inconsistent
with greatness of mind. He thus talks of Sir Hudson Lowe:--

"I never look on him without being reminded of the assassin of
Edward II. in the Castle of Berkeley, heating the bar of iron which
was to be the instrument of his crime. Nature revolts against him.
In my eyes she seems to have marked him, like Cain, with a seal of
reprobation."

Napoleon's knowledge of history was here shown to be pretty much on a
par with his knowledge of scripture. The doubts regarding the death of
Edward II. had evidently not come to his knowledge; and, so far as Cain
was concerned, the sign was not one of reprobation, but of
protection--it was a mark that "no man should slay him."

But all those complaints were utterly unworthy of a man who had played
so memorable a part in the affairs of Europe. He who had filled the
French throne