ever, affairs were not so pressing as to prevent me from leaving a
party to take care of them, which was done. If I had thought such a
measure as that of giving opium necessary, I would have called a council
of war, have stated the necessity of it, and have published it in the
order of the day. It should have been no secret. Do you think, if I had
been capable of secretly poisoning my soldiers, as doing a necessary
action secretly would give it the appearance of a crime, or of such
barbarities as driving my carriage over the dead, and the still bleeding
bodies of the wounded, that my troops would have fought for me with an
enthusiasm and affection without a parallel? No, no! I never should have
done so a second time. Some would have shot me in passing. Even some of
the wounded, who had sufficient strength left to pull a trigger, would
have dispatched me. I never committed a crime in all my political career.
At my last hour I can assert that. Had I done so, I should not have been
here now. I should have dispatched the Bourbons. It only rested with me to
give my consent, and they would have ceased to live. I have, however,
often thought since on this point of morals, and, I believe, if thoroughly
considered, it is always better to suffer a man to terminate his destiny,
be it what it may. I judged so afterward in the case of my friend Duroc,
who, when his bowels were falling out before my eyes, repeatedly cried to
me to have him put out of his misery. I said to him 'I pity you, my
friend, but there is no remedy, it is necessary to suffer to the last.' "

Sir Robert Wilson recorded, that the merciless and blood-thirsty monster
Napoleon, poisoned at Jaffa five hundred and eighty of his sick and
wounded soldiers, merely to relieve himself of the encumbrance of taking
care of them. The statement was circulated, and believed throughout Europe
and America. And thousands still judge of Napoleon through the influence
of such assertions. Sir Robert was afterward convinced of his error, and
became the friend of Napoleon. When some one was speaking, in terms of
indignation, of the author of the atrocious libel, Napoleon replied, "You
know but little of men and of the passions by which they are actuated.
What leads you to imagine that Sir Robert is not a man of enthusiasm and
of violent passions, who wrote what he then believed to be true? He may
have been misinformed and deceived, and may now be sorry for it. He may be
as sincere now i