divulged the new instructions from Bathurst, a man who was as much his
alter ego as Neipperg had been Metternich's. These turned out to be
draconian in the extreme: Napoleon's household was to be reduced from
fifteen to eleven; those who elected to remain had to sign a document
guaranteeing they would remain indefinitely; the new annual expenditure
was limited to £8,ooo; no correspondence was allowed except through the
Governor and only he could issue passes to visit Longwood; no gifts
could be delivered to him if they contained any mention of imperial or
sovereign status; riding without limits and without supervision was to be
curtailed; the presence of the prisoner at Longwood was to be checked
twice daily; and much more in the same vein. The instructions breathed a
spirit of pure, vindictive spite, of a piece with the state-sanctioned
kidnapping by which the British had brought Napoleon to St Helena in
the first place. One of Napoleon's (British) biographers has commented:
'It is impossible for an Englishman to read the Lowe-Bathurst
correspondence without blushing for his country.'
On r6 May there was a fu rther meeting at Longwood. By this time
Napoleon had had time to digest the fu ll implications of Bathurst's
instructions and was very angry. He accused Lowe of persecuting him
and of causing him far more heartache in one month than Cockburn in
six. He charged Lowe with being a little man interested only in the
exercise of petty power and told him that his behaviour would become a
source of scandal which would besmirch his reputation, that of his
children and of England in general. Lowe stormed out angrily. Napoleon
who had earlier declared in a cri du coeur: 'I want my liberty or I want a
hangman,' now fo und that his cry had been answered though hardly in
the sense he intended. He told Las Cases: 'They've sent me more than a
hangman. Sir Lowe is a hangman.'
Lowe's final interview with Napoleon was on r8 August r8r6. As a
witness to the 'intolerable rudeness' he had to put up with, the Governor
took with him to Longwood Admiral Malcolm, Cockburn's successor as
commander of the squadron of frigates on constant patrol around St
Helena. They found Napoleon in the garden in a towering rage. Lowe
started to talk about the necessity of reducing expenditure, but Napoleon,
pointedly addressing his remarks to Malcolm, launched into a tirade
about the way Lowe, a commander of cutthroats in the Corsican Rangers,
treated a real general like Bertrand. Lowe tried to cut across by talking of
his duty. He claimed he had not sought the job, but said nothing about
why he had accepted it and, while drawing a hefty emolument of £rz,ooo
a year, tried to get the entire Longwood entourage to subsist on two
thirds of that sum. Not surprisingly, Napoleon became agitated and
marcin
(Marcin)
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