Ill I iiiiil % c^ -^ 1 ' '-■^■^ 0^ •^o ,^' /. ''~'^. ? ^° '\., -U >^;.~ r\ ,0' 5 ' * .' , "•f' •v"^ ^ <■' '•> •j^ - S " ,V'' ■i^ ^ r^.o^ ,/■ .0' ^O. G' '/' ^0 A^^-'V. -x> v<-. A. \^' '^.^ -P ■s- S ' ^■>' -' V- '- ' . ■ o A d^' A^^ .V ^^ ^v' ^, '-: \~ ,^^' ,G ,.0' '^1 -f. ^. ■^■\" 9 vT V vi* _, ' - ^-;... •f '=!;> •>- o -!> '<-\ \^' % .0' 4-. ■^^ ,0^^ 0> -7- H I STORY OF TUB SECOND WAR BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND G E E A T B R I T A I X, DECLARED BY ACT OF CONGRESS, THE ISth OF JUNE, 1812, AND CONCLUDED BY PE.\CE, THE loth OF FEBRUARY, 1815. BY CHARLES J. INGERSOLL. SECOXD SERIES. — VOL. L EMBRACING THE EVENTS OF ISU AND 1S15. ^ • PHILADELPHIA: . iN^' - LIPPINCOTT, GRAMEO & CO. 18 5 2. EntcrcJ, accoruing to Act of Cunsi-ess, In the jear 185:i, by LIPPIIsCOTT, Gi'.AMDO & CO., UiO Clerk's Office of tlic District Court of the United States, in and iur the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. nUEuTYl'ED liV J. FACIW. AXI) P. 0. COI.I.IXS, PMNTEKS. ^A CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. NAVAL HOSTILITIES — PRn^\TEEKS — DARTMOOR PRISON. Sloops of war Wasp, Frolic, Peacock — Frigate Esses — Her Cruise and Cap- ture — Decatur taken in the Frigate President — Last Action of the Frigate Constitution — Capture of the Penguin — Chase of the Hornet — Privateers, their Numbers and Cruises — Prize Law established by Judge Story — American Privateers and British Navy compared — Privateers Prince of Neufchatel, Captain Ordronneaux — The Chasseur, Captain Boyle — His Blockade Proclamation — Privateer Discipline — British Complaints — Pri- vateer construction — Baltimore Clippers — Privateer General Armstrong — British Brig of war St. Lawrence captured by the Privateer Chasseur — Letters taken on board — American Naval Force at Sea when Peace was declared — American and British Captures during the War — Dartmoor Massacre Page 9 CHAPTER II. HISTORY OF WAR LAW, War Law — Common Law — No .Jury in Admiralty — International Law — The Exchange — Prize Law — Seizure by mere AVar — Freedom of the Seas — Supreme Court of the United States — The Judges — Attorney-General Pinkney — Admiralty Droits — European Publicists — Sir William Scott — British Prize Law adopted — Chief Justice Marshall dissenting — Case of the Nereid — Armed Neutrality of 1780 and 1800 — Free Ships make free Goods — Judicial Proceedings in Prize Cases — Enemy's Licenses — Alien Enemies — Militia — War Law, as administered in War with Mexico — Blockade — Contraband — Search — Free Ships, free Goods — Respect of Property and Eeligion — Martial Law as administered.. 71 (5) VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. FRENCH CONSULAR REPUBLIC. 1709-1804. Tendency of tlie French Revolution to Representative Government — French in America — Reciprocal Influences of American and French Revolutions — Bonaparte's Arrival from Egypt and irregular Election as Chief Magis- trate — Consulate — His Personal Habits, Temper, Appearance, Manners — Temperance — Economy — Religion — Politics — Family — LoBtitia Ramo- lino, Mother of the Bonapai-tes — Arrighi — Cardinal Fesch — Elisa Bac- chiochi — Her Daughter Camarata — Pauline — Caroline — Achilles and Lucien Murat — Joseph's "Wife and Family — Bonaparte's first Marriage — Josephine — Hortensia and Eugene Beauharnois — Lucien Bonaparte — His Family — Louis — Jerome — Joseph — Treaty with the United States — Treaty of Amiens — Cornwallis — Consular Government — War by Eng- land — Royalist Plots — Count d'Artois — Pichegreu — Moreau — George Cadoudal — Duke of Enghein — His Execution — End of the Republic and beginning of the Empire 127 CHAPTER IV. FRENCH REPUBLICAN EMPIRE. 1804 — 1815 — 1844. The Consul Bonaparte elected Emperor Napoleon — Reformed Royalty of the Empire — Universal SuflFrage — Banishment and Death of Moreau — Empire distinguished, by Joseph, from Kingdom — Republican France — Battle of Austerlitz and Peace of Presburg — Mixrriages and Coronations of the Bo- napartes — Thrones refused by Lucien, Louis, Eugene, and Charlotte — Accepted by Joseph and Jerome — Detriment of Bonaparte Family to Na- poleon Dynasty — Unprivileged Aristocracy — Treaty of Presburg — Divorce of Josephine — Espousal of Maria Louisa — Seizure of Spain — Inducements — Bourbons — Spanish War — Its Atrocities and Results — Emancipation of all Spanish America — Invasion of Russia — Napoleon's Reverses — Fatal Tyranny — Deserted by his Creatures, and afraid of the People — Maria Louisa and her Child's flight from Paris — Captured at Blois — Napoleon's Abdication — Death of Josephine — Sebastian! — Pozzo di Bcrgo — Napoleon's Return from Elba — Public Sentiment — His dread of the People — Their love of Him — Second Abdication — Banishment — Surrender — Transpor- tation — Confinement — Death — Sovereigns' Letters — Joseph in America — La Fayette — Duke of Reichstadt — Joseph in England — His Death in Italy — Representative Government 231 HISTORICAL SKETCH, ETC. CHAPTER I. NAVAL HOSTILITIES — PRIVATEEKS — DARTMOOR PRISON. Sloops of war Wasp, Frolic, Peacock — Frigate Essex — Her Cruise and Capture — Decatur taken in tlie Frigate President — Last i\ction of the Frigate Constitution — Capture of tlie Penguin — Cliase of the Hornet — Privateers, tiieir numbers and Cruises— Prize Law established by Judge Story — American Privateers and British Navy compared — Privateers Prince of Neufchatel, Captain Ordronneaux — The Ciiasseur, Captain Boyle — His Blockade Proclamation — Privateer Discipline — British com- plaints — Privateer construction — Baltimore Clippers — Privateer General Armstrong — British Brig of war St. Lawrence captured by the Privateer Chasseur — Letters taken on board — American Naval force at Sea when Peace was declared — American and British Captures during the War — Dartmoor Massacre. Of the seven naval engagemcnt.s in 1814, tlic Americans gained four by confession of the English, and in ty,-o of the other three, when overpowered by irresisti1)ly superior force, improved their national character by unexampled fortitude : for the captures of the frigates Essex and President enhanced the personal character of the van(|uishcd, and improved the national character of their country. These disasters super- added unquestionable evidence of pre-eminent fortitude under discouraging circumstances to abundant preceding proofs that Americans brave dangers with alacrity. Some people excel in power of endurance, such as the English evinced at the battle of Waterloo. Others excel in fierceness of assault, such as the (9) 10 NAVAL HOSTILITIES. Frcncli displayed there. But there is no record of a British vessel enduring the terrible blows inflicted on the Essex and the President before yielding, as I have been told by an Ame- rican naval officer not given to vaunting. Men of all nations fight gallantly, bravely, even desperately, as long as there is any chance or hope of success ; but few will persevere in braving death, when defeat is unavoidable. The misfortunes of the Essex and the President had that great alleviation. They es- tablished the title of the American mariners to passive as well as active courage in their highest attributes. Sloops of war named the Wasp, and the Frolic, and the Peacock, (after two of our English prizes, the Frolic and the Peacock, and the Wasp, which was taken from us,) the new vessels, each of about 500 tons, which is much smaller than American sloops of war now, put to sea in 1814. The Frolic, Captain Joseph Bainbridge, soon after she got to sea, was cap- tured on the 20th of April, 1814, by the frigate Orpheus, Cap- tain Pigot, without any contest except endeavoring to escape, when the sloop threw most of her guns overboard. The Pea- cock sailed from New York in March, 1814, under Captain Louis Warrington, a gentleman understood to be the natural son of Count Rochanibeau, wdio commanded the French army which, united with Washington's, forced Cornwallis to sur- render at Yorktown, and put an end to the war of the Revo- lution. It was said too, that when Captain Warrington made his way to promotion and distinction. Count Rochaml^eau sent and offered to own him as his son; — to which he made answer, that having dishonored his mother, and deserted him vvhen he needed protection. Captain Warrington had neither occasion nor desire for Count Rochambeau's paternity. Besides four- teen merchant vessels, taken during his cruising, Warrii:g- ton captured, on the 29th of April, 1814, the brig of war Spervier, Captain Wales, nearly, or quite equal in force to the Peacock, but obliged to strike after an action in which the su- periority of the American was made every way obvious. The Epervier was sent into Savannah. The Peacock continued the cruise till October, when she returned to New York. Tlie AVasp, Captain Johnson Blakely, put to sea from NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 11 Portsmouth, New Hampshire, about the first of May, 1814. On the 2oth of June, 1814, after a very short, but on both sides gaUant conflict, the Wasp took the brig of war Rein- deer, Captain Manners, who was killed, with many of his people, and his vessel burned to prevent re-capture. On the 1st of September, 1814, the Wasp compelled the British brig of war Avon, (of almost the same force), Captain Ar- buthnot, to strike ; but after she surrendered, and before Cap- tain Blakely could take possession of his prize, two other British vessels of war approached, and the Wasp was constrained to stand on the defensive, so that the Avon escaped. The 21st of September, 1814, when the Wasp captured a merchant brig called Atalanta, and put Midshipman, now Captain Geisinger on board as prizemaster, who arrived with his prize at Savannah, the 4th of November, is the last that was ever heard of the Wasp, whose loss, by whatever means, after her gallant exploits, was a subject of universal national sorrow and anxious conjec- ture. American naval victories, with anything like equal force, had by that time become so common, that they were invariable. Dutch, at one period, asserted equality Avith English mariners, and subsequently English undeniable superiority to French, were neither of them ever so palpable as American superiority to English. Every battle was an American victory, in Avhich ascendant the American privateers participated. In one of those free conversations which O'Meara relates of the loquacious Napoleon, too late convinced of American naval prowess, which as Emperor he unwisely disregarded, he remarked — " ' The sea is yours — your seamen are as much superior to ours as the Dutch were once to yours. I think, liowever, that the Americans arc better seamen than yours, because they are less numerous.' I observed that the Americans had a considerable number of English seamen in their service who passed for Americans, which was remarkable, as, independent of other circumstances, the American discipline on board of men-of-war was much more severe than ours ; and, that if the Americans had a large navy, tiiey would find it impossible to have so many able seamen in each sliip as they had at present. When I observed that the American discipline was more severe than ours, he smiled and said, ' that is hard to believe.' " The profane remark of another great warrior, Frederick, that Providence always sides with the strongest forces, was com- 12 NAVAL HOSTILITIES. pletely and wonderfully disproved by the American vessels, not more than one to a hundred, defeating the British. After Captain Porter's first cruise in the frigate Essex, he brought her into the Delaware, where she lay in the stream oif Chester, at which village his wife's father, William Anderson, kept a tavern. lie was one of the members who represented Pennsylvania in the House of Representatives of the United States. Soon after my election with him to Congress, in October, 1812, some of our party entertained Captain Porter at a dinner, at his fiither-in-law's tavern in Chester, a few days before the Essex sailed, the 27th or 28th of October, 1812, on her last and memorable cruise, one of the most remarkable that naval history registers. Porter was a small, slight, and rather ill- favored New England man, of genius, nerve, and capacity for heroic achievement. He avowedly hated the English marine as heartily as it was possible for Admiral Lord Collingwood, with racy but neither useless or perhaps censurable British pa- triotism to hate the French ; which detestation that mild and excellent officer said he deemed his duty to his country. For Porter, when a poor cabin-boy, had been seized by a British press-gang, and resisted it unto death ; made his escape, fugi- tive and liable to be treated as a deserter ; worked his passage home as a common sailor ; and, like hundreds more of American sea Hannibals, had sworn vengeance upon the altar of freedom against the hateful lords of the ocean, with whom, as other American naval officers, he longed for opportunity to prove that they were able to cope. "Free trade and sailors' rights," the motto which he flung out from the mast-head of his little frigate, Avas in his heart's core, and he was desperately resolved to brand it on British shoulders. American seafaring hatred of the English was then a pervading sentiment, when general repugnance of Americans to English was neither unnatural nor barbarous. After years of outrageous hostilities, civil wars, kindred conflicts, impressment by sea, conflagration and havoc ashore, bloody indignities every where, contumelious English habits and arrogant overbearing, Porter, Decatur, and other naval officers, and Jackson and Brown in the army, were fired with national animosity which helped exploit. Nor did the in- NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 13 tense aversion of brave, liigli-tcmpered combatants prevent, but on the contrary superinduced graceful and cordial amity with former foes, as soon as the contest was ended and respect was reciprocated. If there is much to admire in the refinements of antagonists in war, who adorn battle and carnage with chival- rous observances of good-breeding, the savage fui'y with which warriors are sometimes inflamed, sharpens vigilance, increases energy, and doubles force. Americans and English quarrel like brothers or lovers, with extreme bitterness ; but their re- conciliations, individual and national, are therefore the more cordial, and, it should be hoped, lasting. "When he found the Atlantic coast of South America unfruit- ful of prizes and adventures. Porter resolved to seek them be- yond Cape Horn in the Pacific, and in spite of storms, dangers, and privations of all sorts, hoist his flag among the whalers. It Avas an adventure full of peril, which none but a fearless seaman could undertake with any chance of success. All the South American states were in the interest of Britain. There was not a port where he could be safe from the mighty foe he braved. Yet he broke up the British whale trade entirely, so that whaling has been gradually becoming ever since almost an exclusive American pursuit, until lately the conquest of California, with its marvellous inducements, ensures the whole Pacific sea, and eventually all its Asiatic borders, China, India, and Japan, to American commercial enterprise. For near twelve months after Porter sailed on that expedition, he was hardly heard of at home, and then it was only through Jamaica, England, or some other English place, that his countrymen learned the enor- mous havoc he was making on the enemy's Pacific trade. He constituted a fleet of nine vessels out of the British whalers he captured ; manned, victualled, armed, refitted, and in every way equipped his frigate and her consorts ; paid for all lie had to buy out of more than half a hundred thousand dollars in coin which he took in one of his prizes, and was for many months the terror of our enemies, and protector of American interests in those seas. Numerous ships of war were despatched from many quarters, to arrest and subdue him ; which Avould pro- bably never have happened, had he not, sated with merely 14 NAVAL HOSTILITIES. unresisting prizes, after sweeping the Pacific of mercliant-men, gone in quest of a frigate of superior force, for the glory of fighting her ; nor "when they at Last met, woukl he have been van(piished but for Spanish complicity with British, shrinking from tluit gallant and lofty defiance of all foes, theretofore not only the boast and glory but the strength of the English navy. If cither a neutral harbor had shielded him, or his conquerors had fought him manfully, his marvellous cruise would have closed, in all probability, by a brilliant victory. Shortly before war was declared, President Madison sent Joel R. Poinsett on a confidential mission through South Ame- rica, to ascertain and report the state of things, and of public sentiment, in those Spanish colonial countries, Mr. Poinsett, afterwards American Minister in INIexico, Secretary of War during Mr. Van Buren's presidency, and for some time member of Congress, was a South Carolinian, educated in England, cnliglitcncd by extensive travel, well-informed, well-brod, and Avarmly devoted to the republican development of the United States. Notwithstanding many attachments formed in Eng- land, like other Americans he was accused of enmity to Eng- land, because in the protracted controversies provoking war between that country and this, he espoused the cause of his OAvn. lie Avrotc from Soutli America, advising government that a frigate should be sent round Cape Horn, to show our flag in those seas, where it was the general impression, as it was also common elsewhere, that by the treaty acknowledging in- dependence, the United States were not allowed to employ large vessels of war. There were, moreover, Si^anish privateers annoying our commerce. For these reasons Mr. Poinsett ad- vised the employment of a frigate on the South American coast. But it was not by that advice that Captain Porter sailed round Capo Horn and into the Pacific. His cruise was his own pro- ject. From Mr. Poinsett, who was with him at Valpai'aiso, I fim enabled to add some particulars to the memorable catastrophe of Porter's capture, correctly described by Fenimore Cooiier in his Naval History, and by others, V)ut with one mistake, as ]Mr. Poinsett understood from Captain Hillyer. With whatever cold- blooded tenacity he clung to disproportionate force to over- NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 15 wliolin Ills antagonist, whom it would have been more politic as well as honorable to fight on equal terms, yet Captain Ilillycr dis- clainied superior orders to cruise in company with the Clicrub, or to rely on any reinforcement. The Phoebe sailed and cruised alone ; her consorting with the Cherub was accidental. Cap- tain Ilillyer deemed it, he said, his dut}^ to snltduc a dangerous enemy by irresistible force, rather than risk the result on dou])tful terms. Reinforcement he claimed as his duty ; and with eighty-one guns in a neutral harbor, out of range of all but his enemy's six guns, to slaughter them till they surrendered. Sloops of war were combined in that enterprise. The frigate Phoebe cruised alone, and her junction afterwards with the Cherub was accidental, not from any superior orders or design to cruise in couples for the American frigate. The Spanish harbors and authorities were friendly to the British, and hostile to the Americans. A Spanish port was scarcely neutral, owing to British and Spanish alliance, and the commanding British navy, little scrupulous of neutral rights. When the Phoebe, having discovered the Essex at Valparaiso, after six weeks block- ade boldly steered at last into that harbor, her resolution to at- tack there was so ostensible, that Porter might have justifiably anticipated wdiat the British frigate gave every reason to appre- hend. Porter did not believe that Ilillyer would respect the neutrality of the port. All cleared and prepared for action, lier men at quarters, the Phoebe steered right for the Essex, if not to attack, at least to defy, to reconnoitre close aboard, scan the American and display the British force; and currents set the Phoebe probably still nearer the Essex than was intended. Their yards nearly touched. Collision seemed inevitable. Porter's men were at quarters eager for conflict, nor did he allow a spar or a rope to be altered or touched. If the Phoebe's yards had not been trimmed, she would have been afoul of the Essex, and then Porter would have instantly boarded. In a clear, calm voice he called to his adversary, " Captain Hillyer ! if you touch my ship I shall board you," at the same time ordering all hands to the starboard quarter, boarders to repel boarders. Captain Hillyer, elderly and grey-headed, with jirobably no rash design, pale and evidently perturbed, protested again and IQ NAVAL IIOST[LITIEb. again that his ship's position was accidental, that there was no design of aggression. The American boarders, armed to the teeth, were at their posts ; blows and bloodshed were at hand. Mr. Poinsett, who was in the Essex, with military tastes and self-possession, says it was a moment of intense excitement, — when the Phoebe fell off a little without touching the Essex, — Captain Tlillyer's disquiet sufficiently demonstrating that he did not intend to attack. Just as the Phoebe cleared the Essex, the British first lieutenant, Graham, called out, "Don't be alarmed — we shall not touch you." "We are not at all alarmed, but wish you would touch us," was the prompt retort of a young American officer, Decatur McKnight, from the fore chains. If the Essex had put to sea immediately, it would have been a breach of neutrality for the Phoebe and Cherub to pursue her directly from the harl)or of Valparaiso ; and probably the British vessels needed provisions, having been five months at sea in quest of the Essex, and six weeks blockading her at Valparaiso. But when Captain Porter was told by Mr. Poin- sett of these advantages for going to sea, he at once rejected them in the hope of an engagement with the Phoebe, for which •he was anxious. Captain Ilillyer, losing no time in supplying his two ships, resumed his station off the port. Continual manoeuvres ensued. Porter frequently sailing out of the harbor, in order to bring the Phoebe to action, and likewise to try the speed of the Essex, wdiich he found to be greater tlian that of the Phoebe. But Hillyer never suffered the Cherub to leave the Pliocbe, nor would the Phoebe engage the Essex alone. On one occasion, when the Cherub happened to be far to leeward, the Phoebe made her appearance off the harbor, hoisted her flag, and fired a gun to windward. That, in naval eti(|"aette, being considered a challenge. Porter immediately accepted it, weighed anchor, and stood out to meet his antagonist. But as the Essex approached the Phoebe, the latter squared away and ran down towards the Cherub. Captain Ilillyer afterwards assured Captain Porter that he did not mean to challenge the Essex, but that the gun fired to windward was a signal to the Cherub, to bear up and join the Phoebe. Porter failing to NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 17 bring Ilillyer to single combat, attempted a plan for depriving him of the Cherub. Observing that she occupied the same place several nights, Porter manned boats for an expedition to surprise, board, and capture the Cherub in the dark. All his measures were taken with great circumspection. Reconnoitcr- ing in person, and confident of success, he took command of the boats, and in profound silence and darkness made for the British corvette. But she had changed her position, the approach of the boats was by some means known on board the Cherub ; the sea around her was illuminated by blue lights, and the boats were obliged to return to Valparaiso. When that attempt was made, Mr. Poinsett was absent. Hearing of it on his retmm, he warned Captain Porter that it was a breach of neutrality to fit out an armed expedition from a neutral port. It was that circumstance which prevented our govern- ment from demanding satisfaction of the Chilian for the much grosser violation of neutrality, committed by the British in the capture of the Essex within Chilian jurisdiction ; for which, but for Porter's boat expedition, Mr. Poinsett would have filed a protest, on which our government would have de- manded indemnity for the loss of the Essex : for though per- haps the Chilian government were not aware, yet the British were, of the armament of the boat expedition at Valparaiso, and its sailing from the neutral port. After many ineffectual efforts to bring the Phoebe to single combat. Porter at last determined to go to sea, — believing that the Essex could out-sail both the British ships. The cabin bul- warks were taken down, and the long twelve-pound guns were run out to serve as stern chasers. Mr. Poinsett, who slept on board the Essex the night before her departure, took leave of Captain Porter, when his vessel made sail from the harbor of Valparaiso, on the 28th of March, 1814, in one of those fierce gales common there. The two British ships, always pru- dently managed, were under light canvass, on the look-out. As the Essex rounded the point, discovering that he could pass to windward between them and the land. Captain Porter ven- tured to haul up without taking in topsails, and in doubling the headland carried away his maintopsail, precipitating several Vol. III. — 2 18 NAVAL HOSTILITIES. of his crew into the sea, some of whom it was impossible to save in that first and ominous disaster of a fatal day. That mis- fortune left Porter no alternative but to return to Valparaiso, whei'e, if he could have regained his former berth, it miiiiit have been possible to defend his ship; but, crippled as she v,'as, he was obliged to run her to the head of the bay, and there cast anchor. The Cherub, shaking out her reefs, quickly followed. But though bravely brought into action by her cap- tain, Tucker, he was soon wounded, and his vessel so battered by the Essex, that the Cherub hauled off to repair damages before the riioebe opened her fire. Following in his consort's wake, Captain Hillyer took the Cherub's place, but soon found the fire of the Essex intolerable. His first lieutenant, Ingram, and some of his men, were killed ; the Phoebe was repeatedly hulled, and the action began so favorably to the Essex that the Phoebe, like the Cherub, drcAV off, and retired beyond the range of the American cannonade. As Captain Hillyer was going into action, his first lieutenant, Ingram, warmly urged his com- mander to fight the Americans fairly, and without any undue advantage. "Let us," said he, a few minutes before that brave seaman was shot dead, " let us have no Cherub to help us, but with the Phoebe alone, lay the Essex aboard, yard-arm to yard- arm, and fight like Britons." Captain Hillyer told Mr. Poin- sett, who walked Avitli him at Ingram's funeral, that he Avas an excellent officer, who, in their long sea-service together, Hillyer had never known to be insubordinate but on that occasion, Avhcn he was much excited, "and I was obliged," said the Cap- tain, "to overrule his request. It was our duty, I told him, to use whatever means Avere placed at our disposal, to capture an enemy Avho had done so much damage to British commerce, and Avhose escape Avould be attended Avith such serious results." In Captain Hillyer's official despatch, there are odors not only of duty but of sanctity and sentimentalism, of Avhich American history has no right to deprive him. The thanks of the mer- chants, Avhose commerce he rescued from a dangerous assailiint, and the favor of his superiors, he probably earned. But the lieroism of British naval exploit Avas buried Avitli his lieutenant. And if that heroism was warmed by the blood of Byng, shed NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 19 for alleged cowardice, it may be nuestioned ■whether Captain Ilillyer's cold-blooded calculations were more profitable to the policy than to the true glory of lords of the ocean. To mas- sacre the brave people of the Essex with eighty-one cannon, ■vvhen out of reach of their six, was more benumbing to British enterprise than the admiralty order to avoid large American frigates, which Admiral Napier coarsely characterised in Par- liament as only fit to be thrown into the quarter-gallery. Mr. Poinsett, who had gone ashore from the Essex in the boat of the Essex Junior, one of Porter's prizes fitted out and manned from his ship, and put under command of his first Lieutenant Downes, mounting his horse gallopped to the head of the bay, earnestly surveying the various eventful occurrences between the British and American vessels. At the beginninff of the battle he saw that the Essex fired with fatal effect, and so repelled her first assailant ; that the Phoebe's firing was wild and pointless, while she suffered from the deadly shots of the Essex. But when the Phoebe likewise retired, and the British ships, both out of range of the guns of the Essex, from their long eighteen-pound cannon swept her decks, with no danj its officers. The privateer Scourge was a public favorite from her enterprising performances. Cruising in the North Cape, she overhauled every vessel for Archangel, sending her j)rize3 behind a chain of islands ; at the entrance of one of Avhich the Captain of the Scourge repaired and supplied an old battery, strong enough to keep off cruisers. Danes took possession of, and conducted the prizes to Drontheim, so as not to reduce the crew of the Scourge, and Danes Avere hired to man the for- tress. Just before the war ended, a court-martial of naval officers, presided by Captain Charles INIorris, at tlie naAy-yard in Charlcstown, Massachusetts, the 10th of February, I8I0, adjudged Jeremy S. Dickenson, first lieutenant of that pri- vateer, to imprisonment, incapacity of ever holding a commis- sion in the public or private-armed vessels of the United States ; and the forfeiture of his shares in the captures made by the Scourge, for negligence of duty, quarrelling, and pro- voking and reproachful menaces, mutinous and seditious con- duct. At the same time, the same court sentenced the boat- swain and three seamen of the Scourge to be flogged, and to forfeit their share of captures, for pillaging a neutral vessel, stopped by the Scourge for examination, and maltreating persons on board that vessel. The government of the United States exacted from privateers conduct in strong contrast with that of British naval officers. From the first of their pi-edatory system ashore and at sea, begun by Admiral Cockburn at Havre de Grace and Frenchtown in 1813, continued through- out the coasts of this whole country, and completed by the kidnapping of slaves in Carolina and Georgia, no sucli rt'];ri- mand from the British government was ever heard of as that inflicted as abovementioned. Complaints from Liverpool, London, Glasgow, Lisbon, the West India Islands broke forth in loud censure of the govern- ment, for its inefficient protection of British connuerce from 38 I'RIVATEEES. Anierican privateers ; of ^vliicli some are here inserted, as indicative of their great impression. " London, Ang-ust 22. "American Privateers. — Tlie Directors of the Royal Excliange and London Assurance Corporations, strongly impressed with the necessity for greater protection being- afforded to tiie trade in consequence of the nume- rous captures, that have recently been made by American criiisers, repre- sented the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty on Wednesday last, and on Saturday received answer, of which the following is a copy: " 'Admiralty Office, August 19. "' Sir, — Having laid before my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, the letter of tiie 12th instant, signed by you and the Secretary of the London Assurance Corporations, on the subject of depredations committed by tlie American privateers tlierein mentioned, I am commanded by tiieir Lordsliips to acquaint you tiiat there was a force, adequate to the purpose of protecting the trade, both in St. George's Channel and the Northern Sea, at tlie time referred to. I am, &c., "'J. W. CROKER.'" After giving the names of some vessels captm-ed, the same paper a(hls — , " Should the depredations on our commerce continue, the merchants and traders will not be able to get any insurance elTected, e.xcept at enormous premiums, on vessels trading between Ireland and England, either by tlie chartered companies, or individual underwriters; and as a proof of this as- sertion, for the risks that are usually written 15s., 9 per cent., the sum of 5 guineas is now demanded." "London, September 1. — It is the intention of the admiralty, in conse- quence of the numerous captures made by the Americans, to be extremely strict with the captains who quit their convoy at sea, or who, contrary to orders, sail without convoy. Prosecutions of masters of ships, for neglect of this description, have already commenced, as will be seen by the subjoined extract of a letter : " ' Lloyd's, August 31, 1814. — Tlie Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty have been pleased to inform the committee, that they have given directions to their solicitor to prosecute the masters of the following vessels, viz:'" [naming them.] AMERICAN PRIVATEERS. "The depredations of the American privateers on the coast of Ireland and elsewhere, have produced so strong a sensation at Lloyd's, that it is difficult to get policies underwritten at any rate of premium. PRIVATEERS. 39 " Tliirteen guineas for one hundred pounds has been paid to insure vessels across the Irish Cliannel; sucli a tiling never happened we believe before. "London, September 9. — At a meeting of merchants, ship-owners, &.C., at Liverpool, to consider of a representation to government on the subject of the numerous captures made by American cruisers, Mr. Gladstone pro- posed an address to the Lords of the Admiralty; but after many severe observations that representations had been made to that department without redress, Mr. Clear proposed an address to the prince regent, which, after warm opposition on the part of Mr. Gladstone, was carried. The address conveys a censure upon the admiralty. Subsequently a counter address to the admiralty was voted at another meeting, to which Mr. Croker replied on the 3d inst., that an ample force had been under the command of the admirals commanding the western stations; and that during the time when the enemy's depredations are stated to have taken place, not fewer than three frigates and fourteen sloops were actually at sea, for the immediate protection of St. George's Channel, and the western and northern parts cf the United Kingdom. "Ill the memorial of the merchants, &c., of Liverpool, to the admiralty, complaining of want of sufficient naval protection against American captures, tliey speak of privateers destroying vessels as a novel and extraordinary practice, which, they say they are informed, is promoted by pecuniary re- wards from tiie American government; and they wish measures adopted to prevent, as much as possible, the ruinous effects of this new system of war- fare. "At a very numerous meeting of the merchants, manufacturers, ship- owners, and underwriters, of the city of Glasgow, called by a public adver- tisement, and held by special requisition to tiie lord provost, on Wednesday, the 7th of September, 1S14, the lord provost in the chair, it was ^'■Unanimously Refsolved, That the number of American privateers with which our channels have been infested, the audacity with which they have approaciied our coasts, and the success with which their enterprise lias been attended, have proved injurious to our commerce, humbling to our pride, and discreditable to the directors of the naval power of the British nation, whose flag, till of late, waved over every sea, and triumphed over every rival. " riiat there is reason to believe, in the short space of less than twenty- four months, above eight hundred vessels have been captured by the power whose maritime strength we have hitherto impolitically held in contempt. " That, at a time when we are at peace with all the rest of the world, when the maintenance of our marine costs so large a sum to the country, when the mercantile and shipping interests pay a ta.x for protection under the form of convoy duty, and when, in the plenitude of our power, we have declared the whole American coast under blockade, it is equally distressing and mortifying, that our ships cannot with safety traverse our own ciiannels; that insurance cannot be effected but at an excessive premium ; and that a liorde of American cruisers should be allowed unheeded, unresisted, unmo- 40 PRIVATEERS. lested, to take, burn, or sink our own vessels, in our own inlets, and almost in sight of our own harbors. "That the ports of the Clyde have sustained severe loss from the depre- dations already committed, and that there is reason to apprehend still more serious suirering-, not only from the extent of the coasting trade, and the nunilx-rs yet to arrive from abroad, but as the time is fast approaching when the oulward-bound ships must proceed to Cork for convoys, and when, during the winter season, the opportunities of the enemy will be increased, both to capture with ease and escape with impunity. "That the system of burning and destroying every article wiiich there is fear of losing, a system pursued by all the cruisers, and encouraged by their own government, diminislies the chances of recapture, and renders tlie ne- cessity of prevention more nrgent. "Tliat from the coldness and regret with which previous remonstrances from other quarters have been received by tlie admiralty, this meeting re> luctantly feel it an imperious duty at once to address the throne, and there- fore, that a petition be forwarded to his Royal Plighness, the prince regtnt, acting in the name and on behalf of his majesty, representing the above grievances, and humbly praying that his Royal Highness will be graciously pleased to direct such measures to be adopted as shall promptly and effectu- ally protect tlie trade on the coasts of this kingdom from the numerous in- sulting and destructive depredations of the enemy ; and that the lord provost be requested to transmit the said petition accordingly." The merchants of St. Vincents sent a memorial to Admiral Durham, stating that the privateer Chasseur had blockaded them for five days, doing them much damage, and requesting that he would send them at least a heavy sloop of war ; where- upon he sent them the Barrosa frigate, in effecting his escape from which frigate, Captain Boyle was oljliged to throw some of his guns ovcrl;)oard. A London newspaper, published the IGth of January, 1815, the following: "The American privateers, which have caused our commerce to sutler so much, have had, for a long time, secret intelligence with two of the ports on the Irish coast. The number of their prizes proves the use they have made of their information, and accounts for the inefficiency of tiie measures taken by the admiralty." Another London publication, of the 20th of January, l(Sir), stated that " letters from Lisl)on, of the 30th of December, announce that the American privateers commit great depreda- tions on the coast of that kingdom. They were uneasy about PRIVATEERS. 41 the fate of one of oiu' sloops-of-war near Ca})e St. A'inceuts, in a hanl battle "with one of the American privateers." Besides seamanship, enterprise and gaUantry, privateers — some of them even more than the public vessels of Avar — deve- loped another superiority in that contest. They were mostly better built than the British vessels. AVhen Nelson, in 1801, surveyed the build, the rig, the trim, and the manoeuvres, altogether, of the first American squadron that entered the Mediterranean, his prediction of transatlantic naval prowess was a fact, as I have been assured by respectable authority. [Vol. I. p. 362]. The American ships were well Jumdied, he said. From the heights of Gibraltar, the great portal of en- trance between the old world and the new, marine experts of all nations perceived that American republican ships were more gracefully shaped, more agile, and SAvifter of movement, as they competed with the English, French, Dutch, Italian, and other vessels, in vain striving to surpass them. The American vessel Avas as easily recognised by her canvass, her hull, her masts, and her march upon the Avaves, as by her flag or sig- nals. The nationality Avas obvious. From the time Avhen Co- lumbus and Americus, in clumsy shallops, passed those straits, till one of the largest steam-frigates of the Avorld, the Missouri, Avas burned and buried there, the model, size, force, motive- poAver and armament of ships, both mercantile and naval, have been constantly progressive, and those of this country emulous to be behind no others. Navigated by freemen, much more subordinate and better disciplined than Turkish slaves, Ameri- can vessels have ahvays compared favorably AA'ith others ; while British and American emulation has, without hostilities, stimu- lated both of these free nations to incessant endeavours for su- perior excellence. In the Avar of 1812, appeared those Ioav black schooners, with tall raking masts, and wonderful facihty of evolution, called Baltimore clippers, some of Avhose cruises and performances are mentioned in this chapter. IMindingthe helm as if understanding its orders, sailing close-hauled upon a AA-ind, those sea-racers, or skimmers of the sea, distanced oppo- nents, played round enemies Avith audacious ease, l)r()ke block- ades, out and in again, cut prizes out of fleets and fortified 42 PRIVATEERS. ports, performed rapid and distant voyages, blockaded, captured, burned and destroyed, or ransomed — executed admiraldy every act of naval belligerency. Since their day, the American pilot-boat, and finally the ocean-steamer, have maintained the progressive advancement, of which the Baltimore chpper vras an early and remarkable edition. For it is one of those in- explicable circumstances, of Avhich human events are contin- ually furnishing new proofs, that the British navy succeeded in driving all others from the sea without excelling in ship- building. The wooden walls of England wore not more im- pregnable than those of Holland, France or Denmark. British crews had the tahsman of British superiority. French ships are said to be better constructed than English. French arma- ment is at least equal. It enhances the naval merit of the British tar, that he vanquished the Dutch and the French at sea, without being on board a finer vessel, or with superior armament. The Baltimore clipper, the American pilot-boat, the sea-steamer, and the pleasure-yacht, have all successively borne testimony that, in the construction and navigation of ves- sels, the builders of this country are not excelled. Nor is it inconsiderable testimony of the value of the efforts, mechanical as well as marine, elicited by the struggle of 1812 with the mighty naval ])Ower of Great Britain, that a nav}^ the steam- boat, the clipper ship — all branches of marine advancement — were among its developments. Since then the contest with the mother country has never ceased or relented ; not in arms, with Idoodshed, or often with anger, but as the wholesome emulation of free and kindred people, vying with each other in the useful arts and advantages of civilized refinements. Many more brilliant particulars of privateer exploits might be added to the few herein mentioned, teeming with adven- turous cruises, rich captures, gallant actions, courteous and humane deportment, and altogether romantic achievements. But enough have been sketched to characterise the whole ; and this chapter will be closed with particulars of two of the most remarkable of sea-fights ; one of wdiieh superinduced important political results after the peace; and the other records disgraceful disclosures of the British navy, taken from it by a privateer. PRIVATEERS. 43 The privateer schooner General Armstrong, mounting eight long nine-pound cannons, ■with one twenty-foui" pound gun on a pivot, and a crew of ninety men and officers, commanded by Captain Alexander C. Reid, sailed from New York, then block- aded, the iHli of September, 1814, on a cruise, whicl), after only nineteen days at sea, ended at Fayal, the port of one of the Portuguese islands of Azore. Captain Reid, on the 26th of September, put in there for water. The American Consvd, John B. Dabney, facilitated the supply, which was hastily shipped, in order that the schooner might sail again next morning. Some anxiety was felt, lest any Britisli ci'uisers should appear, and disregard, as they often did, Portuguese neutrality, when Portugal and England were so closely allied, that Portugal was protected from France by England. In the evening, Mr. Dabney and a party of gentlemen were enter- tained on board the privateer. The American consul was quieting Captain Reid's uneasiness by assurances that the neutrality of the port would undoubtedly protect his vessel, when a British brig-of-war, the Carnation, hove in sight, with a favorable breeze for entering the port, where the privateer was becalmed. AVhile Captain Reid was hastily considering whether he would attempt to elude the possibility of British molestation by putting to sea, the Plantagenet ship-of-the-linc. Captain Lloyd, and the Rota frigate. Captain Somerville, came in A'iew, to which vessels the Carnation made signals, which became fre- quent between them and the Carnation. As soon as the Carna- tion had been apprised by the pilot that there was an American privateer in the roads, the Britisli vessel hauled close in to the Armstrong, and anchored within pistol-shot of her. Of a clear moonlight night, in that transparent climate, when every thing was plainly discernible, the Carnation got all her boats out and sent a message to the Commodore, which suspicious indica- tions, induced Captain Reid to warp his vessel close to the shore, by sweeps, and to clear for action. As soon as the Carnation perceived that movement, her cable was cut, sail was made on her, and four boats were despatched towards the privateer. About eight o'clock in the evening, as the boats 44 PEIVATEERS. advanced, Captain Rcid dropped his anchor, got springs on his ca])le, and prepared for an apprehended attack. As the boats approached in dread silence, pulling toward the priva- teer, with every appearance of a design to attack the Ameri- can, tliey were again and again hailed by Captain Reid, and warned to keep off. Largely manned, and formidably armed, they pushed on till they got close alongside. The Americans then fired. The British returned the fire, killed a seaman on board the privateer, and wounded her first lieutenant, Frede- rick A. Worth. But roughly repulsed, with twenty of their people killed and wounded, and the rest crying for quarter, the boats hastily retreated ; and thus ended the first act of a desperate and bloody tragedy, afterwards renewed by the Britisli, and continued all night. The privateer certainly fired fii'st, and drew the first blood. But who was the aggressor, became a question which is not yet determined. Truth, ahvays difficult of ascertainment, is hardly ever discovered by human testimony when passions are excited by bloodshed between armed foes. The English version was, that, when the Carnation found the Armstrong in the harbor, she sent a l)oat with a lieutenant and a flag to learn the privateer's force ; that the tide, running strong, drifted the boat to the schooner, then getting under way ; that it was impossible for the boat to keep off when hailed and warned to do so, because the schooner had so much stern-way on her ; whereupon the privateer fired, and killed seven men in the boat. Whoever was aggressor, exasperated hostilities were then resolved upon. The British commodore, Lloyd, indignant at what he denounced as aggression, by gross breach of neutrality, resolved to take exemplary vengeance at once, and at all hazards, ordered the Carnation to move in and destroy the pri- vateer. But as the wind was light and variable, the brig made signals to the Plantagenct and the Rota for boats, to tow in the Carnation. Nine boats, manned with two hundred men, commanded by three lieutenants, were accordingly despatched for that purpose ; but not being able, by reason of rocks, to tow the brig in as directed, the boats proceeded, themselves, to destroy the privateer. Such is the British statement. PRIVATEERS. 45 Wliotlier assailant or defendant, Ca])tain Reid, secin<:; that active measures were taking for hid destruction, hauled his schooner close in to the shore, moored her within pistol-shot of the castle, and made preparations for the encounter, which he, too, was resolved should he desperate. The Portuguese governor and inhabitants, the consuls, American and Eng- lish, and large numbers of spectators, lined the banks to Avit- ness what threatened to be an exciting conflict. After the British had combined their forces, said to amount to 400 men, picked from the three vessels, in twelve boats, armed with car- ronades, swivels, blunderbusses, muskets, cutlasses and board- ing pikes, the Carnation under weigh, in order to prevent the privateer's escape, should it be attempted — all the preliminary movements for attack were made ready. The moon shone bright, the air was calm, expectation breathless — the combatants, on both sides, still as death. The privateer's men, all night at quarters, in perfect quiet, awaitdl the onset. At midnight, all the British preparations being completed, the boats, in close order and in one direct line, pulled for their stations, close alongside the privateer. No attempt was made to prevent their approach. With perfect self-possession. Captain Reid, his officers and men, reserving their fire till the enemy was almost at the mouths of their guns, then poured in a terrible dis- charge, which stunned their assailants. But, after a short pause and reconnoissance, the British cheered, returned the fire, and, bravely grappling with their foes, endeavored to board the schooner. At the order to board and give no quarter, they clambered up the bow and sides, with unwavering efforts striving to reach the decks. A furious conflict ensued, hand to hand, with pikes, swords, pistols and muskets. The privateer's second lieutenant, Alexander 0. Williams, was killed ; and the third lieutenant, Robert Johnson, together Avith the quarter-master, Barsillai Hammond, disabled by wounds, — Captain Reid the only oflicer left unhurt. Dur- ing forty minutes of raging conflict, the eighty odd Ame- ricans, Avith the advantage of the deck, constantly repulsed several hundred British, defeating all their attempts to board. Of the British, by their OAvn account, more than half Avere 46 rravATEERS. Ivillecl or wouncleJ, tliat is, 1G7 ; but, according to other esti- mates, about one-fourtli of tliem. Two of tlie Rota's boats, laden witli dead, were abandoned by tlie seventeen survivors, who escaped by swimming ashore. Three of the Rota's lieu- tenants, Bowerbank, Coswell and Rogers, with 38 of her sea- men, were killed, and 83 wounded. The first, fourth and fifth lieutenants of the Plantagenet, and 22 of her sailors, were killed, and 24 wounded. The slaughter was dreadful. At the famous battle off St. Vincents, which conferred that title, with an earldom, on Admii-al Jervis, after an engagement with a Spanish fleet, which lasted a whole day, all the British killed were 73, and all the wounded, 227. Such comparisons infer the conclusion that some of the greatest British naval victories were gained with inconsiderable loss, and much less achievement than is attributed by a public policy, which may not be unwise, but of Avhich conflicts with American mariners rent the veil and exposed the reality. There were moments, during the last forty minutes of furious encounter, when the issue was extremely doubtful. Several of the privateer's men went ashore ; and all the officers, ex- cept the captain, were killed or wounded. But Captain Reid never lost his stern composure. The men who went ashore took their stand on rocks, and continued to fire from them ; those on the deck shouted defiance to their sturdy foes, and at last drove them away with amazing destruction. After the surviving British, so terribly worsted, retired to their shipping, at two o'clock at night the American consul appealed to the Portugese governor to interfere with the British commanding officer, and assert the neutrality of the port against further violation. Several houses had been damaged, and persons wounded by the British fire. The governor, therefore, sent to the commodore, entreating him to desist from such violence. But Captain Lloyd, smarting under his losses, which deprived the Rota alone of seventy of her best men and officers, and exasperated by a resistance which he did not expect, and was resolved to punish, not only peremptorily refused to stop hostilities, but declared that he would take the privateer if he had to lay the whole town in ashes. Furthermore, he gave PRIVATEERS. 47 tlic governor notice that tlic Britisli commander held him re- sponsible, that his revenge should not be disappointed by letting the privateers-men destroy their vessel. If that was done, Commodore Lloyd would consider Fayal an enemy's place, and treat it accordingly. After the commodore's rejection, with these threats, of the governor's request, at three o'clock in the morning the consul apprised Captain Reid that he had nothing to expect from that intervention, and it became certain that the schooner would be destroyed or captured. The captain then went on board of her for the last time, had the dead and wounded removed, told the crew to save whatever they could, and made preparations for destroying the schooner. At day-light the Carnation stood in close to the Armstrong, and opened a fire upon her. But it was so warmly returned, that the British brig soon drew off much injured, and sent her boats to do the work. Captain Reid's vessel being also injured, and his best gun dismounted, he scuttled her before the boats boarded, and with his people went ashore. The boats' crews set her on fire, and the privateer was burned. Two days afterwards two more British war brigs, the Thais and the Calypso, arrived at Fayal ; by each of which twenty-five of the worst wounded were sent to England. An English resident of Fayal, in a letter to Cobbett, pub- lished by him the 14th of October, 1814, thus described the closing scenes of that encounter : " When they got vvitliin clear gunshot, a tremendous and effectual dis- charge was made from the privateer, which threw the boats into confusion. They now returned the fire ; but the privateer kept up so continual a dis- charge, it was almost impossible for the boats to make any progress. They finally succeeded, after immense loss, in getting alongside of lier, and attempted to board at every quarter, cheered by the officers with a shout of 'No quarter!' which we could distinctly hear, as well as their shrieks and cries. The termination was near about a total massacre. " Three of the boats were sunk, and but one poor solitary officer escaped death, in a boat that contained fifty souls; he was wounded. The Americans fought with great firmness; some of the boats were left without a single man to row them; others with three or four; the most that anyone returned with was about ten; several boats floated on shore full of dead bodies. " With great reluctance I state that they were manned with picked men, and commanded by the first, second, tliird, and fourth lieutenants of the 48 PRIVATEEKS. Plantagenot; first, second, third, and fourth do. of the frig-ate; and the first officers of the brig-, together with a great number of midshipmen. Our whole force exceeded 400 men ; but tliree officers escaped, two of wliom are wounded. This bloody and unfortunate contest lasted about forty minutes. "After the boats gave out, nothing more was attempted till daylight ne.\t morning, when the Carnation hauled alongside and engaged her. The pri- vateer still continued to make a most g-allant defence. These veterans reminded me of Lawrence's dying words of the Chesapeake, 'Don't give up the ship !' The Carnation lost one of her topmasts, and her yards were shot away ; she was much cut up in her rigging, and received several shots in her hull. This obliged her lo haul off to repair, and to cease her firing. "The Americans now finding their principal gun (long Tom) and several others dismounted, deemed it folly to think of saving her against so superior a force ; they therefore cut away her masts to the deck, blew a hole through her bottom, took out their small arms, clothing, «Sic., and went on shore. I discovered only two shot-holes in the hull of the privateer, though much cut up in rigging. " Two boats' crews were afterwards despatched from our vessels, v;hich went on board, took out some provisions, and set her on fire. " For three days after, we were employed in burying the dead that washed on shore in the surf The number of British killed exceeds one hundred and twenty, and ninety wounded. The enemy, (the Americans) to the sur- prise of mankind, lost only two killed and seven wounded. We may well say ' God deliver us from our enemies,' if this is the way the Americans fight. "After burning the privateer. Captain Lloyd made a demand of ihe go- vernor to deliver up the Americans as prisoners — which was refused. He threatened to send five hundred men on shore, and take them by force. The Americans immediately retired with their arms to an old Gothic convent, knocked away the adjoining drawbridge, and determined to defend them- selves to the last. The captain, however, thought better than to send his men. He then demanded two men, which he said deserted from his vessel when in America. The governor sent for his men, but found none of the description given. "Many houses received much injury, on shore, from the guns of the Car- nation. A woman, sitting in the fourth story of her house, had her thigh shot off; and a boy had liis arm broken. The American Consul here has made a demandon the Portuguese government for a hundred thousand dollars, for the privateer; which our Consul, Mr. Parkin, thinks, in justice, will be paid, and that they will claim on England. Mr. Parkin, Mr. Edw;ird Bay- ley, and other English gentlemen, disapprove of the outrage and depredation committed by our vessels on this occasion. The vessel (a ship-of-war) that was despatched to England with the wounded, was not permitted to take a single letter from any person. Being an eye-witness to this transaction, I have given you a correct statement as it occurred." PRIVATEERS. 49 Cuptain Reid reduced to Tyviting a fall statement of this transaction in a protest before the Consul, Dabney. The ]V)r- tuguese authorities strongly condemned the conduct of the British ; and the matter has been, ever since, the subject of demand by the American government against that of Portugal for indemnity. Latterly it has been involved in some difficult}" by positive accounts of British deponents that the American?: were alone to blame as aggressors ; and by umpirage, indica- tive of the strange vicissitudes in human affairs. Mr. Daniel Webster, as Secretary of State of these United States, after controversy with the Portuguese government, involving some British testimony, feeling and influence, has, by arrangement with Portugal, referred the matter to the arbitrement of the French republican government. Thus Napoleon's nephew and his ministers will determine a question with which my narra- tive need not deal, as it is confined to the conflict without close regard to the disputed aggression. On his return home, Captain Reid, arriving at Savannah, and travelling north, was welcomed and feted as one of our naval heroes. At Richmond, particularly, he was honored by a public entertainment, attended by the Governor and other distinguished Virginians. Andrew Stephenson, Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, presided. Among the toasts were, " The privateer cruisers of the United States, whose intrepidity pierced the enemy's channels and braved the lion in his den." "Barry and Boyle, and their compatriots, who have ploughed the ocean in search of the enemy, and hurled retaliation on his head." The Vice-President, William Wirt's toast was, " The memory of the General Armstrong ; she has graced her fall, and made her ruin glorious." Ken- tucky, without a seaport or seaman, but uniformly ardent in suppoi't of the war, addressed, through her patriotic governor, Shelby, a letter to Captain Reid, dated Frankfort, May 8th, 1815, in which the venerable hero of two wars strongly and cordially made known his own and his fellow-citizens' senti- ments on a conflict "Avhich," he said, "placed the American clia- racter in a prouder view than any other during the war. ^^ e are not less indebted," added Governor Shelby truly, "to the Vol. IIL — 4 50 PniVATEEKS. officers and crcAvs of our private armed vessels tlian to the navy for the rich harvest of glory we have found on the ocean, where we had much to dread. Instances of talents, skill, discipline, and of determined, unconquerable bravery, have been mani- fested by our privatcersmen. Though I have no reason to be- lieve that the nation is not fully impressed with the gratitude due to this class of heroes, yet I have regretted that there have been so few demonstrations of that sentiment." From an inland state, such applause and encouragement were as ge- nerous as just. To complete the sketch of privateer hostilities, it remains to contrast the gallantry and chivalry of private with the ignoble depredations of public vessels of war ; undeniably proved by scandalous confessions of British naval officers, captured, as the war closed, in a vessel of the royal navy, Avhich struck her flag to an American privateer of inferior force. Soon after peace, but when the treaty still allowed certain hostilities by sea, on the 20th of March, 1815, the privateer Chasseur, of Baltimore, Captain Thomas Boyle, returned there from a successful cruise in the West Indies, with a full cargo of dry-goods, and sundry other valuable articles, taken from three British captured ships. On the 20th of February, 1815, off Havana., after a sharp action of eight minutes, within pistol-shot. Captain Boyle subdued the British war- schooner St. Lawrence, commanded by Lieutenant James R. Gordon, of the royal navy, with a crew of seventy-five men, besides a number of soldiers, marines and naval officers, on tlieir way from Cockburn's squadron to inform Cochrane's fleet, off New Orleans, of peace, of which Lieutenant Gor- don carried the account. The British vessel, of greater force than the American, had 15 killed and 23 wounded ; the privateer, 5 killed and 8 wounded. No action, throughout the whole war, told more em})hatically American nautical supe- riority in seamanship, bravery, gunnery, and, above all, gen- tlemanly humanity. The English schooner concealed her men and force to surprise the American, and when close almard, opened a whole tier of guns, which threw broadsides twice as heavy as the privateer's. But after a very few minutes of the PKIVATEERS. 51 fiercest fire, just when Captr.in Boyle ordered his men to board, and his prize-master, INIr. W. N. Christie, actually got on board the enemy, her flag was struck, and she was found to be a com- plete Avreck, her hull and rigging cut to pieces, and every officer either killed or wounded. Thus disabled, at the en- treaty of her acting commander, the British vessel was sent by Captain Boyle as a flag of truce to carry the wounded into Havana, Lieutenant Locke leaving with his captor a written statement, addressed to British commanders as what it termed " a tribute justly due to the humane and generous treatment of himself and the surviving officers and crcAV of his Britannic Majesty's late schooner, the St. Lawrence, by Captain Boyle, whose obliging attention and watchful solicitude to preserve the effects of the vanquished, and render them comfortable, justly entitle him to the respect and attention of every British subject." Outdoing the royal British navy in gallantry and humanity, that capture detected undenialjle evidence that plunder was a principal stimulant to British naval enterprise, and depredation its daily sustenance. The St. Lawrence, sailing express from Cockburn's detachment of the enemy's fleet to Cochrane's, charged with many letters from the former to the latter, which, in the hurry and consternation of their capture, the bearers had neither time nor self-possession to destroy. Those dis- gusting documents, found in the cabin of the St. Lawrence, betrayed admirals, nobles, gentlemen and knights engaged in paltry rapine, and extensive devastations. War lawfully entitles victors to spoils. Acquisition of wealth by conquest induces exploits, and is their legitimate reward. But the predatory si/s- tem of the British in this country was contrary to recognised regulations of hostility. One of the letters taken in the St. Lawrence was from Admiral Cockburn to Captain Evans, dated Head-Quarters, Cumberland Island, February 11th, 1815, which, after deploring the defeat at New Orleans, adds, " We have been more fortunate here, in our small way. We have taken St. Mary's, a tolerably rich place, and with little loss have managed to do much damage to the enemy, and we are now in tolerable security, on a large fertile island in Gcor- bZ BRITISH BUCCANEERING. gia, tliougli an ugly account of peace being signed (tlie par- ticulars of which I have gent to Sir Alexander Cochrane), seems to promise a speedy dismissal to us from this coast." Cockburn's regret at peace and his haste to anticipate it, Avhen apprehended, by extensive plunder, by his last incursion, l)y confessions of his officers, was shamefully unworthy the navy of which he was a distinguished chief. From a fleet of two T4-gun ships, four frigates, and several transports, between one and two thousand land-troops, black and white, early in January, 1815, landed under Cockburn at Cumberland Island, Georgia, there to repeat the excesses of those freebooters on the shores of the Chesapeake. Cochrane having fjiiled by his proclamation to excite the slaves to revolt, the alternative was to kidnap, as booty, as many as possible. At St. Simons, Cockburn captured 551 of that uncommon plunder, which, after peace was established, he and Admiral Cochrane, officially called upon, refused to restore ; and subsequent negotiations, treaty, and Russian umpirage, became necessary to get indem- nity for them. As Cockburn overcame General Ross's scruples against venturing to Washington by inducements of pillage, so other letters, taken in the St. Lawrence, show that while conquest was the pretext, plunder was the rabid purpose of his landing in Georgia : British officers, naval and military, speculating like pedlers on theii" gains by unlawful means. J. R. Glover's letter to Captain AVestphall of the Anaconda, dated Head-Quarters, Cumberland Island, February 1, 1815, stated — "We have establislied our liead-quarters here, after ransacking St. jNIary's, from which we brought property to the amount of fifty thousand pounds, and had we two thousand troops we might yet collect a good harvest before /leace takes place. My forebodings will not allow me to anticipate either honor or profit to the expedition of wliich you form a part, and I much iear the contrary, yet most fervently i hope my forebodings may prove groundless. The admiral (Cockburn) is as active as ever, and success in general attends his undertakings." The admiral's last successful undertaking, estimated by this follower at fifty thousand pounds, was the plunder of human BRITISH BUCCANEERIXfi. 53 beings. Ill the sliort interval to elapse between tbe ngJy ac- count of peace he deprecated and its ratification, Cockburn had no idea of legitimate hostilities, but of pillage. Not long after his first ignoble depredations in Maryland, in the spring of 1813, the High-Flyer British tender was captured by the Pre- sident frigate, in which prize were found Cockbui-n's own minutes of his own piratical notions of naval warfare. "When his marauding began at the head of the Chesapeake, the cha- racter of his landing and conduct at Frenchtown was thus registered in his log-book entry, dated April 29, 1813 : "The expedition returned, after having effected its purpose, carried a five- gun battery, and destroyed the town, landed tlie marines, and got a slock of bidlncks off. "April 30. — Employed daring the day in taking bullocks down to the Maidstone (frigate.) "May 1. — ^^ Employed carrying bullocks down to the IMaidstone. " May 3. — Weighed and stood into Havre do Grace, to support the boats destined on the attack, under Rear-Admiral Cockburn. * * * Burnt the town, and proceeded to destroy a cannon foundry on the coast. * * ^ At sunset the boats returned loith a good share of plunder. " May 5. — At sunset weighed and stood up the Sassafras river, to protect the boats in tlie attack on Georgetown and Fredericktovvn. " May 6. — The boats returned after a total destruction of the two tovms.^^ Havre de Grace was an insignificant, unarmed village ; Frenchtown, Georgetown, and Fredericktown, small imarmed hamlets, paraded as Admiral Cockbui-n's conquests, "fo^aZ/^ de- stroyed;" whose hostilities, from the first, in 1813, as described by himself, to the last, in 1815, were not civilised or legitimate warfare. His first official report to Admiral Warren, the SOth of April, 1813, giving an account of his attack on Frenchtown — where there were but three houses — stated the destruction of five vessels near that place. His second, the 3d of May, 1813, after his petty depredations of Havre de Grace, avowed his unwarrantable system to punish resistance — not merely to overcome, but punish it. "Setting fire," he said, "to some of the houses, to cause the proprietors who had deserted them and formed part of the militia who fled to the woods, to understand and feel what they are liable to bring upon themselves by build- 54 BRITISH BUCCANEERING. iiig Latteries, and acting towards us with so niucli useless rancor. Tiie boats sent up the Susqueliannah, destroyed five boats and a flour store." At Georgetown and Fredericktown, his third report stated that the whole of those towns were destroyed in consequence of much resistance, '' except the houses of those who remained peaceably in them, and took no part against us." At Havre de Grace, one of liis trophies taken from the residence of Commodore Rogers, was his sword, perhaps lawful prize — though retaken — and his carriage, which was suj-ely unmanly spoliation by one sea-officer of anotlier, though an enemy. Depredation was the system of the British navy in the Ame- rican waters. Captain Epsworth, of the Nymph frigate, exacted fifty dollars from a fishing-smack, as ransom for letting the un- oftending fisherman go. Captain Lloyd, of the Plantagenet ship-of-the-line, (whom we have seen at Fayal,) captured a vessel Ythich was carrying an oi'gan for an Episcopal church in New York, and would not release the prize till paid two thou- sand dollars ransom for the organ. One of the letters taken by tlie Chasseur on board the St. Lawrence was from Captain Napier, of the Euryalus frigate, to Captain Gordon, of the Seahorse, as follows : "Oft" Capo Henry, June 2i, 1814. " Here I am, in Lynnhaven Bay, the clippers sailing every day, and losing them for want of fast sailers. All our prizes are well disposed of I have had a good deal to do with tliem, and not many thanks, as you may suppose, from the agents. I have petitioned the Prince Regent in behalf of the whole of us for a good slice of prize-money, and hope to succeed. You, I suppose, will not be displeased at it. Excuse this hasty scrawl, — I am in a d d bad humor, having just returned from an unsuccessful chase." Captains Gordon and Napier commanded the Seahorse and Euryalus frigates, which pillaged Alexandria. Napier has since commanded the British Channel fleet ; and lately made himself more than supremely ridiculous b}^ impertinent solicita- tion for the command of the jNIediterranean fleet. A letter taken in the St. Lawrence, dated February lOtli, 1815, Cumberland Island, from J. Gallon to J. O'Reilly, on board H. M. ship Tonnant, off New Orleans, ran thus : "We have had fine fun since T saw you. What with the Rappahannock, BRITISH EUCCANEERING. 55 and otiior places, \vc have contrived to pick up a few trijling things, such as mahngany tables, chests of drawers, cj-f." Two others of the capturetl letters were as follows : "From Colonel Malcolm to Rear- Admiral Malcolm. "Cumberland Island, 5th February, ISlo. "I received your letter of the otli ultimo; it is written before your last attack on the place, but I most sincerely hope you will ultimately succeed. From all accounts, New Orleans is not strong. The enemy will have a new confidence in themselves from tlieir success. What a disappointment it will be, in England, should you fail! The chance of failure has not been calculated on; and, from the force employed, it has been made too sure from the first. I have no opinion of either the Indians or black new-ruised corps; the former, in this country, carry on a most furious war ; murder and deso- lation mark their track; there is no hope but flying- or resistance to the last moment of life; this is what every one says of the Florida Indians. Of course the inhabitants, of all descriptions, would fear to come near you. There is a report here that neither the Slst or 44th regiment behaved well — but as a report I treat it. I should be sorry to hear two Briti.--!i regiments slurred in an attack." "From Colonel Malcolm to Rear-Admiral Malcolm. "Cumberland Island, 11th February, 1315. " I hope we may hear from you in a short time, and of your success against the place you are now before (New Orleans) — II will repay the troops for their trouble and fatigues ! I do not expect, either war or peace, that we will move from this island this winter: if war goes on, a garrison must be left here in charge of the island." Sir Thomas Cochrane, of the Surprise frigate, wrote to Captain Pigot, oif New Orleans, dated Cumberland Island, February 12th, 1815 : " I came here just two days too late to share in the good things going on. Old Somerville was senior, and ordered the attack on St. Mary's, which Barrie executed. The prize-money will be about thirty thousand pounds, not more. Had our force been sufficient, our next movement would have been Savannah ; but, not mustering above a thousand bayonets, we are con- tent to keep possession of this island, which we are placing in a state of defence. Our operations will, I suppose, shortly be put a stop to by our friend Jimmy Madison, as peace or war now depends on him — tlie Com- missioners at Ghent having signed, and the Prince Regent ratified the terms of a peace, and hostilities will cease so soon as he does tiie same. \\ o liope, in the meantime, better luck will attend you at New Orleans than 5G LEITISII BUCCANEERING. ^ lias liitliorto done, anci that you will have time to give General Jackson a trimming." Sir Thomas Cochrane Avrotc, also, to Sir Thomas TroAV- biidge, off jS'^cw Oiicaus, from Cmuhcrland Ishmd, Eohruai'y 12th, 1815: - ■ . _ , " I hope this will reach head-quarters in time for the St. Lawrence, who sails immediately for your part of the world with the news of peace being concluded with this country, but of which, I should think, you will receive earlier intelligence direct from England. We are in daily expectation of a flag of truce to inform us of Mr. Madison's having ratified the trenty, on his doing which hostilities will immediately cease. I confess myself by no means sorry for this event. I think we have had quite enough of war, for some years to come; although I should have wished to make the Yankees more sensible of our power and ability to punish them, should they again provoke us. As it it is, except the iujurij done to thfir trade, we hmc little to Ijoftst of. We are all very much grieved to learn tlie disasters in your quarter. Our loss seems to have been immense ; and, from the reports we pick up, one is led to believe there was not much prospect of success at the commencement of the attack. We are most particularly unfortunate in our general otFicers on all occasions. I am afraid General Power, and the regiment with him, will not be with you in time to render any service. He was at Bermuda on the 24th ultimo, at which the Statira had not arrived. "I came here six weeks ago, and found St. Mary's had been taken two •Jays beibre my arrival, which, of course, cuts me out nfzvhat has been cnp- tured. Barrie commanded the party landed; old Somerville was senior officer, the Admiral having only arrived the day before me, in consequence of being blown off the coast by strong north-west gales, on his way from the Chesapeake. It was at first supposed, as is usual on these occasions, that a great deal of money would he made ; hut if they clear thirty thousand. pounds, it will he as much as they will do."" x\nother captured letter, from Mr. Swainson to Lieutenant Douglas, of H. ]M. brig Sophie, off New Orleans, dated lUIi of Fe]>ruary, 1815, boasted : " We had some fine fun at St. INfary's ; the bombs were at the tow-n and had plenty of plunder. How are you otf for tables and chests of drawers, tj-c. ?" The last I shall fpiote of these disgraceful diselosures was from John Miller to Mr. Thomas Miller, 75 Old Gravel Lane, St. George's, East London, dated IL INL ship Lacedemonian, off land, February 12th, 1815. BRITISH EUCCANEERIXG. 57 "We have lately been employed with the si]uadron luiiler Admiral Cock- burn, and have taken Cumberland Inland, and the town of St, Mary's, from the Yankees. Our troops and sailors behaved very well; part of the black regiment employed on that service acted with great g-allantry. Blackey liad no idea of giving quarters; and it was with difficulty the officers pre- vented their putting the prisoners to death. The Yankee riflemen fired at our men in ambush. Blackey, on the impulse of the moment, left the ranks, and pursued them in the woods, fighting- like hemes. A poor Yan- kee, disarmed, begged for mercy. Blackey replied, '/ie no come in bush for mercy,'' and immediately shot him dead!'''' Accounts of tlie vanquished and spoliated arc often exagge- rated. But it is certain that the British land depredations, in that war, were extremely base. At St. Simon's, a well- authenticated statement showed that, besides the slaves and cotton, they took everything they coidd lay their lumds on : cotton-seed, old iron, leather, tanned and untanned, wine, liquors, soap, candles, poultry, plate, a stock-buckle, pocketed by an officer named Ilorton, a carpet, some books, a razor, part of a barrel of flom-, by a Lieutenant de Thierrj- ; medi- cines, paints, handsaw files, taken by a commander Ramsey, and spoons ; destroying whatever fm-niture they could not take away, and actually scraping the quicksilver from the backs of broken mirrors. If such ignominious pillage were not proved by detected written acknowledgments of the perpetrators, it would be incredible. No American proof would be sufficient to sub- stantiate it. And though many years have elapsed since these depredations, yet their undeniable occurrence is part of the events of that contest, which, not to expose, would be his- torical infidelity. On Lord Brougham's motion for thanks to Lord Ashburton, for his treaty at AVashington (lS4o), that distinguished Briton ably recapitulated some of the too many causes of bitter estrangement between the American and British people. It is the very general and well-nigh universal hope, on this side of the Atlantic, that it may give place to reciprocated respect and kindred regard, of which, latterly, there are, for the first time, soothing British indications. But the barbarous methods of hostility avowed and oi-dered by government, as well as practised by both navy and army in 58 MARINE RESULTS. tlie war of 1812, should be kept in recollection, to prevent their recurrence. Although inextinguishable aversion to Eng- land may still rankle in the bosoms of a portion of the Ame- rican population, a great mnjority of the best yearn -with Eng- lish reverence and attachments. When peace was declared, and Christopher Gove, cliosen to succeed Caleb Strong, as governor of Massachusetts, stated to the Legislature of that state, that it was " owing to the for- bearance and clemency of the British that we were permitted to have a single ship on the ocean," there were sixty Ame- rican privateers at sea, many of them from Massachusetts, to- gether with the frigate Constitution, the sloops-of-war Wasp, Peacock, and Hornet, and the brig-of-war Tom Bowline, distin- guished by constant victories, numerous prizes, and altogether doinii o-i'crit damage to the commerce and naval renown of Great Britain. Seven thousand of the best seamen in the world, belter trained, organised, and much more formidable than they ever had been, were careering throughout every ocean, to render 1815, if peace had not disarmed them, much more injurious to the no longer lords of the Ava-ter-rcalms than American cruises proved in 1812, 'lo, and '14, by seldom failing successes. Above all, England by that war made the United States a naval power. Three ships-of-the-line, and several friirates and sloops, were nearly finished and ready for sea when it ended, without counting those on the lakes. British fleets in vain blockaded every coast, and traversed every sea : blockades were broke ])j American vessels, private armed and public, vdiich out-sailed, out-man«uvrcd, and out-fought their still mighty foes. So closely watched were our ports by superior force, that American cnusers mostly inaugurated by exploit what Avas con- summated by victory. The elements were first overcome, and then the enemy, by those adventurous mariners, whose only chance of putting to sea was by taking leave in a hurricane or snow-storm, some tempestuous night, when winter-cold froze the ropes and covered the decks with ice. Only when the block- aders were momentarily blown off the coast, or their vigilance and activity petrified Ity intense weather, could the American vessels emerge ; and tiiough some few were captured, yet the MARINE llESULTS. 59 proportion lost was small compared willi the successful. Even merchant vessels managed, by the superior sobriety and sagacity of their officers, and their fjimiliar knoAvledge of the ocean, to escape the numerous hostile cruisers, which covered the ocean. Four American ships, richly laden with teas, silks and other precious products of China, sailed from Canton, when strictly watched by British vessels, which they eluded, and three of them arrived safe at Boston on three successive days. Twenty-seven vessels got to sea from Baltimore during the winter of 1814-15. At all events, the moral of triumph was hardly ever disturbed. If the merchants and leading men of Massachusetts had not opposed the war, and the marine enterprise of that seafaring commonwealth had been united with that of its fishermen, whalers, and other elite of the sea, still greater must have been the naval glory of the country, and much less the dis- credit of Massachusetts. Soon after the peace, accounts were stated and published in England and America, of the captures, successes, and defeats of each nation during the war upon the ocean : the English by parliament reports, the American only by individual ascer- tainments ; still the American as precise, correct, and credible, with less motive to misrepresent. These accounts do nut dis- criminate, in the amount of prizes, between those taken by pri- vate and by public armed vessels. By ours, the captures from the English were -360, of which allowing 750 to have been recaptured, there remained a total of 1010 prizes of private vessels made and secured, either burnt at sea or sent into port, by the Americans from the English. That is the American account. The British parliamentary report of American vessels taken by British was 1328. By the British account they took 18,413 American prisoners. Jiy the American ac- count, we took 24,000 British. On board the public vessels of war, according to the American account, there were 625 British killed, 1032 wounded, 2929 made prisoners, altogether 43i)7. By the same American account, there were killed, on board the American public vessels, 274, wounded 562, prisoners 1111, altogether 1749. The killed, wounded, and captured British were, therefore, nearly twice as many as the Americans. Sixty- 60 MARINE RESULTS. five Britl^ili national vessels Averc captured ; that is, vessels-of- war and king's armed packets. The British reported 42 Ame- rican puljlic armed vessels, captured at sea and on the lakes. The frigate Chesapeake and brig Argus were the only two Ameri- can vessels of war subdued by any thing approaching to efjuality of force ; and in neither of those misfortunes was any naval character lost, but the contrary. In all the other naval en- gagements, ship to ship, and squadron to squadron, the British were vanquished by the Americans, twenty-one of the twenty- three times they fought ; with rapidity and disparity of destruc- tion indicating indubitable superiority. The frigates President and Essex, and the squadron of boats on Lake Borgnc, over- powered by numbers, far from diminishing, much augmented the solid columns of American naval power ; which rose from the Atlantic, the Pacific, the British seas and the American lakes, acknowledged monuments of national strength, oversha- dowing adversaries at home as well as foreign enemies. The construction, equipment, and management of fighting vessels under sail, demonstrated l)y that trial, more than compensated for the cost and sufferings of a much longer and harder war. Impressment was practically abolished, with ample indemnity for the ignominious past and security for the glorious future. At the same time, Fulton, discountenanced in England and France, launched steamboats on the Hudson and Ohio, whose since-established superiority over English steamers by sea, is much owing to the energy and rivalry of that struggle — sanguinary conflict having given place, probably for ever, to that commercial freedom and competition which enriches and approximates both nations. A frigate, three sloops, and one brig-of-war, manned l)y a thousand men, Avith batteries of one hundred and twenty guns, were abroad upon the ocean, defying British might, when the war closed. Thirty-six known privateers, carrying three hun- dred and fifty-seven cannons, manned by more than three thousand seamen, besides some thirty more privateers un- known, estimated as carrying three hundred and fifty cannons, and manned by twenty-five Innidred seamen ; altogether not less than eight thousand seamen, with eight hundred cannons ; MARINE RESULT.^. 61 ill tlic winter of 1814-15 traversed the ocean in all ({uarters, every vessel better manned, C(|uipped, and managed than those •which in 1812, '13, and '14 had done so much to inspire ex- ploit, stimulate adventure, illustrate achievement, and effect peace. Of these American sea-forces, regular and volunteer, the sea-militia, in private-armed vessels, constituted five-sixths of the power, did a large part of the execution, and are en- titled to their full share of historical acknowledgment. This memento of privateer contribution to the triumplis of the war and the freedom of the sea, would not be complete without adding that, long after it ended, in 1824, the American government offered to sacrifice that arm of its force on the altar of peace. Those founders of democracy, Franklin and Jeffer- son, returned from Europe disgusted with all war. By their treaties they endeavored to cut off as many as possible of its supports, and, among the rest, private-armed vessels, which, as regular soldiers treat militia, naval officers, especially the English, disparage as mere depredators. Accordingly, after the peace, Quincy Adams, as President, and Monroe, as Secretary of State, proposed, through Mr. Rush, then minister, to the British government the total abolishment of all private war on the ocean ; that in no future war should the United States or Great Britain employ privateers, nor molest merchant ves- sels, but that hostilities by sea should be confined exclusively to national vessels-of-war, as hostilities by land at least profess to respect private property. The British government at once rejected a proposal which, if accepted, might have almost ex- tinguished war by sea. What was, in this country, called the Dartmoor massacre was a distressing and aggravating close to our maritime rela- tions Avith Great Britain. During the war, remonstrating cor- respondence took place between Eeubeu G. Beasley, the Ame- rican agent in England for prisoners, and the government there, and between John Mason, American commissary, and Thomas Barclay, British agent for prisoners in this country, concerning alleged ill-treatment of American prisoners by their English captors. No assertion, I believe, was ever made of American ill-treatment of English prisoners. Prisoners are 62 DART.AIOOll MASSACRE, often treatcil rigorously by inferior keepers, even tliougli tlieir superiors and oi-ders may be merciful. Captivity is a hardship of Avhieh complaint is one of the few alleviations. From Halifax, complaints by American prisoners induced the American commissary to remonstrate Avith the British agent, which, after a good deal of controversial correspondence, ended by some English amelioration of prisoners' treatment at that station and on IMelville Island. Privateering, under British denunciation, was treated as disreputable warfare, though prac- tically no more so, if so much, as that of the British royal navy. The prisoners taken from American vessels captured, espe- cially privateers, were therefore treated with great severity, in British vessels afloat, in prisons, hulks, and ashore. Of the 7000 British prisoners confined in Massachusetts, under care of the United States' marshal, only three of those not Avounded died ; whereas in Melville Island, in twenty months, 300 Ame- rican prisoners died in the hospital ; and, as was alleged, from want of proper attention by John Cochct, (once a captain of the navy,) the superintendent there of prisoners, who Avas uni- formly represented by them as inhuman and merciless. McDo- nald, too, the Scots surgeon at Melville Island, was said, by the prisoners, to be a brutal and hateful person. It is part of the history of that war, that Avhile all British prisoners were uniformly and universally treated Avith great humanity and indulgence, American prisoners Avere severely dealt with in Avhatever British place of confinement it was their misfortune to fall. Numerous publications of these facts were made by many prisoners, signed by responsible names, on both sides. Every one of the American victories, by sea and land, Avithout exception, Avas followed by acts of exemplary kindness to British prisoners ; for Avhich public thanks Avere given by the enemy after the battles of Lake Erie, Lake Champlain, New Orleans, Little York, and on several other occasions. Whereas such acknoAvledgments from American prisoners to British captors Avcre rarely, if ever, aAvarded ; and only because not duo ; for the natural American inclination to applaud what is English seldom fails to appear when it may. American sea- men averred that they were hardly treated in order to induce DARTMOOR MASSACRE. 63 them to sliip in British merchantmen, -whence they couhl bo easily transferred to ships of war. By the third article of the Treaty of Ghent, all prisoners of Avar taken on either side, as -well by laud as by sea, Avcre to be restored as soon as practicable, on paying the debts Avhich they had contracted. Some months after the peace of Ghent, and before it Avas ([uite settled Avhat AA'as meant by the stipula- tion to restore prisoners confined respectiv^ely, Americans in Europe, and Englishmen in America, a lamentable massacre occurred at Dartmoor, where American prisoners were confined in England, Avhich excited much American sympathy and indig- nation. Impressment of Americans by English was undeniably a shocking outrage, for Avliich, AAdien war Avas declared, England deemed the United States qualified by Aveakness, and having long suffered it. The Dartmoor massacre was an aggravating end of that hard beginning ; by Avhich the original and intole- rable injustice of impressment and stripes was finally embit- tered by bloodshed and cruel homicide. When the war broke out, the native American sailor who had been forced, by impressment, into a British vessel of AA'ar, was allowed none but the stern option of either remaining there and fighting against his countrymen in arms, to resist impressment, or being given up as a prisoner of Avar, to the misery of indefinite confinement in a prison-ship, or prison ashore. One and all preferred the latter, as the least of the two evils. After long and painful incarceration, several were shot to death, and others maimed and mutilated, for impatience to be set free wdien Avar Avas over. Nearly 6000 American, together with 10,000 French prisoners, Avere confined at Dart- moor ; of Avhom it Avas said that one-half of the Americans, no doubt many, Avere impressed men, transferred from British vessels, when hostilities began, to the condition of prisoners of war. That sequel of original wrong Avas a deploral)le homi- cide, of which some account belongs to history. The Avar provoked by impressment, and waged in vindication of those who suffered by that enormity, closed, some time after peace was ratified, by a memorable catastrophe, a consequence of the 64 DARTMOOR MASSACRE. original -wrong ; Vtliicli it is due to the seafaring sufferers briefly, but without extenuation, to commemorate, as they have no liis- torian of their own. Seventeen hundred feet above the sea's level, in a bleah and barren part of Devonshire, fifteen miles from Plymouth, and not very far from Dartmouth, Weymouth, Sidmouth, and other English ports, was Dartmoor fortress, appropriated for the custody of prisoners of war. In the midst of a dreary, uneven and uncultivated waste, without trees, plantation or improve- ment for many miles, it seemed to sympathize with the gloomy solitude of dismal incarceration inflicted, not upon malefactors, traitors, or assassins, but on brave soldiers and daring seamen, who, fighting for their country, unfortunately fell into cap- tivity. Climate uncongenial with American constitutions, moist, wet, and cloudy, owing to great elevation from, and proximity to, the sea, for nine months of the year afflicted with catarrhs, rheumatisms and consumptions, the ill-clad, some of them almost naked, prisoners, ill-fed and ill-lodged, exposed to some of the worst influences Avhicli can act upon human happiness and health. Seven prisons, each calculated to contain from 1100 to IGOO men, were superintended by an agent of the transport office, Thomas G. Shortland, a captain of the royal navy, with George McGrath, as surgeon of tlie hospital. The guard consisted of 2000 well-disciplined militia, from the neighbouring county of Somerset, and two companies of royal artillery. All the seven prisons are built of stone, and surrounded by two strong inner walls ; the outer wall a mile in circumference ; the inner walls surmounted with military walks, on which the sentinels performed their watchful rounds day and night. "Within the inner wall are iron palisades, ten feet high, and several guard-houses against the outer wall ; houses f.tr the superintendent, surgeon and turnkeys, and a market-place, into which the neighbouring country-people brought their supplies. The fare was not bad. The surgeon was humane and kind. But the superintendent was com- plained of by the prisoners, and probably found it difficult to please such crowds of unemployed captives, part of whose few enjoyments was repining. After the peace between the United DARTMOOR MASSACRE. 65 States and Great Britain, the Americans became extremely rest- less and impatient. Never very submissive or resigned to their hard fate, they meditated emancipation with constant and in- creasing restlessness when it was impossible to escape, n(jt only by reason of the bars, bolts, and other restraints of their prison ; but beyond it, what could they do, whither go, or upon what subsist? — scarcely clothed, many of them bare-footed, without means of procuring food, clothing or lodging, unarmed, and surrounded by British soldiers and sailors, provided vrith all the means and power of compulsion. The American prisoners complained not only of their British keeper, but also of their American agent, Reuben G. Beasley, whom they accused of neglect of their sufferinji-s, and indiiference to their fate. But Mr. Beasley was much esteemed by his own government, which continued him, long after the war, in the consulate of Havre, where, as in England, his established character was that of an intelligent, resolute and useful public officer. The Ameri- can prisoners had no good reason to complain of him, although they were under a different impression. Captain Shortland, too, the British superintendent at Dartmoor, was probably less to blame than the American prisoners supposed. Restless, audacious, and sometimes turbulent, it was difficult for him to keep them in order, without some rigor. They had no reason to complain of their fare, nor was their treatment gene- rally harsh or unjustifiable. But several irksome months elapsed after peace before their enlargement, for which they became extremely impatient. Mr. Adams, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Gallatin, were negotiating, in London, with Frederick J. Robinson, Henry Goull)urn, and William Adams, the commercial convention between the United States and Great Britain, signed by those gentlemen on the 3d of July, 1815, when the Dartmoor massacre occurred on the evening of Friday, the Gth of April. The American prisoners, excited by mingled impatience and gratification at peace, insisted on speedy enlargement. Ten thousand French pri- soners, with characteristic hilarity, though some of them had been much longer imprisoned than any of the Americans, and AYorse treated (and their war, too, was over), submitted — ■ YcL. III. — 5 , GG DARTMOOR MASSACRE. gay, frolicsome and harmless. The grave and less sub- missive Americans, more difficult to manage, were perhaps not free from 1)lame in the controverted, hut, at all events, de- plorahlc and fatal transaction, by ^vhich six or eight of them "were slain, eighteen or twenty wounded, and several badly mutilated. Wliilst Thomas George Shortland, the naval com- mander, and Major Jollifte, of the Somerset militia, were finishing their dinners, many of the American prisoners, to- wards evening, on the 6th of April, were playing ball against an outward enclosure. Some of them made a hole through it, as they affirmed, to go and recover the ball that had fallen over, but, as their British keepers apprehended, to effect their escape. The alarm-bell was rung, the drums beat to arms, the prisoners were driven in with charged bayonets by the military, fired upon, when they resisted or delayed to retire ; and, after they were driven, or retired, to tlieir respective quarters, were then barbarously shot there, through the windows, and as was agreed, on all hands, unjustifiably. Whatever doubt or controversy involved the beginning of the fray, the British government acknowledged that, after the prisoners were driven or retired into their prisons, the individual firing of the militia, through the doors and iron-grated windows, by which several prisoners were killed and wounded, was vuipardonable homicide. A committee of the prisoners drew up a report, severely crimi- nating their keepers. But an inquest of neighboring farmers returned a verdict of justifiable liomicide. Correspondence on the subject ensued between Mr. Clay and Mr. Gallatin and Lord Castlereagh, who expressed to them the great regret of the British government, and proposed that either Mr. Clay or Mr. Gallatin, with one of the British ministers at Ghent, should repair to Dartmoor, ascertain the circumstances, and make a joint report thereupon. Mr. Clay and Mr. Gallatin not thinking proper, unauthorized, to undertake that function, suggested Mr. Beasley for the purpose ; who also declined, as too much occupied with his other duties. A young Ameri- can in London, Mr. Charles King, son of Bufus King, formerly American minister there, was then requested by Messrs- Clay and Gallatin, and undertook, together with DARTMOOR MASSACRE. G7 Francis Seymour Larpcnt, ;;ppoiutcd by the English govern- ment, to ascertain and report tlie facts. After examining some eiglity Avitnesses, King and Larpent reported, on the 2Gth of April, a statement somewhat criminating, but yet exonerating, the British; which, on the 22d of May, 1815, Lord Castle- reairh communicated to Mr. Clav and Mr. Gallatin, with assiu'ances how deeply the Prince Regent lamented the conse- quences of the unhappy aifair, and his desire to make compen- sation to the widows and families of the sufferers. The Regent's disapprobation of the conduct of the officers of the Somerset militia, to whose want of exertion, calling for the most severe animadversion, the extent of the calamity Avas ascribable, was also at the same time made known by the British secretary, through the American ministers, to their government. Mr. Adams, whose English mission commenced with that untoward occurrence, much regretted by both governments, deprecating any additional or fresh cause of ill-blood, intimated to Lord Castlereagh that Captain Shortland and Major Jol- liffe ought to be put on their trial, as some atonement to this country ; which his lordship adroitly evaded by saying that, as they would certainly be acquitted, that would only make matters worse than ever. All that was done, therefore, after investi- gation, was formal expression of regret. On the 23d of June, 1815, Mr. Adams communicated Lord Castlereagh's letter to our government ; jMr. Adams regretting that Captain Shortland had not been brought to trial. On the 3d of August, 1815, Anthony St. John Baker, British charge d'affaires, in a letter from Philadelphia, repeated Lord Castle- reagh's regrets, with the offer of compensation to the families of the sufferers. The firing, he said, appeared to have been justified, at its commencement, by the turbulent conduct of the prisoners ; yet want of steadiness in the troops, and exertion in the officers, called for the most severe animadvei'siou. Mr. Monroe did not answer Mr. Baker's letter for several months, not till the 11th of December, 1815, then declining the provi- sion pi-oposed for the sufferers and their families by what he termed a much to be lamented event, causing deep distress to 08 DARTMOOR MASSACRE. tlic whole American people, increased by the two governments not agreeing in sentiment respecting the conduct of the parties to it. By that rebuke, long deferred before it followed the British apology and rejected atonement, the Secretary of State echoed public opinion, which, throughout the United States generally, loudly condemned the Dartmoor massacre, the British impunity for it, and Mr. King's acquiescence in the exoneration which he recommended, what he pronounced outrageous, and the British commissioner agreed with him was unjustifiable. A committee of the prisoners, in their published strictures on the official report of King and Larpent, charged them with omitting to take the testimony of many American witnesses attending to be examined by the commission, and prepared to give ma- terial evidence. Of the eighty Avitnesses examined, all the British keepers, ofiicers, agents, turnkeys, and surgeon, formed a large part ; between whose testimony and that of the Ame- ricans the conflict of averment was perplexing as to the origin of the affair. But the proof was clear of unpardonable mis- conduct of the soldiery, in the latter part of the tumult, after the prisoners retired to their apartments ; and probably, also, established that the Americans were insubordinate and turbu- lent in the beginning, if not insulting and provoking during the sort of conflict tliat took place when driven to their ({uarters. It was INIr. Clay's opinion that the Americans were chargeable with insubordination ; that Mr. King was justifiable for the report ; and that Mr. Bcasley, on that as on other occasions, behaved well. Mr. Adams thought that some national atone- ment was due to this country, which Mr. Monroe deemed should be more than pecuniary. The affair ended, however, as all those negotiated between the United States and Great Britain have ended, without American advantage. For the treaty of independence is the only instance wherein American reverence has not relented before British ascendency. The Dartmoor massacre closed distressingly the contest long provoked by injustice to seamen. The parliament report acknowledged 2."J48 undeniable Americans impressed vmjustly. If, as is pro- bable, any of that number were among the killed or maimed HISTORY OF WAR LAW. G9 ut Dartmoor, impressed freemen, imprisoned because impressed, and when tliey should have been liberated, kept imprisoned during the whole war, the fate of such sufferers was cruel wrong, which Great Britain would have waged war to avenge, any one of whom that mighty empire Avould have vindicated by all the means in her power. CHAPTER II. HISTORY OF WAR LA W. War Law — Common Law — No Jury in Admiralty — International Law — Tlie Exchange — Prize Law — Seizure by mere war — Freedom of the Seas — Supreme Court of tiie United States — Tlie Judges — Attorney- General Pinkney — Admiralty Droits — European Publicists — Sir William Scott — British Prize-Law adopted — Chief-Justice Marshall dissenting — Case of the Nereid — Armed Neutrality of 1780 and 1800 — Fi-ce Ships make free Goods — Judicial proceedings in Prize Cases — Enemy's I_,icenses — Alien Enemies — Militia — War Law, as administered in war with Mexico — Blockade — Contraband — Search — Free Ships free Goods — Re- spect of Property and Religion — Martial Law as administered. The philosophical history of a country of law, ought to be found in its code. In all countries, besides statutes, ordi- nances, rescripts, and adjudications, there is a basis of common law. But the American confederacy has been thought to have no common law for restraining crime, while that for contracts varies according to the adoption and adaptation of English common or French law, administered by the federal judiciary, in different sovereign states. Maritime law is a distinct sys- tem in form and forum. Written constitutions are generally supposed to impose on American judges the inevitable, hitherto untried, function of determining whether statutes conform to constitutions, and annulling them if they do not. The United States, and most of the American states, having adopted, by statute, the English separation of tribunals of justice into courts of equity, for mitigating absolute law, and courts of 70 COMMON LAW. common law, disregarding equity; the whole judicial structure, federal and state, common and equitable, admiralty and revenue, civil and criminal, is complex, and diiScult of comprehension. Complicated codes, multiplying advocates, increase judicial influence, which is pervading and eilfective in the United States. Law is a mild infliction. Individuals a,re less coerced by its direct action than in other countries. But the community allovrs American courts of justice to exercise political power, by which theii" sphere is elevated, and self-government rallies to their support most of the people. Reverence for judicial determinations predominates. The profession of the lav*' is, moreover, the main avenue to ofBce and distinction. Shortly before the declaration of war, in February, 1812, the Supreme Court of the United States resolved, for the first time during the twenty years it had been mooted, the question whether the courts of the United States have common law ju- risdiction over crime, after that question had become mixed with the permanent, and part of the ephemeral, politics of the country, one party favoring as indispensable and preferable, the other discountenancing, the reliances of English common law, and judicial constructive authority. Among the many offensive acts of the French minister in 1793, were those of commissioning vessels and enlisting men in American ports, for cruising against the English. An American, thus enlisted, having been arrested by the American authorities when there was no act of Congress, or treaty with France, prohiljiting such misconduct, the French minister demanded his release as a French citizen, "serving," he said, "the common and glorious cause of liberty, which no positive law or treaty declared a crime." The attorney-general, officially called upon by the president, gave his opinion that the man was an American citizen, amenable to American hiAV, because treaties, the su- preme law of the land, with three of the powers at war v/ith France, stipulated that there should be peace between their subjects and the citizens of the United States; and the accused was punishable at common law, his offence coming within the description of disturbing the peace of the United States. The secretary of state, Jefferson, in his letter to Governeur Morris, COMMON LAW. 71 the miiiistcr of tlic United States in France, asserted tlicreiijjon, that an American citizen could not divest liimself of that cha- racter by the commission of a crime ; and that it is an essential attribute of the jurisdiction of every country to preserve peace, and punish breach of it within its own limits. By -what organ of govennnent offences against the neutrality of the United States should be redressed, this letter declared ^yas not then perfectly settled ; whether by the judiciary, or by the execu- tive, charged with the military force and foreign relations of the country. To meet this exigency. Jay, the chief-justice, and Wilson, an associate judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, affirmed the existence of English common law for the United States, of which the law of nations is part, so that breaches of neutrality might be punished as crimes, without statute so declaring them. Soon afterwards Ellsworth, who succeeded Jay as chief-justice, convicted and punished an Ame- rican citizen, for misdemeanor, according to English common law, by serving on board a French privateer; affirming not only that English common law remains the same as before the revo- lution, but affirming also, as hnv'of the United States, the British dogma of perpetual allegiance ; by practical contradic- tion of wdiich dogma, the United States invite an increase of some hundred thousand inhabitants a year, to fill and till the unoccupied regions of a new continent. Law, the district judge of Connecticut, where the English common law is not in force, but as sanctioned by judicial decisions, hesitated going the whole length of Chief-Justice Ellsworth's opinion. But Peters, the district judge' of Pennsylvania, concurred in those of Jay and "Wilson, before mentioned, and united with the former in convicting, by common law, a consul for sending threatening letters to the British minister. In 1798, Chase, another judge of the Supreme Court, before whom a man was convicted of attempting to bribe a revenue officer, declared that the English common law is not that of the United States, and cannot be recurred to for either the definition or punislnnent of offences : though the accused was nevertheless punislied, as Peters, the district judge, refused to concur with Cliasc in arresting judgment. On Burr's trial, in 1807, the third chief- 7Z COMMON LAW. justice, JMai'shall, intimated liis opinion that tlic statute of the United States, enacting that the huvs of the several slates shall be regarded as rules of decision in trials at common huy in the courts of the United States, in cases "where they apply, except Avhere otherwise provided, does not render the common law applicahle to offences against the United States. Thus vexed and doul)tful was the law on this subject, when, in 1.S12, it was brought for judgment before the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of an alleged libel on the president, indicted as an offence at common law. Judge Johnson pronounced tlie opinion of the court, that no exercise of common law jurisdiction, in criminal cases, is within the federal judicial power. Implied power, to a certain extent, he considered indispensable ; such as results from the nature of the institutions of courts of justice. To fine for contempt, im- prison for contumacy, enforce the observance of order, ccc, are powers, the judge said, which cannot 1)C dispensed with in a court, because they arc necessary to the exercise of all others. So far the court deem that the courts of the United States possess powers not immediately delegated from statutes, but not common law power to punish extra forensic crimes. Next year the junior judge of the Supreme Court, Story, considering the point open to be discussed, notwithstanding the judgment of the majority, pronounced by Johnson, -which was without hearinjr an arirument, ruled that the federal com-ts, on their circuits, have cognizance of all offences against the United States. What they arc depends on the common law, applied to the sovereignty and authorities confided to the United States ; and courts having cognizance of all offences against the United States may punish them by fine and iu^prisonnient, where no specific punishment is provided by statute. This opinion Avas not revised, as the judge desired, by the Supreme Court till three years afterwards, (in 181G,) when Judge Johnson repeated the judgment of a majority of the court, affirming that of 1812. No counsel appeared to argue the case, "which the attorney- general, Richard Rush, submitted vrithout argument. Judge Story persisted in his opinion. Judges Washington and Liv- ingston desii'ed an argument. There the matter rests, projfes- COMMON LAW. 73 sional attachment preferring-, public sentiment rejecting, the English common law. "William Rawlc, author of an accredited treatise on the con- stitution of the United States, upheld the English common as American common law, in the early cases before mentioned, before Judges Jay, Wilson, and Chase. Alexander James Dal- lias, afterwards secretary of the treasury, and Peter Stephen Duponceau, were the professional contestants of it. In a dissertation, since published, by Duponceau, on the subject, he contends that the English common law is indispensable for de- finition, if not for jurisdiction ; that it is the hiAV of the United States in the national capacity, recognised in the constitution and many statutes ; in full force in the territories and districts (not states) of the United States ; and that in the states the federal judiciary, wherever jurisdiction is given to them by the written laws, comprehending subject matter and person, are bound to take the English common law as their rule, if other law, national or state, be not applicable. We live in the midst of it, breathe and imbibe it, meet it sleeping and awake, tra- velling and at home. It is our idiom, and we must learn another language to get rid of it. Yet the Irish, German, Scotch, French, and other population of the United States, are equal in number to the English ; and all the states formed from Louisiana have a common law not English. The fictions, technicalities, and complexities of English jurisprudence, have been mostly disowned, and in questions of property there is no reason why English should be preferable to other law. But all English laws which limit or define the arbitrary power of go- vernment, declarations of right, laws of personal freedom, what- ever individualizes and upholds man, are cherished as American birthrights. The earlier adjudications introduced English penal common law for jurisdiction over breaches of neutrality. The second chief-justice, Ellsworth, adjudged that even inalienabb' alle- giance is American common law. Cases of bribery of a Inderal functionary, threatening letters to him, and libel of tb;' Presi- dent, succeeded. That of which Judge Story was tenacious was an admiralty case, the rescue of a prize on the high seas. But 74 C03LM0X LAW. the Supreme Coiirt seems hj its decisions to overrule all com- mon law in criminal cases. William Johnson, wlio pronounced tliem, Avas the first judicial appointment to that court by presi- dent Jefferson, strongly imbued Avith tlie principles of southern democracy, bold, independent, eccentric, and sometimes harsh. His catalogue of inherent powers to fine and imprison has been since reduced, by act of Congress, perhaps below authority indisjieiisablo to forensic order and judicial dignity. The pregnant &c., superadded to that catalogue, which might have teemed with faculties, is thus also brought to naught. Immediately after passing upon English common lavr, the Supreme Court, in 1812, confirmed several prior decisions, refusing trial by jury in cases of seizure upon waters navigable from sea, by vessels of more than ten tons burthen, charged with breach of law. It was the unanimous opinion of the court that, such cases being of civil and admiralty jurisdiction, parties interested in them are not entitled to the advantages of a jury. One of the complaints of the Declaration of Inde- pendence is for depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury. The people of most of the United States have always been anxious for that mode of determining dis- putes, not only for its judicial advantages, but because it also gives every one a share in the administraition of justice, other- wise engrossed l)y very few, less capable of ascertaining facts than the community. The transitory appointment of jurors from the mass, and their irresponsible fusion vrith it again, execute the i)rinciplo of rotation in office, so generally recog- nized. Yet, on neither of the three occasions, Avhen the ques- tion of dispensing with juries to try certain seizures was solemnly presented to the Supreme Court, did it either hear or give any reason for rejecting them, beyond the shortest state- ment of the case. So strongly impressed Avas an attorney- general, Charles Lee, Avith its magnitude, after the judgment pronounced on the second occasion, that he earnestly entreated the judges to indidge him Avith an argument for juries ; and leave Avas given, but so ungraciously, that one of them, Cliase, said to him from the bench, that, though the argument at the bar, on the first case, " Avas no great things, yet the court had IXTERXATIOXAL LAW. 75 well consulered tlie subject." Congress, by their act (Feljruary 2tith, 1845) giving the District Court of the United States admiralty jurisdiction over matters concerning vessels of twenty tons, enrolled and licensed for coasting trade between places in different states, upon lakes and navigable Avaters connected wiih lakes, with the maritime laws of the United States as their rule of decision, gave the right of trial ]>y jury of all facts put in issue, when either party requires it ; and also a concurrent remedy by trial at common law, when competent common hiAv and admiralty juries were both rejected by the Supreme Court without hearing their causes pleaded. Con- gress, in part at least, restored the one, and the bar, could they effect it, probably would the other. The Supreme Court, at the session of I8I0, adjudged the delicate question of international law, Avhether an American citizen, in an American court, can entitle himself to a vessel of AvhichhcAvas dispossessed by a foreign power, thereafter sailing under its iia"; as a national vessel. The schooner Exchani>-e Avas claimed in the port of Philadel})hia, in 1811, as having been, in 1810, uidawfully taken from the American ownei'S, thus seeking restitution of their property, alleging that her French captors had not lawful title to her. The law officer of the I nited States, the district attorney, Dallas, instructed by the execu- tive, suggested to the court that the vessel belonged to the French government, put into an American port in distress, and was about to resume her cruise when judicially seized ; and he produced to the court her national commission. The decree of the judge, "Washington, in the Circuit Court at I'hiladtlphia, restored the vessel to the American claimants. On ai)])eal to the Supreme Court, the question was considered. Chief Justice Marshall sai/ since 1798 ! — have been consulted and uniformly respected by our Supreme Court. They are pre-eminently distinguished for sagacity, "wisdom and learning, as well as for the chaste and classical beauties of their composition." Not content with British prize-law, some judges of the Su- preme Court of the United States seemed inclined to establish English common law, as parcel of it ; and that very part of com- mon law against which the United States were at war against Great Britain with a vengeance — the dogma of allegiance. Chief Justice Ellsworth had ruled, by double error, not only that English common law is American federal law, but that English common lav/ of allegiance is American common law of alle- giance. In 1814, a majority of the Supreme Court engrafted a branch of that dogma on the prize law adopted from Eng- land. The venerable chief justice dissented, but protested in vain. "I will not pretend to say," was the conclusion of his argument, " what distinctions may or may not exist between these tvfo classes of citizens, in a contest of a different descrip- tion. But in a contest between the United States and the na- turalized citizen, in a claim set up by the United States to confiscate his property, he may, I think, protect himself by any defence Avhich would protect a native American. In the pro- secution of such a claim, the United States are, I think, if I may be excused for borroAving from the common law a phrase peculiarly appropriate, estopped from saying that they have not placed this adopted son on a level with those born in tlieir family." Judge Livingston concurred in opinion wdth the Chief Justice. But all in vain. Scott's vulpine rapacity for PRIZE LAW. 101 prOY, and inflexihle support of inalicnaljlo allegiance, extolled by Kent, deplored by Marsliall, triumplicd over the Decbiration of Independence. The property of Scotch naturalized citizens, long domiciled in this country, was confiscated upon British Ytv'ize rules of residence, which reft the Supreme Coiu't asunder with disnarafrino; discord. Jud2:e Johnson declined mvini]: an opinion, and "I do not sit in this case," said Judge Stor}^; "but on so important a question, where a difference of opinion has been expressed on the bench, I do not feel myself at liberty to withdraw from the responsibility which the law imposes on me." In a few words, therefore, he gave his adhesion to the bare ma- jority of judges voting for condemnation. If such a doubtful determination, by three judges overruling two, with two others not acting, constitutes " the express approbation and sanction of our national courts," which Kent's Commentaries applaud, the three or four hundred thousand European emigrants annually domesticated in the United States, may find laws of naturaliza- tion, enacted by Congress, annulled by bare majorities of a distracted court, rendering their expatriation less effectual than Europeans flatter themselves. Property of the founder of Pennsylvania, Avho never spent but two years at one time, and but four years altogether in that province, must have been confiscated, as English, by the Anglo-American rules of resi- dence. The last case I shall mention involved a cpiestion, Judge Story said, " than which none more important or interesting ever came before a prize tribunal ; raid the national riglits sus- pended on it were of infinite moment to the maritime world." Division of opinion had then become a chronic court distemper. Precisely what that discord was in this case the publii^hcd opinions did not disclose. But Judge Todd being absent. Judge Johnson prefaced his opinion, by saying that " circum- stances known to the court had, in great measure, imposed upon him the responsibility of the decision." A South Ame- rican Spanish subject, inhabitant of Buenos xVyres, shipped his property on board an armed British vessel that he freighted, which was captured by an American privateer, after a sea-fight. The Spanish Treaty of 1795, M"ith the United S'.;itcs, provides 102 THE NEREID. that free ships make free goods. For the captors of the un- lucky Spaniard, it was thereupon contended that the converse of that rule is implied by the law of nations, and therefore that the enemy's ship made enemy's goods of those of the neu- tral laden on board of her. A sort of dramatic interest attended that litigation. Wash- ington, without places of theatrical or other general resort, except the Congress and the court, afforded no spectacle so attractive as the temporary court-room, where, deprived by •the enemy of their colonnaded apartment in the crypt of the capitol, the robed Supreme Court held its sessions. No mem- ber of either house was so remarkable a public speaker as Pinkncy, with his sparkling rhetoric and solid logic, his exqui- site English dress, unusual cadences, and foreign, said to be Eno-lish, forensic gesticulation. The court was croAvdcd to hear him speak. Flattered by audiences of ladies and members of Congress, it was said that he multiplied his tropes and orna- mented, for such hearers, postulates of law by metaphorical il- lustrations. So ornate, yet chaste, figurative and uncommon was his language for a barrister addressing a bench of judges, con- cerning mere property, that his arguments, unless excellent, must have suffered from their fanciful enclosure. And there were several other eminent advocates whose eloquence drew audi- ences to the court. Dexter, Wirt, Harper, Webster, just be- ginning his career, and Emmett, surpassed by none in learning, ardour, and professional accomplishments. The secretary of the treasury, Dallas, too, took part in the case referred to, that of the Nereid, with Pinkney for his colleague ; then no longer at- torney-general, for he found that office a hindrance to his large and lucrative practice, especially in prize cases, which abound- ed, and captors could afford to share generously with lawyers their prizes in the lottery of war and of law. Aggressive, as usual, Pinkney taunted Emmett as a stranger come to teacli us : to which the Irishman, with thick Milesian accent, and abnipt manner (poetical as even broken English sounds from an edu- cated tongue), in fine keeping with the commanding march of a masterly argument, impassioned with delightful pathos, tri- umphantly replied. With the the conviction of the court, THE NEREID. 103 Emmott seized the sympatliy of the many distinguislied by- standers, taking side Avitli an insulted novus hospes, as Pink- ney called him, against the common champion of the court, who lost the palm of oratory -with his cause. In vain, with great force of rhetoric, he pleaded for belligerent supremacy. "The Nereid was armed, sailed, resisted, and was captured," he said. " If she could do all this, she was a chartered lihei^tine ; a neutral, surrounded with all the pride, pomp, and circum- stance of glorious war ; discordia rerum ; a centaur, half man, half ship ; a fantastic form, bearing in one hand the spear of Achilles, in the other the olive-branch of Minerva ; the frown of defiance on her brow, and the smile of conciliation on her lip ; entwining the olive-branch of peace around the thunder- bolt of Jupiter, and hurling it, thus disguised, indiscriminately on friends and foes." No audience could fail to be struck by Mr. Pinkney's fervent display of belligerent power, right of search, droits of admiralty, and catalogue of contraband. Judge Story and some other judges were convinced. But the chief justice 'remained immov- able on the platform of neutrality and commerce. " With a pencil," said he, with almost sarcasm, rejecting Pinkney's bril- liant appeal, " dipped in the most vivid colours, and guided by the hand of a master, a splendid portrait has been drawn, exhibit- in": this vessel and her freiiihters as forminir a single fisiure, com- posed of the most discordant materials — of peace and war. So exquisite was the skill of the artist, so dazzling the garb in which the figure was presented, that it required the exercise of that cold investigating faculty, which ought always to belong to those who sit on this bench, to discern its only imperfection — its want of resemhlance. The Nereid was -no centaur, or neu- tral rover on the ocean, hurling thunderbolts of war, while sheltered by the olive-branch of peace ; but an open and de- clared belligerent, conveying neutral property." The right to do so, subject to the hazards of war, the pivot of the case, was conceded by all the divided court. Still Story, in a volu- minous opinion, contended for condemnation. But the chief justice, with a majority, denied the alleged convertibility of the benign principle, that free ships make free goods, into an 104 TEIZE LAW. abominaLlc contravention. ''The reciprocity," said Johnson, "is a reciprocity of benevolence, not of violence, and dismal," ho added, "would be the state of the world, and melancholy the office of a judge, if all the evils which the perfidy and injustice of power inllict on individual man were to be reflected from tlic tribunals which profess peace and good will to all mankind. To the judiciary it belongs to administer law and justice as it is, not as it is made by the folly or caprice of other nations." The history of that Avar cannot discover, from the literature of its law, whether the Supreme Court, with much difficulty, by bare majority rejecting the belligerent converse, hkewise affirmed the peaceful principle that free ships make free goods. On the occasion of the armed neutrality of 1780, the Congress of the United States (October 5, 1780), informed that the Empress of Russia, attentive to the freedom of commerce, and the riglits of nations, in her declaration to the belligerent and neutral powers, having proposed regulations founded upon prin- ciples of justice, etfuity, and moderation, (of which France, Spain, and most af the neutral maritime powers, have declared their approbation,) willing to testify their regard to the rights of conmierce, resolved that the Ijoard of admiralty prepare and report instructions for the commanders of ra-med vessels, commissioned for the United States conformable to the princi- ples contained in the Russian declaration on the rights of neutral vessels, that tlie foreign ministers of the United States be empowered to accede to such regulations, at the Congress expected to 1)0 called by Russia, and that copies of these reso- lutions should 1)0 transmitted to all American foreign min- isters. On the 12th June, 17So, a committee of Congress, consisting of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Oliver Ellsv/orth, reported, and their resolution was adopted by Congress, that as the primary object of the resolution of the 5th of October, 17S0, relative to the accession of the United States to the neutral confederacy, no longer could operate, as the United States ought not to be entangled in European politics and con- troversies, but as the liberal principles on whieh it was established are favorable to the interest of nations, particularly the United PRIZE LAW. 105 Stats, and ought to be kept in view to be promoted as fiir as consists witli tlieir fundamental policy, should the negotiations for peace comprise any stipulations recognising rights of neutral nations, engagements ought to be avoided obliging the con- tracting parties to support them by arms. The Congress of the United States, adopting these resolutions, was the Govern- ment, Legislatm-e, and Executive, if not Judiciary. The com- mittee reporting the last were, the president, during the vrar of 1812, the second chief justice, and a personage whose mind is impressed, in war and peace, upon all American an]ials and institutions. The latter resolution is no exception, in principle, to the first. Previous to acknowledgment of inde[)endence, while contending for it in arras, the constituted authorities of the United States agreed to insist by arms and in alliance, olfensive and defensive, with the powers of the Northern Confederacy, that free ships make free goods. About to make peace with tiie only power denying it, the United States would not risk acknowledgment of their iiulepeudence by protracting war for an abstract principle. But it was part of their fundamental policy, to be kept constantly in view and promoted. Peace is that policy. Rather than entanglement in European strife, especially while weak from infancy, and exhausted by hostili- ties, the United States postponed belligerent contest for free ships to make free goods. Not to be involved in the inter- minalde conflicts of the old world, they proclaimed neutrality as their permanent policy. But all for peace. When ac- cused by France, in 1793, of acquiescing in British viola- tions of the freedom of the seas, and Washington's secretary of state, Jefferson, answered the French reproach, that though the treaty arrangement by which free bottoms make free goods is less oppressive to commerce, yet it is an ex- ception to the general law of nations — the concession, thou"-!! wrong, did not abandon the right. To the same impeachment, preferred more angrily by France, in 1799, Adams's secretary, Pickering, by the agency of the special envoys Pinckney, Mar- shall, and Gerry, still protesting that such aei|uiesceiice was only abiding by the law of nations, declared it the obvious in- terest, and anxious desire, of the United States to change it as 106 PRIZE LAW. soon as practicable. The French revolution raging, and the United States hardly al)le to support, necessarily desirous to escape, the wars it caused, these were politic diplomatic pleas. But, become the first people of a new world of nations, with the same peaceful policy still impressed, as ever, on their Le- gislature and Executive, the war of 1812, with Great Britain, called upon the judiciary to adjudge that among the laws of nations is that by "which the ocean is peaceably fortified by a plain principle more restrictive of war than any armament ; that the national flag is the same redoubtable signal at the mast of the unarmed merchant-ship, as at that of the man-of-war. To the same judges who assumed power to annul statutes as un- constitutional, to sanction foreign judgments, though on their fiice palpably erroneous or absurd, and to deny the existence of English common law among the laws of the United States, it belonged to pronounce that American cruisers have no right to look beyond the flag of neutral vessels at sea. Congress have always so resolved, and the executive so governed. Although twice, formerly, when the French government re- proached the American with abandonment of the rule that free ships make free goods, its validity was denied, yet it had been the treaty law of nations, throughout Europe, since 1646, recognised by England, France, Spain, Holland, Den- mark, Sweden, Portugal, the Empire, Prussia, Sicily, Genoa, and by treaty between Russia and Great Britain, so lately as 1801, to establish then by rargnanimous renunciation of odious war usurpations. - _ If ever disputed, it has been so long and so universally ac- knoAvledged as to be no longer debateable, that a ship on the high seas is, in contemplation of law, as much part of the ter- ritory, whose national flag she bears, as any fortress in the interior of that territory. The most libertine encroachments of maritime war do not question the sanctity of the vessels of states at peace pursuing their accustomed navigation. By the law of nations, war authorizes one to inflict upon another what- ever injuries it can : to seize, confiscate, or destroy its property — kill, capture, and perhaps enslave its people. Nor has any neutral nation a right to prevent such belligerent ojierations. PRIZE LAW. 107 It is bound to furnisli no assistance to either of the belligerents, bnit remain strictly and really neutral. But the declaration or waging of war imposes no obligation or restraint upon any but those who are parties to it. It is legislative or executive action confined to those who declare or way-c it, havin^i; no operation upon other nations. It is therefore lawful for neu- trals to trade, after the war as before, in all kinds of merchan- dise, and with the belligerents. Munitions of war are no exception to this lawful permission. Belligerents may, by force, conquer any part of an enemy's country, and either limit or prohibit neutral trade to it ; wherefore, they may for- cibly prevent all neutral communication with all places block- aded, invested, or besieged by land or naval forces. With this excejition there is no belligerent right to molest neutral property or commerce anywhere, and least of all upon the high seas, which are open to the unrestricted navigation of all nations. The belligerent right of search extends no further than autho- rity to ascertain whether a vessel be really neutral, as her flag indicates ; for which purpose a cruiser may examine the ship's sea letters and passports, or other proofs of ownership of the vessel. But there is no war right to examine bills of lading, invoices, or other documents indicating the ownership of the cargo. The declaration of war cannot compel the inhabitants of a nation not parties to the war, to abridge or alter, in any respect, their accustomed commerce. They have a right to trade with all the nations of the world, including the bellige- rents, as before. However this right may have been impaired by force, or capitulated through fear, it still remains the same. Declaration of war, manifesto, or even direct notice by belli- gerents interdicting neutral trade, is inoperati\'e upon neutrals, because such restraint can be imposed only by their own government, and they owe no obedience to the commands of any other. The only lawful mode for belligerents to obtain the consent of neutrals to such restrictions is by negotiation with the neutral state. Conditions frequently prescribed by belligerents at the beginning, or during the course, of hostilities, according to which neutrals are directed to conduct their com- merce, are not only laws but penal laws, which belligerents 108 PRIZE LAW. have no right to enforce hj confiscation or other inflictions upon persons snhjcct to no hxws hut those of their own state. Belligerent prescription of such regulations, though too often suhmitted to, is mere arrogation of sovereignty over persons and places where the helligerents have none. The seas arc open and free to all for hoth peace and war. War gives no national rights, except between parties to it, to supersede the rights of peace ; and it is one of those rights by the la,v/ of nature ap})lied to nations, by the great preponderance of con- ventional hiw, and according to the fitness of things, to trade during liostilities, in all things, not excepting munitions of war, to all places, except those possessed or besieged by one of the parties to it. American prize courts are constituted on piin- ciples totally different from those of Europe. American admi- ralty judges are liable, doubtless, to national, local, and per- sonal prepossessions. But there is nothing in the organization of their courts to warp their incumbents, who are perfectly independent of executive influence. Procedino; from revicAV of the doctrines to a brief considera- tion of the practice of these courts, we must not be surprised to find it, like that of British prize courts, entirely different from that of English common law, or even chancery courts. Two hundred years of inveterate practice fix, probably be- yond reform, the anomal}^, in judicial proceedings, of bellige- rents sending neutrals, as prizes, to be tried in the courts of the captors. Mixed commissions, created by modern treaties, show that partiality is to be apprehended on all such occasions. Juries, half foreigners, changes of venue, ambulatory courts, and the Constitution of the United States vouchsafing federal tribunals to protect aliens and citizens of other states from judicial and local prejudice, concede the desideratum of impar- tial justice. It violates the principles of rectitude, to couuuit arrested neutrals to the rapacity of cruisers, proctors and hostile judges, inflamed by national and sordid passions, armed with irregular power, and tempted by irresistible motives to VN'rong. Yet, in the report of the Englisli admiralty and common law ofiicers to the king in 1750, confirmed in the letter of Scott and Nicholl, admiralty judge and advocate, to John Jay, the Ame- PRIZE LAW. 109 liean minister, in 1704, it is said tliat tlic ]»ropor and regular court for these condemnations, is the court of that state to vdiieh the captor belongs. Regarding the -whole hierarchy, from vice-admiralty court in colonies to admiralty -judge adju- dications in the metropolis, by special commission from the crown, and in last resort, the council of state, the object must be less to do justice than confiscate projicrty. Jurisdiction is not ordinarily assumed over persons and things of another sovereignty, for which, as prize law, the English admiralty judge and advocate give no sufficient reason, and cite no autho- rity. Treaties, as they vouch them, have established what may be termed an anomaly, which does not consist with juris- prudence generally. It must be confessed, too, that established forms of proceeding in prize courts are of long, perhaps universal, certainly uniform practice, not originating in England, however militant with the genius of her common lavf. English and American pleadings are open, and may be oral ; the rules of evidence, though arti- ficial and complex, are, in outline, plain and kind. A cardinal safeguard is, that no one is bound to criminate himself; and all cruel and unnecessary coercion is discountenanced. In prize courts all this is reversed. The rules of the inquisition, as of old established in Ital}^, Spain and France, aggravated by English ingenuity and cupidity, were forthwith adopted by the American district, circuit and supreme courts. To seize pro- perty and arrest persons on suspicion, not within the territory, nor subject to the jurisdiction of the captor ; to disj^ossess and confine them ; compel the dispossessed proprietor, or his agents, to undergo the question by searching interrogation ; to pre- sume their liability to condemnation, and cast on them the burthen of proof; deprived of their papers, vouchers and titles ; to extort confession and infer guilt from the absence of complete proofs ; either to refuse supplemental testimony, or fetter it with costly conditions ; to insist that a captured neu- tral shall be at once prepared with perfect demonstration of ownership ; to require little or no proof from the captor ; nor, if commanding a public vessel, any security for the expenses of unfounded prosecution ; every legal presumption strained 110 PRIZE LAW. against those entitled to every legal presumption in their favor ; strangers in an unknown country ; ignorant of the language, the laws and the lawyers — all this perversion of right, however established, is, like admiralty droits, temptation and cover to injustice. If possible for American courts to improve or reform it altogether, it would have harmonized with the theory of American institutions. The President's instructions to cruisers were to proceed in exercising the rights of war, towards enemy vessels and crews, with all the justice and humanity characteristic of the xVme- rican nation ; orders to be observed at least as fully in regard to neutrals, and enforced as sedulously by courts of justice. The second volume of this Historical Sketch, explains how trade with the enemy, under his licenses, was extirpated, both by judicial sentence and by act of Congress. The subject will not, therefore, be resumed here further than merely briefly to notice some early decisions in the district courts, by which our cruisers were perplexed at first. The district judge of Pennsylvania, in September, 1812, condemned an American vessel and cargo, covered by Foster, the British minister's permission, and necessary to be landed in England, with important despatches for Castlereagh, the British Secretary, on a voyage to Portugal : not, however, as trading with the enemy, or bearing his license, but for serving him by carrying despatches and their bearer. The district judge of Rhode Island condemned an American vessel and cargo for sailing under Admiral Sawyer's license, for St. Barts, with ex-consul Allen's certificate that the voyage was intended to supply the British West Indies. But the district judge of Massachusetts released an American vessel and cargo, going from Baltimore to Lisbon, under the same admiral and ex- consul's passport, in a diffident decree, which closed by the judge's confession that he would not be surprised if his con- clusion should be found erroneous. Soon after, the district judge of Pennsylvania not only restored an American vessel and cargo, captured under similar circumstances, but, further- more, pronounced the trade lawful, the license no cause of capture, remittance to the enemy's country no offence, and ALIEN LAW. in capture for such causes punishable in damages. On appeals to the circuit courts, these errors were at once and entirely reformed. Judges Washington and Story adjudged that all trado and intercourse with enenies are unlawful ; puni.^hable at common law, and their vehicle3 confiscable; — which judg- ments of the circuits were fully sustained by the Supreme Court. All the judges concurring in the decisions on this sub- ject were of opinion that the mcve sailing under an enemy's license, without regard to the object of the voyage, or the port of destination, constitutes of itself an act of illegahty, which subjects the property to confiscation. It is an attempt by an individual of a belligerent country to clothe himself with a neutral character, by the license of the other belligerent, and thus to separate himself from the common character of his own country. One of the earliest American captures condemned by these decisions was made by the ill-fated frigate Chesapeake, whose disgraceful subjugation by a British squadron, in 1808, seemed to mark that ship as doomed to calamity. Another was made by the brig Argus, which, after a brilliant cruise in the British channel, was also taken by the British brig Pelican. A third was prize to the frigate Constitution, This adventure belonged to persons who became members of the Hartford Convention. After thirty years had elapsed, they petitioned Congress for remuneration for what the courts of justice had condemned, as the laws of all nations require : but the petitioners di-ew no prize in the lottery of legislation. In this country an act of Congress (and in England, I be- lieve, an act of Parliament) is necessary to vest the executive Avith powers which, in many others, are exercised through the instrumentality of what is called police, to arrest, confine or banish obnoxious persons. Accordingly, during hostilities with France, in 1798, a much controverted act, respecting alien enemies, empowered the President, in any declared, and by him proclaimed, war, invasion, or predatory incursion perpe- trated, attempted or threatened, to apprehend, restrain, secure and remove the male natives, fourteen years old and upwards, within the United States, and not naturalized, of a hostile 112 ALIEN LAW, government or nation ; and to esta1)li.sh an}^ otlier regulations in the premises necessary for public safety. But resident aliens, not chargeable Avith actual liostility, or other crime against public safety, arc allowed to depart, Avith their effects, as trea- ties provide ; if no treaty, in such time as the President may declare, according to the dictates of humanity and hospitality. All judges of the United States, and the states, and justices of the peace, having criminal jurisdiction, upon complaint against an alien enemy, resident at large, contrary to the Pre- sident's proclamation, or regulations, to the danger of the public safety and peace, are authorized to cause such aliens to be arrested, and, on proper examination, banished, or restrained by sureties or imprisonment, till compliance with the magis- trate's order. The marshals of the United States are charged with executing these proceedings. In November, 1813, Charles Lockington, an Englishman, committed to prison in the debtors' apartment, of Philadelphia, by John Smith, marshal of the eastern district of Pennsylvania, as an alien enemy at large contrary to the regulations, obtained a habeas corpus from William Tilghman, chief justice of Penn- sylvania, claiming to be discharged. His counsel contended that alien enemies are not prisoners of war, but by the law of nations are protected in their persons, liberty and effects. The President's power over prisoners of war is derived from his constitutional capacity as commander-in-chief of the army and navy ; but the act of Congress, respecting alien enemies, gives all the executive power in relation to them, which is confined to apprehending and confining them for removal only, not to ])e kept as prisoners, for Avhich pui-pose alone can the marshals be employed ; and then it can only be effected through judicial agency, not summarily. Which oltjections Avere ansAvered by the district attorney, Dallas, who furthermore suggested that state judges have no jurisdiction in such a case. Chief Justice Tilo-hman maintained his iurisdiction, and distinguished Lock- ino-ton's case from that of prisoners of Avar. They are sulyect to its laAvs ; brought into a country by force ; have no muni- cipal rights ; nothing in common Avith its citizens ; no promise of protection. Whereas those, Avho, although placed in the ALIEN LAW. 113 situation of enemies, bj events over -wliicli tliej have no control, yet may not be enemies at heart, may prefer this to their native country, may have come here to share our fortunes as our insti- tutions invite, acquired property, and been permitted to s^Year that it is their intention to become citizens ; with the implied promise, which all civilized nations are supposed to make, that in case of sudden war they may depart in reasonable time, if thev Avill. There is stronir colour for arirument, the iudiro thouglit, that the president cannot direct the marshal to re- move aliens to an appointed place (in this instance the inland toAvn of Reading, sixty miles from tide-water), without judicial intervention. Still, in his opinion, this executive power is summary, because the object of the law is to provide for the safety of the country, for which it might be necessary to act on sudden emergencies. Marshals may apply to judges, but are not obliged to do so. The powers vested by the act of Congress in the president are extensive, and those conferred on the judiciary salutary. Among the evils of war, one is that a people, who wish to preserve their freedom, must make the hands of the executive strong, or the safety of the nation will be endangered. Lockington, foiled in this attempt at relief, or revenge, by habeas corpus allowed by one judge, renewed it, with no better success, in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, where the chief justice's opinion was confirmed. Lockington then appealed to the United States court for that district, by suing the marshal for trespass in confining him. Judgment was not given till 1817. But it belongs to the subject to add here that Chief Justice Tilghman's opinion was again and strongly confirmed by Judge Washington, who held the president's summary power, exercised through the department of state, and executed by the marshal, without judicial intervention, to be the clear meaning of the act of Congress. The act of Congress respecting alien enemies was, by sup- plement of July, 1812, declared not to extend to any treaty exjjired, or not in force the 10th of June, when the president's proclamation issued, which briefly enjoined on all persons in office to be vigilant and zealous in discharging their duties, and Vol. III.— 8 114 ALIEN LAW. the people to exert tliemsclvos in supporting and invigorating all measures of tlie constituted authorities for obtaining a speedy, just, and honorable peace. The special instructions fur cnforcemeiit of the restraint of alien enemies were issued hj Joh.n ]\Iason, commissary-general of prisoners, and from the department of state, addressed to the marshals, and published in the official newspapers. About the time of the before-mentioned decision in Pennsyl- vania, the Supreme Court of New York determined that alien enemies may sue in American courts during war with their coun- tvj, unless it duly appears that they are at the time adhering to the enemy. Even prisoners of Avar may sue, if resident in the country before and at the time of war, which implies permission from the government. Such is the usage and law^ of nations, which is part of the common law without municipal adoption. An alien Avho comes to reside in a foreign country, is entitled, so long as he conducts himself peaceably, to continue to reside tliere under the public protection, and it requires the express will of the sovereign power to order liim away. The rigor of the old rules of war no longer exists, when Avars are carried on Avith the moderation that commerce inspires. It may now be re- garded as the public law of Europe that the subjects of an enemy, AA'ithout confining the rule to merchants, so long as they are permitted to remain in the country, are to be protected in their persons and property. If ordered away in consefjuenee of Avar, they may leave a p(iAver of attorney and collect their debts by suit. A right to confiscate the debts due to the enemy Avas the rigorous doctrine of the ancient law ; but temporary disability to sue Avas all Grotius seemed willing to allow to hos- tilities. Since his time, continual efi'orts have been made to strengthen justice, to restrain the intemperance of Avar, and to promote the intercourse and happiness of mankind. These doctrines, laid doAvn by Chief Justice Kent, and furtified by numerous quotations and authorities, in verse as Avell as prose, appeared with the decision of the Supreme Court of New York. Judge Kent's learning and professional zeal, the purity of his Ion"' life, and simplicity of his manners, together Avith respectable contributions to the literature as well as the science of law, MILITIA. 115 rank liim amonp; tlie most authoritative of American jurists. But as one of the executive council of the State of New York, mixing politics with law, mitigations of common law for hosti- lities and aggravations of prize laAV were joined in preposterous confusion. About the same time, the Supreme Court of New York refused summarily to set aside execution where the plain- tiff, with judgment obtained before war, resided thereafter in Canada, as an alien enemy. Soon after that decision, the same court determined that war only suspends right of suit till peace. Every national sovereignty has a paramount right to the military services of its people for defensive war ; for which every man is bound to serve and sacrifice life, if need be, for his country ; which he forfeits by taking up arms against his government. The trinodial necessity of military service, build- ing fortresses and repairing bridges, preceded feudal tenures. But how best military duty can be exacted, has always been the difficult problem which it still continues to be for us of English descent. Hereditary monarchs, with elective generals, elected by the temporary armies they commanded, according to C?esar and Tacitus, were the military government of the Ger- man ancestors of the Saxon forefathers of the British people, from whom North Americans are mostly descended. The Normans carried feuds and knights, with escuage and other feudal liabilities into England. Statutes for arming the people, and county lieutenancies of the king to muster and train them, followed ; superseded by ro3'al guards and standing armies, sometimes without act of parliament. It is questionable whether standing armies or occasional levies cost most money, taking a cycle, or destroy most foes. The extolled science of modern warfare, gunpowder, great guns and all, does not kill or cap- ture more than the armies of antiquity ; and in most of the wars of the last hundred years, the inexperienced vanquished at first, have come off victors at last over the first disciplined. For the purposes of police, and to suppress insurrections, a distinct class of soldiery is contrary to the theory, and dan- gerous to the existence of free government. The proceedings of parliament, to deprive the king of the command of even 116 MILITIA. militia, ^\'eve among tlie first steps of the Englisli Revolution : and Wiu-Lurton, in a note to Clarendon, vamits that no revo- lution can be brought about in spite of a brave, veteran and Avcll-di^^ciplined army, indisposed to change. So loyal a mo- narchist as Blackstone denounces the peril to liberty from an}^ distinct profession of arms; insisting that, enlisted for short periods, soldiers should be intermixed with the people, Avithout separate camp, barricades or inland fortress, and a stated num- ber discharged at intervals, so as to keep up constant con- nexion between them and the people. When he wrote, about the beginning of our Revolution, the standing army of Great Britain was maintained only to protect royal possessions on the continent of Europe, and the balance of continental power ; liable to disbandment once a year, by the annual mutiny act for adding another year to its existence. As long as Rome was a great and growing republic, the soldiers were the people, says Montesquieu, until Marius laid the foundations of usurped empire by enlisting the rabble of Italy into the army. It is supposed that no state can maintain more than one-hundredth part of its population in arms and idleness. Yet experience teaches that, without military segregation and subordination, one body and one will, belligerent science and operations can- not be perfected. Such an institution, unknown to the British constitution, according to Blackstone, Hamilton, in the Fe- deralist, avers is not an unconstitutional standing army in these United States, unless kept up by the executive alone, without sanction of the legislature. No trace of Alfred's supposed plan of a militia for England is extant ; nor was it till as late as 1757, that the militia of that kingdom was established as since known, viz., merely local and defensive troops, seldom liable to be marched out of their own counties, never out of the kingdom. Ilallam, in his Constitutional History, inveighing against standing armies, con- fesses, or complains, that British militia have become unpopular and burthensome in England, without diminishing the standing army, and serving little more than to furnish recruits for the re- gular army, and in France the magnificent national guard cre- ated by La Fayette has been disbanded by President Bonaparte. MILITIA. 117 So militia liave proved a difficult subject in these United States ; indispensable and intractable, formidable as suffragans, not always as soldiers, often worthless, sometimes invaluable, but at all events the most expensive troops. The disaffected go- vernment of Massachusetts, as soon as war began, at once sug- gested a constitutional misconstruction to thwart belligerent operations and embarrass the federal government on the de- bateable ground between State and United States authority over the militia. On the 1st of August, 1812, Governor Strong called on the Supreme Court of Massachusetts for their official advice whether, first, the President or the Governor was to judge if the exigency had arisen requiring the Governor to place the militia in the service of the United State?, at the requisition of the President ; and, secondly, whetlier Avhen the exigency is determined, and the militia employed accord- ingly, they can be lawfully commanded by any but militia officers, except the President. Three of the judges of the Supreme Court, Parsons, the chief justice, called, not without reason, from his great learning and talents, a Giant of the Law, with two associates, Sewall and Parker, who afterwards each in turn succeeded Parsons as chief justice of Massachu- setts, did not hesitate to pledge their characters and responsi- bility to the gross absurdity of answering both propositions acceptably to the disaffected State and annoyingly to the federal government. Connecticut coincided in these palpable heresies, which were not only rejected, but denounced every where south and west of New England. When submitted by a case of elaborated pleadings to the Supreme Court of New York, in 1814, the opinion of that court, delivered by one of its ablest and boldest judges, Spencer, declared that the President, and he alone, is made the judge as well of the happening of the events on Avhich the militia may be called forth, as of the number, time, and destination of that force. It would be monstrous, he added, to countenance the construction contended for, that whether the President acted correctly in making his requisitions might be drawn in r|uestion by every subordinate officer. Ambrose Spencer, then an associate, afterward chief justice of the Su- premo Court of New York in its best days, was distinguished 118 MILITIA. ])j the superior strength of liis judicial decisions. With sons in the army and navy, bravely serving their country, he felt the odium as well as unsoundness of the Massachusetts militia positions, ^yhich are exposed by William Rawle in his treatise on the federal constitution. Another New York militia con- troversy during the wars, procrastinated till 1827, before final decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, at last, by the unanimous judgment of that court, pronounced by Judge Story, a JMassachusetts lawyer, put to rest for ever the factious militia objections originating Avith disaflection in that state. Its constituted authorities suffered part of the state to be taken by the enemy without resistance; and if more extensive inva- sion had occurred there, Governor Strong, with his judicial advisers, must have found their anti-federal recalcitratiun ^till more paralysing. Another militia difficulty, propagated from the same quarter, was, whether they are liable for more than local, sedentary and defensive or domestic service ; not to 1)e marched from their own vicinities — at all events, not out of the United States. English militia would hardly submit to be transported Ix'vond their own insular bulwarks, to wage continental wars for Hano- verian possessions, or the balance of power. But neither the Constitution of the United States, acts of Congress, or the nature of things, suppose the power to repel invasion, or to repress insurrection, to be without right to go from one State into another, or transgress the riverain or ideal boundaries of the United States. When Washington marched to si'.i>}iress an insurrection in Pennsylvania, he commanded militia from several other States, with their several Governors at llieir heads. Militia composed the greater part of the armies of Hull and Harrison, when they invaded Canada, and of Jackson, when he penetrated into the Mississippi Territory. The acts of Congress expressly authorize the President to call out the militia of one State to suppress insurrection in another. Whenever in actual service, the militia are under the disci- pline of the army of the United States, their pay and punish- ment are the same; the President is their commander-in-chief; and if he may judge when it is necessary to call them out, he can likewise best judge whether offensive and invading warfare MILITIA. 119 may not, according to circumstances, be tlic best mclbod of defending the country. In a case which originated during the war, though not finally determined till 1820, it was resolved, by the Supreme Court of the United States, that the power of militia courts-martial to punish men disobeying the President's call to service is not exclusively federal, but that States may, bylaw, authorise such courts, when Congress has not done so : and also, that the President may call on any officers of the State militia for a draft of them. Federal control and martial law do not attach to militia till in actual service, when they become exclusively national troops, of whom the President is commander-in-chief, as if part of the army of the United States for the period of service. The opinion of the court, delivered by Judge Wash- ino'ton, to2;ether with gratuitous arsiuments by Judo-cs Johnson and Story, are not without the judicial diversity inseparable from political jurisprudence ; while that of the court, never- theless, harmonises federal with State authority, as is always desirable, affirming the judgment of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, always, since Penn first suggested union, studious of that national compact. That court likewise adjudged that all men are bound to serve in the militia, if inhabitants, and not by law excepted. Some other adjudications of militia law by the courts of the United States, occasioned by the war of 1812, not involving constitutional or fundamental political questions, do not fiill within the scope of this Historical Sketch. On the 7th of March, 1814, the committee on the judiciary reported to the House of Representatives a bill prescribing the mode of commencing, prosecuting, and deciding controversies between two or more States. Soon afterwards, on the 12th of that month, the National Intelligencer published at large another important bill, reported from that committee, to amend the ju- dicial system of the United States. As neither of these bills was taken into consideration, it is superfluous to notice them furtlier. During more than thirty years of profound peace, secured by less than three of that war, the United States had no oppor- tunity of shewing that, as a belligerent nation, they concede 120 MEXICAN WAR. to neutrals tlic rights ^Ylnc•h, as a neutral nation, they ref|uired from belligerents. At length another war was provoked and begun by JNIexico, as history will eventually record, rectifying much European, especially English, and some American mis- representation on that subject. The United States have never been aggressors. Both their foreign wars have been defensive, not undertaken till after long forbearance ; the Mexican not less than the English. And the great cause of freedom and humanity, vindicated against England, was further advanced Ijy hostilities with Mexico. Liberty of the seas, mitigated warfare, principles of peace, and rights of property, vindicated against Great Britain, are the most memorable, beneficial and lastnig conquests of the Mexican v/ar, not yet outshining, but eventually to eclipse, its splendid victories and golden aggrandizements. Off the formidable fortress of St. Juan d'Ulloa, the Ame- rican squadron, blockading La Vera Cruz, was overlooked by floating, perhaps frowning, broadsides of the navies of Great Britain, France, Spain, Holland — most of the maritime powers of Europe ; whose consular flags, streaming from the city, also denoted commercial protection to neutral nations. If those of the northern European naval powers were not there, their sympathies were with us. An American army, close packed on board their squadron, was commanded, both army and navy, ])V lineal martial descendants of the war for sea liberties, wrested from England : both of them of the few who then, by sea and land, nobly proved that triumph comes of daring, as prudence is providence, and achievement the child of discretion and audacity united. In the little squadron which hurried to sea the moment war vras declared, in 1812, fearful, only, that its going might be forbid as too perilous, sailed an obscure and modest youth, David Conner, soon captured while conducting the first British prize into an American port ; v,dio, in 1846, oommandeil the squadron operating against J^^Icxico. On the deck of his frigate, "proudly eminent," stood the ostentatious young brigadier, Winfield Scott, whom two years of continual reverses, in 1812-13, only nerved for further effort ; and when the army seemed incapable of success, heading other brave spirits, like the navy, almost in spite of superior orders, he led MEXICAN WAR. 121 them, all caparisoned in their most conspicuous garl), into the mighty enemy's domain, resolved to break the talisman of British invincibility, or perish in the trial. Future liistory, real and legendary, will illustrate the combats of those Ame- rican Horatii, by sea and land, who challenged superi'ir num- bers to unequal combats, on which national independence and maritime liberty depended. The dragon's teeth they sowed bore their first fruits in Canada, and their second in Mexico. Never have war's annals celebrated a combined military and naval operation so successfully conducted as the landing of Scott's twelve thousand soldiers from Conner's squadron. No jealousy of corps, no strife of superiors or insubordination of inferiors, scarcely any casualty interfered with the admirable regularity and marvellous facility of that descent of the north upon the south, the white upon the brown men. ISIagnificent equatorial sunshine gilded northern arms, inexplicably favored by southern reticence, as from a 1;»ay of storms, then placid as a prairie, without molestation or delay, the army stepped from the navy uj)on the sea of sands ashore ; and seamen emulating soldiers, all eagerly at once cheered their commanders to assault a place which it was supposed Avould cost a thousand slain to carry by assault. Wilkinson charged Scott, in 1814, Avith the odium of "a butcher s hill' for his bloody exploits atBridgewater; who, become veteran, with scarce any loss of life except hostile, by a few days' scientific strategy, with naval co-operation, sub- dued both the strong city and the fortress deemed impregnable. Paris, London, and St. Petersburg, all the capitals of the old world, where force maintains order and peace is mortgaged to victory, listened respectfully to the repuldican trumpet, at whose blast fell the walls of Mexico. Nor will the considerate of this new, cheap, poorly-armed nation, be insensible to the effect of war as sometimes the only peace-maker. But if this republic remains faithful to its institutions, its richest gratifica- tions from hostilities will be the pacific principles proclaimed, signalised, and effectuated by those with England and with Mexico. Bv war with England the dominion of the seas was, at least, beat off ; in that with Mexico it was entirely laid dotvn. For the first time the golden rule of peace and pr(»perty 122 ' MEXICAN VTA-R. recognising the soa as tlie dominion of no nation, but common to all alike, was inaugurated by the American navy proclaiming it from their mast-heads, in the presence of those of England, France, Holland, and Spain. That free ships make free go()ds was then reinstated, after long abeyance and much denial, by American vessels of war, with all war's rights and powers, de- claring to English, French, Spanish, Dutch, and all other mer- chant-vessels, that their flags protect their cargoes. I am not able to aver, by the record, that instructions from government directed our vessels of war to acknowledge that free ships make free goods. If not, and the commanding naval officers never- theless did so, as is positively affirmed by Lieutenant Semmes, in his instructive v^ork on that Avar, so much the more do com- manding officers Conner and Perry, without superior orders, making that acknowledgment, show how deeply engraven the principle was in naval understanding by the war of 1812. Nor do I know whether the English modern perversions of the established regulations of contraband Avere expressly overruled by orders from our government. But no prize-com*t, or public sentiment in the United States would have tolerated attempts to enforce English usurpations in this respect, con- tradicted by all American commercial treaties. As to blockade, the letter of the secretary of the navy, Mr. Bancroft, of the 18th of May, 1845, was in terms explicit that blockade must be strict and absolute, by adetjuate force, with due notice to neutrals, giving as much publicity as possible to the declaration, and aHowing neutrals already in port twenty days to leave it ; and respecting English mail steamers, to follow the precedent set by the French in their recent blockade of Vera Cruz Avith regard to them. So strong AA'as the American naval sentiment on that subject, that when an officer of the war of 1812, Com- modore Biddle, in 1847, found that a junior officer had pro- claimed a blockade more extensive than he had war-vessels to enforce, the senior at once rescinded the junior's proclamation. No search Avas attempted l)ut such as could not possibly give offence. The British frigate Endymion, one of the squadron that captured Decatur in the President, in 1815, Avas the British flag-ship oft' La Vera Cruz in 184G-7. Instead of the inimical MEXICAN WAR. 123 and uncomfortable feelings that once estranged English from American naval officers, the most courteous and the kindest intercourse pi-evailed, as ahvays should, among them. The British flag witnessed not the abdication, for it never assumed, but the entire voluntary renunciation, by the American flag, of those predatory practices by sea which war ashore disowns, and Avhich are always pregnant with strife, ill-blood, hostility, and spoliation. The American navy seized, with proud alacrity, their first opportunity of practical demonstration that what, as neutrals, they require of belligerents, as belligerents they spon- taneously concede to neutrals. They did more in the Gulf of Mexico to vindicate, practically, maritime peace and property than all the many peace societies that have for ages in vain striven theoretically to endoctrinate mankind. In the Gulf of Mexico, an American close sea, they reversed Selden's 3Iare Chm^um and Woodeson's more modern, but scarcely less ob- jectionaltlc, doctrine that the sea is part of the British realms. The ■Mexican not being a maritime war, a9"orded few occa- sions by sea-prizes for American judicial notice of maritime questions. Only one prize case came before the Supreme Court of the United States. But in that one, Avith Scott's decisions, quoted, his perversions of blockade and of commercial residence were not sanctioned, but the liberal principles of modei-n war law unanimously adjudicated. The humane spirit of jNIarshall prevailed in a judgment to which, if he had lived, Kent must have yielded his fondness for Scott's harsh law. If Great Britain, as there is reason to hope, contradicted by all the world in these sea-rights, conforms to their mitigation, as thus enforced in fiict and by law, maritime hostilities must be much abridged, with all their burdensome charges, their violations of inoff"ensive property and profitable enterprise, their intoleralile abuses and inflictions. The benign influence of commercial intercourse Avill be vastly increased. Commercial prosperity will be the crea- tion of industry and enterprise, not of war and spoliation. Peace will profit more than war. Acts of peace will be more glorious than feats of arms. AVithout any design of describing the Mexican invasion, there 124 MEXICAN WAR. belongs to this view of its marine effects some further account of the improved warfare by Avhich it was achieved ashore. After many yenrs of menacing recriminations, the stagnating vis inertke of bodies politic still benumbed Congress, ^hen startled by the presidential message that Mexico had drawn blood by beginning hostilities on our soil. On the spur of that excitement, after, with great unanimity, passing the act de- claring war, Congress soon relapsed into lethargy, parsimony, and faction, and with difficulty enacted indispensable pro- visions. Upon General Taylor's complaints to the secretary of war, that murders and other shameful atrocities were com- mitted among the troops, which the articles of war did not reach, and he had no authority to punish, the secretary in vain called on Congress for adequate legislation. Nothing was done. After Taylor, by his inaugurating victories, broke the Mexican spirit, and paved the way for Scott's still more brilliant triumphs, one of his first general orders when he took command at Tampico was to supply our default in Congress by proclaiming martial law, for the prevention and punishment of many crimes and offences not provided for by the rules and articles of war enacted by Congress in 1806. Various homi- ' cides, theft, rape, and other offences, desecration of churches, cemeteries, and other religious edifices and fixtures, interruption of religious ceremonies, destruction of either private or public property, except by superior orders, were accordingly interdicted by martial, superadded to established military law ; and its administration enforced with impartial justice on Americans and Mexicans alike, by military courts. General Worth from the advance of the army informed General Scott that martial law, in that spirit, administered, "took admirably, and produced more decided effects than all the blows from Palo Alto to Cerro Gordo." The English minister at Washington, Mr. Pakenliam, who had been many years in that capacity in Mexico, declared his opinion that it would prove impossible for the American army to make good its way from La Vera Cruz to the City of Mexico. Baron Geroldt, the Prussian minister at Wash- ington, who also had been in that capacity in IMexico, pro- nounced the Mexican troops excellent soldiers. Which author!- MEXICAN AVAFw 125 tative doubts of American success are not mentioned to disparage JMexican arms, or exalt tlieir reversal. Vix ea nostra voco may bo said of Scott and Taylor's victories, when dwelling on tlie much greater triumphs of humanity, of property, of religious and political liberty, which attended the march of the American armies. Numerous trials by their courts-martial were pub- lished, and are in print, exhibiting an administration of justice not surpassed by that of civil tribunals. Accused Mexicans and Americans were tried and acquitted, or condemned, fined, imprisoned and executed with undeniable impartiality. Pro- perty was held sacred. Churches were inviolate. That only and best police of all American government, a free press, accompanied the army, every where publishing all transactions. No Ameri- can officer pillaged or spoliated with impunity. No Mexican justly complained without redress. Booty was an unknown military acquisition. The invasion of Mexico, called also New Spain, by one hundred thousand American troops, produced no Mexican complaints of war, but of defeats. By French inva- sion and Spanish and English defence of Old Spain, horrible rapine, assassinations, and atrocities of all sorts perpetrated in dreadful conflict, contrasted with American humanised hostilities in Mexico, seem to be scarcely acts of the same mankind. So forbearing was the method of warfare in Mexico, while waged with never-failing victories, large hostile occupations of territory and occasional assessments of considerable forced contributions for the American army, yet with plunder so rare, supplies so punctually and fairly paid for, religion and property, both public and private, so uniformly respected, that Mexico, not undergoing the usual hardships of invasion, feeling the burdens of her own government and the distress of her popu- lation so much harder to bear than the inflictions of such con- querors, there was reason to apprehend, preferred such war to ordinary peace, and would protract the contest as an amelioration. It became, thereupon, a serious question for the American go- venmicnt, how to conduct so as to abridge the war; and for the first time in the annals of hostilities, relinquish, instead of en- larging, conquered territory. While war was waged with com- plete success on terms of forbearance unknown in European war- 126 MEXICAN WAPw fare, an original and pacific modification of lio;>tilities was further- more introduced by the president's (Polk) mstructions of the 23d of March, and the secretary of the treasury's (Walker) order of the 30th of March, 1847. Predicating the conipieror's unquestionable right to levy contributions on enemy's property for defraying belligerent expenses, to establish provisional civil government, and prescriljc terms on which commerce might be permitted with and in the enemy's possessions, that generally much abused, and merely military power, was regulated so as to supply the conquering troops with funds, without arbitrary or burdensome contributions levied on the vanquished. All nations, instead of being forcibly excluded, or srduced by ex- ceptional clandestine licenses, were openly invited, English, French, Spanish, and other neutrals, to trade with Mexico, while occupied by American hostile forces ; paying a fair im- post on their importations, which was collected by naval and military American ofiicers, and applied to the support of their troops. That original and admirable modification of belligerent power completed the humane and exemplary hostilities by which this country conquered peace, and with it large acquisitions of territory ; which, great as they are, might and would have been much greater but for the spirit of moderation which actuated the American government. As a member of the select committee in Congress, charged with a report on the subject of that novel fiscal belligerent im- provement, I dissented from the Executive, deeming the Presi- dent alone authorized to enforce the imposts laid on Mexico ; because I consider that the clause in the Constitution, providing that Congress is "to make rules concerning captures on land and water," confers distinct powers not merely executive, but to be executed by an act of Congress, approved by the President. With that exception, in which I diifer from many better able to judge, the power appeared to me in excellent keeping with the whole warfare waged. And as a member of Congress, sharing my humble portion of the labors, the risks and respon- bilities of both the British and the Mexican wars, I crave leave to add to this Historical Sketch of the first, with some reference to the last, that I have never felt reason to regret either war. MEXICAN WAR. 127 Frequent, protracted, ambitious war is national calauiity. Sucli war is inconsistent, if not incompatible with our popular insti- tutions, of Avhich peace is the vital element. But, unless biassed by the interest I felt in the two mentioned, they were both beneficial to the patriotism, to the Union, the republic- anism, and, altogether, the progressive development of this, it must be confessed, however, yet experimental empire. Still, whatever be its duration or its fate, this American Republic has waged wars for rights and upon principles which neither Napoleon, AVellington nor Nelson ever practised, or indeed con- ceived. In no development of humanity has beneficial pro- gress been more signal than by this country in the rules, prac- tices and doctrines of that period of belligerent excitement, when all rules and doctrines are apt to be disregarded. CHAPTER III. FRENCH CONSULAR REPUBLIC. 1799-1804. Tendency of the French Revolution to representative Government — French in America — Reciprocal Influences of American and French Revolutions — Bonaparte's Arrival from Egypt and irregular Election as Cliief Ma- gistrate — Consulate — His Personal Habits, Temper, Appearance, Man- ners — Temperance — Economy — Religion — Politics — Family — Lajtitia Ramolino, Mother of the Bonapartes — Arrighi — Cardinal Fesch — Elisa Bacchiochi — Her Daughter Camarata — Pauline — Caroline — Achilles and Lucien Murat — Joseph's Wife and Family — Bonaparte's first Marriage — Josephine — Hortensia and Eugene Beauharnois — Lucien Bonaparte — His Family — Louis — Jerome — Joseph — Treaty with the United States — Treaty of Amiens — Cornwallis — Consular Government — War by England — Royalist Plots — Count d'Artois — Pichegru — ]\Ioreau — George Cadoudal — Duke of Enghein — His Execution — End of the Republic and beginning of the Empire. Since the English Revolution of 1688, and religious reforma- tion, free institutions, recognized as part of British government, 128 FREXCn EEPUELIC. traditional and predominant in the United States Lefore their independence, have been constantly progressive in most of Eu- rope, especially in France. The French Revolution of 1780, following the American of 177G, after sixty years' travail, is not, perhaps, yet at an end. Kings, monarchs, tribunes, directors, and emperors, have been expelled ; aristocracy has been extir- pated, and equality established. But liberty, tranquillity and republicanism, as liberty exists in England, tranquillity and republicanism in America, seem to be still impracticable, if not inconceivable, in that highly civilized and superior country, so long giving impressions to others ; ^Yhich is not surprising when the prepossessions of a thousand years are to be uj^rooted. Years are of small account in the annals of nations, which tell by centuries. But for more than the last half century, the French have been habituated to popular establishments; oftener than any other country in the world, not excepting this, have chosen chief magistrates by absolutely universal suifrage ; and in the attainment of equality, which is one great element of free- dom, they are a free people — much freer than the English, or even the Americans. In accomplishing that great emancipation, their dictator-emperor was a principal agent. For heroes and sages, Napoleon was well aware, are instruments of overruling Providence to bring about unlooked-for results ; unconscious destroyers of Avhat they labor to create ; and creators of what they endeavor to destroy. French monarchs. Bourbons and Bonapartes, are a necessary part of the means to reform and meliorate, by forcibly destroying venerable prejudices and in- veterate habits, and introducing equality with liberty among the most influential people of Europe. Both time and force were indispensable ; time, the greatest of all innovators, and surest, if not the only sure; and the force of reaction against des- potism when re-established, as by Napoleon and Charles X., as well as resistance to it Avhen inherited, though mitigated,by Louis , XVI. The French, deemed uncommonly impressionable and inconstant, are still amazingly the same identical people ile- scribed by Caesar, when he overran Gaul two thousand years ago. Napoleon called himself executor of the will of the au- thors of the French Revolution, with whom the establishment FRENCH EEPUBLIC. 129 of equality began, -which he completed, ami of liberty, which lie ]alK)re(l to destroy, or at least put off. Louis XVIII. was obliged to concede many free institutions, which Charles X. was expelled for attempting to overthrow. And Louis Philippe was dethroned by a republic, which, however imperfectly, had been sixty years inchoate. There are intelligent, virtuous and religious men in all coun- tries, who deny that liberty and equality, freedom of the press, universal education and suffrage, and oiher mostly considered advantages of republican or representative government, are meliorations of the condition of mankind. Notwithstanding Napoleon's much-vaunted prediction, that men would soon be Cossack or republican, the present century witnessed Russian conquerors in the capital of France less destructive or bar- barous than French in that of Russia. Still, as a fact, it is indisputable that, since the American and French revolutions, there are more liberty and cfjuality, greater diiTusion of pro- perty and education, less privilege, the poor are richer, the rich are less so, all government is milder and more popular, than before ; and the universal tendency, American, European, Asiatic and African, is to still further progress in those ways. "Whether beneficial or not, the progress is undeniable, and pro- bably irresistible. This chapter, then, proposes American views of European and universal progress, if not originated, at least much accele- rated, and best exemplified, by America ; of which progress kings and emperors have all been agents, the most puissant and effectual of all. Franklin, Adams, Jefferson and Jay, conspicuous leaders in American progress, both learned and taught it in Europe, Lafayette, Louis Philippe, Volney, Talleyrand, Chateaubriand, Joseph Bonaparte, and other less conspicuous, yet distinguished French, as late as Tocqueville and President Bonaparte, en- larged European free thoughts by personal communion with American actuality. The most formidable of despots, with all his heart and might, not only extirpated privilege and cor- roborated equality, but provoked and promoted liberty by Cfjuality, and, by reaction against his own tyranny, disparaged raonarch3^ By bolstering three brothers and three sisters on. Vol. IIL — 9 ICO FRENCH REVOLUTIOX. tottering thrones, creating bastard aristocracy by spawning nobles without privileges, the only sure support of nobility, jind at last by divorcing a plebeian French wife, representing popular sovereignty, in order to marry a foreign princess born to divine right, thus rejecting the corner-stone of his monarchy, Xnpoleon brought contempt, debility and insecurity on royal aud noble establishments. The crowai which, by a snatch, emblematic of his empire, he placed on his own head, he en- vironed by eight more crowns, inconsistent with all examples, which, by force of arms, he put on the heads of his OAvn house- hold ; — a Spanish crown on the head of his brother Joseph, a Dutch one on that of his brother Louis, a German on that of his brother Jerome, a Neapolitan on one sister's head, a Tuscan on another sister's, an Italian viceroyalty on a step-son, a Baden ducal crown on a wife's cousin, and the only brother who would not submit to Avear a crown, he drove into exile in an enemy's country, Nine crowned heads in one family, born to poverty and educated by charity, not only declared but anxiously de- signed to bo developments of the revolutionary principle of pro- gress, could hardly fail to promote that democratic emancipation from royalty which is the great characteristic of this age. In- vaded Spain was freed by it from ecclesiastical and political abuses. All Spanish America revolted from royal colonial to free government. Incomparably the greatest and wisest hero, and by no means one of the worst men of modern times, who, by such infatuated furtherance of revolution, laid republican repre- sentative foundations broad and deep, ascribed, in the agonies and bitter repentance of downfall, imprisonment, and lingering <]eath, his ruin to the Spanish invasion and Austrian marriage, to noble and royal connexions, crowns, coronets and decorations, which, he said, concealed with flowers the abyss into which he fell. His royal French predecessor, and his three royal French successors, the Bourbons, by errors as egregious and fatal as those of Emperor Bonaparte's, helped him to alienate mankind from monarchy, and turn their minds to representative repuldi- canism, as more rational and respectable. If, after sixty years of revolution, should such be the result, no reformers w"iil have contributed so much to it as iconoclastic monarchs. By repre- FRENCH REVOLUTION'. 131 sentative government, I understand tliat -whieli Is not ruled ]\j monarcbs by divine right, but by popuUir suffrage. A monarcb\% like those of Belgium and Brazil, and perhaps England, may be freer in its institutions than a republic. The Roman Empire was a republic with emperors. A republican chief magistrate may be more powerful and more absolute than a king. But where the people are sovereign, and not the king, except as representing the people, that may be deemed representative and popular govenment. In that view of the subject, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Sardinia, Belgium, Prussia, and some of the German kingdoms, are representative, though without elective chief magistrates. In France, suffrage is really uni- versal ; and however arbitrary the government may be, it is not absolute by divine right, as before the American and French Revolutions. Americans are apt to think that revolution does nothing, when it dethrones a king, unless it establishes a demo- cratic republic in his stead. Whereas such kingly governments, as several established within the last sixty years, are both repre- sentative and free, though not democratic. Avoiding the beaten track', historical and biographical, of the many Avriters who have described these events and personages in their European aspects, my purpose is to present their Ame- rican connexions and influences. French royal interposition in the American revolution is f imiliar knowledge ; and American personal agency in that of France. But French princes and personages coming to or going from America, and performing im- portant parts in France, may be shown in American lights, and developed with republican edification. Larochefoucauld, Louis Philippe, Talleyrand, Chateaubriand, Hyde de Nieuville, and other eminent royalists ; Volney, Brissot, La Fayette, and Moreau, republicans ; Joseph Bonaparte, with several more of his family, besides Grouchy, Clausel, Real, Regnault, sons of Ney, of Lannes, and of Fouche, outcasts, in America, of the French Empire, recurring from Marbois, in 1779, to Tocque- ville, in 1832, supply French incidents and characters for American history, on which, though the last chapter cannot perhaps be given, yet several prior ones abound with American instruction. 132 FRENCH REVOLrTION. Napoleon's invasion of Spain, and attempt to seat liis brother Joseph on the Spanish throne, (hy its transatlantic reactions as much American as European,) Averc events in full progress during our ^'ar of 1812. Napoleon's invasion of Russia that year, was not only simultaneous with our war, but by many Americans, and nearly all Englishmen, our resistance of Eng- land was said to be the direct and time-serving offspring of his attack of Russia. Hyde de Nieuville, in 1813, from New Jerse}^, engaged Moreau to embark for the north of Europe, there, in Russian service and uniform — English pay and cause — to take up arms against Napoleon and France. The first subjugation of France, and abdication of the emperor, in April, 1814, took place in the midst of our contest, his martial star waning just as ours radiated. His final overthrow and abdica- tion, in June 1815, occurred before our hostilities ceased by the treaty of Ghent. His selection of this country for his residence, abortive attempt to come here, surrender to Admu-al Ilotham, just from our coast, and transportation to St. Helena, in cus- tody of Admiral Cockburn, infamous in American hostilities, are hardly foreign to our annals. His brother Joseph lived five- and-twenty years among us, frequented by eminent Frenchmen, at his residence in New Jersey. Mexico tendered, in New Jersey, to him who had declined the crown of Lombardy, and Avore the crowns of Naples and of Spain, a fourth and an Ame- rican crown. La Fayette there proffered Joseph Bonaparte his co-operation to dethrone Louis XVIII. Thence Lallemaud went to found a nation in Texas ; Grouchy and Clauscl to plant vineyards in Alabama. Thence, when La Fayette made Louis Philippe king, Joseph protested, and sent one of Fouche's sons to Vienna, to bring forth the young Napoleon. In these events America is concerned, and was engaged, whose truths remain to be made known with American independence, in their Euro- pean consequences and universal moral. And Joseph Bona- parte's intercourse, while in England, with his brothers Lucien and Jerome, and with his nephew, now president of the French Republic, and with several of the prominent French then striving to restore the empire, since conspicuous republican representa- tives, belong altogether to the same narrative. FRENCH REVOLUTION. 133 For some of these disclosures mine arc accldently peculiar advantages. Of the Spanish American revolutions, except thut of Mexico, I am a'ware of no complete history, and my limited information is mostly derived from hooks or other publications. But of the Spanish invasion, its antecedents, accompaniments, and consequences ; of the advent, government, real character, abdications, overthrow of, and of the family of Napoleon, I am better informed, by five-and-twcnty years' intimacy with Joseph Bonaparte, than any other who has written in English concern- ing them. Frenchmen, if acquainted with the realities known to me, could liardly publish them without partiality, nor English- men without prejudice. INIy source of information being Bona- parte's most intimate and confi. Irresolution, which at Fontainebleau in 1814, and at Paris in 1815, ensured and hastened his fall, endangered his rise in 1791'. He was not an iron-nerved man. Lucien and Sieyes at both his outset and his end showed more resolution than Napoleon, as I have heard Joseph say, in effect, respecting the last abdication. And I have heard Morcau several times speak with strong contempt of Bonaparte's courage ; of Avhich, though thei'c can bo no doul)t, yet it probably was not of that adaman- tine, or as some would say, apathetic kind, which nothing coiild disturb, — such as, probably, Moreau's was. Josejih told mo that the first time he ever saw Marshal Suchet, then a captain, he was running away pale and frightened. Nelson was not a man of imperturbable courage, nor was Frederick the Gi-eat. It is said that the Emperor Alexander, at the battle of Auster- litz, was ludicrously alarmed. A member of Joseph's royal family in SpaJn, told me that Soult was nervous in battle and danger, and Sebastiani, a bold dragoon, (since marshal,) absolutely timorous. Lucien sat perfectly collected and un- daunted in the president's chair ; and, as soon as Napoleon was gone, attempted to palliate his intrusion. But the Council, not appeased, were about ordering Napoleon to their bar for censure, when Lucien sent him notice, and that they two must have a conference,- but that he did not like to leave BONAPARTE. 139 tlic pvesidencj wliilc tlic Council were so mucli irritated against his brother. Napoleon then ordered troops into the liall to e.scort Lucien out, who, with admirable self-possession, sayini^- that it did not become him to preside and put questions imj)licating his brother, calmly took oft' his oiBcial robe, laid it down on the chair, and left the hall; in the castle court mounted a horse, and from the saddle harangued the troops ; as pi'csiding officer and as citizen, calling on them and all bystanders to expel those members of the Five Hundred Avho refused, as legislators, to obey the lawful commander. " Long live the Ilepul)lic !" was Lucien's exordium. Thus authorised and urired, the soldiers again marched into the hall, headed by Le Clerc, the husband of Pauline Bonaparte, drums beating the charge, and by force expelled the members, who were debating as the troops entered ; but Le Clerc, by beat of drum, drowned all vociferation, and to the letter, amidst arms the law was silenced. INIembers re- monstrated and resisted, but were subdued, and without actual force beyond intimidation, at the point of the bayonet, gra- dually removed from their seats. The Council of Ancients, after some delay and excitement, officially informed that four of the directors had resigned, and that the fifth was confined by order of General Bonaparte, Avere debating at the moment when he appeared at their door. Several members inviting him to the tribune, he addressed the body from it ; with animation, thus encouraged, denouncing the government. Then turning to the troops stationed about the entrance, he called on them to crush whoever dared to pro- nounce their general an outlaw ; and, again sjieaking to the Chamber, said he would leave them to determine what to do, and that their orders he would execute. Debate, resumed as soon as he was gone, lasted till several members an- nounced that the Council of Five Hundred was dissolved, most of whom had returned to Paris. Aljout fifty remained, who reorganised as the Council ; and that evening, in concert with the Ancients, sitting all night, enacted a provisional executive commission, consisting of Sieyes, Duces, and Bonaparte, de- nominated Consuls of the Republic, invested with dictatorial powers, and charged to establish order in the administration, 140 BONAPARTE. tranquillity witliin and peace abroad. Both legislative bodies then adjourned till the 20th of February, 1800; for three months surrendering the government to the Consuls, of Avhom Bonaparte forthwith became chief. Just thirty years of age, in the last five or six of them Bonaparte bounded from victory to victory, with miraculous fortune, to the pinnacle of fame and power, with scarce a blot on his bright and brilliant glory ; honest, chaste, modest, temperate, disinterested, studious, and exemplary as a man ; magnificent in heroism : though not a man of fashion, with what commonly passes for elegance of manners, yet, by su- perior talents, information, and amiable anxiety to please, the true essence of politeness, fascinating as a gentleman, and counnanding as a governor. It cannot be said that he at- tained chief-magistracy without secret preconcert and circum- vention. Yet nearly all the best men of France supported him, whose union with the great body of the people for his elevation cannot be called conspiracy, or his election mere usurpation. The forms of national suffrage did not indeed precede, sanction, and recommend it ; but there was infinitely less fraud or force than in the great British revolution, which placed William III. on the throne, or the prior convulsions which deposed Chajdes, inaugurated Cromwell, and then re- stored another Stuart. Nor in Bonaparte's election to chief- magistracy Avas there the least allusion to monarchy, except to disown it. Napoleon, Joseph, and Lucien, with all their adherents, constantly proclaimed republicanism. To exclude the Bourbons was an avowed and favorite, nearly unanimous, object. Their royalty had hardly any supporters left in France till Bonaparte's politic moderation brought them back. Re- publicans like La Fayette were rare — they are so always. But there was a leaven in the mass, like the apostles who introduced Christianity, or the propagators of free trade in England, and in this country, a small, pertinacious band of invincible teachers constantly acting on the people, by wliom public sentiment was originated and eventually regulated. The people were taught, and, however ignorant, the peasantry learned that they ought to be represented in government. BOXAPAKTE. 141 All French histories, biographies, and recollections of that period concur in the unquestionable existence of numerous re- publicans, imbued with the principles of 1789. Free govern- ment, whether the chief-magistrate should be hereditary or elective, a tribune, or place "where orators may lawfully incul- cate liberty, with a free press to maintain it, no privileged class, but official preferment open to all, were principles inherited by Bonaparte from the revolution, which he pledged himself to perpetuate. Without Voltaire, IMontesquieu, and other pen- men, to proclaim what he and the swordsmen established, it never would have been. Whether pen and sword combined have succeeded in finally altogether uprooting mediieval prepos- sessions, may yet be disputed. But that representative go- vernment and popular sovereignty have made progress since ITTG in this country, and 1789 in that, is unquestionable. The end may not be yet ; and may never be democratic in Europe. But representative and popular it is already ; and in that reform Bonaparte, whether willing, accidental, or averse, was immensely instrumental. Three years afterwards, in the autumn of 1802, I saw Bona- parte, then Consul for life, with authority to appoint his suc- cessor, which advance on monarchy he had already reached. By the treaty of Amiens, in JMarch 1801, England, with all the rest of the world, recognised in his person not a king or emperor by title, but a French ruler with great power and at- tributes. Paris was full of English ; their handsome ambas- sador Lord Whitworth, with his wife, the Duchess of Dorset, Fox, Erskine, Lord Henry Betty, since Marquis of Lans- downe, witii his Swiss tutor Dumont, the intimate of Jeremy Bentham and Romilly, Alexander Baring, afterwards Lord Ashburton, with his American wife and her father, ex-Senator of the United States, William Bingham, and other distin- guished persons, whom I met, and Joseph Bonaparte, at the house of the American minister, Robert R. Livingston. Like most American ministers in France, Mr. Livingston far exceeded his salary in sustaining elegant hospitality. Mr. Bingham, too, lived elegantly and hospitably ; and Franklin's grandson. Temple Franklin, on a smaller scale, kept a gay and handsome 142 EOXAPx\RTE. liome. Rufus King, tlie American minister in England, •with whom I went from Loudon to Paris, did not care to be presented at the Consular court ; and even if he had been, I was not within the rc2;ulations established for that honor ; so that I saw the First Consul only at his reviews and the opera, and my description of him, partly from personal observation, must be made up chiefly from that of others. The small bronze, full- length statue of General Bonaparte, bequeathed to me by Jo- seph Bonaparte's will, is a good likeness of Napoleon's person as I saw him, thin and pallid, witli a mild and languid Italian expression. It has the queue which he wore in Italy, and I believe Egypt, with large locks of hair over the ears, instead of the chesnut cro}') which, as I stood near him in the Tuilleries, I saw him brush up with one hand while he held his hat in the other. Ilis personal appearance then was perhaps most re- markable for its extreme dissimilitude to his colossal character : not only uncommonly small, but looking still more diminutive and young, owing to a smooth, almost beardless, and unpre- tending countenance, without any thing martial or imposing in his air or manner. He looked, I thought, like a modest midshipman. Ilis height was but five feet two inches, French measure, equal to five feet seven inches English or American. Between Bonaparte as I saw him, slender, pale, and small, and the Emperor Napoleon, grown fat and stout, there must have been considerable difference of appearance. But as the bones, limbs, features, and structure remained the same, in describing him, mostly from Abel Hugo's and Meneval's accounts, whose opportunities were the best, almost as good as Joseph Bona- parte's, who presented them to me as perfectly trustworthy, I shall not distinguish between the slender Consul and the cor- pulent Emperor. Handling a ramrod at the siege of Toulon, he caught from it, as was supposed, an itch which became, ten years afterwards, very difficult to cure. Being extremely neat and cleanly, perhaps to counteract that distress of the skin he used himself to excessive hot bathing, generally in perfumed water, which, or something else, tended to make him much fatter than either of his brothers or sisters ; in fact, the only fat member of the faraily, though Joseph grew round and BOXArARTE. 143 plump, rendering the resemblance between him and the em- peror very striking. Malevolence fiilsely imputed many dis- eases to Napoleon ; but he enjoyed robust and almost iniin- tcrrupted health. He "was said by many to be a profuse snuff-taker, which was not the case. The story of his having a side-pocket for snuff, is a mere fable. He took no stimulants at all, and preferred the simplest diet. If he ever carried snuff in his pocket, it must have been when he was with the array and anxious. At home, the officers of liis guard, the aid-de-camp on duty, his first valet-de-chambre, carried well- stored snuff-boxes, in which he put his fingers ; and he had one himself, besides several that were in his various apartments : all of which gave the impression of his being much of a snuff- taker, when he merely fingered, smelt, and threw it away. He used the finest white cambric pocket-handkerchief, wore a white cassimere vest and small-clothes, and sometimes soiled them with snuff, as occasionally he made black pencil marks on them. Broad shoulders and the development of his breast indicated a strong constitution ; which w'as proved by his undergoing the severest fatigue and privation of all kinds, at all times, in all places ; walking, riding, writing, studying, labor both bodily and mental, vigils, exposure, hardships, and every variety of climate. He passed nearly the whole night preceding the battle of Jena holding light to help the men dragging cannon out of a deep ravine, in which it was jammed. When the French army in Spain, under Soult, began its march after Moore, of a stormy day in February, snow, sleet, and rain driving with a piercing wind in their faces, the emperor walked with the first platoon, in order to set the men an example of cheer- ful endurance. During most of his life, he appeared equally insensible to fatigue and indifferent to w"eather, walked or rode any distance or time, without rest, in all seasons, and then im- mediately dictated state papers, letters, or other public articles, during many hours more, without rest or refreshment. Preli- minary to the battle of Wagram, he was sixty consecutive hours, almost the whole time on horseback, riding incredible distances on relays of horses to superintend the preparations. And Marshal Grouchy told mc that when the tired emperor was 144 EONAPARTE. • satisfied, from tlic comlanations and manoeuvres, tliat the battle was gained, — tliougli tlie conflict Avas still furiously raging, — he dismounted, threw himself on the ground, fell asleep instantly, and slept soundly under a shower of balls, Vvhilc a body-guard, of which the command was given to General Grouchy, protected his rest. Once seeing some officers seeking shelter from a heavy shower of rain, to mark his contempt for effeminacy he stationed himself under the spout of a house, where the water poured down on him. In the Polish campaigns he bore the severe winter, with what he called the new element of mud, sleeping in out-houses, without sufficient clothing, and submitting to other discomforts, not only uncomplainingly, but gaily and ostentatiously. Though extremely nice in his dress, he disap- proved of all foppery and extravagance of costume. Every morning he flesh-brushed his breast and arms, and his valet rubbed severely his back and shoulders. Till 1803 he was shaved ; after that time, when he changed his valet, he always shaved himself, washed in a large silver basin like a tub, and sponged his hair with Cologne water. He changed his flannel jacket, white cassimere vest and pantaloons, every day. His dress was always the same, green or blue regimentals. His imperial allowance of sixty thousand francs (twelve thousand dollars), he reduced to twenty thousand francs, (tvv'O thousand dollars,) for the toilet and clothing. With tAvelve hundred francs (two hundred and fifty dollars) a year, and a horse, he used to say, he had no need of any more. He Avas fond of boasting of his rigid economy, when the English drove his family from their property in Corsica, and dwelt with great satisfaction on the privations he underwent to avoid debt, while from his pay he educated his brother Louis. He Avas ahvays an economist, though never covetous ; constantly exhorted his officers, Avhen loading them with money, " not to plunder, and I"ll make it up to you more than if you did. In private be saving and even parsimonious; but magnificent in public," — Avhich Avas his OAvn system in dress, at table, and in his Avhole household avoiding extravagance and shoAV, except in public representation. He had no fixed hours for either business, meals, or sleep ; but in general entered his cabinet at seven EOXAPARTE. 145 o'clock, dressed for tlic ^aIioIg day in liis invariable costiuno, vrhito cassimere vest and Itreeclies, and green chasseur coat, ex- cept on Sundays and reception days, when he wore a blue coat vath white lapelles, a colonel's epaulets, with the decorations of the Legion of Honor and iron crown at his button-hole, the badge of the Legion of Honor and the broad riband under his coat. He always wore white silk stockings and oval gold buckles in his shoes, except when he changed them for boots lined with silk ; and in order to save time, would not change his stockings. At nine o'clock he received the officers of his im- mediate service, and then persons having a right by the dignity of their stations, to personal interviews with him. At ten he breakfasted in a small parlor adjoining his cabinet. Breakfast seldom lasted more than ten minutes, though he prolonged it as he liked ; and during that meal received scientific and lite- rary men, or artists, with whom he loved to chat. After break- fast followed business with ministers and other public affairs. Six o'clock was his dinner hour, but he never kept it j^unctually ; neglecting it if engaged in any important business. He dined alone with the empress, except Wednesdays, when the ministers were invited, and on Sunday there was always a family dinner. Napoleon ate none but the simplest food ; drank no wine but Chambertin, and that always well watered ; never any kind of spirituous liquor. One of the colFec-cups he commonly used is in my family ; of plain Italian china and fashion, Avith nothing about it remarkable but the reminiscence. It was one of a number of articles familiarly used by Napoleon, which were divided by his family among themselves, after his death, and presented to me by Joseph's testamentary executor. There is a small pocket volume of Napoleon's maxims, all of which arc instructive, and some excellent : one is that whoever dines eats too much ; the moral of which is, that instead of the mo- derate meal of simple food that satisfies nature, luxurious dinners provoke excess and disease. His Italian and Egyptian attachments long continued ; though he had never been in Italy till he went as commander of the army, and could speak none of the language but the very little he picked up in his campaigns. Our Italians and Vol. IIL — 10 146 BOXArARTE. our Egyptians lie used to call the officers who had served with him ill those countries. Long after lie returned from Egypt he ate pillau and dates, and admired many Egyptian customs. Once at a dinner he gave there to a numher of the principal men, he asked one of them to tell him what he (the sheik) per- ceived most remarkable in the French mode of eating. "Why," said the Egyptian, "your drinking when you eat." That is, to provoke appetite for food by drink when eating, was contrary to their system of diet and health, which satisfied hunger and thirst each by itself, never the two together, provoking eating to excess by drinking with it. I never saw, I may add, a person — not even a lady — more abstemious of drink than Joseph Bonaparte, who always took a little wine both at breakfast and dinner, but very little, and that little even champagne diluted with water. But he ate heartily, and, as I thought, of meat excessively, in proportion to what he drank. According to my notion, it would have lieen more wholesome for him, and others I have known like him in that respect, to cat less meat and drink more wine. At Joseph's always excellent table, there was no such variety or luxury of liquors as is not uncommon at many tables ; jiadcira, Sautcrne, and Champagne the principal, if not the only, Avincs. Napoleon took one cup of coffee at breakfast, and one in the drawing-room after dinner. Joseph learned in this country to prefer^ tea ; rising with tlie daAvn, and, after his morning dram of a cup of green tea, going out with his hatchet and workmen, planting, grubbing, pruning, and superintending work in the open air till between ten and eleven, when he went in to breakfast. Without the tiay-light cup of imperial tea, he said that he should be cross ; and spending several hours a day out of doors in our dry atmosphere, he told me, had cured him of rheumatism, with which he suffered in the damper European climate. After dinner, at Joseph's, sometimes he read aloud iVom some dramatic author, or there was a game of cards, but more generally of billiards. Of the long summer evenings a drive through his grounds, sometimes a Avalk to the Belvidere on the Delaware. After dinner, and nn hour or so in the drawing-room, the Emperor usually received his librarian with BOXArARTE. 147 specimens of ncAV book?, of -which ho chose two or three to look over, throwing the rest on the floor, and sometimes into the fire-phace, if he did not like them. When travelling, or in campaign, he took a portable library Avith him, composed of boxes in compartments, containing miniature editions of select works in history, belles lettres, and science. Not finding all that he wanted, he sketched, Avhile at the castle of Marrac, on the border of Spain, before he returned from that country in 1808, and at Sohoenbrun, near Vienna, in 1809, the outline of a travelling library, which he intended to take with him when- ever he left home. The Emperor sometimes Avorked the whole evening. At ten o'clock he gave his orders for the next day, and retired for the night. When there was any pressing busi- ness he got up at one or two o'clock at night and had his sec- retary called. Every week he went hare-hunting or partridge- shooting, not so much from fondness for the sport as for exercise. Towards the latter part of his reign there were stag hunts of the imperial court, in which he took part ; but rather, probably, because it was deemed royal amusement than from much enjoyment of it. He seldom went to the theatre, but often had plays performed at the various palaces Avhich he in- habited, much according to the royal routine established before the revolution. The imperial household expenses were regulated with the same close attention as those of the Empire ; and the domestic budget settled every year, when the Emperor himself presided at the family council, and scrupulously reviewed every item. Without requiring parsimony, he reproved waste and negli- gence, and insisted on economy ; in all of which he was seconded by Duroc, who superintended the minutest details. The public treasury furnished twenty-five millions of francs ($5,000,000) a year for the imperial civil list, which the crown demesnes in- creased to thirty or thirty-one millions of francs, (about $6,000,000). Building and furnishing were the two heaviest charges : building cost about three millions of francs ($000,000) a year ; furnishing, about one million eight hundred thousand francs ($360,000) ; the military household, eiglit hundred thou- sand francs ($160,000) ; ladies of the palace, chamberlains, libra- ries, playing-cards, clerks, messengers, and wages, nearly twelve 148 BONAPARTE. liundred thousand francs ($240,000). Music for the chapel, the apartments, and the theatres, cost near nine hundred tjiou- sand francs, (say $180,000) ; the Emperor's toilet twenty- thousand francs, ($4000) ; that of the Empress, with her strong- box, six hundred thousand francs, ($120,000). From the whole civil list the Emperor, bj economy and good order, saved thir- teen or fourteen millions of francs a 3^ear, ($2, GOO, 000 and more); so that, after maintaining as magnificent a court as any in Europe, he laid up one hundred millions of francs, ($20,000,000,) part of which, accumulated in gold in the cellar of the Tuilleries, was the remnant and one of the first spoils seized upon by the Bourbon monarchs as soon as they returned, poor, rapacious, and as shamelessly regardless of the rights, comforts, and property of the Bonapartes as the Emperor Napoleon had been magnanimously careful and generous respecting theirs. Probably of no one that ever lived have so many likenesses been taken as of Napoleon, on canvass, in marble, ivory, and on other substances ; which generally bear some resemblance of feature and form ; but it was extremely difficult to portray or delineate Napoleon's look. Its mobility was beyond the reach of imitation ; corresponding with the rapidity of his ideas ; like lightning starting from his grey and searching eyes, as if wdth a distinct glance for every thought. His prominent skull, superb high forehead, long, pallid, thoughtful face, might be depicted ; but not his characteristic aspect. His arms hung well from his shoulders ; his legs were well formed ; thighs round ; his hands and feet small and handsome, with plump, tapering fingers, of which he occasionally seemed a little vain. His nose was aquiline, straight, and well placed ; teeth good, though during his unwholesome confinement at St. Helena, as was also the case with his brother's near Philadelphia, the gums required frequent bleeding. The curve of Napoleon's lip was finely marked, and his chin slightly prominent. Without color in his face, which was quite pallid, his skin was perfectly clear. His head was large, and neck rather short. With a graceful sweep of the whole visage, regularity of features, and fullness of shoulders, his bust was altogether noble, and his step digni- fied. His common look was calm ; when I saw him, mild if BONAPARTE. 149' not mcelv, ^YitllOut tlic slightest sign of fierceness or severity. His smile was singularly gracious and engaging, and wlien lie studied to please, no man could be more captivating. His natural ascendant was such, that before he became a monarch or consul, persons conversing with him felt and acknowledged his superiority by circling round and 3delding him the word, as is usual with subjects to princes. When excited his nostrils dilated, there was a movement of the forehead between his eyebrows, and his tone became extremely authoritative. Ac- customed too, as he was, to military command from an early age, his language was at times abrupt and overbearing. But the longer he lived, the calmer he grew ; and he was very lively, with a loud and bantering laugh, when relaxed to good humour. As his capacity for labor was extraordinary, so his perform- ances, physical and mental, were immense ; his diligence, vigils, and exploits in civil as well as military transactions. At school he was more industrious and distinguished than most other boys ; although of his boyhood he said himself that there was nothing remarkable, except inquisitiveness and obstinacy. But that does not do him justice. Modest, studious, dutiful, affectionate, yet lively, sometimes petulant and teasing ; his authority over men never became more absolute than that of his mother Avas over him in childhood. His great-uncle, the arch-deacon of Ajaccio, who became head of the family when Napoleon's father died, had likewise great influence over Napoleon, Avho was always his fond and reverential nephew. At ten years of age put to school in France, though he first bore arms as a soldier re- sisting the English in Corsica, yet his habits, youthful im- pressions, and patriotic attachments were entirely French. Distinguished at his examination, it was in mathematics that he particularly excelled. Quiet, polite, grateful, tolerable in his- tory and geography, feeble in Latin and the elegant accom- plishments, were the merits certified by his superior when Na- poleon left the military academy. Lieutenant and Captain Bonaparte was one of the most exemplary young men of his time : not addicted to any of the usual vices or follies of young officers ; no gambling, quarrelling, duelling, or dissipation of any kind discredited his first years in the army. His morals 150 BONAPARTE. were as pure as his talents were superior and his temper amiable. That such undeniable youth should ripen to the ■wicked ma- turity so profusely imputed to him, seems contrary to nature. At school, he was a favorite with his school-fellows, and in their choice of boys to preside at sports, or on other occasions, Na- poleon was mostly elected. In the army, he -was as generally esteemed. His popularity, as counnander, with the soldiers is well known ; his uniform and cordial kindness, attention to their wants and comforts, and studying their welfare more than that of officers. Yet at school, and in all military grades, he was a strict disciplinarian, never courted favor by unworthy or un- manly condescension ; but, throughout his whole life, was autho- ritative, direct, simple, systematic, kind and considerate. Jo- seph, at college, excelled in belles lettres as Napoleon did in the mathematics. Fi'om the time the latter entered the army, as second lieutenant, to the last moments of his busy life, his con- tributions to literature, by various treatises, histories, letters, proclamations, down to newspaper paragraphs, fill volumes from his pen. Yet he almost lost the power of handwriting — of W'riting and spelling correctly, he became quite incapable. Not only were his written words illegible, but ill-spelt, and his sen- tences incomplete, from want of words. In his ordinary writing, half the words wanted their proper letters, and many of his sentences wanted indispensable words. When about to marry the Austrian princess, and a letter, in his own hand-writing, to the Emperor of Austria, Avas the necessary ceremonial, it would have been impossible for his future father-in-law to read Napo- leon's letter, if it had not been corrected by altering many letters, and adding several words. So, too, notwitlistanding his knowledge of mathematics, and capability of severe, close study, his arithmetic was or became so faulty, that lie could not add up accurately the smallest sum, and his errors always tended to increase the total beyond the reality. He would mis- take and magnify the simplest column in addition. He never sat still, but walked about as he dictated ; and then, in a sort of nervous emotion, it was his habit, with a twist or jerk of tlie arm, to twitch at his coat-sleeve. Nor could he bear interrup- tion, repetition or delay, but his amanuensis must write as BONAPARTE. 151 rapidly as the dictator spoke ; Avliose respite was not to leave off dictating, but merely change the subject and the scribe ; and .he would keep several at work, all at once, on different topics. In much of this minute detail of an extraordinary man, the least observing may perceive Na}>oleon's resemblance to thou- sands of other men in no way remarkable. Still, his talent for labor, and appreciation of time, wore uncommon ; for no one valued it more, or employed it more assiduously. At school and college, in garrison or camp, the cabinet, every- where, even in the bath, he was never idle, but always studying to advance the renown by which he filled the world. News- papers and pamphlets were read to him while bathing. Ex- ploit Avns constantl}^ either his enjoyment or his study. Though his regular life and temperate diet rendered him a good sleeper, and during the earlier stages of his consular and imperial career, he usually slept soundly seven hours of the twenty- four, yet rest was not his recreation, but he took it as he did food and exercise, not as an enjoyment, but to enable him to renew labor. Feasting was not his entertainment, and slumber only relaxation ; so that when fifty years of ago, he had done more than the work of a long life, not only in arms, but in literature and legislation. Nearly six hundred unpublished and most confidential letters, to his brother Joseph, written with heart in hand, calculated to throw the truest light on Napoleon's real character, sentiments and purposes, and dispel clouds of prejudices, with difficulty concealed by Joseph in Europe, and brought to this country for safe keeping, were, after his death, by my instrumentality, deposited in the United States Mint at Philadelphia, as a place of security; and after fom^ years' safe keeping there, on the 23d of October, 1849, in my presence, surrendered by Joseph's testamentary executor to his grandson Joseph, then twenty-five years of age, according to his grand- father's will ; which ber|ueaths to that grandson those precious developments, together with other unpu1)lished manuscripts ; among them part of Joseph's life, dictated by himself, and the republican JNIarshal Jourdan's jMemoirs, written by himself. These perfectly unreserved and brotherly confidential letters, 152 EONAPARTE. several hundred in Napoleon's own handwriting, written before he became great, will demonstrate his real sentiments and cha- racter, when too young for dissembling, and quite unreserved with his correspondent. Joseph relied upon them to prove what he always sai'ith superstition, by some of those who, with as little reason, accused him of infi- delity. What was called superstition in him, was deep and awful assurance of God's mysterious omnipotence. At the oc- currence of remarkable incidents, either good or bad, he habi- tually often crossed himself. All his conversation, public harangues, papers, and other such manifestations, refer fre- quently to that power which controls human combinations and events. The ringing of church bells affected him Avith reverential solemnity. He asked for and took the sacraments of his church on his death-bed, and not as repentant of the infidelity or sins which his enemies most commonly imputed to liim : but, surrounded as he was by cruel jailors, who watched to detect and expose any weakness, none such was caught or recorded. There is no reason to doubt that Napoleon lived and died a much sincerer believer of the Christian religion than many of those who calumniated him as an infidel and a Turk. Few men ever felt more deeply the influence of virtue in others. A virtuous person never failed to awe him. When- ever confronted with what he called a virginal heart, it over- came all the stoicisms which his position required him to afl'ect. He used to say that his religious reforms would never go be- yond the four propositions of Bossuet. Inborn sense of religious obligation was part of his nature. "All creeds," he said, " might be substantially good ; but no man should desert his father's." lleligion, he uniformly insisted, is essential to morality. He could not comprehend how any one can be virtuous without religion, Irreligion he always reprobated. Two French tendencies of his time were extremely odious to him, duelling and contempt of religion. "That man," he said, " cannot be a good citizen who saps the foundation of religion : and there is no more hideous spectacle than an old man dying like a dog, with no hope of resurrection." I have heard BONAPARTE. 165 from ■•■i)()(l authority, a royalist of Bourbon attacluiicnts, that the Emperor "was sensible that ho had not done enough for religion, and intended to do more. In the fatal and deplorable mistake of his second marriage, it was his respect for perhaps the worldly influence of religion that determined his selection of the Austrian princess, v.'hich was so great a cause of his ruin. A Russian or a Saxon princess, both of which were in his option, and contemplated, involved the dangerous attempt of establishing on the French throne a monarch's consort not of the Roman Catholic religion ; which Joseph Bonaparte always and often mentioned as the chief reason for choosing the Austrian princess. Napoleon would not give umbrage to his Roman Catholic subjects, particularly the old nobility, nearly all of whom were of that faith, and to other entirely Roman Catholic countries, Italy, Spain, and others. Piety may have had less part in this consideration than policy. But apprehension that a Avife of the Greek church, or the Lutheran, would be offensive to most of the Roman Catholic people of France, Italy, and Spain, decided, so Joseph said, Napoleon's choice of the Austrian Empress. When he coveted a crown, it Avas indispensable that it must be by popular consent, without divine right ; as when he restored the church it was reformed. But he never had, probably, so much republican conviction as to believe that a French republic could stand erect and powerful in the midst of surrounding monarchies. His enemies charge him with gross inconsistency in that respect. The probability is that he was always a. mon- archist. When married to an Emperor's daughter, and his imperial father-in-law, to relieve his own apprehension of de- gradation, said to Napoleon, " The Bonapartes have been sovereigns, I know, for I have had their titles examined," Napoleon smiled, and replied that he would rather be the Ro- dolph of Ilapsburg of his fiimily, than born to Empire. And when, during the Consulate, oljviously striving for a crown, sycopliants hunted up a pedigree for him, he seemed to treat the design with contempt, saying that his nobility dated from the victory of Montcnotte. Still he was proud of his noble descent, and felt that his was blue blood, as the Italians call 166 BONAPARTE. that of tliclr nobility. Ilis pa/onts, both father and mother, were of that caste ; and Avhcn his father, impoverished by Corsiean troubles, applied for permission to get Joseph and Napoleon educated at royal expense in France, he made the required proof by adc(|nate testimonials of his nobility. Tlie Bonaparte family were of the old Italian nolnlity, piinces of Troviso, allied to some of the noblest families, distinguished in arms, in literature, and the church. AVhen, expelled fi'om Italy, they took refuge in Corsica, their family alliances there were also noble. They were likewise of the Ghibelliue party, opposed to the Guelphs. Napoleon's blood vfas, therefore, always inimical to the royal house of Hanover, by whose English ministers he was overcome and his family cast down from the thrones on which he seated them. Son of a Cor- siean noble, the Emperor Avas educated in France by royal bounty. His earliest impressions were, therefore, entirely aristocratic; and next to filial affection he must have felt grateful reverence for his royal benefactors. Ilis aversion to those French revolutionists who condemned their king to death was constant and irreconcilable. Joseph often told me that the Emperor's opinion was that the conventionalists were incom- petent judges, and had no right to sit in judgment on their king. When about to invest the first savings of his military pay in the purchase of real estate, his orders to his agent were not to risk the sum in national domain, as confiscated property was called. He said at St. Helena, that he was of a noble family fallen into obscurity. Tluise who voted the king's executiun, ho called assassins. The property of princes and nobles con- fiscated for emigration, he considered held illegally. lie often said, jestingly, to Cambaceres, " if the Bourbons return I shall escape, but you will be hanged." When he married Josephine, her social superiority and noble connexions were objects Vt'ith him. Not only was her social position so much better than his as to render her hand advancement for him, but she had some fortune, while, except his pay, he had nothing at all. It is a fact, therefore, which has been paraded and mis- represented by many of his biographers, that a few days before their marriagCj one morning when she was abed in her chamber. BOXA PARTE. 167 ■\vitli licr future liusband and several otlier persons in the room, Raguideau, the notary she had employed to draw the marriage articles, coming in, they all left the room except the future husband, who Avithdrew to the window, while the notary placed himself at her bedside. After despatching their business, [Ma- dame Beauharnais asked her notary what was generally said of her second marriage. Ragu.ideau honestly answered that it was not well thought of, to marry a man several years 3'ounger than herself, a mere soldier without fortune, nothing in the world but his sword and regimentals, whom she would have to support, who might be killed in any battle and leave her with an increased family to maintain. The widow then enquired of her notary what was his own opinion ; who replied, that he thought with her fortune she might make a better match. " Your officer," said he, "I dare say is a worthy man, but he has nothing." She then called Bonaparte from the window^ where he stood drumming on the glass, and said to him, " General, did you hear what M. Raguideau said?" "Yes," said he; '*• he spoke like an honest man, and I like him for it. I hope he will continue in charge of oui' business, for he has gained my confidence." Ever after he treated Raguideau with respect, and promoted his interest ; but did not mention his objection to the marriage at his coronation, as several biographies relate. "What he actually said on that great occasion, recurring to former days of insignificance and destitution, with a natural sentiment of affectionate simplicity, contemplating the magni- ficent evidences of imperial grandem* surrounding his family present, was, "Joseph, if our father could but see us !" Me- Jieval, who heard him say so, a man of truth, entirely to be relied on, declares that family feeling, still warm in Napoleon's heart, had much more to do with that exclamation than in- toxication of glory, of rank, or of power. Joseph told me that Josephine constantly inclined her hus- band more and more to noble associations, to which, at last, his own preference proved one of his greatest weaknesses and mis- fortunes. The proof is sufficient to justify belief that Na- poleon, coinciding with the revolutionists in aversion to the Bourbon royalty, yet deemed nobihty and monarchy essential, 168 BONAPARTE. like reformed religious establislimcnts, to good French govern- ment : but monarcliy without divine right, nobility vdthout privilege, and the church perfectlj tolerant of all sects, including JCAVS. ^' An ingenious fable was suggested to render Bonaparte legi- timate monarch of France by successive and divine right, as lineally descended from Henry TV. and the other Bourbon kings. An accredited conjecture concerning the man in the iron mask, was that he was twin but elder brother of Louis XIV. The governor of the Isle of Saint Margaret, charged with the custody of that mysterious prisoner, named Bon- pard, Avas not uninformed of the claim of his charge to be king of France by better right than Louis XIV. Bonpard's dau'^-hter and the prisoner becoming attached to each other, the governor apprised the king of their attachment ; who believed that no detriment to him could result from letting his unfortu- nate brother console his solitude and misery by a harmless attachment. The man in the iron mask and Governor Bon- pard's daughter were therefore allov/ed to be married, as the inventor of the fable declared it would be easy to verify by the marriage register kept at Marseilles. The children of that marriage, always clandestinely born, were privately taken to Corsica for concealment, and there, it was added, to keep up the deception, took their mother's name of Bojipard, Vvdiicli in Corsica became Bonaparte. In this way Napoleon was made to descend lineally from Henry IV., and to be entitled to his throne. But the story Avas little attended to ; for even if true, the right Avas in Joseph. The Bonapartes, never French, Averc a noble Italian family, for six centuries distinguished in arms, literature, and the church. For the last tAvo hundred years preceding their translation to France, they inhabited Ajaccio. At Treviso and Bologna, during Napoleon's Italian campaigns, the family arms Avere exhibited to the victorious commander l>y persons of consideration, who thereby sought to win his regard ; and it is said that the armorial bearings were a rake and golden lilies, like the Bourbon arms. At Florence, an Abbe Gregory Bof-Avar Erie. By order of the Emperor Napoleon, Jerome's Trifc was not allowed to land in Holland, where the vessel anehored in the Texel, and was therefore obliged to go to England, where, on the 2d of July, 1805, she gave birth to Jerome Bonaparte's first son, who now lives in Baltimore. In 1807, that marriage was civilly, but not canonically annulled, the Pope refusing to gratify the Em- peror's exaction of that sacrifice. It has been said that Je- rome's heirs were put in the rescript of succession to the impe- rial throne, as inducement to relinquish his American wife. He had what his brother Joseph called the misfortune to be brought up almost a prince ; and carried extravagant dissipa- tion to what the Emperor called hideous libertinage. But the Emperor added that he afterwards reformed ; and that a good proof of it was his attachment to the excellent princess he mar- ried — Frederica Catharina, daughter of the Elector, created, by Napoleon, king of Wirtemburg, who married the sister of George IV. and William IV., kings of England. By that marriage, remotely connected with the English reigning royal family, Jerome Bonaparte, made king of Westphalia, and dethroned with his brother, had a son who died adult in Italy ; another son, since known as Napoleon, a democratic member of the French republican Legislature, and a daughter, Matilda, mar- ried to the Russian Count Demidofi", His son Napoleon is said to be a young man of good abilities ; and it was reported that Matilda was at one time about to be married to her cousin, the President of France. Jerome's queen, the Wirtemburg prin- 'cess, since dead, was a lady of fine personal appearance and exemplary conduct on all occasions. Throughout a life mostly of tribulation, she adhered to Jerome's fallen fortunes with con- stant fidelity ; resisted all the violent efforts of her royal kin- dred to separate her from her destitute husband, and proved a bright example that, if it is sometimes a misfortune to be born a prince, a woman born a princess may excel in female virtues. By family marriages, the Bonapartes, or Beauharnois, are allied to the emperors of Russia and Brazil, the kings of Ba- varia, Wirtemburg and Sweden, the Queen of Portugal and the Grand Duke of Baden, all royal houses; and remotely, with Vol. III.— 13 104 NAPOLEON. tliat of England. If Napoleon's object in cultivating royal connexions was the support wliicli such alliances might afford his f\imily, in the event of his downfal or death, that object in some measure attained, though through much royal disgust and haughty estrangement, may be regarded as proof of his fore- sight and providence for liis own household, which is not only pardonable, but laudable. But if his object was to establish and strengthen the throne founded by and for himself, a fourth French dynasty, of which he was to be the root, and his family and kinsfolk the branches, nothing was more fatal to that root than those branches. Affectionately fond, as he was, of his famil}^ and they of him, he used them, naturally, as the mosti trustworthy instruments of his own imperial establishment. In his extreme distress they all, except his sister Caroline, rallied to his relief, if not purely or perfectly disinterested ; for what human affection is so? — yet their royalties, together with his own imperial marriage, were the chief causes of his terrible ruin. Seldom has so numerous a family, in private life, with no dispute but for property, and no alienation, but ])j temper or accident, lived in harmony so long, or, to the last, remained so constantly affectionate. Even Josephine and Maria Louisa, his two wives, under circumstances of unexam- pled distress, persevered in their attachment to Napoleon, and he to both of them. To his mother, his brothers, one and all, his sisters, his step-children, his son, he was, throughout life, in death, and after it, devoted with admirable and exemplary constancy. Yet never did perversion of family union, and regard to personal by family aggrandizement, lead to catas-- trophe and wreck of all things, domestic and national, so total, fatal and memorable. Close fiunily alliance with an imperial princess, in ties of golden silk, which seemed irrefragable, was mysteriously broke, even after its prodigious contriver's downfjil and death, by his son's mysterious dissolution. Tlie son of imperial hope and pledge of dynastic perpetuity, like the children, and most of the grand-children, of Louis XIV., the son of the Austrian princess and Louis XVL, the first and most promising son of Louis Philippe, to be followed by him- self and family, was doomed to introduce calamity in the JOSEPH. 195 family of the monarch, disgrace and dismemberment in the nation of Franco. Joseph Bonaparte Tvas Napoleon's most confidential brother and devoted friend ; before and after the Consulate, employe*! in the most important offices of the French government. He negotiated the treaties of Campo Formio and Luneville •with Austria. As an excellent public speaker in the Council of Five Hundred, as well as by the amenity of his manners, and attrac- tions of his hospitality, he was one of Napoleon's effectual vin- dicators, absent or present, and assistants in November, 1799, when Joseph's judicious support was as valuable as Lucien's more demonstrative energy. Joseph was Napoleon's minister to arrange the concordat with the Pope, in 1800 ; and, with Roederer andFleurieu, concluded the treaty of that year with the American ministers, Ellsworth, Davie, and Murray ; by which long-pending complaints, and some hostilities between the United States and France, were closed by a treaty, sanc- tioning the true principle of freedom of the seas, that free ships make free goods, with just restrictions of blockade, contra- band and sea-search. At Morfontaine, his country-seat, where Joseph lived with noble hospitality, frequented by the best com- pany from all parts of Europe, he entertained the American min- isters, in October, to celebrate their treaty of the 30th of Sep- tember, 1800, by an elegant festival, during three days ; to which La Fayette and the Duke of La Rochefaucauld Liancourt were requested to bring whatever Americans they chose to invite. Napoleon and the two other Consuls attended ; Josephine, with her daughters, Hortensia Beauharnois, Pauline Le Clerc, and Caroline Murat, in the bloom of their youthful beauty ; the min- isters, and several other members of the government, of the Se- nate, Council of State, Legislative body, Tribunate, the whole diplomatic corps, and all Frenchmen who had lived in America. All the great events of the American Revolution Avere repre- sented by emblems and inscriptions, of which La Fayette was desired to suggest the scenes. The Prefect of the Department presenting Napoleon some ancient Roman medals, found near there, he gave them to the American ministers, to take to their country. Affable and conversable with all, he talked politics, 196 JOSEPH. literature, science, tactics, and even music, with the many eminent masters in those arts, and galUmtry with a crowd of gay hxdies who enhvened the entertainment. La Fayette and Napoleon conversed a great deal together on the most friendly terms. La Fayette's liberation from the Austrian dungeon was a special condition of the treaty of Campo Formio, for Avhich his gratitude was strongly avowed to both Napoleon and Joseph. Morfontaine, embellished by artificial lakes, islands, rocks and plantations, was one of the most de- lightful country-seats in France. On the first day of the fes- tival a concert was performed by the principal musicians of Paris. Next day there was stag and hare hunting ; and in the evening, theatrical performances by the best actors, concluded with fireworks. After the treaty of Luneville with Austria, Joseph kept open house at Morfontaine the whole summer of 1801. All his three brothers and sisters, the Austrian ambas- sador Cobentzl, Madame de Stael, then a lover of Joseph and com-tier of Napoleon, with her lover Matthieu de Montmorenei, she reading Chateaubriand's Atala to the company ; Miot, a man of fine literary acquirements ; Renaud de St. Jean d'Angely, an eminent orator, both of whom were afterwards at Joseph's residence in New Jersey ; Roederer, one of the negotiators of the American treaty ; Roederer, Miot and Re- naud, all three much distinguished as literary notabilities, and much attached to Joseph Bonaparte ; the poets Andrieux, Ar- naud and BoufQers ; Fontanes, an eminent statesman, before mentioned as a lover of Eliza Bonaparte, with his highly accom- plished wife ; Marmont, who afterwards, as Marshal Duke of Ragusa, was the loose corner-stone precipitating the Emperor's downfall, together with many other of the most remarkable persons of Europe, were guests of Morfontaine, that summer of nearly universal peace and expanding prosperity. For Na- poleon's advent was an era of peace, which was his intci'-?:>t, and therefore his ambition. From the 27th of IMarch, 171^' 8, when the Turkish government, which at first could not compre- hend what a republic was, acknowledged that of France, till the 27th of March, 1802, when Great Britain concluded the last treaty of peace, but broken amity with the French Republic, JOSEPH. 197 more than twenty treaties, "with nearly all tlic nations of the world, recognized the freedom, the consolidation, and the secu- rity of that great commonwealth in the midst of Europe. And Bonaparte might not have heen either able or disposed, without British incitement, to construct a throne upon its ruins. Among the recreations of his captivity at St. Helena, there is a full and masterly review of the maritime relations between France and the United States ; of the laws of the sea, and their British infringements ; and of his treaty with this coun- try, with an account of the negotiations, and celebration of peace at Joseph's residence. Unless more of a double-dealer than reason can be given to explain, Bonaparte was a sincere admirer of Washington, when, as First Consul, he ordered all the standards and flags of the French Republic to be put in mourning, during ten days, for that "great citizen," as he was styled in the order, " a great man, who fought against tyranny, whose name would be ahvays dear to the French people, and to all the freemen of both worlds, especially to all French soldiers, like those of America, combatants for liberty and equality." The French Republic, he forcibly declared at the treaty of Canipo Formio, was as clear as the noon-day sun in all its brightness. But haughty Chatham's proud son, to gratify the same stubborn British king and aristocracy, who coerced American colonies to independence, by reiterated wars, immense coalitions, and shedding the blood of the millions, of whose lives La Fayette, and others of Bonaparte's detractors, imputed to him the sacrifice for his aggrandizement, forced the republican chief magistrate to become successively victor, conqueror, em- peror, dictator, but still, from the wreck of his democratic despotism, to strike out European reforms. While Napoleon was meditating and advancing the peaceful development of a great French empire, Joseph was enjoying the present, without ambitious designs for the future, or })0S- sible conception that the time would come when, at Point Breeze, he would seek refuge from the brilliant festivities of Morfontaine in his homelier, but not less hearty, hospitality of New Jersey, deploring his inability to soothe Napoleon's im- prisonment and cruel death at St. Helena. A charming exist- 198 JOSEPH — LUCIEX. ence at Morfontaino, spent in elegant recreation, was to he followed by the dreadful splendors of illegitimate royalty ; mo- dern royalty being precarious even by the grace of God, but when raised on the sovereignty of the people a mere mockery of grandeur. In the rational luxury of Morfontaine, Joseph Bonaparte's quiet nature was not only happier, but much more at home than in the rugged royalties dictated to him by Na- poleon. From the camps and battles of Sicily and Spain, the effeminate refinements of Naples, the splendid palaces of Ma- drid and the Escurial, their sudden and short-lived monarch looked back with regret to the pleasures of Morfontaine, and perhaps forward with misgivings, but not so far, as to the seclu- sion of New Jersey. Not far from Morfontaine, Lucien Bonaparte, in 1801, then widower, just returned from his successful and lucrative em- bassy at Madrid, at his country residence, Plessis Chaumont, lived in similar hospitality. Ilis sister Eliza and a Spanish Marchioness of Santa Cruz were the ladies domesticated at that establishment, where poets, dramatists, politicians, painters, and other such agreeable guests, shared the pleasant welcome which Lucien and Eliza extended. No sooner had Napoleon, by the treaty of Lunevillc, made peace with Austria, than he sought it with England by direct application, which the Pitt ministry haughtily and peremptorily rejected ; sharpening their refusal by intimating that there was no stable government in France to make peace with, and would not be till the Bourbons were restored to their throne. Whereas, in his two years of chief-magistracy, Bonaparte had made peace with Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Russia, Turke}^ the African Barbary powers, Naples, Spain, Portugal, the United States of America, with all the world except the one only kingdom which persisted in war, and that avowedly against him and republicanism rather than against France. Pitt was at war with republicanism, when the Consular republican go- vernment of France had staunched all the wounds of that country ; restored the finances ; organised public instruction ; recalled nearly all the royalists ; reinstated religion ; began vast plans for territorial improvements, and for ameliorating JOSEPH. 199 the laws by a new Civil code. In every thing, exce^tt foreign commerce and manufactures, the French republic was then more flourishing, progressive, and content, than the kingdom of Great Britain. It was hard, if not impossible, where the press and all public discussion is so free and manly as in England, for any ministry to make head against such undeniable reasons for peace with a rival nation. Pitt, Dundas, and Grenville, therefore, gave way. Addington and Ilawksbury took their places ; after some months of undisclosed dealing, through Otto, the French agent for prisoners in London, preliminaries of pacification were settled ; and public negotiations were opened in December, 1801, at Amiens, between Joseph Bona- parte and \Yashington's prisoner at Yorktown, the Marquess of Cornwallis. Joseph was then a gay young man of thirty- three, but with ten years' experience, legislative and diplomatic, in public aftairs ; well informed, discreet, conciliatory, and candid. I have never known a man whose word was more reliable ; whatever he said was the calm result of conviction, and generally of mature consideration. I have heard him often speak of that negotiation, and of Lord Cornwallis, of whom he had the highest opinion, as a noble specimen of that high- minded English and Spanish rectitude which Joseph deemed more common in Spain than in France. Rufus King, who became acquainted, in England, with Lord Cornwallis, I have also heard, more than once, pronounce his eulogium. The captive in 1781, of \yashington and Rochambeau, at York- town, was at Amiens, in 1801, a portly, handsome, old Eng- lish gentleman, nearly seventy years of age, wdio took his long ride on horseback every day before dinner, and then drank his bottle, or more, of wine with his son, Lord Brome, his son- in-hiAV, Colonel Singleton, and his natural son. Captain Night- ingale, wdio were Avith him in France. Plain in dress, simple in manners, and true in unaffected conversation, Lord Corn- wallis's diplomacy was much superior to the craft of contriving sophistry. Similar apparent, but less transparent diplomacy, was Frank- lin's art, when, at the village of Passy, near Paris, he capti- vated France by simplicity, and enlightened Europe by a 200 josErii. model treaty enunciating the first principles of maritime liberty and international peace, destined to be universal if the Ame- rican Republic fulfils its mission. Then, at an age still more . advanced than that of Cornwallis, sensible of the good policy of good cheer, Franklin likewise delighted in his bottle of wine, and the company, not of his natural son, but the natural son of his natural son, ^Yhom I found still living in Paris, with his natural children and their English mother, in 1802. Anthony Merry, the first English minister at Washington, after the seat of our government w^as removed from Philadeli)hici to that then wilderness metropolis, unlike Lord Corn-wallis, was a specimen of the pretentious and meddlesome European min- isters often courted in this country ; like IMerry and Hammond, troublesome representatives of foreign government near ours. Diplomatic formalities, official exactions, and other littlenesses, which Lord Cornwallis despised and occasionally checked in Merry, were his annoying follies at Amiens and at Washington, where they found in President Jefferson, and his Secretaries Madison and Gallatin, well-bred gentlemen, uniting with radical democracy, dignity of deportment, and attraction of social re- finements. Jcfierson, Avhile he disapproved some of Washing- ton's stately, if not antiquated, official habits as unrepublican, conformed his own personal intercourse and household, to the established standards of politeness and refinement, too deeply imbued Avith essential republicanism to deem vulgarity part of it, any more than fastidious ceremony indispensable to good irovernment. The first British and French ministers he had to treat Avith, IMerry and Turreau, were instances, one of the absurd formality, the other of the coarse brutality which the British and French monarchies have sometimes employed in their foreign missions, rather to foment strife than maintain amity with the American Republic. As Joseph Bonaparte w^as on his way from Paris to Amiens, it became a subject of somewhat anxious consideration, hov/ the noble British ambassador should be received, what etiquette was proper to be observed, and what the dignity of the French Ptcpublic required in personal intercourse Avith the reprcsenta- to PEACE OF AMIENS, 201 tlve of the British crown. Joseph has more than onco, with great good humor, dwelt to me on the manner by whicli Lord CornwaHis exploded those half-conceived apprehensions. Stand- ing at the carriage door as the young Frenchman, without title or parade, was about to get out, armed with lessons of Austrian and Italian propriety on such occasions, the portly old English gentleman gaily took him in his arms, lifted him to the ground, and at once dispelled, for ever, those hindrances of preposterous method, mostly disregarded by the real great, and annoyingly upheld only by the insignificant. Thenceforward the British and French embassies at Amiens, vied with each other, not only in familiar civilities, but in splendid hospitality; dined with each other every other day ; and, by the good common- sense of constant kindness and fairness. Lord Cornwallis over- coming Mr. Merry's frequent diflScultics, by which Joseph Bonaparte's patience and sagacity were exercised, brought the negotiations to a close satisfactory to both parties. In the course of them, it was intimated by the English to the French minister, that the First Consul's becoming king of France would give no umbrage to England ; so far were the Addington ministry from inheriting Pitt's insistancc that a Bourbon on the French throne was necessary to peace with England. After all the terms had been settled, and nothing remained but to sign the treaty, fresh instructions from London directed a modification concerning the amount to be paid for the support of prisoners. But Cornwallis did not hesitate a moment to affix his signature, as agreed upon, without any change. He had given his word, he said, which bound him as a gentleman, and the government he represented, and he would not retract. If the peace of Amiens had been suffered by England to last three or four years, perhaps Bonaparte would never have been an emperor, almost certainly not the conquering dictator and despot Avhich renewed and repeated hostiHties enabled, if not forced him to become. The Bourbons and the English, with their stipendiaries, the Austrians, Russians, and Prussians, who finally dethroned, also first enthroned him. The peace of Amiens was hardly a truce, at any rate a very short suspension 202 v,\\n. of arms. Pitt, soon restored, superseded Addington, and re- sumption of hostilities was resolved on, six months after the treaty, in the autumn of 1802, when I witnessed Lord "Whit- worth, the handsome English ambassador's arrival in November, at Paris, with his large wife, the Duchess of Dorset, sent there not to keep the peace, but put an end to it. Universal English, and common American impression is that Bonaparte, by rude and undignified provocation, insulted the British ambassador, Lord Whitworth, at a public Consular levee, in presence of other foreign ministers, and thus designedly precipitated hostilities, which he desired, between England and France. The facts, as understood in Paris at the time, were, that England, mortified by the treaty of Amiens and French republican progress, resolved on renewal of war, on which the re-establishment of Tory complete ascendency depended, Avith restoration of Pitt as prime minister. In the autumn of 1S02, such Avas, therefore, the settled purpose of the Tories, Avith the king, George III., at their head. Conspicuous Whigs, Fox, Ers- kine, and their adherents, Alexander Baring, (afterwards Lord Ashburton,) Lord Henry Petty, (noAV Marquess of Lansdowne,) anle, to marry a foreign princess, in vain to gild popular by patristic legitimacy. In every one of those marriages, from that of Eugene Beauhar- nois, "wdiich Avas the first, to Napoleon's, which "was the last, the Emperor violated la"ws, affections, and prejudices stronger than laws or contracts. Out of his conquests by the campaign of Austerlitz, surrendered at the treaty of Presburg, constructing kingdoms for the Electors of Bavaria and 'VVurteml;)urc:, mak- ing them kings, and increasing the territories of the Grand Duke of Baden, the conqueror Emperor of the French mar- ried his wife Josephine's son, Eugene Beauharnois, to the new- made king of Bavaria's daughter Augusta ; for that purpose breaking her engagement to marry the heir of the Grand Duke of Baden. To that heir Napoleon married his wife Josephine's cousin, Stephania Beauharnois, no"w dowager Grand Duchess of Baden, in s})itc of his engagement to the princess of Bavaria, the reigning Grand Duchess of Baden's invincible repugnance to degrade her blood-royal by marriage Avith the vulgar blood of heroic Bonapartes and Beauharnois, v/ho, by that marriage of Stephania, became nearly allied, not only to the reigning house of Baden, but to the Emperor Alexander of llussia, the King of Bavaria, and the legitimate king of Sweden, three reigning sovereigns, all married to daughters of the Grand Duchess of Baden, wdio therefore detested, despised and dreaded Bonaparte. Dissolving his brother Jerome's marriage with his American wife, Elizabeth Patterson, after they had a son. Napoleon compelled Jerome to marry Catharine, the daughter of the new King of Wurtemburg. By that time Ger- BONAPARTE KIXGS. 240 man royalty and aristocracy "was burning Avitli scarcely smo- thered detestation of the alleged murderer of a Bourbon royal prince, Duke of Enghein, and aggravated German inveterate prejudices of caste. Yet state necessity not only subjugated hosts of humiliated princes and nobles, but the Beauharnois marriages Avith the Bavarian and Baden families proved felici- tous, and the Bonaparte marriage with the Wurtemburg prin- cess outlived her royal family's aversion. Family coronations hastily followed royal marriages. One of the most foolish and contemptible of the Bourbon kings, Ferdinand of Naples, his odious wife ruled by the beautiful harlot Lady Hamilton, with her glorious paramour. Lord Nelson, Duke of Bronte, by English and Russian instigation, absurdly forfeited the Neapolitan throne, by provoking Napo- leon to expel them from it. Joseph had already declined that of Lombardy, when proffered by Napoleon, who was uncertain whether Joseph Avould accept that of Naples, which was next offered. Joseph had been a major in the army, when appointed by Napoleon colonel of the fourth regiment of infantry, sta- tioned with the troops at Boulougne, preparatory to the con- templated invasion of England. From that command he rose to be a brigadier-general, and, as the Emperor's lieutenant, entered the city of Naples, the 15th February, 180G, with 40,000 French troops, headed by Miissena, St. Cyr, and Regnier ; and, on the 30th March, was proclaimed King of the' Two Sicilies. On the 15th of March, 1806, Murat was proclaimed Grand Duke of Berg and Clevcs, who succeeded Joseph as King of Naples in 1808, wdien he was transferred by Napoleon to the kingdom of Spain. On the 5th June, 1806, Louis Bonaparte was proclaimed King of Holland. In August, 1807, Jerome Bonaparte was made King of West- phalia. Eugene Beauharnois was already Viceroy of Italy, Eliza Bonaparte Grand Duchess of Tuscany, and Pauline Duchess of Guastalla. To the seven monarclis in his family, Napoleon tried to add another, in the person of his step-son, Eugene Beauharnois, Avho would have been King of Sweden, but for his objection, and his wife's, to that transfer from the Viceroyalty of Italy. "When the overtm-e from Sweden was 250 BONAPARTE KINUS. made to France, in 1810, fur a knvi, instead of the la^vful but eccentric and troublesome monarch of that kingdom, Berna- dotte, tlie brother-in-hrw of Joseph, got himself nominatcil, and ^vhen Eugene declined it, througli Napoleon's assistance, was selected for that place. Napoleon and Bcrnadotte had so often and angrily quarrelled, that the Emperor said he would rather have a bettor Frenchman on the Swedish throne, and therefore proffered it to his step-son. But his wife did not choose to change her religion, nor Eugene to exchange Italy for Sweden, and Bcrnadotte was thereupon taken as the substitute. Had Napoleon's wishes prevailed, Eugene, as King of Sweden, and Lucien, as King of Portugal, would have been superadded to the other crowd of kings, extending from the extreme south to the extreme north of Europe, governing many of the finest countries. It was also Napoleon's wish to endow his mother with a principality, by creating her Princess of Corsica, which was prevented by her preference for domesticity with her children, residence at either Paris or Rome, and the modera- tion of her desires, not her son's, the Emperor. These monstrous mistakes of unscrupulous ambition were not altogether Avithout feeling. Napoleon's heart misled his head in the selection of his lirothers, instead of other instruments. Ijoth Louis the Fourteenth as well as Louis Philippe furnished, the former an example, the latter an imitation, in their more successful attempts on the Spanish throne, where the descendants of Louis the Fourteenth's grandson yet reign, and the son of Louis Philippe is closely allied by marriage. But while Spain and Naples, as woW as Westphalia, were all benefited by Bonaparte kings, great detriment to Napoleon resulted from his inordinate aggran- dizement, in unsuccessfully placing brothers on those thrones. Nothing but success can justify or excuse such ambition. And, except Jerome, every one of Napoleon's three other brothers revolted, Lucien and Louis forcibly, Joseph by strong remonstrances, against the Emperor. Brotherhood required and authorized declarations and acts of independence which other agents, in their stead, need not and probably would not have resorted to. Lucien Bonaparte was inflexibly opposed to BONAPARTE KINfiP. 251 any crown. When he mavrled his second 'wife, llie ■widow Jouhenthou, us before-mentioned, in defiance of Napoleon's resistance to that marriage, the brothers quarrelled, separated, and lived apart for several years. Lucicn retired to Uome, Avhere he Avas welcomed and favoured by Pope Pius the Seventh, who, as Bishop of Imola, had avowed sentiments almost as democratic as those of Lucien. In 1807, when Xa- polcon was at Venice, Joseph, then King of Naples, on a visit to the Emperor, always conciliating, obtained the Emperor's consent to a private interview, requested by Lucien, in a letter from Modena to Joseph. At night, the Emperor's secretary, Meneval, conducted Lucien from the inn, where he was incog- nito, by private ways, to the Emperor's cabinet. They were together till near midnight, when Lucien left the apart- mevit, his eyes red with tears shed in angry controversy between the two equally unyielding brothers. Napoleon warmly urged Lucicn to renounce his wife, for whom splendid provision should be made, and return to France, Avhence Napo- leon would place him on the throne of Portugal. Lucien per- emptorily and passionately refused a throne, on condition that he should renounce the wife by whom ho then had several children. With deep emotion, and eyes inflamed with tears, as he left the Emperor's room, Lucien said to Meneval, that nothing should induce him to sacrifice his family, or forego his independence, and that he then left his brother Napoleon, pro- bably, for ever. The Emperor, still hoping to prevail on Lucien to marry a princess, and mount a throne, chai'gcd both Talleyrand and Fouche to endeavour to induce him to consent. But so indignantly averse was Lucien, that, when Napoleon intimated that the handsome widow Lucien marricil was not as virtuous as she was handsome, Lucien is said to have fiercely retorted, "And, pray, how virtuous was the widow you married ?" At that angry midnight interview, Napoleon, however, got Lucicn's consent to allow his daughter Charlotte to be mar- ried to the Prince of Asturias, then soliciting a wife of the Bonaparte family. Charlotte was accordingly taken from Italy to Paris, preparatory to her marriage with Ferdinand 252 EOXAPARTE KINGS. VII'., but finally declined the royal match, returned to her father, and married the Italian prince Gabrielli. Pope Pius the Seventh created Lucicn's estate, called Canino, near Rome, a principality, where Lucien remained, estranged from Napoleon, and speaking contemptuously of his imperial follies, as he called them. When the Emperor repudiated Josephine, to marry another wife, alarmed by that extreme transaction, Lucien fled from the possibility of being himself forcibly married to some princess. With the Emperor's per- mission, which he solicited, Lucien sought an asylum in Ame- rica, where alone he would be safe from the possibility of his being forced to mount a throne. On the 5th August, 1810, embarking with his family for this country, he was driven- by a storm on the coast of Cagliari, where the King of Sardinia was too fearful of Napoleon's displeasure to let his disobedient fugitive brother even land. Putting to sea again, Lucien's vessel was taken by an English cruiser to INIalta ; whence, after some months' detention, he was conveyed to England. Landed at Plymouth, the 18th December, 1810, he was suf- fered, as a prisoner at large, to establish himself at Tomgrave, near Ludlow, where he spent the four last years of Napoleon's empire, in literary retirement. In April, 1814, the treaty of Paris set him free, when he returned to Rome, welcomed as usual by the Pope. While in England, he completed his poem called Charlemagne, an epic in twenty-four books, of which I have a copy, presented by Joseph. Louis Bonaparte's aversion to the throne which Napoleon compelled him to mount was as marked as Lucien's. His bro- ther, by whom he was brought up, compelled him to marry Hortensia Beauharnois, when Louis's affection was avowed for her cousin Lapagerie. Four years after that event, which Louis never ceased to deplore as worse than any mis-alliance, giving rise to continual alienation between him and his brother's step- daughter, and suspicions of her amours with other men, Louis was commanded by the Emperor to assume the royal sceptre of Holland, changed from a republic to a kingdom, for the better enforcement of Napoleon's continental system, by which, un- EOXAPARTE KINGS. 258 al)le to reach England on land, or to cope witli her at sea, he ■Wits to conquer the sea ashore. Louis, professing his antipathy to that subserviency, to all wars as barbarous, and to his })leas- ing ^vife as odious, -was nevertheless proclaimed King of Holland, the 5th June, 180G, -with undisguised insubordination to his imperial brother's mandate ; on the 15th of that month and year, took possession 'of his royal palace at the Hague, and soon after lost the elder of his two sons, ■who died of the croup, heir-presumptixe to the Napoleon throne. By patriotic, con- scientious, and wise performance of his duties as King of Hol- land, reducing the taxes, economizing the expenses, developing the commerce, mitigating the penal code, and other im- provements, Louis rendered himself welcome to his Dutch subjects. But by extending their commerce, which interfered with the continental system, he offended the Emperor ; who, after several fruitless complaints, sent for King Louis to Paris, personally reproached his disobedience, and threatened to oc- cupy Holland with French troops, in order to enforce the ex- clusion of English commerce and manufactures. Louis's reply was, that, as soon as the first French soldier set foot in Hol- land, he would have the dikes cut, inundate the country, drown the French invaders, abdicate the crown, and leave the kingdom. Soldiers, under Oudinot, and M. Scrrurii'r, after- wards French minister in this country, being sent to Holland, as imperial charge d'affaires to execute Napoleon's orders, on the 1st of July, 1810, King Louis abdicated the throne in favour of his oldest son, retired into Austrian territory, and afterwards to Gratz, in Styria, where he remained, under the assumed title of Count of St. Leu, living, like Lucien, in literary seclusion, till Napoleon's disasters in Russia, when Louis tendered his services to the Emperor, in any way in which, with his dilapidated health, they could be rendered useful. Louis, most of his life a valetudinarian, mortified and cha- grined by marriage with a handsome, accomplished, and attractive woman, and still more by his deportation to a throne, sickly, proud, querulous, honest, humane, conscien- tious, and uncompromising, brought up by his brother Napo- 254 BONAPARTE KINGS. Icon, wlio assumed over him parental authority, to ■\vliich Louis reluctantly submitted, always restive under his imperious brotlier's yoke, solitary and devotional, sought consolation in literary pursuits. AVhilc a youth with Napoleon, in Egypt, his letters, some of which were captured and published, were remarkable for their benevolent spirit. At Gratz, after his al)dication, he published a n'ovel called JMaria, de- scriptive of Dutch manners, and of his relish for the plain, frugal, manly character of the Hollanders ; also, a Memoir on Yersification, and an Essay on that subject ; an opera called Ruth ; and a tragedy, Lucretia, in blank verse. After- wards, at Florence, in 1828, he published another collec- tion of poems. But his best-known work is a Vindication of Napoleon from the aspersions of ^Valter Scott ; in which Louis deplores the fame of all conquerors. With extreme but sincere horror of their renown, he declares, that he cannot conceive how reasonable beings can employ their short-lived existence, instead of loving and helping each other, and pass- ing through life as gently as possible, only in mutual destruc- tion, as though inexorable time did not perform that task fast enough. In another of his publications, Louis declares that fulfilment of duty was the invariable rule of his conduct; striving to harm none ; sacrificing his happiness, tranquillity, and reputation, to that primary motive of man's being. In sour, unhealthy independence, escaping from a throne and charming wife, Louis Bonaparte spent the residue of his pecu- liar life in literature and devotion. Yet, notwithstanding his aversion to and desertion of the Dutch throne, he claimed it as his son's right, Avlicn, in 1814, the French were finally expelled from Holland, and the Dutch people offered the crown to their former stadtholder, the Prince of Orange. Louis pro- tested against King William's coronation, insisting that by his (Louis's) abdication in favor of his son, the crown was lawfully that son's, by better right than William's, given by the people ; a pretension apparently inconsistent with Louis's wdiole life, and all Bonaparte assertion of popular sovereignty. The self-willed stuff, which Napoleon called his sister Caro- line's independent spirit, he found an obstacle to his plans in BONAPARTE KINGS. 2r>5 nearly all his family; in liis mother, his sister Pauline — in his brothers Lucien and Louis emphaticall}'. Joseph refused the kingdom of Lombardy, reluctantly accepted that of Spain, fi-equently and sharply remonstrated with Napoleon a^^ainst his interference there, and strove to govern as King of Spain, not as Viceroy of the French Emperor. Fraternal discord betv.een the French Emperor and Dutch King is curious proof of the mixture of affection -with ambition in Napoleon's ag- grandizement ; suffering his heart to lead his head in the selection of vassal kings. Alarming all mankind by the enor- mity of his empire, he fondly but unwisely stationed at its outposts those who, to be respected by their subjects, felt, and were not afraid to show, independence of their imperial con- stituent, and preference for their own dominions. A Dutch king for Holland, or a French king, provided that he was not a Bonaparte, might have been the Emperor's willing viceroy, subservient, anxious to obey his commands, and merit his ap- probation. xV brother's palpable policy was to convince his subjects that their monarch was their patriotic chief, not ano- ther distant monarch's obsequious instrument. Napoleon must have found any deputies more subordinate than the brothers he chose for his occasional kingdoms. Y^hen apprised of Louis' flight from Holland, the Emperor shed tears of passionate dis- appointment. "Think," he exclaimed, "of the brother whom I educated out of my lieutenant's slender pay, with whom I shared my mattress, disobeying and deserting me !" Chan- ning, Emerson, and other mere American echoes of British often absurd misapprehension, denounce as selfishness what was but natural Aveakness, in the great dictator, who loved power of all things, but loved his family too. Louis, an ardent lover of peace, conscientiously bound by his coronation oath to serve Holland, flattered himself that he could make terms with England ; and sent Labouchere, a re- spectable Dutch merchant, to London on that errand, with the Emperor Napoleon's consent, who made repeated efforts and overtures for peace, which England always rejected. Annexa- tion of Holland to France was the result. The Dutch national deputies being consulted, declared that it was better for Hoi- 256 BONAPARTE KINGS. land to form part of Franco, if constrained to support tlic continental system, than to remain an independent nation de- prived of maritime commerce. The Emperor Napoleon's official letter to his brother. King Louis, on that occasion, is one of tlie most remarkable specimens of family affection, imperial logic, and national policy. " Your majesty, mounting the Dutch throne, forgot that you are French, strained all the springs of your reason, and tortured the delicacy of your conscience, to persuade yourself that you are Dutch. Dutch, -vyell disposed to the French, have been neglected or persecuted ; those favor- able to England promoted. Your majesty has misconceived my character, my kindness and forbearance towards yourself. I insist on the interdiction of all commerce and communication ■with England, a fleet, an army, and abolition of all privileges of nobility contrary to the constit^^tion which I drew myself for Holland. Your majesty will find a brother in me, if you are a Frenchman. But if you forget community of country, you must not take it amiss that I forget tics of nature. Annexa- tion of Holland to France is best for France and Holland, and most injurious to England." — The continental system, so called, ascribed by most English and Americans to Napoleon, was not his device, but part of the powerful republican policy which he inherited from the revolution ; obvious and natural continental counter-action of British insulated commercial and manufactur- ing aggrandizement ; which convinced the Emperor of Prussia, on his visit to England, in 1814, that, if thoroughly enforced, it must have compelled Great Britain to make peace ; and whose revival, since Napoleon's overthrow, demonstrates its republican and imperial wisdom. Louis Bonaparte's honest and invincible maintenance of the interests of his Dutch subjects, provoking the annexation of Holland to the French Empire, is commonly set down as one of the unjustifiable acts of Napoleon's bound- less rapacity. My argument is less his justification than his description. The policy of the continental system I have but cursorily touched, merely to explain it, more to describe its supposed, but who was not its real author. For its eficctual enforcement Holland was indispensable. It was, in Napoleon's management, like our indefinite embargo devised by President BONAPARTE KINGS. 257 Jefferson, a vreajion, not for Avar, but to prevent or put a stop to it3 sufferings, by peace. In the resilient absorption of Hol- land by France, the parts performed by Louis and Napoleon Bonapai'te, grossly misrepresented and much misunderstood, have been dwelt upon in this sketch, however, as characteristic, not political rectifications. Jerome's American marriage was said to be the cause of his exclusion from succession to the empire founded by Napoleon. As before mentioned, Pope Pius VII. refusing to sanction Jerome's divorce from Miss Patterson, the Emperor, by what many of his confidential advisers deemed sovereign authority, dissolved his brother's marriage. George the Third's dissolv- ing, by that said to be royal privilege, the marriage of his youngest son, the Duke of Sussex, with Lady Augusta Mur- ray, was quoted as a precedent ; and many other acts of simi- lar power. But for Jerome's exclusion from the succession, and had it remained in force after Napoleon's last abdication, and after the death of his son by Maria Louisa, Jerome's American son, next after the j)resent President of France, might become entitled as successor to the French throne. Nor would the grandson of a Baltimore merchant, in the drama of amazing Bonaparte events, be more foreign to the scene than the grandson of a merchant of Marseilles. Some of the Emperor's flatterers, and among them our fellow-citizen Talleyrand, held, however, American connexion in peculiar dis- taste. Joseph showed me a letter from Talleyrand to Napo- leon, dissuading him from violent or arbitrary measures to break up Jerome's American marriage, and counselling gentler proceedings with the delinquent young prince ; which charac- teristic letter flattered the Emperor's vanity by an aristocratic sarcasm at the American match, somewhat, as I recollect them, in these terms : "Not, sire, that I advise your majesty to sub- mit to the transatlantic connexion, for I can imagine few greater domestic annoyances than twenty or thirty American cousins." In August, 1807, Jerome's atonement for the American marriage, and obsequious submission to his imperial brother, were signalised by marrying the King of Wii'temburg's daughter Vol. IIL — it 258 BONAPARTE KINGS. The wedding was celebrated at Paris, with great splendor, in the midst of a violent thunder-storm, striking the Tuilleries, which, like the calamitous occurrences at the wedding of the last Queen and first Empress of France, seemed portentous of times of trouble. Jerome's princelj wife, however, handsome and excellent, took her upstai't divorced husband for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, with admirable constancy; and, throughout a life of vicissitudes, from royal splendor to painful destitution, performed, to the last, every duty with heroic feminine virtue. After her husband's degradation by his brother's downfall, the King of Wirtemburg's daughter resisted all the harsh efforts of her own royal family to sepa- rate her from her husband, with a constancy which he had not evinced when submitting to be divorced from the humbler American wife, to whom he was as lawfully married. The constitution which Napoleon dictated for Jerome's king- dom of Westphalia is too memorable a proof of the liberal pro- clivity of their progressive age, countervailing the Emperor's military despotism, not to deserve to be incorporated with any account of him. A kingdom, called Westphalia, was con- structed for Jerome in part of that Hessian portion of Ger- many whose prince, during the war of the American Revolu- tion, supplied hirelings in arms to subdue transatlantic inde- pendence : an ephemeral kingdom, which soon vanished, to be replaced by the most flagrant of the German petty despotisms. From the towering eminence of his vastest empire, Napoleon prescribed to his youngest brother a written constitution for the kingdom of Westphalia, strongly marked with the popular spirit of American institutions, which, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, the mightiest European monarch was one of the greatest instruments to introduce and establish. In that tone of absolute command, which, if not part of his natm-e, had become habitual with Napoleon, so as to be stronger than nature, Jerome was directed to "convoke the deputies of his kingdom, half noble, half plebeian ; keep the third estate always a majority ; in your ministries, cabinets, if possible, in your appellate tribunals, in your administrations, let the greater number of persons you employ not be nobles ; that system will BOXAPARTE KINGS. 259 SO risht to the heart of Gcrnianv ; and never mind, though it annoys the other cLass. Do not affect to raise np the third estate, but take, for a principle avowed, to choose talents, wherever they are. Adopt, at once, the Code Napoleon. Your throne will be founded truly and only on the confidence and love of the people. What all the German people impa- tiently desire is, that persons not noble, but with talents, shall have an equal right to consideration and employment ; that all sorts of servitude and of intermediate connexions between the sovereign and the lowest of his people should be abolished. The benefits of the Code Napoleon, and public trials by juries, will be distinctive characteristics of your monarchy, on whoso effects I count more for its establishment and extension than the greatest victories. The people must enjoy liberty, C(:|uallty, and happiness unknown to the other people of Germany. Such government will be a stronger barrier for you against Russia than fortified places or French protection. What people would wish to return under the arbitrary rule of Russia, after tasting the benefits of a wise and liberal administration ? The }>eople of Germany, those of France, of Italy, and of Spain, desire equality and liberal ideas. In the many ^^ears that I have been conducting the affairs of Europe, I have had occasion to be convinced that the grumbling of the privileged is contrary to general opinion. Be a constitutional king, which, if even the reason and lights of the age were not enough, in your po- sition, good policy would direct." Thus created, crowned and regulated, Jerome established himself at Cassel ; another not unconscious but voluntary agent of the freedom which, from France and an Emperor, was spreading throughout all Europe, precursor of, at any rate, representative, and perhaps republican government. King Jerome was recognised as a constitutional monarch by all the powers of Europe, except England — especially by the Rus- sian Emperor, concealing his annoyance at the erection of the kingdom of Westphalia. As in Naples, and in Spain, Napo- leon and Joseph, so -lerome founded liberty and equality in Westphalia, where the younger brother governed with good 260 BONAPAKTE KINGS. sense, estaHisliing useful institutions, and constructing monu- mental embellishments. In Naples, in Spain, in Germany, wherever Napoleon en- throned his brothers, they were, each one of them, and his two reigning sisters likewise, much better rulers than the monarchs they supplanted. And, while Napoleon's ambition was the leading motive for their enthronement, yet family attachment was also an amiable but fatal motive. The policy which builds and enlarges empires, which necessitates, and thereby warrants Great Britain to subdue hundreds of millions in India, Russia to incorporate Poland, Austria to annex Hungary and parts of Italy, and this pacific republic the vast dominions already annexed, by purchase and conquest, to its Union, that policy may better justify Napoleon's occupation of Spain, or invasion of Russia, than his attempts can be vindicated to establish, at once, so many brothers and sisters on more than half a dozen thrones. No acts of despotic aggrandizement were so inju- rious to him as those domestic weaknesses. The Bonaparte family ruined the Napoleon dynasty. For one aiid the same household to mount the thrones of France, Spain, Naples, Holland, parts of Germany and Italy, as so many separate monarchs, was monstrous and insufferable violence to all esta- blished ideas of balanced power, and shocked the common sense of Europe altogether. It was, moreover, as contemptible as it was formidable. Aristocracy sneered, royalty revolted at sudden upstarts, whom no power, pomp, or talents, could save from even popular contempt. Not only did the pettiest princes look down on them, but they were obliged to look up to the pettiest descendants of princely ancestral families. Military subjugation might dethrone and intimidate, but it could not reconcile people to novel installations so numerous, of whom every, and even one, was extremely difficult of acceptance. The principle of legitimate succession, by primogeniture, to thrones and possessions, is a reasonable method for prevent- ing controversy and civil wars, like last wills and testa- ments, which ages sanction. To tread such traditions under foot, at once, by the substituted principle of elective right, hard to be adopted by one nation, when asserted for six or BONAPARTE KINGS. 261 seven chief magistrates nil at once, and then conpled with the exploded hereditary nde, appeared irrational, alarmed predi- lections, was displeasing to the common people. Napoleon was obliged to adopt election as the basis of his own empire ; and novel methods for all the kingdoms, dukedoms, royalties and aristocracies he established by great changes, proclaimed as reforms, wdiich, tending to overthrow absolute, introduce a representative government. But for a Bonaparte dynasty to force, all at once, any novelty on several countries, for the advancement to royalty of seven brothers and sisters, was an undertaking unexampled, much more disturbing of old habits than revolution in any one of those countries. The enchant- ment of Napoleon's exploits and talents, together with the state of France, reconciled that nation not only to submission to his sway, but also, perhaps, to perpetuate it by substituting his family for one born to rule them. But what had Joseph done to entitle him to the Sicilian or the Spanish thrones, on both of wdiich he was forced by French armies ? Or Louis, who was by like means, and almost against his own will, seated on the Dutch throne ? or Murat, or Eliza, or Caroline, or Jerome, in German grand-duchies, Neapolitan and German kingdoms ; all conquered for them by Napoleon ; all but satellites of his Old) ? Neither circumstances nor reason warranted, nothing but force effected, their ascension to five or six foreign thrones, of which they were usurpers. The simple sagacity of mother wit, like animal instinct, truer than reason, warned their illi- terate mother to foretell that such contrivances would not eml well. And the also but little educated American Empress, ho^vever enamoured of regal and aristocratic splendor, con- fessed inexplicable apprehension that, from that immense elevation, there was imminent danger of a fall. The whole Spanish people unanimously revolting against Joseph, Louis's flight from Holland, and Lucien's escape from Italy, Je- rome's Westphalian kingdom provoking the Russian war, and Murat's desertion of Napoleon at the crisis of his fate, all proved the fatal mistakes by wdiich, wdiether from family affection, or selfish ambition, he forced so many nations to submit to his brothers and sisters as their illegitimate mo- 262 MOBILITY. narchs. lie might plead, witli truth, that the present reignhig house of HapsLurg began to rule much of Germany "with no older or stronger right than his to make France his hereditary empire ; that Louis XIV., in spite of all Europe in arms to prevent it, established his grandson on the Spanish throne ; and that William III., by revolution, supplanted the royal family expelled from the English throne. But those were all individual, and two of them royal, instances of one ruler, by force or chance, seated on the throne of one nation. Never, before, was the attempt made by arms to compel many nations of Europe to accept several members of one family as their hereditary monarchs all at once. As a necessary consequence of Napoleon's French Empire, an aristocracy was constituted, an imperial nobiJity, baseless, transient, and incongruous with aristocratic vitality. A throne, mounted sword in hand by one of the people, by their election, but no other sovereignty than popular basis, must be precarious of tenure. Has there ever been such a one in modern Europe ? Dynasties have been changed. But when Louis XIV. put his grandson on the Spanish throne, and when Parliament elected William III. to the English throne, there were royal pretensions and connexions to give color of right. Before Bernadotte became King of Sweden, he was familiarized to the nation as their prince and heir-presumptive to the crown, and to all Europe as successful leader of their combined armies against Napoleon. A conqueror may capture a throne, peradventure keep and transmit it in his family. But to create a class without privileges, as the French Emperor attempted, to endow them with imposing titles and gorge them with enormous wealth, without any power but that of Avealth, or any distinction but title, will not make an aristocracy. Wealth alone, however powerful, will not ennoble ; nor mere title, without both wealth and power. To render men noble, they must have privileges. Give the vanquisher of Napoleon at Waterloo the ten millions bestowed on Wellington, legalize their exclusive possession and transmission to an heir by entail and primogeniture, and make him, with his heir, hereditary lawgivers, with all the attributes and immunities of legislation, NOBILITY. 263 and Arthur Wcllcsley, not on!}- the father, but the son, would be as eminent and dignified without as with title. There would be no occasion to call him Duke : for it is not the title, but wealth and privilege perpetuated in exclusion of other people, that ennoble a class unknown to antiquity, and the creation of feudality. When Napoleon abolished that, with their privi- leges, he created a short-lived, baseless class, like his family kings, militant with his own method of government, with his dynasty, and with the nature of things. His consular amnesty recalled nearly all the emigrant aris- tocracy ; of whom the imperial court captivated from the for- gotten Bourbons most of the few still abiding their forlorn chance. Josephine, foremost to surround her person with ancient nobility, knew, what her husband's secretary Meneval says, that the Emperor's inclination for them proceeded from the sympathy he always felt for classes, the anti({uity of whose services, as well as their good education, pointed them out particularly to his attention. He thought them more inte- rested in the oi-der of things which he founded than republi- cans, always inimical to the principles of his administration, and dreaming an ideal government. lie considered himself as having taken the succession of the monarchies which preceded his, but not their maxims. That was one of the motives of his partiality for Talleyrand, as a leading intermediate in the work of fusion and conciliation between the old nobility and new. He made some of the old dukes senators. For the foreign re- lations, he considered that ambassadors taken from the ancient castes would better suit courtly intimacies, and, by affiliating with the freemasonry of aristocracy, be of great advantage to him. With these inclinations of the Emperor, the poverty, vanity, and habits of the old nobles coincided. In a short time there was not a Pi-ench old noble family, some of whose members were not in the livery of the new court, insinuating themselves into numerous places at the capital and in the pro- vinces, born, as they believed, to live without labor, on public bounty. The small remnant of still Bourbon-adhering and exiled royalists were glad to see their children taking office under the Empire. The French minister in this country, Ser- 264 NOUILITY. I'urier, a, man of tlie republic, -without ancestry, had for secre- tary the son of an ancient duke, Caraman, adhering to the Bourbons, another of ^vhosc sons ^vas serving the Emperor in arms. Thus inclined himself, urged Ly his "wife, M'ho was its first great victim, and encouraged by the aristocracy, who more than reciprocated his caresses, Napoleon attempted a compo- site order, on a perilous basis. II is meddlesome governance, intruding in every household, regulating ladies' dress, gentle- men's entertainments, and the marriages of both, anciently royal, was not perhaps so erroneous, in the essayed fusion and consolidation of the old with a new nobility, as his attempt to establish unprivileged and merely titular opulent aristocracy. Equality was carried to strange extremes, when the barefooted tailor-boy, who ran Joseph's errands in Corsica, Sebastiani, was, by authority, married to a daughter of the Duke of Coigny, and the issue of that union to a son of the Duke of Choiscul, Praslin, whose tragic murder of his wife was one of its results. Granting, however, the policy of the monarch's marrying his military upstart celebrities to the daughters of ancient nobles, it was a capital mistake to create an aristocracy without pri- vileges, because it induced all nobles, new and old, to combine for the restoration of a master who would restore their privi- leges, and uphold them altogether as a privileged class. The new nobles were gorged with enormous wealth, taken, with most of their titles, from the inexhaustible stores of the foreign conquests Kapoleon made by their instrumentality. The old nobles were mostly impoverished by confiscation, banishment, and depreciation of property. Inimical to each other, what they l)oth best agreed in, was desire, the old to be restored to former privileges, the new to be invested Vy'ith the like. New and idd, welded by Napoleon's iron grasp into one heterogeneous and invidious mass, they were altogether opposed to his novel monarchical system. They wanted a master to ennoble them as before the revolution. Napoleon's retrenchment of noble })rivilege was a two-edged sword, which struck at his dynasty, and for the eventual alternative of either a Bourbon king or a republic. All new nobility must be more or less socially insig- NOBILITY. 2G5 nificant ; the old look clown on them, the community Iiordly look up to tliem. The new imperial nobles wove patented with splendid old titles — dukes, counts, barons. The old nobles were deprived of their titles : in order to get one, they had to take the Emperor's grant, which sometimes degraded a duke to a count, or even a baron. Furthermore, as all wanted pri- vileges, so all desiderated splendid repose. They did not like to be continually fighting for their fortunes, their titles, and their lives, in order to maintain on the throne of France a monarch who denied them all the privileges they coveted, and required them to expose themselves, not only for his dynasty, but those of six brothers and sisters, on as many foreign thrones. They longed for a monarch who would protect them privileged in peace and splendor. The old by ancestry, the new by wealth, were rendered so independent of the Emperor, that nearly all the old, and many of the new, were prompt to desert their benefactor in the hour of his need. Savary, Duke of Rovigo, one of the new, testifies that the new nobility were more faithless than the old. The new, nearly all the most prominent being military, may have been sooner put to choose between themselves and the creator of their aristocracy. Still, if the fact be as averred by Savary, it tells favorably to those educated to honor and truth, and discreditably to the ignoble ennobled. Although in all the wars he waged, the Emperor might insist that he was not the aggressor, yet his soldier aristocracy were tired of war. What more could they get by it ? The old aristocracy could not vie in magnificence or favor with the new ; the new were eclipsed by the old, in all tliat homage bestowed on respectable ancestry in all coun- tries and ages. To reconcile equality with nobility is impossi- ble. Napoleon swerved from the people, when he crowned himself, with nearly all his family, and put coronets on hun- dreds of his followers : else the people would not probably have cooled to him. And when, without their cordial support, he appealed to that of his enthroned family and ill-contrived aristocracy, Murat, on one of the thrones, Marmont, a semi- noble, endowed with one of the imperial dukedoms, were the first to betray their creator, and ensure his overthrow. His 266 NOBILITY. monarchy, his family, and his aristocracy, combined to destroy him more fatally than his tyranny. From the execution of the Duke of Enghein, -which precipitated his coronation, and the victory of Austerlitz, which emboldened him to enthrone his whole family, with the invariable and prodigious successes that followed the further creation of his compounded aristo- cracy, during eight years of vast aggrandizement, from 1804 to 1812, the true glory, the real power, and the happiness of the dictator, decreased ; dread of him was universal, but no longer love. As citizen, general, and consul, Bonaparte, notwithstanding hostile traduction, was really not only the greatest, but the brightest and purest of potentates, and might have lived and died with that character. As Emperor, he did Avhatevcr de- tracts from his renown as a man, however he may have in- creased his military fame, or inordinate power. Always kind and affectionate, and mostly judicious, his temptations were immense, and his advisers many of them worse tempters than even his triumphs. From the first moment of his consular to the last of his imperial career, two extraordinary traitors, whom nearly all concur in denouncing as extremely bad men, Talleyrand and Fouche, were nearly always in his councils. Family crowns and multiplied coronets disaffected the French, and disgusted other nations. Neither the crowned heads nor the curoneted proved reliable in the agony of overthrow, when the dictator, as a last resort, attempted, too late, to rally the people to his support. Like considerable donations from the opulent in time of trouble to public revenue, which can never be maintained but by taxation of all the community, aris- tocratic and military contributions proved insufficient, the popular bulk w^as indispensable, and though the common people did not entirely desert, they ceased cordially to support the chief who had long shown, and even in that supreme emer- gency betrayed, estrangement from them. If the new-made Duke of Ilovigo is to be believed, the new nobility were more faithless than the old. But all nobility, old and new, were un- availing, without cordiality of the people. If Bonaparte had never crowned himself, and nearly all of his family, and many NOBILITY. 267 of his favorites, tlic people -would never have ahandoncd him; for their instinctive attachment seldom fails to he steadfast to any man true to them. Napoleon, in the anguish of ahdication, reasoned Avisely on the force of popidarity ; because he had diminished, almost sacrificed, his own to imperial elevation and factitious aristocracy. That society in Europe may need to be classed, some Avith privileges superior to others, my argument docs not deny. Several fungi of aristocracy in this rei)ublic abeady attest that mankind are prone to social orders and degrees. Worthless personal designations annul constitutional provision that the United States shall grant no titles of no- bility. But our fungi aristocracies arrogate some privileges, whereas the dukes, counts, and barons of the Emperor Napo- leon, endowed with imposing titles and prodigious wealth, were to hold both on the impracticable condition, that it should be without privilege, for wdiich they sacrificed their creator, in hope that another grantor would restore, as of old, and add that advantage to wealth and title. French traditions and national vanity required, perhaps, notwithstanding the ]"enunci- ation of noble titles, their revival for a monarchy. Notorious revolutionists, like Fouche, to be conciliated by public em})loy- ment, an elective sovereign, with difficulty reducing former po- litical equals or superiors to inferiors, degraded by titles and court garbs. All the imperial nobility enriched and entitled, but not otherwise dignified, unless by office, barons in, out- ranking dukes out of, public service ; nobles, without privilege or office, were without authority. Napoleon's nobility, like his monarchy, reducing the pristine influence of both princedom and aristocracy, French titles became insignificant, as, without both wealth and privilege, title always must be; and, whether willing or unwilling, degraded. Similar, and still more fatal, mistakes of vain aggrandize- ment were Napoleon's divorce from his first wife and marriage with a second. Execution of the Bourbon prince was extremely detrimental to Bonaparte ; usurpation of the Spanish throne was a cardinal mistake of Napoleon, the fraudulent method more indefensible than the violent act. But more jjernicious than any thing else, even more crushing than the ruinous Russian 268 DIVORCE. campaign, was the conqueror's servile virtual confession, that lie felt unsafe on his plebeian throne, while sustained by only the sovereignty of the people ; and that, although he could vanquish and dethrone emperors and kings, yet his own throne required the cement of their matrimonial alliance. Josephine, too old for any hope of children, during fourteen years of fabu- lous prosperity an affectionate consort, anxiously and admira- bly recommended by her grace, benevolence, and winning manners, if sacrificed to state or dj^nastic necessity, history could palliate with precedent, policy might pardon, and a more fruitful wife, if French, perhaps would not be out of keeping among the miracles of Napoleon's enormous reign. But a foreigner, an emperor's daughter, niece of the last deplorable queen of France, was mightiest of the mistakes of the infatu- ated conqueror, who, abandoning elective right, meanly knelt in idolatrous veneration of hereditary illusion, and proclaimed to the people who anointed him that their unction and his svrord were unavailing, without regal sanction. Some of his most incredible victories and conquests, having brought him again triumphant to Vienna, the imperial house of Hapsburgh was at his feet, for a sentence that it had ceased to reign, as the same demolisher had said of the older and more royal Bourbons reigning in France and Spain and the Two Sicilies. Instead of that, by the treaty of Vienna, signed there the 14th No- vember, 1800, Napoleon surrendered nearly all he had won for monstrous misalliance. Tiie force of tradition, of ancestry, of family, of caste, of mere fashion, subjugated the victor to the vanquished. The humblest of any of the American toiling millions, illiterate, and howsoever ignorant, is proud of a father, grandfather, uncle, or kinsman, who may have served as a common soldier, drummer, or servant in the revolutionary army. Slaves are valued for their families ; horses, dogs, and cattle by their races ; and Napoleon yielded to universal human nature, when his vanity desired ancestral help. It was not true, when he told his imperial father-in-law that he preferred to be Rodolph of Hapsburgh ; Najioleon, in all his immensity, was not proud enough to feel that he was himself an ancestor. If, as long afterwards he said, with bitter pain of memory, the DIVORCE. 269 assassin had succeeded who attempted his life in the palace v.-herc Maria Louisa was born, that cahiniity would have been much less deplorable for the victim, and much less calamitous for France, than his Austrian marriage. In special remorse for that offence against morality and policy, but still, when expiring on his rock at St. Helena, unworthily sighing for a throne, the fallen Emperor justly termed that marriage an abyss covered with flowers, in which he plunged to destruc- tion. Ostentatious magnanimity by the treaty of Vienna, was but false forbearance for Napoleon's greatest misstep on the road to ruin. Louis Bonaparte's sons were in the established line of suc- cession to the imperial throne. Jerome soon had sons, and born of a king's daughter. Lucien had several sons, though not in the line established. Eugene, the step-son, was a worthy favorite of the Emperor ; though I know it was Jo- seph's belief, contrary to a common impression, that Josephine had never pressed her husband to adopt her son as his imperial heir. She was weak, timid, and unambitious. Her son was not a man whom his step-father deemed capable of holding the reins of his vast empire. Nor did Napoleon's family counte- nance his divorce, as has also been said. Lucien and Louis were absent and estranged ; Joseph was engrossed in Spain, and always discountenanced the Emperor's union with any foreign wife ; Jerome was in Westphalia, and of no weight with Napoleon. Their mother and Joseph's wife. Queen Julia, as she was called, were both much attached to Josephine. Eliza. Pauline, and Caroline, with occasional little feminine jealousies of Josephine's influence and grandeur, were not averse to her. The divorce was the Emperor's own act, by advice of bad coim- sellors, of whom Fouche, Duke of Otranto, the omnipresent instigator of misrule, was one of the earliest suggestcrs, and the most cruel and pertinacious persuader. The idea did not originate with the Emperor, but was conceived by its unhappy victim, long before entertained by her husband. From the death, as heretofore mentioned, of Louis's eldest son, in Hol- land, in 1807, Josephine had been uneasy, and parasites busy, about a successor to the Empire, which the monarch's family 270 DIVORCE. and tliG marshals might dispute, as Fouche insisted ; and, said that Jacobin courtier to Senators, the Emperor is too fond of the Empress Josephine ; too good, too tender-hearted, to inflict on her the pain of such a sacrifice, unless "\ve constrain him to do what is indispensable to his dynasty. Nor were Fouche and Talleyrand the only contrivers of the ill-fated divorce, as they advised the lamentable execution of the Duke of Engheiu. If the most authentic French history is to be believed, the Emperor of Russia, in the apparent warmth of his attachment to Napoleon, among their confidential chaifering at Tilsit, for Turkey and Poland, not only yielded Spain, Naples, and the continental system, to the Empire of the modern Charlemagne, but craftily suggested a princess of the Russian imperial family as Napoleon's wife, if divorced from his .childless Em- press. Afterwards, during the war of 1809, between France and Austria, ending with the battle of Wagram, Russia, be- come a cold ally of France, was preparing to get rid of the distressing trammels of the continental system. When, there- fore, an Austrian princess was tendered, and the expected Rus- sian princess, if not withheld on demand, at any rate was not promptly forthcoming, the same never-failing evil counsellors, Fouche and Talleyrand, overruling Murat and others, who, when consulted, adhered to the Russian alliance, advised the Austrian wife. And, as Joseph always said, the Greek reli- gion determined the matter. A large majority of France, including nearly all the nobility, It.ily almost a French pro- vince, and Spain to be subdued to Joseph Bonaparte's sway, were Roman Catholic : and it might have alarmed the clergy, as well as othervfise shock public sentiment, to place a Russian princess on the French throne, with her Greek rites, pope and priests. Napoleon's gradual acquiescence in the repudiation of an amiable, devoted and fond wife, long the exclusive part- ner of his bed, was probably not entirely from conviction that a son was necessary to his dynasty. He had betrayed so much desire to advance his family by royal marriages, that he must have deemed such a one promotion for himself. The feeling is intense which ranks social respectability above political power. Campaigns, absences, and flatterers, had also loosened the hold DIVORCE. 271 which ohl Josephine had on his constancy, when all hope of an heir by her was at an end. Lamartine's prurient and scan- dalous imagination of numerous fugitive amours has been already noticed as the mere royalist fancy, that Napoleon had mistresses because kings and princes multiply such baubles with impunity and applause. Napoleon's amours is one of the many fables told of him, of whom all sorts of absurd inven- tions abounded. So little prone was he to that royal privilege, that, if given to it at all, it would have been more from vanity, because it AYas king-like, than any amorous propensity. His rare amours were like occasional campaign meals, snatched under trees, or in hovels, as exciting irregularities, induced by fascinating women courtiers, vain of the embraces of a hero before whom all monarchs faded. His only two natural chil- dren are, one called Count Leon, son of a French mother, who afterwards married a German ; and another, Count Walewski, son of a Polish lady of that name, both strongly resembling the Emperor ; Count WalcAvski was employed by King Louis Philippe as a foreign minister, and is now ambassador, in Eng- land, of the French republic. When Napoleon was persuaded and resolved to espouse a regal wife, for an heir, there Avere no marriageable foreign princesses but Saxon, Austrian, and Russian ; the latter very young ; and in 1809 the Emperor Alexander was alienated, by Napoleon's declining to let llussia subdue Turkey. The Saxon princess was a Protestant ; an English or Bourbon princess was out of the question ; and a Frenchwoman AYOuld not be the regal spouse desired. When the imperial government of xVus- tria, certainly the royal Saxon, and, according to all credible accounts, the Russian likewise, desired their princely daughters to be the wives of their married conqueror, and his sycophants urged his divorce for that purpose, Maria Louisa, the princess selected for the sacrifice, was the eldest daughter of the Em- peror Francis I. of Austria, by the second of his four wives. Educated in complete seclusion, and passive obedience, she was taught to consider herself an instrument of imperial policy, destined for whatever might contribute to her father's political welfare. With those feelings another was engrafted, of horror f)79 DIVORCE. at the monster who, she was taught to believe, had usurped the throne of France, steeped in crime, coarse, callous, brutal, bloodthirsty, and disgusting ; a Minotaur, whom it would be monstrous to embrace. The imperial family of Austria, all the nobility of Europe, and most of the common people, con- sidered marriage to Bonaparte as the worst infliction of irre- sistible conquest. In such repugnance, princely, aristocratic, and popular — universal — Maria Louisa was sacrificed to save a shred of empire, from which successive conquests had torn so much away. A well-educated young woman, tolerably versed in several languages, though not speaking French per- fectly, somewhat instructed in Latin, which is spoken in Hun- gary, could paint in oil, was a good musician, quiet, timid, well- formed, healthy, plump, with a profusion of chestnut hair, and the thick lips that are said to indicate her family. Josepliine was her better in appearance, grace, manners, and experience of the world : mth the soft negligence and sweet familiarity of a Creole, well practised in the ways of attraction ; in all but princedom, age, and fecundity, much the best wife. The two were alike in placid, even tempers, total abstinence from all politics and intrigue, and complete submission to a husband absolute but afiectionate, whose lively and fond attentions they both courted and enjoyed. The Austrian, undeceived as to Napoleon's manners, habits, and temper, soon learned to like as much as she had dreaded him ; for rarely was husband more uxorious ; and from Maria Louisa's arms he boasted that he never strayed. So Avarm had her attachment become, that she wished at one time to follow him to Elba, but was told, among other means of deterring her, that his mistress, Ma- dame Walewski, was there with him. Lamartine paints an affecting description of the Emperor's refusal, at Fontainebleau, either to consent to this lady's entreaty to be allovi^ed to accom- pany him into banishment, or even to see her for farewell. But how preposterous is that prejudice which imputes it as unfeel- ing to the Emperor, in the distraction of his overthrow, be- trayal, and abdication, to misspend precious moments of extreme disturbance in unavailing s^'mpathy with a mistress vainly deploring his departure, and urgent, by going with DIVORCE. 273 him, to give unpardonaWc offence to his h\^\Tul ^ife and all tlie imperial connexions, ■uiiom, no doubt, Napoleon valued infi- nitely more than any object of illicit love ; for love was not the passion of a man ■\vho said of himself, that his absorbing passion was power. Fouche is said to have been the barbarous serving-man who first told Josephine that divorce awaited her. The Emperor having come to that determination, after several cold, uncom- fortable interviews, on his return from Vienna, at length plainly announced to Josephine the cruel degradation designed for her, which she had long apprehended. Her son and daughter were then employed by their step-father, and sub- mitted to the revolting task of engaging their mother's acqui- escence. And it is flagrant proof of the selfish rapacity for kingdoms to which Napoleon had inured all his household, that at the first interview between him and Josephine in her son's presence, he pleading for her submission, she entreated the Emperor to make Eugene king of Italy, where he was then viceroy ; from which he dissuaded her, lest it should seem to be the price paid for her consent to the divorce. Among the reflections forced upon us by that sacrifice of domestic affec- tions to inordinate ambition, is the remarkable fact, that, while the divorced woman's descendants, the Beauharnois, are now connected with several royal families, the family of the hus- band, the Bonapartes, by the death of the only issue of Na- poleon's imperial consort, lost in a single life all such con- nexions, except by the remote and slender tie of Jerome's Wirtemburg wife, whose children were excluded from the im- perial succession. Such is the short-sightedness of worldly wisdom, and the caprice of fortune. If Napoleon had lived as long as Joseph, or their mother, he would have survived his son, the King of Rome, witnessed his wife's cohabitation with Niepperg, the dissolution of all his royal connexions, and the permanent establishment of those of his divorced wife. On the 10th December, 1800, the Senate decreed the disso- lution of the civil contract between Napoleon and Josephine ; and there was no other, no religious union between them hav- ing ever been solemnized. On the 18th January, 1810,. the Vol. III. — 18 C-Li,\.-~': -J^'j.A.^A ^^A--^- b^^^v^'f'-A^- 274 DIVORCE. diocesan officiality of Paris, after some hesitation, annulled ■vvliatever spiritual obligation there might be. From that time till her death, the Emperor divided his attentions between Jo- i-^ephine, -whom he continued to treat "with the most magnifi- cent respect, and Maria Louisa, to whom he was alwaj-s a devoted husband. After his last interview with Josephine as man and wife, during the fortnight that elapsed before jMaria Louisa's arrival, the Emperor withdrew from Paris to Trianon, and, contrary to the industrious habits of his busy life, for the first time gave himself up to mere pastime, shooting and hunt- ing ; often, however, visiting Josephine, by the kindest atten- tion ministering to her comfort and enjoyments, preserving her title as Empress, granting her a revenue of three millions of francs, and in every way striving to soften the blow, to which she submitted with gentle but melancholy resignation. Although the first monarch of the imperial German or Aus- trian house of Ilapsburgh was merely a fortunate adventurer, who succeeded by noble alliances to found a dynasty second to none in Europe, to which German and Hungarian nobles ral- lied ever since, as Napoleon flattered himself the French nobi- lity would to his, yet his foreign wife was parcel of the con- quests by which he humiliated Austria, whose nobles could not be reconciled to it ; one of whom, most forward, as his imperial master's representative, to tender the imperial wife, and rejoice in her marriage to the conqueror, Schwartzenburg, as soon as Napoleon's reverses began, was the first to declare that the match which policy made, policy might undo. On the IGth February, 1810, the Emperor Francis signed the marriage contract of his daughter with the Emperor Napoleon, whose ambassador extraordinary, Berthier, Prince of \Yagram, to marry the princess by proxy, executed the civil contract vath the great Archduke Charles, on the 9th March, and the religious ceremony was performed the 11th of that month, 1810. Hollow demonstrations of joy and tokens of amity were paraded, with unprecedented concession of German ancient imperial supremacy to that of recent French. But the Ger- man imperial family, the country nobility, and the people, by unequivocal indications, manifested their sense of shame. The DIVORCE. 275 police of Vienna were constrained, by strong precautions, to prevent insulting popular outbreaks. An old archduke, Albert of Saxony, who had been present "vvhen Maria Antoinette "was married to Louis XVI., would not attend the marriage of her grand-niece to Napoleon. Berthier's magnificent suite entered Vienna by a temporary bridge, where the French con(|ucror3 had lately destroyed the fortifications of the German capital. Metternich followed Kaunitz precedent, by whose advice the haughty Empress Theresa complimented Louis XV.'s mistress, De Pompadour; accepting transient dishonor, as not reprehen- sible, if conducive to ultimate success. jMinor aspirants for less power daily submit to less conspicuous elevation of castes, both aristocratic and democratic, and kneel to vulgar supe- riority for preferment ; like kings, princes, and statesmen at unworthy shrines. Metternich, nevertheless, adroitly seized the general manifestation of Austrian discontent with the French marriage to remonstrate against the hardest conditions of the last peace dictated to his father-in-law by Napoleon, whose minister replied, that to his magnanimity the Emperor Francis was indebted for his very throne, and the Austrian Empire for its existence. Thus the inauspicious marriage was treated by the wife's countrymen as odious, and by the hus- band's, as conquered, like Italy, Illyria, and much more of the German Empire, torn from its foundations and annexed to France. At Paris, too, there was strong feeling of supersti- tious deprecation. Popular instinct recalled historical recol- lections of the misfortunes which followed the marriage of Maria Louisa's great-aunt, Maria Antoinette, with Napoleon's precursor on the French throne, both brought to the scaffold, and all Austrian alliance was regarded with ominous misgiving. Nevertheless, Napoleon and his court consummated his union with an Austrian imperial princess, as the indestructible pledge of his perpetuated imperial dynasty. All the pomps and splen- dors of demonstrative France were eclipsed by the magnificent ostentation of Maria Louisa's arrival at Strasburg and journey to Compiegne, the place appointed for meeting the Emperor. Fetes, progresses, and rejoicings unexampled signalized her advent with ovation, her pregnancy by transports of feliciia- 276 MARRIAGE. tion, licr giving birth to a son, called King of Rome, by deli- rium of delight. The French Emperor, then more than forty years old, never the harsh and abrupt despot falsely depicted, always gay, communicative, and polite, exemplified one of his own oft-quoted adages, that from the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step. The hero, for fifteen years absorbed in achievements filling the world with his renown, descended at once to all the frivolities of a puerile honeymoon ; performing the part of a giddy enamoured youth. To meet his bride, he •was persuaded by his sister Pauline, queen of no other realms than those of fashion, dress, and female elegance, to lay aside the regimentals which he had worn ever since his lieutenancy, and throughout his whole manhood, and put on a suit of clothes made by Leger, the fashionable tailor of Paris. After trying, however, he could not bear the change, but resumed the uni- form and black stock, which, like his gray surtout and small cocked hat, had become classical as well as habitual. Wher- ever Maria Louisa stopped on her journey, a page met her ■with a love-letter from the Emperor, with bouquets of flowers, and game which he had killed with the time he misspent, long- ing for her arrival. He personally superintended the arrange- ment of her apartments, splendidly furnished the walls of one room, entirely draped with Cashmere shawls. Whatever royal precedents established for the reception of a queen of France, •was re-enacted with preposterous servility. A soldier, who had followed Napoleon in most of his battles, Savary, Duke of Rovigo, aptly says of these backslidings, " We "were already become courtiers more obsequious than those of Louis XIV., and no longer the men who had subdued so many peoples." As the princess approached Compiegne her impatient lover •would no longer bear the delay of forms and fetters of cere- mony ; but, jumping into a calashe, hastened, incognito, Avith no one but Murat, attended by a single outrider, to meet, surprise, and salute his eagerly expected and half-married bride. Returning with her after night, in a pelting rain, the enamoured dictator, broken to no denials, and yielding to no obstacles, contrary to the express interdict of his own Code Napoleon, -would not await cither the civil contract or the re- MARRIAOE. 277 li<>-ious nnion aftcnvavds solemnized at St. Cloud and Paris, but anticipated both by immediate cohabitation at Corapicgne. Such was the magnificent, fatal, and illicit union of Napoleon M'ith another emperor's daughter. As on all occasions sur- rounded by his family, ho introduced to the Empress the nu- merous monarchs of his making — Joseph's Avife, then (^ueen of Spain, Louis's wife. Queen of Holland, Caroline and her husband, King and Queen of Naples, Jerome and his AVirtem- burg wife, King and Queen of Westphalia, Eugene and his Bavarian wife. Viceroys of Italy, Stephania Bcauharnois, Grand Duchess of Baden, with a long train of nobles, new and old, who attended the wedding and predicted its happy results. ]\Iadame Mother, as the parent of all the Bonapartes was called, was there, less confident of the future. On the 1st of July, 1810, when the Austrian ambassador, Swartzen- berg, entertained the imperial bride and bridegroom at a ball, the terrible accident which marred the celebration of Maria Antoinette's wedding was recalled by a fire, by which a prin- cess Swartzenberg, and other distinguished guests, perished in the flames, and the Russian ambassador, Kourakin, was tram- pled under the feet of crowds of affrighted fugitives from the conflagration, which Napoleon, with all his power and energy, was unable to extinguish, till it confirmed the popular super- stition, that his marriage was doomed to calamity. Joseph was struggling in vain against unanimous popular aversion in Spain, Lucien, seeking refuge in America, found it in England, Louis, also flying from Napoleon's dictation, escaped into Austria, Russia was arming for the contest in which Napoleon fell, Austria and Prussia were secretly com- bining for another conflict, the Pope was a French jtrisoncr, the continental system was enforced by a decree that all Eng- lish merchandise should be burned, Holland, Rome, and other distant independencies, were reduced to French provinces ; Napoleon erected one hundred and thirty instead of eighty- five French departments, extending France, so called, from the Baltic to the Garigliano, from the Adriatic to the occnn. As the Emperor's flatterers told him, and his own ambition confirmed, the fragments of the empire of Charlemagne were 278 INVASION OF SPAIN. I^ut together under Napoleon's sway, and all tliat was wanting to perpetuate that empire was the son born the 20th March, 1811. The year 1810, so pregnant with events indicative of Na- poleon's approaching decline, was that in which one of his most formidable antagonists, Bernadotte, was chosen, by the States- General of Sweden, assembled in extraordinary diet, heredi- tary prince of that kingdom, and adopted son of the reigning monarch, Charles XIII. It has been already mentioned that Napoleon preferred that Eugene Beauharnois should assume the crown of a kingdom disposed to strengthen itself by close alliance with the French Emperor. But Eugene and his wife declined ; and Bernadotte pleaded to his commander, reluctant to name him king, "Sire, would you make me greater than yourself, by constraining me to refuse a crown?" The prince put aside, to be supplanted by Bernadotte, was said to be his mother the queen's son by a father allowed by the king her husband to j^erform the office of which he was incapable. Numerous family thrones, a nobility without privileges, divorce from a French wife, and misalliance with an emperor's daughter, all contributed to Napoleon's overthrow ; to which his despotic practical refutal of the principles he sincerely pro- fessed, was, no doubt, largely instrumental. Despotism, Avhich he called dictatorship, forced on him by constant and marvel- lous success against several aggressive coalitions, misled him to place nearly all his family on thrones, to create an ill-contrived aristocracy, to repudiate a much respected wife, and misally himself with a foreign princess, whose family and country were his unappeasable enemies. From those steps towards ruin, we now go back a few years in point of time, to that invasion of Spain, of which Napoleon himself testified at St. Helena, " That unfortunate war dethroned me. All the circumstances of my disasters concurred to attach themselves to that fatal knot. It divided my forces, multiplied my efforts, opened a wing to the English soldiers, attacked my morality in Europe. I confess that I embarked very badly in the affair. The im- morality could not but show itself much too plainly, the injus- tice much too cynical; the whole remained a vile affair." INVASION OF SPAIN. 279 After such severe condemnation by tlie author himself of the most censurable political injustice of his life, history can hardly undertake its defence or apology. Still something may be said to explain what the author's candid and repentant confession does not deny, was a vile end sought by immoral means. Mack had been Austrian afrent of English subsidies, ■whose surrender at Ulm was announced to Pitt the ITth October, 1805, when entertaining his pupils, Canning, Castlcreagh, and the future Duke of Wellington, at dinner. The victory of Austerlitz, on the 2d December of that year, was fatal to the British premier, whose health immediately foiled and declined, till he expired, the 23d January, 1806. Pitt and Napoleon, bitter foes, both died of broken hearts, the one at forty-seven, the other fifty-four ; both prematurely cut off. Pitt sunk under the peace of Presburg, dictated by Napoleon to Austria ; Na- poleon under the treat}' of Paris, dictated by Castlereagh to France. Many of his predictions at St. Helena have been realized. Pitt likewise prophesied ; as was attested by "Wel- lington at the table of Kichelieu, first minister of Louis XVIII., in presence of the foreign ministers of nearly all Europe, at Paris, m 1816, eleven years after the prophecy then verified. To Ms guests in 1805, and three years before Napoleon's inva- sion of Spain, deploring the battle of Austerlitz — ''Spain," said Pitt, " will light the first blaze of that patriotic war which alone can save Europe. My intelligence from that country is, that if the nobility and clergy have degenerated, by the cflects of bad government, and are at the feet of a favorite, the people preserve all their primitive purity, and their hatred of France, as much as ever, and almost equal to their love of their sove- reigns. Bonaparte thinks, and must think, their existence incompatible with his. He will try to expel them ; and tlien Villi arise the war I desire." Consolidation of the two governments of France and Sp;un in the hands of one and the same monarch, was a French am- bition by no means originating with Napoleon. Louis XIV. attempted and nearly accomplished it, whose succession Napo- leon considered his inheritance. Louis Philippe latterly risked his crown to marry his son, in defiance of England, to the pre- 280 INVASION OF SPAIN. sumptivc lieiress of the Spanish throne. Spahi has mostly been closely allied with France ; joined her in the contest for North American independence ; and, from the treaty of Basle, remained always in close alliance. But in March, ISOG, when Joseph Bonaparte supplanted the Bourbon King of jSTaples, Napoleon was tempted to try the same thing in Spain, by a state of things which might have induced any French government. Ferdinand, the dethroned King of Naples, brother of Charles IV., King of Spain, refused to recognise Joseph as King of Naples. " If Charles will not, his suc- cessor shall," said Napoleon, "recognise my brother as king of Naples." A Russian ambassador, Strogonoif, to counteract the Emperor Napoleon's apprehended designs, was sent to Madrid, in January, 1806, and prevailed on the Prince of Peace, who was in eftect the Spanish government, to unite Spain with the coalition against France. At the same time, Augustin Arguelles went secretly from Spain to London, to make peace with England, as necessary to save the Spanish American colonies, where General Beresford had already cap- tured Buenos Ayres. Urged by Russia and countenanced by England, the Prince of Peace issued his ambiguous, warlike manifesto of the 6th October, 1806, understood to announce Avar against Napoleon, though not expressly declared. If at that time he had anticipated Spanish hostilities, by inva ding- Spain, he would have been not only justifiable, but perhaps successful ; for in such warfare with the Spanish government there would have been nothing insulting to the nation, as in- volved in Napoleon's invasion two years afterwards. The end was justifiable in 1806, and the means would be easier. A small French army might have taken IMadrid and overthrown the government then, which several hundred thousand French troops were unable to effect in 1808, by conquering the offended people. But just when the Spanish manifesto of Oc- tober, 1806, menaced Napoleon, Prussia plunged into the war against him, and Napoleon found it necessary to defer the con- test, become inevitable with Spain, from French policy. Mean- time the victory of Jena demolished the kingdom of Prussia, created by aggressions and conquests of the great Frederic as INVASION OF SPAIN. 281 unjustifiable and aggrandizing as Napoleon's invasion of Spain. Jena, superadded to Austerlitz, and England exciting Portugal to conflict with France, Napoleon had reason for sending an army into Spain, where the condition of the government in- vited, if it did not justify, expulsion of the reigning royal Bourbon family. Stolidity of the king, Charles IV., profli- gate impudicity of the queen, who said that her son Ferdinand was not her husband the king's son, the base and ignoble, un- filial and infamous nature of the prince, afterAvards Ferdinand VIT., as heir-apparent rebelling to dethrone his father, the universal hatred in which the queen's paramour and king's favorite, Godoy, Prince of Peace, was held, all these circum- eumstances strongly pleaded for a change of such detestable sovereigns. The government was totally disorganized ; every branch of it in complete disorder. The army, the navy, the judges, the other ofiicers of state, were unpaid. The national " debt was enormous, credit at the lowest ebb. The whole re- sources of the kingdom were insufiicicnt for current expenses. Shocking quarrels prevailed in the royal family. The son revolted and dethroned the father ; the mother accused the son of attempting to murder her ; the favorite was cast into con- finement and his life endangered by a mob of the prince's fac- tion. Both the royal contestants, father and son, appealed to Napoleon to protect each against the other. Ferdinand en- treated him to give him a wife of the Bonaparte family, which would have been done, but that Lucien's daughter Charlotte, chosen for that purpose, refused the arrangement. The French troops marched into Spain were received as deliverers. Na- poleon was universally popular there ; his portrait was in every family, his applause on all tongues. All classes, noble, cleri- cal, royal, and plebeian, regarded him as the hero who had subdued anarchy, restored order and religion in France. They intreated him to rid them of Godoy, and maintain Ferdinand, proclaimed king in place of his cuckold, stupid father, strumpet mother, and her detested paramour Godoy. Napoleon had no doubt meditated the substitution of liis for the Bourbon family on the Spanish as on the Nen])olitan throne. The Spanish royal incumbents were undeniably unfit 282 INVASION or spain. to reign. The Bonaparte v,ho had reigned in Naples proved himself a wise and virtuous as well as a welcome monarch, who might regenerate the Spanish nation, as lie did the Neapolitan. Napoleon would complete what Louis XIV. began ; the union of Spain with France under thrones filled by one family. Spain was disgusted and distracted by the despicable Bourbons, and enamored with Napoleon, who had no hand in the royal Spa- nish (piarrels ; ncdther originated nor matured the ru[)ture and convulsions which, as it were, providentially invited him to enthrone his family instead of the Bourbons. Entirely and always the creature of circumstances, conforming himself to them, and not forcing them to him, in that spirit a fatalist, he might Avell believe that fortune called him to put his brother on the Spanish throne. With such Spanish and individual inducements, those of all > Europe harmonized. The British outrage at Copenhagen, in September, 1807, united Ilussia, and Austria, and Denmark, in fact, nearly all Europe, with Napoleon, in bitter aversion to England. That monstrous a^-gression of the Canning; and Castlereagh ministry enabled Napoleon to enforce his conti- nental system with redoubled vigor. The same Jackson who soon after came as British minister to the United States, en- voy who accompanied the British fleet and army to Copenhagen with Admiral Gambler, chief of the British negotiators at Ghent, commanding the fleet, by their nefarious exploit, se- conded the victories of Jena and Austerlitz, to tempt the French Emperor to abuse colossal power. At Tilsit, Alex- ander urged him to pursue his career of conquests, and con- tinued, long afterwards, constantly to countenance his family sovereignties. It was Napoleon's misfortune to have no oppo- nent then, nor obstacle on the continent ; with infinitely better reason to put a brother on the Spanish throne than Alexander . had a right to Finland, England to iMalta-, or, since his over- throw, most of his coiupierors to their territorial aggrandize- ments in 1815, which, like his, were mere conquests. He was not going to Spain till thus tempted ; and, Avhen he went to Bayonne, neaidy all Spain invited him. The royal father . and son left Spain to meet him there, and fell at his feet. The INVASION OF SPAIN. 283 nobility, clergy, and Spanish connnonally, united to ask him for a ruler; and, at first, appeared delighted with his choice. After the sanguinary suppression, on the 2d of ^lay, 1808, of the revolt at Madrid, by Murat, of which our American guest, General Grouchy, was chief executioner, and the marvellous insurrection of all Spain, which followed that catastrophe ; after Dapont's incredible surrender, and since all the French enormities, reverses, and their expulsion from Spain, history dwells on the method of Napoleon's defeated attempts there, as atrocious perfidy, and condemns its author as deserving of all he suft'ered at St. Helena. So general, well nigli uni\ersal and overwhelming is that condemnation, that even he himself, in part, joined in it, and it may be vain to endeavor to rescue him from some of the odium of the invasion of Spain, which, with the Duke of Engheiu's execution, will remain, for ever, blots on his character. Still the circumstances hereinbefore simimarily mentioned, show that the act w\as no more than most other acts of forcible aggrandizement, performed by every monarch, and when successful, vindicated by nearly all histo- rians. The English bombardment of Copenhagen, in 1807, was much less justifiable than the French invasion of Spain in 1808. Whether Napoleon's policy would have been wiser if he had given Ferdinand the daughter of Lucien for a queen of Spain, and governed that country by a niece, instead of a brother, is mere conjecture. Considering his Avhule scheme of family royalties a pernicious mistake, nothing in the Spanish invasion is more censurable than all such transactions, with which history, sacred and profane, abounds ; whose greatest demerit is want of success. Napoleon's temptations to overaetion, at that time, cannot be appreciated without adverting to the obscui'ity, contempt, and ignominy, into which the whole of the ancient royal family of France, his only competitors for the throne, had sunk. The despicable Count d'Artois, with his Condes, Bourbons, Polignacs, and other conspirators, bad fallen into poverty- stricken inanition. The Duke of Orleans, hid, almost un- known, in a remote corner of Southern Italy. The Count of Lisle, as Louis XVIII. was called, long vagabond and outcast, 284 B0URB0X3. had become a pest. Russia, Prussia, Austria, and other conti- nental powers, dreading Napoleon, and adulating him, treated the poor pretender to the French throne as if he were the Egyptian jjlaguc, or some other pestilence, which must be excluded from their dominions ; and he escaped, at last, not into England, where he was not allowed even to land, but to Scotland, where he and his family were relegated. Driven hastily from Russia by the Emperor Paul, and transiently rein- stated there by his son Alexander, Louis found refuge, at one time, in "Warsaw, then the chief town of a Prussian province, where the King of Prussia asked Bonaparte if he had any objection to the pretender's remaining ; to which the First Consul answered, kindly, as was his invariable treatment of the Bourbons, that he had no objection. Prussians, high in au- thority, probably with their government's consent, proposed to Louis, impoverished and abandoned, to abdicate the French crown for Italian principalities, which he positively refused, and of which proposal Bonaparte was uninformed. Louis, afterwards a fugitive at Verona, was compelled, or deemed it necessary, to fly thence in disguise. The whole continent of Europe becoming, at length, afraid of his residence anywhere, in 1809 he embarked, in a Swedish frigate, to seek sanctuary behind the sea-girt bulwarks of England, where his arrival was extremely unwelcome. Always bidding liberal concessions for royal restoration to what he uniformly called and deemed Ms throne, in 1804, by proclamation, he promised to reform the old French royal government ; and by another proclamation, in 1806, went the length of granting pardon, oblivion, and confirmation to all the revolutionary acts from 1789 to 1804 — to everything but the Empire and Napoleon. When he arrived in Eno-land, so forlorn was his destitute condition, and so formidable Napoleon, that the ministry refused to let Louis land, or go to London. He was ordered to Scotland, and, in effect, dethroned by an official order in Council, which, careful not to style him king, called him merely the " Chief of the Bourbon family, who will find an honorable and safe asylum, if he will live among us conformably to his actual situation. But as the war in which we are engaged requires the unanimous BOURDONS, 285 support of tlio English people, ^vc -will not compromise it by imprudently taking ground whicli would give it a new eha- ractcr, and discourage the nation, "when the suhmission of nearly the whole continent of Europe to the order of things existing in France presents fewer chances for the re-establish- ment of the Bourbons than at any other epoch of the revolu- tionary war, which Great Britain almost alone sustains." The detlironed and forlorn Bourbon pretender, landing in England the day that the Emperor Napoleon, in all his then enormous and delusive might, crossed the Pyrenees, on his way to subdue Spain into the government of his brother Joseph — protesting against, but obliged to submit to his hard fate, as simple Count of Lisle, was glad to accept the almost charitable hospitality of a proud but generous English nobleman, the Duke of Buck- ingham ; and at one of his country-houses, Gosficld Hall, shrunk into the disfranchisement and insignificance, from which he would never have emerged, but for Napoleon's infatuation. To that desperate degradation had war, aristocratical and monarchical hostility, enabled Bonaparte to reduce the wretched Bourbons. If Louis, instead of the hiding-place begrudged to his family in Scotland, had, like Louis Philippe and Joseph Bonaparte, when expelled, sought refuge in America, his sanctuary would have been more unintimidated. If the Bourbons had been expelled from thrones in France, Spain, and the Sicihes, it would have been useful to all those countries. At all events, Joseph Bonaparte is innocent of all but conciliatory and laud- able means to accomplish his brother's design, which proved highly beneficial to Spain, by political and ecclesiastical re- forms. Wise Spaniards regret that Joseph was not adopted as King of Spain. The Memoirs of a Statesman, inimical as that work is to all the Bonapartes, describes Joseph, on his entry into Naples, as " a well-disposed man, of mild manners, exempt from ambition, who would have preferred a peaceable existence to the brilliant condition allotted for him ; a theoriz- ing calculator in politics and in administration, by his conver- sation and wi'itings protecting the industry and commerce, which his mere presence revived or put to flight." Ivegencra- 286 JOSEPH IN SPAIN. tion of Noijles is eclipsed by sucli brilliant exploits as tbo vic- tories of Napoleon ; but impartial liistory must not be blinded by dazzling events. General Lamarque's published letters of 1824 and 1830, wbicli Joseph, not without proper sensibility, has shown me at Point Breeze, recapitulated, as an eye-witness of his reforms in the Two Sicilies, feudality extinguished, rob- bery and general depredation crushed, a system of just, instead of unjust, taxation introduced, the finances from chaos brought to order, the nobles and people reconciled, the construction of good roads in all directions, the capital embellished, the army and navy organized, and general prosperity established, by King Joseph's carrying into that benighted kingdom the sun- shine of the French liberal principles of 1789. Taken reluc- tantly from a crown of roses in Naples, to a crown of thorns in Spain, Joseph, on his arrival at Bayonne, was assured that Charles IV. refused to return to Spain without the Prince of Peace, who was universally detested ; that Ferdinand, who had dethroned his father, was wholly untrustworthy, as a son dethroning his father was shocking to all Europe ; that the junta assembled and united at Bayonne regarded Joseph's ac- ceptance of the throne they proffered as the only safety for Spain ; which Ferdinand was the first to confii-m, by his con- gratulations to the new king. One of the earliest and most active of his Spanish enemies, Toreno, thus describes Joseph : "Joseph Napoleon, after refusing the throne of Lombardy, which Napoleon offered him, governed the kingdom of Naples with adequate intelligence and success. In a tranquil period, and provided with sufficient authority, if not more legitimate, at least less odious in its origin, the intrusive monarch, far from dishonoring the throne, would have helped the happiness of Spain. Born of the common class, and having gone through all the overturnings of a great political revolution, he possessed essentially the knowledge of men and things. Of a gentle dis- position, with a gracious countenance, well informed, polished, and polite in his manners, he M'ould have captivated the Spa- niards, if he had not beforehand so grievously wounded them in their point of honor and their pride. Moreover, Joseph's extreme propensity to effeminacy and pleasure somewhat ob- JOSErH IN i^PAIX. 287 soured his fine qualltlos, and gave rise to ridiculous fables and old women's stories of his person, -which the multitude adopted in their passionate enmity. To such a point did this go, that, not satisfied with accusing him of being a drunkard and disso- lute, it was carried so far as to accuse him of bodily defects, and they said he was blind of one eye. His fluent and flowery elocution of itself became very injurious to him ; for, carried away by it, he risked himself by making speeches in a tongue not familiar to him, whose imprudent use, joined to the exaggerated report of his defects, induced the composition of popular farces, played in all the theatres of the kingdom, which contributed to throw on his person not hatred, but contempt, which, of all the sentiments of the soul, is the most terrible for him who desires to encircle his forehead with a crown. On the Avhole, Joseph, although endowed with many praiseworthy qualities, wanted those austere and warlike virtues then neces- sary in Spain ; and his imperfections, feeble spots at any other time, swelled immeasurably in the eyes of an ofl'ended and furious nation." The war in Spain between the French and Spanish was ex- terminating. Universal destruction of the French, by any means, was the Spanish method ; universal pillage and rapine the French system, with rare exceptions on either side to that cruel code. Persons there at the time, on whose statements I can rely, mention abominable barbarities which seem incredi- ble : all breaking forth on both sides, after the dreadful slaughter at Madrid, the 2d May, 1808, when Murat subdued and punished by sanguinary vengeance what he deemed, and probably truly, a revolt. After that, as I am assured by my informant, then in Madrid, women contracted the venereal dis- ease on purpose to give it to the French, wells were filled with assassinated Frenchmen ; and French officers of every rank robbed every thing and every where, with undisguised rapine. In the French Revolution there was more, but not more shock- ing, bloodshed ; never in the world plunder and robbery so universal. The most distinguished exception to these enormi- ties was King Joseph ; against whom it is a common English and American prejudice to believe that he pilfered palaces and 288 JOSEPH KING OF SPAIN-. churches, and that the pictures and otlier ornaments of his American residence were spoliations from Spain. Like Napo- leon, Joseph was no lover of money. Marrying some fortune, he was enabled during the revolution to increase it by cheap purchases of the property, both real and personal, which were then opportune. Valuable donations, on the several foreign missions he filled, added more, as is common in Europe on all such occasions. Several years king, his privy purse was con- siderable. By all these fair means his property increased, though never very large ; not exceeding a million of dollars. While King of Spain, a person named Christophe, skilled in pictures, purchased them there for him, as opportunity offered. Not one of those he possessed was captured, or otherwise ille- gally obtained. On the contrary, the Duke of Wellington took all of King Joseph's baggage and effects at the battle of Vittoria, but found no ill-got plunder among them. Entering Spain the 8th July, 1808, within a week of his arrival at Madrid tidings of Dupont's disastrous surrender of the French army at Baylen, caused by anxiety to save plunder, compelled King Joseph to retire from his capital, and begin his fatal contest with that peculiar people, for whose admirable and invincible, ferocious and romantic nationality, Joseph Bo- naparte entertained the highest respect, which I have often heard him express. Insuperable provincial attachments, which in Franco and other countries it was the constant labor of Na- poleon, by metropolitan centralization, to destroy, saved the whole Spanish kingdom from subjugation. Universal insur- rection was simultaneous, from Asturias to Andalusia. The smallest of all the Spanish provinces, armed by nature with the superior aptitude for war and love of independence of mountain population, by instantaneous, instinctive resistance, with which all the other provinces sympathizing, roused the whole kingdom against its invaders. Notwithstanding a caste of prouil nobility, and a class of domineering clergy, conside- rable e<|uality is a Spanish popular right, habit, and power. As always takes place, when emergencies draw forth demo- cratic patriotism, the notable and most respectable inhabitants, of all classes, Avere elected members of the provincial juntas, par- JOSEPH KING OF SPAIN. 289 ticularly in Asturias, superseding tlic merely noble, the merely vulgar, and otherwise unworthy, apt to contrive to be upper- most in the stagnation of democracy. Less selfish and more determined than royalty in capitals, rural democracy, also more prompt and energetic, verified Pitt's dying prophecy. The Spanish mountaineers, muleteers, shepherds, and populace al- together, rose as one man, armed vrith fury and whatever weapons it supplied, against Napoleon's disciplined armies. Although the nobility and higher clergy mostly gave in their adhesion to King Joseph, an unlettered and indolent mass, as described by Valleius Paterculus eighteen hundred years be- fore, scattered, numerous, and fierce, rushed to conflict, with sanguinary ardor, for their rude homes, their captive sove- reign, and their dominant religion. Whether they could have resisted Napoleon without English aid, is a question on which England and Spain are at issue. The Prince of Peace, in his memoirs, written during his retirement at Ptome, by plausible reasons and multiplied proofs, insists that the French could never have subdued the Spanish alone. And Godoy was a man much superior to English and French adopting Spanish aristocratic disparagement of that upstart ; liberal and intelli- gent, though more avaricious than ambitious, decried by the jealous nobility, over whom he was raised from obscurity. George W. Irving, a highly respectable gentleman, American minister in Spain during nearly all the war, thus answers my enquiry of him as to the reality of things there. " As to the works of Thiers and Torreno" (which I mentioned to him), "par nobile of state vampires, it is difiicult to say which of the two is least worthy of credit as authority. In the Prince of Peace, his amour propre apart, I have faith, for I knew him inti- mately. Whatever errors belonged to his incompetency as statesman, he was honest, frank, and loyal, and his amiable character had given to him popularity (the plebs there not being qualified censors of administrative faults), but for the influence and intrigues of the grandees, into whose ranks he had heen foistech If it is in public as in domestic afl'airs, that a favorite has no friends, much less has he when his ascen- VOL. III. — 10 290 SPAIN. (lancj humiliates, whilst usurping the hereditary authority and influence of the upper orders." So jealous is Spanish independence of foreign help, that General Spencer and the English troops despatched from Gib- raltar to Cadiz (with whom were the two Swiss regiments of De Watteville and Meuron, soon after employed in Canada) were not allowed to land, but obliged to go to Portugal ; and when Lord Collingwood, with an English fleet, hastened to offer their services for the capture of the five French ships of the line near Cadiz, under Admiral Rosilly, the Spanish- com- mander at Cadiz rejected the English co-operation, and com- pelled tlie French fleet to surrender to Spaniards alone. At the same time the Duke of Orleans (Louis Philippe), landing at Cadiz to obtain a command which had been promised to him in the Spanish forces, was not only peremptorily refused, but ordered to leave Spain forthwith, as he was forced to do. Neither English reinforcement, nor even Bourbon French command, did the Spanish authorities desire, except in funds and food, to enable them to resist the French invasion. Eng- lish participation in the war began in Portugal, where the French army under Junot capitulated. England did all she could to realize Pitt's prediction. On the same day that Napoleon proclaimed Joseph at Bayonne, 7th June, 1808, an agent from the province of Asturias was warmly welcomed in London by the minister, Canning, the parliament, and the people. There Wellington, animated by recollections of Pitt's description of Spanish nationality, began his victorious career, by a long succession of triumphs over the French, to dethrone, not only King Joseph in Madrid, but the Emperor Napoleon in Paris ; to which result their Spanish invasion largely contributed. Numerous works, Spanish, French and English, by partakers ill it, describe the war in Spain, from 1808 to 1813, which my Sketch need not dwell upon ; but, briefly noticing its political and moral results, cross the Atlantic with them, and present its greatest reaction, the emancipation of Spanish America from three hundred years of the strictest colonial servitude. T^Ierely personal and dynastic interests, both Bourbon and Bo- SPANI.'^II AMERICA. 291 naparte, arc insignificant, conipared -with those groat political and moral consequences. The provincial juntas soon rclin- (luishcd part of their national powers to a central junta, charged with the general welfare, whose manifesto, issued on the 28th of October, 1809, from Seville, truly premised that, by a combination of events, it seemed good to Providence that, in the terrible crisis, Spain should not advance a single step towards independence, without advancing one towards liberty. The stagnant, filthy pools in v,hich the Spanish government wallowed, required a foreign and a giant hand to purify them. Disastrous as Napoleon's violence was to him and his family, it was necessary and beneficial to Spain. Provincial produced national agitation ; and, in the midst of many French victories, not only was Joseph monarch of no more than where and while his armies of strangers were stationed, but competition between him and the juntas arose for popular favor, which soon restored, for the Spanish people, their antiquated representative govern- ment, much improved. In that contest of concession, all Spain, European, American, Asiatic, and African, was invited to elect deputies to a Cortes, which, on the 24th of September, 1810, was installed at Cadiz, when that beautiful city was the only sanctuary of Spanish independence from subjugation. All the rest of Spain vras, for the moment, overrun by the French, the bombardment by whose forces besieging Cadiz, answered the cannon within its walls, saluting the inaugura- tion of a body, whose dedication to free discussion more than repaid all the sufferings of all the conflict. For neither a Bourbon king nor a good king, but for a prisoner in France, who represented their established chief magistracy, the Cortes wisely and bravely swore allegiance to Ferdinand. Cadiz then, and ISIoscow, two years afterwards, in flames lighted by Rus- sian bands, outshone Paris, when Fouche, Lafayette, and others, surrendered their capital, their chief magistrate, and their country, to conquerors, Avho inflicted a restoration worse than revolution. In that concession to popular favor, to which every govern- ment in trouble resorts, the Cortes far outwent King Joseph. By the constitution which he granted, the Cortes was not a 292 SPAIN. dispenser of wliolesome public sentiment, but a registry fur royal decrees. Its sessions were to be secret. Whereas those of the Spanish Cortes were open, like Parliament and Con- gress. Joseph's constitution merely promised future freedom of the press. But the Spanish Cortes, on motion of Augustin Arguelles, granted it at once and unreservedly ; so that the public journals of Cadiz proclaimed to all Spain and the world, that word of patriotic liberty, which is more potent than the sword of despotism. Various modifications of constitutional freedom and representative government have since followed those concessions of the Spanish Cortes. The church has been deprived of most of its inordinate control, for which reform Spain is mainly indebted to the Bonapartes, who found among the Spanish clergy great numbers of protestants against the foreign influence of the Pope and the abuses of the Inquisition. The State of Spain gained, from its Bourbon monarchs con- tending v«'ith Bonaparte, political reforms which range it, since the French invasion, among the representative governments of Europe. Regeneration of Spain, proclaimed by Joseph Bona- jDarte as the motive of his reign, resulted from the attempts, not indeed as he and Napoleon anticipated, but to an extent which more than redeems all it cost. But it is Spanish America where the results have been most signal and momentous. King Joseph hastened to despatch agents over the Atlantic, to invite adhesion to his government ; five of whom reached their destination, but none were received with favor, and one was executed in Cuba. At the same time, the Spanish patriots, as they were called, availed themselves of English proffers of vessels to reach America, without loss of time, by prosperous voyages ; on whose arrival, bursts of unanimous attachment to the mother country, and indignation against its French invaders, broke forth from all parts of Spanish America. Buenos Ayres, Peru, Chili, New Grenada, Mexico, Florida, the islands, Cuba, Porto Rico, and Spanish part of St. Domingo, at once proclaimed their adhesion to the imprisoned King Ferdinand. Never did so many people, in such remote and distant parts of the world, all at once rise up together in glorious and zealous communion of patriotism. SPANISH AMERICA. 293 Spanisli-Amcrican independence had been Ions; prepared by many causes. Fourteen millions of people in Spanish South America, seven millions in Mexico, with some more in Cuba, Porto Rico, the Spanish part of St. Domingo, and Florida, were too many to be held in servitude by thirteen millions of Spaniards in another hemisphere, whose policy and methods of colonial government were contrary to all modern ideas of political economy and commercial welfare. Not only was all the commerce of the exuberant Spanish colonies confined to Spain alone, but to one port in Spain — Seville or Cadiz. Not only were all the public offices in the colonies filled by Euro- pean Spaniards, but many of them were needy adventurers, commissioned to repair broken fortunes by rapacity and op- pression, against whose extortions complaint was worse than useless, for it was dangerous. After the French invasion of Spain, the crowds of such odious taskmasters increased by its convulsions. Such usages were not, however, peculiar to Spa- nish colonial government, but common to all European coun- tries having American colonies ; prevalent in Canada, under British rule, till very lately. The independence and rapid development of this country, the French Pievolution and its vast influences, commercial restrictions, American exclusion from office, all combined to inspire the Spanish-American Creoles with hopes and plans of emancipation. As soon as war was declared between Spain, as the ally of France, and England, in 1796, Miranda, a native of Venezuela, with a Spaniard named Picornel, attempted revolution at Caraccas, which failed, Humboldt said, because then the opinion of Spa- nish America respecting the mother country was not what French and English books had taught in the capital of iMexico. But those lessons were abroad throughout America ; and when the French invaded and apparently conquered Spain, in 1808-9-10, French conquests in Spain rendered it necessary that American Spaniards should take care of themselves. Although colonists seemed to have no option but between inde- pendence and submission to French government, still, when setting up for themselves, far from declaring war against, they proclaimed fraternization with Spain, allegiance to Ferdinand 294 SPANISH AMERICA. a.s tlieir lawful sovereign, and implacable hostility to liis French conqueror and jailor. It was not till the Bourbons reigned in Spain that her Spa- nish colonies were treated as slaves. Charles V. had provided that the discoverers, settlers, and those born in America, should be preferred before all others for offices of state, church, and jurisprudence ; that the natives should be deemed freemen and vassals of the crown ; the colonies an integral part of the Spanish monarchy ; and that no law of Spain should be bind- ing on the colonies unless sanctioned by their representatives, the Council of the Indies. Such liberal provisions might have prevented, at all events postponed, revolt. But cupidity, mo- nopoly, peculation, and extortion, triumphed over all wholesome regulations, and the Spanish-American proconsulates were pro- bably the grossest misgovernments in Christendom ; especially ander Charles IV., when it was said that every office in Ame- rica was sold. Of the one hundred and sixty viceroys preced- ing the revolutions, all but four were Spaniards by birth, and those four educated and strongly connected in Spain. The Creoles were therefore ripe for independence of sucli misgovcrn- ment when the Bonapartes gave the signal for it, by their attempt to dethrone the Bourbons, whose abuses for more than a century had impoverished, insulted, degraded, and outraged their faithful American subjects. Yet they did not revolt against the Boui-bons, but against the Bonapartes ; and even- tual emancipation of regions ninety-two degrees of latitude in extent, embracing more than two millions of miles square, and abounding in all the elements of national wealth, power, and prosperity, except liberty and industry, is due to Spanish per- sistence, after Spain was invaded by the French, in the old system of colonial oppression, and Spanish endeavor to trans- fer the colonies to French government. Though first tidings of that invasion was received in Ame- rica by one universal and unanimous acclaim of allegiance to the old Spanish government, yet, as its extreme follies, imbe- cility, and mismanagement became more apparent, the edu- cated Spaniards, civil, ecclesiastical, and military, yielding to the French, and resistance to them being left as the task of SPANI.'^II AMERICA. 295 tlie common people, the gvcut body of American Spaniard?;, in nearly every province governed by weak and unworthy Spanish agents, turned their attention to independence, though still without disloyalty to Spain. Their causes for revolt were much greater than those of the British-American colonies in 1775. But as Spain, in 1808, was in trouble and war, whereas England, in 1775, was at peace and prosperous, it seemed to be befitting Spanish colonial honor not to take advantage of the distressed condition of the mother country, in order to throw her off entirely, but rather to begin the movement toward in- dependence by alliance offensive and defensive with Spain against her French invaders. Except by the people repre- sented by provincial assemblies, and finally by the Congress, a parliament called Cortez, elected by the people, which suc- ceeded the other concentrations of public will, Spain was feebly vindicated and inefficiently marshalled. The Central Junta was expelled from Seville, then the seat of the national govern- ment, by the French, who subdued all Andalusia. A regency which was established, proved not only incapable to govern, but unworthy of any confidence. On the 17th April, 1810, they published a royal order, throwing open the commerce of the colonies with foreign countries and with Europe. But as Cadiz, till then entitled to the monopoly of colonial trade, re- monstrated, not only was the royal order revoked, but it was denied that it had ever been granted, though it had been pub- lished more than a month when revoked. The regency then sent a respectable, but aged and inexperienced, commissioner, Cortavarria, to America, who was assisted by the Marquis of Casa Yrujo, former Spanish minister here, and who married in this country, then at Brazil, in the circulation of advice, promises, and caution throughout Spanish America. But the promises were faint, the concessions inconsiderable, and the general in- clination throughout nearly all the colonies for independence too decided to be counteracted by such means. Remote from each other, and without much facility for intercourse, they neverthe- less agreed in desire and determination for self-government. On the 10th April, 1810, insurrection began at Caraccas, chief city of the north of South America. On the 13th May, 296 MEXICO. 1810, on being informed, by the arrival of an English vessel at Montevideo, that the French were in possession of all An- dalusia, and the Central Junta driven from Seville, Buenos Ajres followed Caraccas. On the 22d July, 1810, Granada organized her Supreme Junta, and deposed the Spanish vice- roy, as Santa Fe and Quito, and all the other provinces, did theirs, except Peru. Excepting Peru, Cuba, and Porto Rico, where Spanish authority continued, and Mexico, where it tri- umphed over the revolt attempted, all the Spanish-American colonies declared their independence of Spain, but without hostility to her. On the contrary, their emancipation, com- plaining of no wrongs suffered or grievances to be redressed, predicated necessity for the colonies to take care of themselves, their allegiance to Ferdinand, their alliance with Spain, and their hostility to her French invaders. The federative govern- ment of Venezuela, by their manifesto, announced, that with a population of nine millions, and an extent of fertile territory superior to any empire in the world, they were determined to submit no longer to the domination of any European or foreign power whatever. Loyal and faithful to a lawful government, while it subsisted in Spain, to save themselves from the yoke of the French Emperor, the Spanish provinces declared them- selves a free, sovereign, and independent people. The La Plata manifesto breathed the same spirit, about the same time. In Mexico, the people received news of the French invasion with cries of devotion to Ferdinand and resistance to Napo- leon. But emissaries from King Joseph, with orders from Fer- dinand to transfer Mexican allegiance from him to Joseph, were sustained by the European Spaniards in Mexico, which the Creoles resisted ; resolved, as they were generally through- out all Spanish America during the troubles of their mother country, to hold its American possessions for the lawful sove- reigns, by whom they had been so ill treated. In Spain, the* regency declared war against the prudent and inoffensive Ame- rican movement of the colonies towards independence, which, in the course of a few months, without concert, simultaneously united nearly all Spanish America to vindicate themselves from French dominion. The Spanish-Americans adhered to King SPAIN. 297 Joseph, wlillc the Americans persisted in loyalty to Ferdinand, who transferred them to Joseph. To provide against that strange perversion, Iturrigaray, the Viceroy of Mexico, sug- gested the calling of a junta from all the Mexican provinces, to consist of Spaniards and Creoles, to save the countiy from civil "war and French control. To prevent such an assembly, the Spaniards revolted against Iturrigarray, seized him on the night of the loth September, 1808, and sent him to Spain. His successor, Vanegas, proceeding in the same course, a con- spiracy was organized by the clergy and lawyers throughout nearly all the towns of Mexico, which, being betrayed when about to act, produced the revolt headed by the priest Hidalgo, who, with a crowd of more than a hundred thousand followers, but nearly all without fire-arms, having not more than a thou- sand muskets, attacked the city of Mexico, were defeated with great and cruel slaughter, Hidalgo executed, and that military ascendancy maintained which has been ever since the curse of Mexico. Such was the state of things when the Cortez assembled at Cadiz, in September, 1810; where every one of the American members, and a majority of the whole body, were imbued with the principles of progressive free government. That great advance in the way of representative institutions was an early step of the reaction, forVhich Spain and mankind are indebted to the contest between Bourbon and Bonaparte kings, for the establishment of much more limited and absolute monarchy. From that time to this the Spanish monarchy has been a re- presentative government, with a legislative department, the antiquated Cortez, then first reinstated, and much better en- dowed than before that partial representation of the Spanish people fell into desuetude. It had been in fact nullified by absolute monarchy, Avhich now depends on it for supplies, and is accustomed to hear the people eloquently addressed from its tribunal. On motion of an American member from Santa Fe de Bogota, the Cortez, on the 2oth September, 1810, went into secret session on Spanish-American affairs. Their delibera- tions resulted, on the loth October, in a decree, which equal- ized the rights of the Americans with the old Spaniards, and 298 SPANL'Il AMERICA. granted a general amnesty, witliout restriction. OtLcr con- cessions followed, from time to time, but too late to reconcile the mother country and colonies, after civil war among the colonists sprang from the war which Spain w'aged against h-er American adherents. European Spaniards, called loyalists, and American Spaniards or Creoles, styled independents and patriots, during several years of conflict, vicissitudes, and com- motions, contended for mastery. The breach continually Avi- dened ; but, while old Spain was roused to representative government, the march of all Spanish America to not only independence, but repviblicanism, after the example of the British American colonies, was constant and irresistible. The general European opinion formerly, that every thing European degenerates in America, has undergone reversal, since the British colonies became independent. Freedom and repub- lican institutions throughout all the American hemisphere, except the empire of Brazil, where monarchy is much changed from its Portuguese establishment, are ends of infinitely greater importance than the wars and changes by whose moans Bourbons and Bonapartcs agitated Europe and America, though history dwells on the means wuth more gratification than the ends. Calm consideration and perhaps longer time are necessary to appreciate the American results from an attempt to substitute a Bonaparte for a Bourbon on the Spa- nish throne. And the European means employed to effect that end are more pleasant materials for the romance of his- tory. But philosophy will consider Napoleon the great, and his august Bourbon victims as all of them mere instruments of overruling Providence for reforming the government of Spain and republicanizing that of Spanish America. Even colonized Ameriza was more necessary to Europe than Europe to Ame- rica. The precious metals which constitute European currency, most of the cotton Avhich clothes Europe, iron, and other ma- terials of first necessity, abounding in America more than in Europe, sugar, coffee, and other luxuries which America has rendered necessaries in Europe, but more than all, self-govern- ment exemplified to Europe by America, have so changed the relations of the old world to the new, that American colonies RUSSIA. 299 of Europe must soon cease to exist. Dependence of Europe on America is continually substituted for dependence of Ame- rica on Europe, -whicli is every day more felt and acknow- ledged. While Napoleon, by an Austrian princess corroborat- ing Lis dynasty, annexing the Papal States and Holland to France, bv his marshals Suchet and Massena triunii)hin<:j in Spain and Portugal, seemed to be irresistibly forcing his bro- ther on the Spanish throne, the Spanish provinces whicli formed the American confederation of Venezuela, in April of that same year, 1810, set up a government to endure, in a country to prosper, long after the vast empire of a modern Charlemagne crumbled to ruins. Invasion of Russia, superadded to that of Spain, Avas war- fare vaster than the modern Charlemagne could compass. The six weeks lost by loitering at Moscow, coaxing peace, let loose the severities of a premature northern winter, to destroy liis army. Next spring, the battles of Lutzen and Bautzen, with forces replenished by young conscripts, preluded the armistice of Plesswitz, pernicious, like the delay at Moscow. Napoleon's naked SAVord, never parried, was foiled, in the scab- bard, by Metternich's pen. King Joseph's total defeat at Vit- toria, on the 21st of June, 1813, while Napoleon was deluded by the Congress of Prague he solicited at Dresden, was a knell rung for all his allies to join his enemies. And liis full was as rapid as his rise. The sixth coalition organized for his overthroAV consisted of potentates, all of them as rapacious as he of aggrandisement. Austria made war on him for Italy, Prussia for Hanover, Spain threatened it, Russia waged it for Poland, Sweden for Norway, England for the dominion of the seas and large parts of the earth. They had all, except Eng- land, acknowledged liis brother as King of Spain, his brother- in-law as King of Naples, another brother as King of West- phalia, a sister as sovereign of Tuscany, and a ste])-son as Viceroy of Italy. But if they were aggressors, the end crowned their means with the justification of success. From the rupture of the peace of Amiens, which was entirely an English act, to the Congress of Vienna, when the spoils of the French Empire were distributed, it would not be easy to say 300 NAPOLEON DEFEATED. which government was most aggressive and grasping. Napo- leon's seizure of Spain was not more unjustifiable than the English bombardment of Copenhagen and capture of the Danish fleet there. The British orders in Council, French Berlin and Milan decrees, which forced this country into the general conflagration of hostilities, were all stupendous infrac- tions of right. But Bonaparte's sudden and violent apparition in all these transactions, enabled what was called legitimate government to denounce him, when overthrown, as chief wrong- doer. All Europe, most of America, some of Africa and Asia, were involved in perpetual conflict on his account. When the monarchs were all defeated, and their capitals captured by him, as a last resort, they called in the people to their rescue, and promised them, for their help, a share in government. Napo- leon then confessed to his confidants that his dictatorship had been continued too long. A million of men, in arms, chased him from Leipsic to Paris ; their principal chief, the Emperor Alexander, proclaiming that Napoleon alone was their object, and should be their only victim, without dismemberment or even degradation of France. Two other eminent French generals accompanied the invaders; and though Moreau was killed, Bernadotte survived to be crowned Emperor of the French, if Alexander could effect his substitution for Napoleon. When the invaders broke through Switzerland, and otherwise into France, German monarchy and aristocracy were enthusi- astically supported by democracy, and Napoleon's best, if not only chance, was to let loose the French democracy against that of Germany. But though never a sanguinary ruler, delighting in no Idood- shed but that of battle, and having established equality as the basis of his sovereignty, he had, in eight years of military domination, entirely suppressed liberty ; and returned to Pa- ris, the defeated and most formidable despot in the world. The press was enslaved. A terrible police prevailed. The only public bodies established by the constitution, the Senate, the Council of State, and the Legislature, were all reduced by him to mere silent registries of his imperial will. On the 19th of August, 1807, discussion, till then lawful and usual, was NArOLEOX DEFEATED. 301 iiiterilictcd in the Legislature by a decree of tlic Senate. During several years, tliere was no public sentiment but >vhat the Emperor allowed or fabricated. When driven back to Paris, to call for the si)u-it and resources of the nation, pur- sued by the roused people of other nations, the French mo- narch not only persisted in refusing, but aggravated his exclu- sion of the community from all part in public affairs ; though such was not merely his fame, but his popularity, that not a French province, town, or place, rose against him. All France, except his marshals and ministers, remained faithful to his tyrannical government; to his, which was their great glory; to his person, as their chosen representative of the nation. If he had permitted Paris, Lyons, other great towns and the rural population every where to be armed and fight, they would have defended him from the foreigners with invincible ardor. If he had trusted them, they would not have suffered him to be dethroned. Next year, on his return from Elba, he prof- fered popular rights, when it was too late. In 1813, he not only withheld and refused them, but spurned, insulted, and abused their representatives in the government. His sole reliance was military and arbitrary — on his armies and himself. With a hundred thousand troops shut up, far from France, in various German garrisons, ninety thousand in Spain, and but about sixty thousand at his own command in France, long estranged from all popular reliances, he trusted to those alone who surrounded, flattered, betrayed and surrendered him. The people would never have deserted him. They never did. The Boui'bons, insignificant and contemptible competi- tors, had scarcely any supporters but the English government ; next to none in France ; none at all in the armies led by the Emperor of Russia, King of Prussia, and Prince Swartzcnburg. Napoleon was dethroned by his own servants, his family kings, marshals and ministers ; those whom, as he truly said, he had gorged with wealth and honors. Truce was scarcely an- nounced, on the 10th of August, 1813, Avhen, on the 15th of that month, began that series of desertions, by his military and royal creatures, which, from Jomini to Bourmont, con- tinually undermined a throne, by its upstart occupant as con- 302 NAPOLEON DESERTED. stantly denied popular support. Jomini, the Swiss adjutant- general of Ney's corps, concentrating at Lignitz, in Ger- many, was the first to go over to the enemy, seduced by an aid-de-camp of the Emperor Alexander. A much more im- portant personage, Murat, the King of Naples, soon followed. From the disasters in Russia, apprehending that his imperial patron's throne was in danger, Murat deserted his post in the retreat from Moscow, and withdrew to Naples, to intrigue with the British and Austrian governments for his defection from Napoleon, and reward by his enemies. After the battles of Lutzen and Bautzen, next year. Napoleon recalled him to resume command of the French cavalry. Napoleon's disasters recommenced with the capture of Vandamme and his force at Culm, a large, handsome, rough Brabant soldier, whom we had in this country. The immense defeat of the French at Leipsic was caused by whole corps of Saxon and Wirtemburg troops deserting from the French to their enemies, in the heat of the battle. Bernadotte, Joseph Bonaparte's brother-in-law, in- debted for his Swedish crown princedom to Napoleon, was maintained in that position by the coalesced monarchs : and why should not another still nearer connexion of the Bonaparte family, in the same way, try to secure his Sicilian throne ? King Murat's Grand Equerry, the Duke of Rocca Romana, was despatched from Naples, where Fouche was, to Murat's head-quarters ; and on Napoleon's retreat from Germany to France, Murat again deserted, hastened to Naples, and con- summated his alliance with the allies, by treaties, in January, 1814 ; one with Austria, another with England. By occupy- ing the papal states, commanded by General Miollis, long an inhabitant of this country, Murat gave the most fatal blow to his brother-in-law's empire, reign and dynasty ; for which royal high treason, his punishment was severely condign. After Napoleon's second abdication and final dethronement, next year, his King of Naples was driven from the throne by the same King Ferdinand whom Joseph had expelled from it in 180(3. Murat absconded, lurking through various hiding-places in France, Corsica and Sicily ; the royal and brilliant cox- comb, long as remarkable for fantastic foppery of dress as for BONAPARTE KIX(iS. 303 romantic valor, concealing his handsome person vmder many strange disguises, lived in caverns and holes covered Avlth branches, and fled nightly from one hiding-place to another, till betrayed, at last, by his own aid-dc-camp, he was tried by a court-martial, consisting of officers of his own creation, and shot, on the 13th of October, 1815, by force of one of the most atrocious of all the Bourbon royal barbarities. King Ferdinand's order, convoking the court-martial to ti-y King Murat, directed that no more than half an hour should be allowed the condemned for religious consolation ; which infernal anticipation of the judgment exceeds, in Bourbon barbarity, the worst cruelty ever even imputed to Bonaparte. One of the certainly precipitate executioners of the Duke of Enghein, Murat's sacrifice surpassed that of the Bourbon prince in ig- nominous and remorseless despatch. The first throne on which Napoleon seated a brother, fell by a brother-in-law's preference of a throne to his brother. About the time when King INIurat, by reaction of traitorous defection, restored that throne to the least respectable of the many dethroned Bourbons, another of Napoleon's family thrones fell, in an instant, like a card-house. A party of Cos- sacks unexpectedly galloped into Cassel, capital of the king- dom of Westphalia ; whence King Jerome, completely sm-pri.sed and overpowered, instantly fled, and his kingdom of Westphalia vanished in a day, without a struggle. Not long after, what remained in Holland of King Louis's kingdom was, by the Dutch, restored to the Prince of Orange, in spite of Louis's despised protest that it belonged to the son in whose favor he abdicated. Eliza and her husband were soon stripped of their Tuscan principality. On the 11th of December, 1813, Ferdi- nand was released from his several years' imprisonment at Tal- leyrand's country residence, Valenca}^, and restored to Spain, of which Joseph resigned the kingdom. Thus, in a short time, Napoleon's family crowns were all wrested from him, and his vast empire reduced to France, invaded by a million of exas- perated enemies to dethrone him. As a military chieftain, his efibrts to prevent that result were prodigious ; but so much at variance with the free spirit which, in 1789, arose in France, 304 NAPOLEON. and, in 1700, put liim at tlie head of the government, that he proved a blind instrument of reviving, by reaction, the freedom he put, but could not keep down. On the 0th November, 1813, driven back to Paris, demoral- ized and infuriated, instead of appealing, as the monarclis of Germany in tribulation all had, with large entreaties and pro- mises, to their people for support, the French Emperor's address to his Council of State denounced those he had lonrr stigmatized as idealogists, men thinking for themselves, to whom he attributed all the French calamities, and the reisrn of terror, which he abhorred as a reign of blood. The ideal- ogists found laws on dark subtleties, he said ; proclaim insur- rection as a duty; adulate the people by proclaiming their sovereignty, who are incapable of its exercise. Convoking the Senate and Legislative Body, in order to submit to them the terms of peace proposed, finding it indispensable in that supreme crisis to enlist popular sympathy, thereby to raise men and money, yet Napoleon fatally proved, what a greater revolutionist, Voltaire, had said, that military despotism is not a form, but subversion of government, which, after destroying every thing else, destroys itself; a colossus which falls as soon as its arm is no longer uplifted. Suspecting his enemies, espe- cially the English, of hostile designs against him personally, they had fixed, he said, their rendezvous at his tomb ; and, thinking the lion dead, every ass wanted to give him a kick. Talleyrand and Fouche were, as ever, principal advisers : Fouche objected to popular concessions, Talleyrand suggested dividing the coalition by offering to make the Duke of Wel- lington king of England. Commissioners, despatched into the departments to ascertain and rouse popular patriotism, found the people quiet and well disposed, but exhausted by war, and universally anxious for peace. If the Emperor had then conceded to the Legislature what, after his return from Elba, he proffered, probably the invaders would have been repulsed, as they were twenty years before, when all France rose as one man by spontaneous union of freemen. After two hundred and fifty-four members of the INVASION OF FRAXCE. 305 Legislative Body from all parts of tlic country, fresh from tlie people, had arrived in Paris, ^vcll inclined to the Emperor, ardent for resistance of the enemy, hut disposed to revive some of the long-suppressed principles of representative go- vernment, — though "without treachery or Bourhon tendency among them, — Napoleon, for some time, would not let them assemble and organize, but kept them breathing and brooding discontent in the capital, agitated by hourly tidings of the ap- proaching enemy. AVhen at last they were permitted to assem- ble, the Emperor's communication to them of the proposed terms of peace was reserved and unsatisfactory. In their selection, therefore, of the committee to report the address to the crown, courtiers Avere excluded, and men chosen of Avell- known independence, moderation, firmness, and patriotism ; with whom the Emperor should have been satisfied, for they and their sentiments were sympathetic with popular ardor and national strength. France was stronger, said Regnault de St. Jean d'Angely, than in 17U2, when the Prussian invasion was repelled, or in 1799, when the Russian was discomfited. Na- poleon had all, and more than all, the same resources in his hands, except the republican spirit, Avhich alone was wanting. One of the members of the Legislature, Laine, a Bourdeaux lawyer, known to be of republican inclinations, was, on that account, suspected as a revolutionist by those around the Em- peror's person, from whom he had contracted the unavoidable bad executive habit of receiving theirs as public sentiment. After animated discussion in committee, but not allowed public debaie, a report was presented and adopted by the large ma- jority of 203 votes to 51, which entreated his imperial majesty to maintain the entire and constant execution of laws guaran- teeing to Frenchmen the rights of liberty, safety, and property, and to the nation the free exercise of its political rights. It seems incredible that such generalities, in harmless phrases, should have offended and alarmed the Emperor. But, as the invaders were on their march to Paris, and, on the olst De- cember, 1813, the army of Schwartzcnbcrg broke through Switzerland, on its v>'ay, Napoleon summoned his council, who Vol. hi. — 20 .306 NAPOLEON. advised that such language, at that time, was seditious. It is no time, said the Emperor, when the national existence is menaced, to talk about constitutions and the rights of the people. On the 31st December, 1813, therefore, the Legis- lature was dissolved, after three days session, and the few copies of the report printed for the use of the members seized by imperial order, and destroyed. Next day, when all the public authorities, as usual on the first of the year, waited on the sovereign, with complimentary addresses, and the Legis- lative Body, among the rest, presented themselves at the foot of the throne, the Emperor, going down from it, approaching and angrily accosting them, by harsh, coarse language, uttered in the most offensive manner, rejected, defied, insulted, and abused the popular sentiment. "Eleven-twelfths of you are good men, but the rest faction- ists," he said, fiercely. "You might have done good; you have done harm. I called on you to help me ; instead of which you comfort the foreigners. Your committee has been led by English agents. Your JNL Laine is a bad fellow ; the loss of two battles in France would not do as much mischief as his report. I needed consolation ; you cover me with mud. That is not the way to elevate the throne. What is a throne, but bits of wood covered with a strip of velvet? The throne is in the nation; and don't you know that I represent it above all — I, who have been four times raised to the head of it by fiv^e millions of votes ? I represent it with a title. You have none ; you are but repre- sentatives of the departments. Is this the time for your re- monstrances, when two hundred thousand Cossacks are cross- ing the frontiers ? Is this the time to talk of individual liberty, when the national liberty is at stake ? Your ideal- ogues demand guarantees against power, when France wants them only against the enemy. If not satisfied with the con- stitution, you should have demanded another four montlis ago ; or two years after we get peace. Why talk before all Europe of domestic grievances ? Dirty clothes should be washed at home. You want to imitate the Constituent As- INVASION OF PRANCE. 307 sembly, and make a revolution. But I shall not imitate tho king that then was ; I'd rather abandon the throne, and make one of the sovereign people, than be a king-slave." Such vulgar and insulting treatment was more offensive than oppression, for people will bear that rather than insult. With transcendant talents, generally polite and captivating manner^, on that occasion, irritated, mortified, and alarmed beyond en- durance or acknowledgment, Napoleon i^layed the tyrant even more than he had ever really performed it. Several men of note, one of them a member of the Legislature, representing the Geneva district, were ordered to leave his presence ; but Laine, the chief author of the legislative report which gave so much offence, who, though advised not to venture into the Emperor's presence, manfully went, was not noticed. Not a word of reproach was addressed to him by the mighty master, maddened by reverses, after years of infatuating success, power, and adulation. If, as he began liis mad speech by saying, eleven-twelfths of the Legislature were good men, what folly to insult them all by passionate reproaches, which were intended but for a small fraction ! The arfrument of the imperial invective, no doubt premeditated, though spoken has- tily, is forcible that the crisis was fitter for action than remon- strance. But when has liberty a chance for recovery from oppression, except in such conjunctures, as next year Napo- leon, attempting the restoration of his reign, conceded. In 1814, his iron will, inflamed by pride and passion to white heat, struck from the heart eloquent reproach, which his own cooler judgment, in 1815, condemned. Impolitic and undig- nified ebullition of temper, however, indicative of the genius which ruled most of the world, chastened by a year's banish- ment from power, was followed by competition between Napo- leon and Louis XVIII. , bidding concessions for a crown, whicli reconstructed gradually the foundations laid in 1789. In a few days after that outbreak the Emperor left Paris, to take command of his army for the defence of France, when the number and proportions of the hostile forces were thus enumerated : 308 INVASION or feance. Allied army under Schwartzenberg 190,000 Army of Silesia, under Blucher 100,000 Army of the North, under Bernadotte 130,000 Dutch corps, 12,000 ; Englisii in Belgium 8,000 German reserve forming 80,000 Austrian reserve forming on the Inn 50,000 Russian reserve forming in Poland 60,000 Troops of the Allies blockading French garrisons in various places , 100,000 Austrian army in Italy under Bellegarde 70,0()0 English, Spanish, Portuguese, Sicilians, and Sardinians, under Wellington 140,000 1,000,000 A million of regular soldiers, besides the German militia (landwclir) and mass of armed levies of peasants and towns- people (landstrum), the Spanish guerrillas, and other irregular forces, all of -which were extremely injurious to the retreating French. And from this enumeration are excluded, also, Murat's army of 25,000 Neapolitans, in the Papal States, and a body of 15,000 Sicilians, under the English. To oppose such hordes of enemies, Napoleon had not more than 350,000 soldiers ; of whom scarce 100,000 were at his disposition. 100,000 were shut up in various distant for- tresses ; 90,000 were in Spain, under Soult and Suchet ; 60,000 in Italy, under Eugene Beauharnois ; leaving about 120,000 under Marshals Macdonald, Marmont, Mortier, Vic- tor, Ney, and Augereau, in various parts of France, of which the Emperor never had more than (30,000 together, under his immediate command. After a short winter campaign, in which his military supe- riority to all other commanders was more than ever signalized, with scarcely more than one man to five, he defeated the llus- sians under Sacken, the Prussians under Blucher, and the Austrians under Schwartzenberg, in several bloody battles, in which nothing was more remarkable than the heroic courage and devotion of the fresh, half-armed recruits and national guards ; proving that if the whole population had been called out, they would have nobly contested every inch of ground, and probably saved the master afraid to trust them, fighting, himself, INVASION OF FRANCE. 309 indeed, like a lion at bay, joining in the charges, exposing his person to every risk, and fulfilling all the duties of a common soldier as well as great captain. At last, on the 5th ]March, 1814, an imperial decree, dated at Fismes, authorized, what ought to have been invoked long before, the whole population of France to arm, sound the tocsin, ransack the woods, cut down the bridges, barricade the roads, and fall on the invaders wherever found. Instead of exclusive reliance on enriched marshals, ministers, and flatterers, jaded and dispirited sol- diers. Napoleon at last, when too late, recurred to the patriotic enthusiasm of the people, and proclaimed their sovereignty, who were so lately declared incapable of its exercise. On the 25th January, 1814, when he left Paris to take com- mand of his army, the Emperor was saluted, on the way to head-quarters, by continual cheers for himself, and cries of " Down with the consolidated taxes." For the French people, oppressed by despotic government, and delighted by its prodi- gious glory, were nevertheless much more alive to their rights, liberties, and welfare, than is commonly acknowledged by those English and even French accounts which characterize them to us Americans. Throughout the last few days of January, and all February, battles and negotiations succeeded each other rapidly, terms of peace or truce varying from day to day, ac- cording to the events of the conflict, most of the battles being favorable to the French. Troops that had never seen service, just recruited, not clothed, hardly armed, some of them Ven- deans, fought with a cheerful and admirable spirit, under the Emperor with whom their love of country was associated. Schwartzenberg, Blucher, Prussians, Austrians, and Russians, were worsted, and their leaders driven back much discouraged, till, on the 1st of March, 1814, at Chaumont, Lord Castle- reagh, by treaty, doubled the subsidies, raised to more than twenty millions of dollars a year, for the three great conti- nental stipendiaries, who therefore bound themselves, the whole four to each other, to keep up large armies, prosecute the war, and make no peace till France was reduced to the limits of 1789. Soon after that time negotiation ceased with Napoleon ; the scabbards on both sides were thrown aAvay, and 310 FRANCE INVADED, tlie immense army of invasion v"as united to move toward Paris. Still, as soon as they got together, the leaders hesi- tated, and during near two days the question was discussed, wdiether to advance or retreat. The Austrian generalissimo, Schwartzenberg, and the King of Prussia were for retreating, the Emperor Alexander strenuous for advancing. Tiie Empe- ror of Austria withdrew from the army, with only two attend- ants, and retired to the south of France, fearful not only of the event, but whether he should, if he could, overthrow his daughter's husband and grandson's father. Sir Robert Wilson said the Allies found themselves in a vicious circle, from which it was impossible to escape, unless defection came to their relief; obliged to retire, yet unable to retreat; and defection took place when Bonaparte seemed to be beyond the reach of fortune. By their march upon Paris, when resolved upon. Napoleon's superior officers were dismayed, as their hesitating assailants had been. Paris was their countr}^ their palladium. Their gorgeous palaces and gilded halls ; their honors, titles, and opulence ; their great master's bounties, their luxuries, plea- sures, and vanity, were Parisian. As Napoleon's family thrones in Naples, Westphalia, and Spain, were primary causes of his ruin, so the titles, riches, and splendors, with which he surrounded his own throne by upstarts, were fatal impulses of his ruin's sudden and rapid consummation. Nei- ther soldiery nor people deserted or betrayed the commander whom a bastard aristocracy sacrificed to save themselves. Several days were lost in reasoning with these remonstrants, whom then he dared not overrule, as he did the Legislative Body. If he had rebuked and dismissed the aristocracy of his monarchy as he did the representatives of the democracy, he might have rescued France and his family from impending ruin. But the only sentiment besides his own that he ever heard was that of the courtiers he kept at his footstool ; and it is a fact of great significance, that from the first step to the last of his downfal, no great man of his empire, without regard to himself, strove to save its founder. Individual plebeians might have been as selfish or worse, but the mass had no mo- FRANCE INVADED. 311 tive except to save the country, ^vllich -was tlicmselves. Xa- poleon's bold and wise plan was to lead las sixt}' thousand men into Germany. "I am as near Munich," said he, "as they are to Paris." A liundred thousand veteran French troops might have joined him from German garrisons ; Berlin and Vienna lay unprotected, at his mercy. Soult and Suchez could bring ninety thousand from Spain, to employ "Welling- ton ; Eugene Beauharnois twenty-five thousand from Italy. But the Emperor's plans were frustrateour- bon kings and princes, to eftect the removal of Napoleon from Elba to Malta, St. Helena, or some other remote place of 332 NAPOLEON S RETITEN. safe confinement, and the expulsion of King Murat from the throne of the Two Sicilies. The royalists had often attempted Napoleon's assassination, for which, Joseph Bonaparte told me, that Louis Philippe, as well as Charles X., contributed means. That the fallen Emperor was to be murdered, or re- moved to some severer confinement, was his belief, and that of nearly all his followers. The Bourbons had broken every article of the treaty of abdication. All of a sudden, there- fore, he resolved to leave Elba, and put it in execution as sud- denly as it was resolved, after personal confidential communi- cation with Fleury du Chaboulon. On the 2Gth of February, 1815, just when throughout this country we were celebrating peace, Pauline Bonaparte gave a ball at Napoleon's plain and almost shabby residence, in Porto Ferrajo, where he took leave of her and his mother, who were living there with him, and next day embarked, with Generals Bertrand, Drouet, and Cam- bronne, in one small brig of war and three luggers, with about a thousand men, with whom, after five days' navigation among French royal and English vessels of war, as adventurous and fortunate as his voyage from Egypt, he landed, on the 1st of March, at nearly the same spot in France where he landed in 1799. From a ball, on the 2(3th of February, 1815, Napoleon darted like a bomb on his last romantic adventure ; from a ball at Metternich's, the 11th of March, 1815, the Emperors of Russia and Austria, King of Prussia, other kings, princes, and potentates, started in affright at the news, then just whispered, that Napoleon was in France ; from a ball at Brussels, near midnight, the IGtli of June, Wellington and several of his offi- cers, surprised by intelligence of Napoleon's advance on the Prussian and English armies, Avithout time to change their clothes, hurried forth to the battle of Waterloo. The common impression, that nearly all France was for the Emperor, and joined his standard at once, is a great mistake. France was opposed to the Bourbon king ; but, excepting the bulk of that rural population which has lately so wonderfully plied universal suifrage to elect the Emperor's nephew first pre- sident of the French republic, almost all other, especially the higher and conspicuous classes of France, were not only opposed napoleon's return. 333 to Napoleon, but preferred King Louis, tliougli they disliked his government. The army was not for the Emperor ; not a single officer of note gave in his adhesion to him, except the very few constrained by overpowering circumstances. The marshals were all against him ; and, till the very day of his installation at Paris, generals were continually publishing their adhesion to the king. The merchants were all against him, for wars and his reign were fatal to commerce. The nobles, old and new, dreaded his restoration. The men of learning, of literary and scientific celebrity, were mostly either neutral or royalists. Even the holders of confiscated property feared that, with Bonaparte's return, there would be more disturbance. Capitalists, stockholders, bankers, speculators, the clergy, the provincial aristocracy, all these large and influential classes, feared in the Emperor a warrior to disturb and endanger them, and regarded Louis's reign of supineness as preferable to the Emperor's belligerent agitation ; for whom only the mass of the common people volunteered — those Vv'ho have the least influence in calm times, but, like the ocean troubled, carry all before them when roused to tempestuous action. Napoleon was aware of this state of things. He knew that among his former most pliant instruments once were some of his most venomous enemies, after they crooked their knees to King Louis. Tal- leyrand, Fouche, Soult, Ney, and Davoust would sufi'cr by his return more than steadfast royalists. So clear was his convic- tion that his enemies were the organized, high and low, and his advocates the instinctive country-folk, that he avoided all fortified places, and proceeded one hundred and twenty miles during six days, before he ventured to expose himself before any government obstacle, material or personal, civil or military, keeping away from towns till he got as far as Grenoble. The common peojDle were for him, but that was nearly all ; and if, when reinstated, he had countenanced them, as they did him when a mere adventurer, in 1700, 1813, and 1815, he need not have been sent to St. Helena, after losing one battle at Waterloo, any more than to Elba after the capture of Paris. Unfortunately for him, and most unwisely, he put his trust in princes ; looked to the Emperor, his father-in-law, and Metter- 33-i NAPOLEON S RETURN. nicb, tliat raoiiarcli's mentor, from ^vhom there was no hope, instead of the French people, who were his fast friends. Yet he told Benjamin Constant that he was the Emperor not of the soldiers, but of the peasants. " The people," said he, " the multitude, want no one but me. The plebs of France are my supporters ; they sympathize with me, as one of themselves. That was not the way of the privileged. The nobility served me, rushed into my antechambers in crowds for places, which they accepted, sought, and demanded. But it was another thing with the people. The popular fibre responded to mine ; I came from their ranks ; my voice acted on them. Look at my conscripts, peasants' sons. I never flattered them ; I treated them roughly. They did not surround me the less ; they did not the less hurra for the Emperor, because between them and me there is the same nature. They regard me as their support ; their guardian against the nobles. I have but to make a sign, or rather look away, and the nobles would be massacred in all the provinces. If there is any way of govern- ing by a constitution, so be it. I Avanted the empire of the world, and to assure that, power without bounds was necessary for me. To govern only France, it may be that a constitution will do better ; I wanted to rule the world. And who would not in my place ? The world invited me to do it ; sovereigns and subjects were rivals to cast themselves beneath my sceptre. I seldom found any resistance in France ; but more from some obscure and unarmed Frenchmen than from all the kings now so proud to have no equal. See, then," said he to Constant, " what seems to you practicable. Bring me your ideas. Public discussions, free elections, responsible ministers, liberty of the press — I desire all that. Above all a free press: to stifle it is absurd ; I am convinced of that. I am the man of the people. If the people really want liberty, I owe it to them. I have acknowledged their sovereignty ; I must lend an ear to their wishes, even to their caprices. I never wanted to op- press them for my own pleasure. I had great designs ; fate has decided them. I am no longer a conqueror ; I cannot be. I have but one mission ; to raise up France, and give her the government that suits her. I by no means hate liberty. I napoleon's return. 335 thrust it aside when it obstructed mc ; but T understand it ; I •was nourished in its thoughts. The 'work of fifteen years is destroyed, and cannot be begun again ; it wouhl require twenty years, and the sacrifice of two millions of men. In order to sustain the long and difficult contest upon us, the nation must sustain me. In return, I believe it will require liberty. It shall have it. The state of things is new, and I ask only to be enlightened. ]Men of forty-five are not what they were at thirty. The repose of a constitutional king will suit me ; it will still better suit my son. During twelve years the nation rested from all political agitation, and for the last year from war. That double repose has rendered activity necessary. It wants, or thinks it wants, tribunes and discussions. It did not always want them. It threw itself at my feet when I first came to the government. You must remember that," said he to Constant, "you who attempted opposition. "Where was your support, your strength ? Nowhere. I took less author- ity than I was invited to take. Now all is changed. A feeble government, contrary to the national interests, has given those interests the habit of standing on the defensive, of wrangling with authority. Taste for constitutions, for debates, for ha- rangues, appears to be come again. It is only the minority, however, who desire them. Don't deceive yourselves there. The people, or, if you please, the multitude, want only me." In this strain of garrulous, eloquent, and imposing argu- ment, Bonaparte's vindication, such as all those intimate with Joseph Bonaparte continually heard from him, did Na- poleon explain and justify his career, confess his errors, recog- nize his altered condition, and concede part of the freedom indispensable for his support ; but the whole he never could bo prevailed upon to allow. Hence his failure in 1815, as in 1814. A chamber of deputies was forthwith convoked for all the departments, as one of the first acts of his new reign ; and a vote of the people asked to aflSrm his restoration. Perfect freedom of the press was established. During the hundred days, the French press was freer than the English — as free as the American. Bonaparte's government, his right to govern, the policy ho pursued, all his conduct, every thing was freely 336 napoleon's return. discussed in the public prints. On all alarming public junc- tures, governments solicit the people. Like individuals in dis- tress, they promise and they mean amendment. In that way English liberty was established in 1G88. Under such exigency the people of Germany, Spain, and much of Europe, have obtained some share of government. Louis and Napoleon bid rival concessions for empire ; but both lost it by not bidding enough. The Emperor's amazing aptitude, industry, versa- tility, unabated and incredible talents for governing, were dis- played in every way but for freedom. He Avould not render the people sovereign, but persisted in merely declaring them so, wdiile he retained and clung to the real sovereignty. When the allied sovereigns at A^ienna, by their ferocious decree of the loth of March, 1815, declared him an outlaw, and called on all people to hunt him down, why did not he imitate the much-abused Jacobins of France, resisting, furiously, nearly all Europe combined to crush the French Republic as a national nuisance, to be abated vi et armis ? The Emperor, in 1815, was that nuisance which the republic had been. But imperial organ- ization could not save the country, like republican enthusiasm. The struggle of Napoleon's last imperial hundred days was the very crisis for letting loose universal and unrestricted French liberty, to resist that combination of German promise of liberty, by which royalty, in 1813, expelled him from Paris, and of which there was still hope enough left, in 1815, to drive him from Em-ope. King Murat, like a fool, alarmed by his open denun- ciation at the Congress of Vienna, attacked the Austrian troops in Italy at the very moment when he should have united with them. A year before, when he united with them, it was an act of the highest and most ungrateful treason to Napoleon ; in 1815, Avhen he attacked them, it was extreme folly, and ruin to himself and his brothers. It put an end to all possibility or appearance of Napoleon's concert with the Austrian govern- ment, either to join him or stand aloof, precipitated the uni- versal European combinations against him, and sharpened its hate. Reduced to her own single energies, France, however, still powerful, unanimous, and zealous, patriotically and wisely regarded Napoleon's cause as her own, and him as undoubtedly napoleon's RETUllX. 837 by far tlic greatest of all military cliampions. Conscrijits rallied to his standard in numbers unprecedented, and with ardor never surpassed ; the national guard Avas augmented and organized ; arms and munitions were prepared -with pro- digious industry ; funds were not wanting ; loans were to be had ; all vrarlike arrangements proceeded with complete success ; every thing was right, except the heart of the people, which the Emperor chilled by paralyzing disappoint ment. When Carnot was called to the ministry, and Constant invited to form a constitution, the nation were persuaded that Napoleon's promises of liberal institutions were to be realized. Born, as he said, one of them, bred republican, professing republican sentiments during the first year of his brilliant career, elected Emperor by the sovereignty of the people, repenting his dictatorial sway, and declaring that lie would renounce it, the great commonalty, who loved and sustained him, believed that liberty, long withheld, was at last to be added to established equality. Such was the popular faith of the thoughtless but patriotic mass, who feel without reasoning: but there was, as he truly said, a minority of thinking, rea- soning, discoursing, writing, agitating, and controlling French — the same intelligent minorit}^ of the plebeian majority v.hich influences and mostly regulates every free countrj- — who taught the community, by means of a free press and every other channel of inculcation, that the Emperor was not as good as his word ; that he still feared anarchy, stigmatized those he denounced as Jacobins and idealogues, and insisted, as he told Constant, when urging more freedom, that the Emperor's heavy hand must be felt as usual. Till his return from Elba, he had never even encouraged liberty, which, when arrived at Paris, in 1815, he promised ; and actually began to institute, but stopped short, to expire of that suppression. Perhaps he was not altogether or alone guilty of that fatal and vulgar error, into which he was not led by any highborn gentle- man. His two former evil genii v»'ere still working his destruc- tion : the aristocratic Talleyrand at the Congress of Vienna, and the incomprehensible Jacobin, Fouche, Avlioni the Emperor, by inexplicable mistake, appointed minister of police during the Vol. III. — -22 . 338 FoucH^ luuidrei.! 'lays, though in constant correspondence with Metter- nich, Talleyrand, and Wellington. At St. Helena, his imperial dupe and victim thus sketched Fouche's portrait : — " He was a man infinitely more Avicked than Robespierre. His venality was not as prominent as Talleyrand's. He had been a ter- rorist, one of the chiefs of the Jacobin faction. He betrayed and sacrificed, without remorse, all his old comrades and accom- plices. He intrigued every where, every how, and with every body. Intrigue Avas as necessary to him as food. He was very rich wdth ill-got wealth. There was no reliance on the morality of such a minister, with the versatility of his talents. I was not his dupe. If I had been successful in 1815, he Avould have been faithful." Fouche's advice to Napoleon, and intrigues against him at Paris, Talleyrand's at Vienna, were pernicious to the mighty Othello, counteracted by those twin lagos. Talleyrand, at Vienna, had him proclaimed an outlaw ; Avhile Fouche, at Paris, dissuaded or frustrated all honest appeals to the people, when, excited by Napoleon's public discourses to patriotic fervor, they felt sure of the establishment of their rights. If his dictatorial power was to be prolonged, Avhat assurance had they that it would ever cease ? Constitutional reforms or amendments, prepared under his superintendence, would be no better than the royal grants. The apostles of liberty preached public discussion of free government by con- ventions of national representatives ; while the Emperor in- sisted that there Avas not time for such debate, and offended the deputies elected to the Assembly, by Avarning them, in his speech, against the divisions Avhich ruined the loAver Roman Empire, as, a year before, he insulted another assembly of different deputies by coarser but similar admonition. In the midst of a general rising of the unanimous nation, and military developments the most astonishing, doubling all his OAvn Avon- dcrful labours and exertions for organization, the Emperor per- ceived, nevcrtiieless, that progress and public sentiment were chilled by tAvo apprehensions. First, the recent treason of Mar- mont, Souhani, and other superior oSicers ; the misconduct of Augureau and Oudinot ; the obsc(|uiousness Avith AvhIch all the marshals joined the king, imbued people with suspicion of the PARIS. 339 general irifiilelitv of the military cliiefs. Secondly, and worse than that, they Avere led to fear that the Emperor himself was a monarch, who, as he said of the Bourbons, had forgot nothing, and learned nothing, of the great springs and resources of national patriotism and independence. In his first calculation of what was necessary for the crisis, he ordered the opening of popular clubs, and the formation of bodies of associated work- men in the cities, to be confederated from city to city, accord- ing, to a plan Avhich he drew. But Fouche was to be the ma- nager of this levy in mass ; which lie undermined, while the mass detested him. Napoleon Avas told to beware of commo- tions and intestine bloodshed, of which he had a great horror, prodigal as he was of blood on fields of battle. When he reviewed the federcs of the suburbs of St. Anthony and St. Marceau, in front of the Tuileries, and promised them arms, those stout and valiant w"orkmen, bone and sinew of the capital, telling Xapoleon that they would have saved it if Joseph had embodied them for that purpose the year before, when the capitulation of Paris lost him the Empire, called on the Em- peror for liberty as well as arms, and shouted for liberty as well as for the Emperor. In a corresponding strain of patriotic fervor, he answered them, and, for the first time in many years, cheered the nation. But will it be believed that, misled by Fouche and other evil counsellors, and by his own fear of all democratic and popular commotion, he withheld arms from the twenty-five thousand able-bodied brave men of those two suburbs, whose descendants, in 1848, proved their fighting faculty by resisting large numbers of disci- plined troops, and killing more generals than Napoleon lost at Waterloo ? He shrunk from being dictator of an u})raiscd democracy, which might have saved him, with insuperable aversion to popular tumultuary reinforcement. Referring to the vast numbers of mere populace that flocked to his wel- come, on the way from Elba to Paris, " I could have brought," said he, " two millions of men with me. But we must not de- ceive ourselves ; there was a great deal of Jacobinism in all that." He therefore could not be prevailed on to establish a new constitution. Nothing but that of the Empire, which was 340 EEPIIESEXTATION. a cliain of liis usurpations, would satisfy him, with what he was pleased to grant as additional articles. Those grants, not sub- mitted to discussion, deliberation, or amendment, wxrc, how- ever, perfectly liberal. Religious liberty, freedom of the press, personal security, no troops without legislative enactment, and other guarantees of national emancipation from monarchical power, more than were granted by the king's charter, were constituted ; and with reason to believe that the Emperor was sincere in their establishment. Still, this patching old cloth with new, refusing arms to all but soldiers in regimentals, together with other undeniable indications of Napoleon's intractable clinging to powers justly odious to the large ma- jority of the French people, enabled his adversaries of every party, royalists, Orleanists, and republicans, to raise, as they did, formidable cries of disappointment and complaints of his incurable tyranny. As monarch, he was worse than Louis, it was said, in all but military capacity. Although the common- alty did not, at once, lose confidence in, or desert him, yet those he called idealogues and Jacobins, that is, intelligent, liberal, influential, democratic, founders, descendants or disci- ples of the founders of the revolution and its admirable re- forms, were constrained to depopuralize him as monarch incor- rigible in his despotic habits, tendencies, and prejudices. La Fayette, in constant correspondence with Benjamin Constant, came from his retirement, after fifteen years of ostracism; Lucien, the only one of all the Bonapartes inflexibly averse to monarchical rule, went from Bome to help Napoleon defend France. Lucien, La Fayette, and his son, wT-re elected mem- bers of the Chamber of Deputies ; into which body Avere chosen many of that class Avhich, like Somers in England, Adams and Henry in America, has always replenished the old French parliaments, and all English and American public bodies, with orators contending for liberty against military cham})ions of arbitrary power. The French bar, provincial and metropolitan, furnished many advocates of free government ; to which com- merce, literature, and science, likewise contributed their pro- portion. In times of belligerent emergency, that class was overruled by the soldiers and the titled aristocracy ; but in all REPRESENTATION. 341 contests between a monarch and those lie calls liis people, law- yers have revived those principles, which, like Luthcranism in Germany, Jacobinism in France, representative government in England, and democracy in America, have been, for two hun- dred years, constantly progressive, whether right or wrong ; which, if Napoleon had triumphed at Waterloo, he must have suffered to rule. Ilis mistake was confessed, and that of other arbitrary governors, signalized during his last hundred days, when government worked well, without the least difficulty, with unlimited freedom of the press. Nor can it, I think, bo denied that, as Napoleon himself said, liberty is the spring of all public and individual prosperity. Bonaparte, one of the people, natural champion of their rights, heir of the revolution, avenger of the people's wrongs from royalty, in his last acts shrunk from the people and the great reforms of the revolution. The six hundred and twenty-nine members of the National Assembly he convoked met at Paris, the 3d of June, 1815, mostly well disposed for constitutional monarchy. The day before their organization the Emperor met them, together with the army, the militia, the ministers, and the people, in the Field of Mars, at one of those great Parisian ostentations which, like all such popular displays, impose more than they empower, and rather mislead than inform. He appeared delighted with a demonstration which seemed to redintegrate him in national confidence, though most of the same city ci'owd, with like enthusiasm, would have cheered King Louis, if not the Emperor Alexan- der : a crowd not of mere people, not the French plebs, but the shop-keepers, the office-holding or hunting class, the courtiers of power, the lovers of show, the aristocratic vulgar, like Talleyrand's handsome niece, the Duchess of Dino, on horseback behind a man, when Louis XVIIL was to be idolized. Few signs of the times are more fallacious than street crowds, cheering any object of momentary excitement, but seldom to be relied on as tokens of popular sentiment. A large number of the military and deputies, entertained by him in his pahiee, was an ecpially delusive demonstration. When the represen- tatives of the people from all the eighty-six departments of 342 REPRESENTATION. France came to be organized, a spirit at once displayed itself, ■vvliicli proved the radical error of Napoleon's tenacity. Uncer- tain -whether the falling royalty or the imperial dictatorship would be restored, numbers of the members inclined to repub- licanism, which never, since the revolution began, however laid aside, was totally suppressed. Many of those Napoleon dreaded as Jacobins, those called voters (that is, who voted for the king's death) and conventionalists, members of the first revolutionary convention, had seats in the chamber of June, 1815. There were also many Bonapartists ; but several of them, and a de- cided majority of the whole assembly, upheld the Emperor, not to found a dynasty, but as champion of the country ; averse to the Bourbons, but suspicious of Bonaparte, whose long tyranny they were resolved to reform. Contrary to our common Ame- rican, which is generally little more than the English impres- sion, it was an enlightened, patriotic body of able men, men of education, of property, of settled free principles ; more tumultuary and inconstant than the representatives of Eng- land or this country are, but not therefore, because their pas- sions were French instead of English, to be deemed either incapable or unworthy of free government. It was obvious, from first to last, that they were not like Napoleon's Senate and Legislative Body, mere satellites of his sun. In open defiance of all he could do to get one of his ministers elected president, the chamber chose Lanjuinais, a conventionalist and constitutional monarchist of tried patriotism, firmness, and worth, with whom the Emperor ought to have been satisfied, though he was not. A young lawyer, since constantly distin- guished in French politics, now (1850) president of the first Chamber of Deputies under the republic, Dupin, objecting to the Assembly swearing fidelity to the Emperor, his motion was overruled. But in their answer, of the 11th, to the Empe- ror's speech, on the 7th of June, the Assembly told him plainly that the national representatives would rectify what was de- fective in 2:>rior constitutions and compromises ; and Napoleon's last words, the imperial reply, Avarned the members against idle discussion, when action was indispensable. National independence Avas of higher necessity than consti- KEPRESENTATIOX. 343 tutional gUvirautecs. Still one executive sovereign, elected by the people, cannot control some hundreds of legislative sove- reigns, likewise empowered by the same people, Avhom it is worse than vain to chide, by telling them that they must act and not talk ; fortify the country against foreign foes, and not till that is done vouchsafe it from encroachments by its own servants. Several hundred assembled deputies of a nation will discourse, even though twelve hundred thousand enemies, as the Emperor Alexander said of that crisis, are marching to invade their constituents. It is a fjuestion how far La Fayette went, or was for going, in opposition to Napoleon, in that Assembly. Beholden to him for the noble generosity, without instruction from the Directory, of making La Fayette's enlargement, after five years' incarceration at Olmutz, an article in the treaty of Campo Formio, that republican, as he was called, became ex- tremely hostile to the Consul and Emperor, rejected his several proffers of distinction, and must have had his aversion as citi- zen much embittered by his anger as father, when his son ob- tained no promotion in the French army, after long and meritorious service. Inclining to the Bourbons more than to Bonaparte, La Fayette waited on the king, after his first restoration, but never on the Emperor throughout his whole reign ; seized the first occasion in the Assembly for denouncing him, and for offensively saying that it was to be seen whether it would be a national representation or mere Napoleon club. Accused of endeavoring to unite Carnot and Fouche, the revo- lutionary members of the ministry, with himself in a plan to dethrone the Emperor, La Fayette's opposition and fear of renewed despotism were manifested in every way, till at last he was the immediate mover of Napoleon's third abdication, final overthrow, and the resulting subjugation of France, when Jo- seph, always a mediator, attempted in vain to convince La Fayette of Napoleon's sincere attachment to free government. On the 12th of June, 1815, leaving Joseph president of the Council, with Lucien and the ministry to conduct the govcrn- ' ment in his absence, the Emperor left Paris for the army. His insuperable aversion to popular freedom, and consequent dissidence with the Chamber of Deputies, precipitated the 344 WATERLOO. cau;'.;aig!!, iiiclucing him to undertake tlie aggressive, wlien it \ras liis own judgment that it ■\vouhl have been wiser to stand on the defensive, by waiting in France till the Allies invaded, which they could not have done with any effect before the middle of July. The Prussian and English armies were alone on the frontiers ; the Russians and Austrians could not arrive for some time ; and, at all events, it was better to be attached than to attach. But speedy victory in arms seemed indispen- sable to triumph over the Chamber of Deputies, for which Na- poleon was less qualified than a field of battle. The battlen of Ligny Avith Blucher, and of V«"aterloo with Welliugton, were therefore precipitated. And, after his defeat, the Em- peror's apprehension of a jealous popular assembly induced him, Avhen he should have staid with the army, to hurry back to Paris, without rallying the scattered troops, giving any order for their retreat, or appointing a commander in his stead. His own judgment was that he ought to stay with the army, as it had been that the army should not have been marched out of France. But, over-persuaded by most of his officers, though contrary to the opinion of some, after issuing orders at the various places he stopped at on the way home, for bringing together from all quarters as many troops as could be collected, he posted to Paris in a carriage with Bertrand, and alighted, near midnight of the 20tli of June, 1815, at the Elysian palace, vfhere his nephew now resides as president. The legislative bodies sat every day, except the 18th of June, the day of the battle of Waterloo, which was Sunday. In the course of various vhich George IV., a callous profligate, and Castlereagh, verging to insanity 'vvith pride of power, -were the exponents. I have been assured, by excellent authority, that the Emperor Alexander, Avhen waked up to be told of Napo- leon's overthrow, said to Czternichcif, " If he falls into my hands, lie shall be safely kept, but with all the indulgence com- patible with magnificent captivity." But Napoleon's admira- tion of the free principles of the British constitution, and of the unconquerable fortitude of the British nation, induced him to consider British captivity preferable to Russian or Austrian. From Joseph's personal intercourse, in 1801, with Lord Corn- wallis, he formed the opinion that inflexible rectitude charac- terizes the well-bred and educated English. Las Casas, whose acquaintance with England was greater than any of the rest of Napoleon's followers, and IMadame Bertrand, who, with several others, dreaded a six weeks' voyage, to end in the wilds of America, took the English side of the question -sdth earnest importunity. Finally, the Emperor's fifty folloAvers, vrith only one solitary exception, flattered themselves, and advised him, that he would be safe under English laws, hospitably guarded by the English nation, and ultimately released. The only pro- testant against that fatal mistake, Avas General Charles Lalle- mand, a sturdy soldier, whom I well knew in this country. Contrary to his vehement and wise counsel, Napoleon resolved to trust England. As he took, for ever, leave of France, the tri-colored flags were supplanted on his two frigates, all the French shipping, and other places, by the white standard of bloody proscription, subjugation, and degradation, with vrhich the country was overrun by the Bourbons and their foreign armies. Napoleon was welcomed as a sovereign guest on board the Bellerophon, and also by Admiral Ilotham, in the Non- pareil, another English line-of-battle ship, lately from the American station, whose attendance at the ball to Decatur, in New London, for celebration of our peace with England, is mentioned in another part of this volume. But in a few days, ST. HELENA. 353 taken to tlic Englisli coast, instead of being honored as tlic guest, Napoleon was tortured as the prisoner of England. The buccaneer Admiral Cockburn, whose recent American piracies fitted him for any detestable service, performed that of jailor to the ill-fated prisoner, in the line-of-battlu ship Northumberland, transporting him to St. Helena. Cockburn deprived Napoleon, before sailing from England, of most of the friends who wished to follow him into captivity, and stripped those who remained of their swords ; which brutality he also endeavored to inflict on the hero, whose sword was almost the only remaining national symbol left by his cruel captors of his immortal glory. On the 17th of October, 1815, Admiral Cockburn delivered his prisoner to General LoAve, at St. Helena, another barbarian, who tortured him to death, after nearly seven years of inhuman and unexampled excruciation ; his last Avill, written on that bed of torment, with impassioned indignation, denouncing the assassination of his death. Never was the fallen, dethroned, and incarcerated Emperor so great or formidable as on that death-bed, when all the awe-struck potentates, states- men, and aristocracy of Europe trembled for their titles, pos- sessions, and divine rights, at the name of their solitary indi- vidual prisoner. No iron mask or dungeon in Europe, they proclaimed, would confine him, whom, afraid even to execute, they tortured slowly to death. And dying, as his infant son clung, crying with childish petulance, to the palace in which he was born, so his immense father, with puerile tenacity, in the agonies of dissolution, clung to the title of Emperor, after being stripped of all the power. As General and Consul, having amassed all his best renown, with indestructible vanity he hugged the title of Emperor, which emperors and kings as preposterously refused. Paris was given up by Davoust to Blucher and Wellington, by a convention or capitulation, termed suspension of arms, executed the 3d of July, 1815 ; and King Louis was restored by the Prussians and English the 8th of that month, l)y per- fidious, disgraceful, and ruinous surrender. In 181-1, though discreditably abandoned by the government, that city was bravely defended by the troops ; but in 1815, government. Vol. III. — 23 o54 NAPOLEON. arm}', and all, •R-ere infamously betrayetl by nearly all the great functionaries. Wellington, after passing some weeks among them, informed Dumouriez that there were very few real patriots or good heads in the capital of France. Joseph Bonaparte, long afterwards, declared that the nation was not to blame for what the Chamber of Deputies did. " The French nation," he said, "was not in a coterie of peers, but in the workshops, at the fireside, in the study, in the fields, in all hearts throbbing with recollections of national glories left to them by so many heroes — the nation that welcomed Napoleon at his return from Elba. I remember," said Joseph (as I have heard him often repeat), " that, to the eternal honor of Sieyes, when he heard of the loss of the battle of Waterloo, he came to see me, and finding me conversing with Lanjuinais, president of the Chamber of Deputies, he said : ' If you mean to persuade by talking, you'll have a great deal to do. Give me the right to speak. Lanjuinais,' said he, ' Isapoleon has at last lost a battle. He has need of us ; he is coming. Let us go and help him, that he may drive off" the barbarians. lie alone can do it, with our help. After that, and the danger over, if he wants to be a despot, we'll hang him, if necessary. But now let us march with him ; it is the only way to save ourselves. Let us save him, that we may save ourselves. The nation will be grateful to us for it ; for now he is the man of the nation.' " Joseph added that, beyond doubt, Napuleon desired all the happiness and all the liberty for Fr-ance and Italy that they were capable of. All that he could do was to pacify them within and put them ou the way, leaving it for time to do the rest. Religious settle- ment with the Pope, the empire, the imperial nobility, the marriage, all those were contrivances to reach an end unknown to those incorrigible, but with their concurrence tending to the common result. Napoleon sought peace with England, and the conquest of all rights proclaimed by the revolution, which the reign of terror, in 1793, outraged. For that purpose all parties must be united and work together for the same end, which would have been the happiness of France, of Italy, of Europe, and immense glory for himself. England successfully MASSEXA. 355 opposed that consummation, and Napoleon pcrislicd in the midst of the effort or contrivance, Avlien his real system and end -were not yet understood and unmasked. So said Joseph Bonaparte, whose affection for Napoleon led him to appreciation of his designs more favorahle than strict truth will warrant. Joseph was as much of a repuhlican as a man once a king could be. His sentiments were sincerely those of freedom, equality, and fraternity ; but neither he nor Napoleon had ever taken that view of their extraordinary elevation and downfal submitted by my, however protracted, yet much abridged, account of such vast transactions. They all tended, I submit, to the final and permanent establishment of peaceable free government ; in what precise form may not be foretold, nor is, perhaps, important. The end may not be a republic by name, but some sort of free government, mixed with royalty. The issue, in 1815, is deplored by numberless historical, biographical, and otlicr authors, as caused by the errors of La Fayette, Lanjuinais, and other inflexible advo- cates of liberal institutions. The misconduct of the Chamber of Deputies convoked by Napoleon, which, more than Water- loo, contributed to his overthrow, is condemned as outdoing the Roman Senate besieged at Byzantium. Representatives of the French people discussed constitutions, bills of rights, and declarations of principles, till the Prussians actually marched conquerors into Paris, drove the debaters from their hall, and closed it by foreign military force. Next morning the members, with La Fayette at their head, trying in vain to resume their session and futile deliberations, Avere com- pelled to retire, and suffer their country to be governed awhile by kings of the old royal, superseding the new imperial race. Joseph often told the following anecdote of Napoleon and Massena, whom the Emperor considered the most fearless of his marshals. After the Emperor's exile to Elba, when iNIas- sena, as one of the marshals of France, among a croAvd of other courtiers, was surrounding Louis XVIII. at one of his audiences, he overheard the king say softly to a royalist urg- ing more reaction, "Not too fast. Slow and sure; we'll do it all in time." Alarmed and disgusted by that disclosure, Mas- 356 LOUIS XVIII. sena joined Napoleon cordially when he returned from Elha, who gave him command of the south, near Corsica, and, I believe, including that island. Before he went to assume that command, he said to the Emperor : " If you should he unfor- tunate, take refuge in Corsica ; I will go with you, and there we can make head against the world." But the Emperor de- clined that, as he did all similar suggestions and expedients for escape, by what he inflexibly rejected, as efforts that might and probably would fail, and then would disparage him, as a mere adventurer, instead of the vast conqueror, emperor, dic- tator, and hero he had been. I am assured also, by a person near him in his last struggles, after the second abdication, that Napoleon was disabled by fatigue, exhaustion, want of rest, and physical incapacity for any great resolution or exploit, when Lamarque's forces on the Loire, or Clausel near Bour- deaux, offered better and worthier means than Massena's project. On the 14th of July, 1815, Captain Maitland's declaration was, that he had then no safe-conduct for the Emperor ; but that, if he desired to embark for England, Captain Maitland was authorized to convey him there, and to treat him with all the respect, and even regard, due to the rank he held. On the faith of that assurance, the Emperor repaired, with his suite, on board the Bellerophon, there surrendered accord- ingly, and was received with all the military honors. The letter which, on the 13th July, he wrote to the prince-regent, putting himself under the protection of the British laws, was made known to Captain Maitland, to whom, as the Emperor stepped on board the Bellerophon, he said, " I am come on board your ship to put myself under protection of the British laws." In the reign or life of George IV., into whose hands Napoleon, unfortunately, put himself, representing the sove- reignty of Great Britain, I am not aware of any one act of exemplary, generous, or manly conduct. Sensual, puerile, and callous, he lived, reigned, and died, a contemptible man ; from the time when he was disgraced for cheating at a horse-race, to that when his kingdom was disturbed by his indecent at- tempts to divorce a wife, the mother of his daughter and heir- GEORGE IV. 57 apparent. His father's chancellor, Eklon, -whom he kci)t in place by shameless tergiversation, spoke no doubt his princely master's sentiment, when mentioning the Emperor as that fellow. The ministerial declaration of the 30th July, 1815, apprising Napoleon that he was to be transported a prisoner to the island of St. Helena, in order that he might not again disturb the peace of the continent, assured him before the world that the climate was healthy, and the local situation would permit his being treated with more indulgence than could be done elsewhere. I am informed by M. Archambault, who was with Napoleon as coachman during part of his con- finement at St. Helena, and till sent away by Sir Hudson Lowe, that O'Meara's account of the Emperor's treatment and sufferings there agrees perfectly with all M. Archambault saw and heard. He is noAY a respectable store-keeper in Phila- delphia, fully entitled to credit, and with no motive to misre- present, beyond the feeling of attachment which may color, but should not falsify a statement. The manifesto against Napoleon, executed at A^ienna, the 13th March, 1815, by Russia, Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, France, Spain, Sweden, and Portugal, which denounced him as an outlaw, delivered to public vengeance, was the most re- markable act of national proscription ever individuated. If captured by Blucher, he declared his determination to hang the Emperor without trial. "Wellington remonstrated against the impolicy of that act, but perfidiously suffered the restored Bourbons to execute Ney. If Napoleon had fallen into their hands, the Sicilian Bourbons, by Murat's execution, showed what the French Bourbons would have done with Napoleon. Compelled by Fouche to leave France, refused by AVcllington the passport to take him safe through English fleets to Ame- rica, misled by his attendants to trust the British government, on the 15th of July, 1815, the Emperor went on board the Bellerophon as a guest, soliciting and promised, by Captain .. Maitland, protection. All that followed was not British law, . liberty, or magnanimity, but ministerial and royal violence. \ On board the British ship the Emperor was in England, urider the flag and law of that great kingdom. Not suffered to laud, 358 NAroLEOx in England. hoM'ever, no legal proceeding for liberation \stis practicable. So mistaken was their great enemy's conception of British sentiment, that not a man, not a press, not a single voice was raised in his behalf. Castlereagh's peremptory illegality was unanimously upheld and applauded. From July, 1815, when Napoleon surrendered, till April, 1816, when an act of Par- liament was passed, he was captive, but not prisoner, con- demned and confined without sentence. The prince-regent, in his speech to Parliament, did not mention him ; the act of Parliament spelt his name with u ; the prime minister, Castle- reagh, told Parliament he was Corsican ; the Lord High Chan- cellor Eldon called him that fellow; his brother, the admiralty judge, Grant, master of the rolls, Ellenborough, the chief justice. Lord Liverpool, the legists and statesmen of the crown, taxed in vain their Avits to establish leo-alitv in the detention of a captive, whom it was resolved to imprison for life. As there was no war between France and England, when he surrendered, he was not a prisoner of war. Can there be war against one person ? Or was Napoleon, as was said to be Wellington's opinion, a rebel traitor, in arms against the lawful sovereio;n of France ? The act of Parliament of the 11th of April, 181G, is entitled, to regulate intercourse with the island of St. Helena during the time Napoleon B^tonaparte shall be , detained there; interdicting all intercourse with the island, but by special permission, as high crime and misdemeanor, severely punishable. After three sections, providing for that purpose, the fourth section declares, that whereas it may have / happened, from the urgency of the case, that orders may have \ been given, acts done, and means used not strict?!/ justified b// I laiv, therefore all persons so implicated are justified. There was an act of Parliament unanimously passed ; but, except that Parliament is omnipotent, there was no law for Napoleon's cruel retention, by the greatest exigency of state necessity. Doubts had been entertained, Castlereagh's brief speech confessed, as to the competency of the crown to detain Bj^onaparte a prisoner after the termination of hostilities. Its justice he asserted, because, if a sovereign prince, he violated a treaty : if not a sovereign, but a Corsican subject of France, NArOLEON AT ST. HELENA. -"^59 tlion Lis sovereign had not demanded liis restoration. Tiie policy of the measure was due to public safety and general peace. Every indulgence, the prime minister promised, should be extended to Bitonaparte, consistent "with his safe custody. Brougham, representing the opposition, spoke, approving the confinement, but bespeaking lenity. In the lords' house Fox's nephew, Lord Holland, put a brief, manly, elo(|uent, and soli- tary appeal to British magnanimity on the journal, by his single protest. Not another voice in either house Avas raised in behalf of their vanrjuished victim, held, confessedly, by illegal act, till validated by parliamentary omnipotence. Of Napoleon at St. Helena, I am able to add but one im- portant fact to the particulars of his sufferings there publislicd by others : which is that he never attempted to escape, but underwent his cruel captivity, if not with resignation, at all events with submission. Among the English governor Lowe's numerous barbarities was depriving the prisoner of his friends, physician, and servants. Las Casas and his son Avere sent aAvay, and the surgeon, O'Meara ; so that when Antomarchi, the Italian sent by Cardinal Fesch to supply O'Meara's loss, arrived there, in September, 1819, Napoleon had been a year Avithout a physician, and attacked by the painful disease which proved fatal. Bertrand and Montholon, with their wives, Avere the only associates left for the Emperor's long lingering illness. On the 2d of April, 1821, when a servant mentioned that a comet had been seen in the cast — "A comet !" said the Em- peror with animation ; " that Avas the precursor of Cwsar's death." On the loth of April he shut himself up, and made his last will, perfectly conscious of his approaching end. "These are my final preparations," said he; "I am going; it is all over Avith me." Dr. Antomarchi answering that there Avere yet many chances in his favor — "No more illusions," replied the Emperor. "I know how it is; I am resigned." To the attendants round his bed he spoke Avith the utmost kindness, and of his approaching dissolution calmly, sometimes gayly. "I shall meet my brave comrades in Elysium," said he, "Avhere we will talk oA'er our Avars with the Scipios, the Ilannibals, the Ca?sars, and the Fredericks ; — unless, indeed," 360 napoleon's death. he added, with a smile, " they should be afraid below of seeing so many warriors together." To the English surgeon, Arnold, he caused his valedictory malediction on the British govern- ment to be translated by Bertrand, as the Emperor dictated it to him. " The British government has assassinated me slowly, by piecemeal, and with premeditation ; and the infamous Hud- son Lowe has been executor of their high deeds. Dying on this frightful rock, deprived of my family and all communica- tion with them, I leave the opprobrium of my death to the reigning house of England. I should have been differenLly treated Ity the Emperor Alexander, the Emperor Francis, even by the King of Prussia." On the 21st of April, he asked for the succor of the Catholic religion, in which, he said to the priest, he vras born, and whose duties he desired to fulfil. Ou the 28th of April, he directed Dr. Antomarchi to make the autopsy of his body, carry his heart to his dear Maria Louisa, and tell his mother and family that he died in want of every thing, abandoned, and in the most deplorable condition. On the 2'Jth of April, after enjoying a draft of the little good water there was at St. Helena, which had been brought from a spring a mile off, he said : " If after my death they do not proscribe my corpse, as they have my person ; if they do not refuse me a little earth, I wish to be buried near my ancestors, in the cathedral of Ajaccio, in Corsica, or on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people I loved so much. If not allowed to be buried there, let my body be put where this sweet pure water flows." On the 2d of May, he was delirious, with increased fever. On the od, in possession of his reason, he told his testamentary executors, Bertrand and Montholon, that, about to die, he had sanctioned the principles infused into his laws and acts, not one of which he had not conse- crated. " Unfortunately, circumstances were adverse. I was obliged to be stern, and to put off. Reverses came. I could not unstring the bow ; and France was deprived of the liberal institutions which I designed for her. She will judge me in- dulgently, will look to my intentions, cherish my name, my victories." The 4th of May, 1821, was a day of frightfully tempestuous weather, the rain falling in torrents, the wind s ST. HELENA. .361 raging Tvltli the greatest violence, laying waste the plantation, beating down Napoleon's favorite willow, the one only solitary green tree left standing by the storm, being at length torn up and thrown down in the mud. But all the noise of the hurri- cane did not rouse Napoleon from his stupor. At half-past five o'clock in the afternoon, he murmured some incoherent words, and at eleven minutes before six, with a slight foam on his lips, he expired. Governor Lowe, persecuting the fallen Emperor's dead body, would not suffer it to be taken to Europe, nor buried with any other than military honors, when laid in the earth at the foot of the willow shading the spring of water he was fond of; where, marked by a plain stone, without any inscription, it reposed during the eighteen years of solitary interment which preceded the ostentatious con- veyance of his remains from St. Helena to Paris. Enemies too many and too powerful were dependent for their crowns and ministries on his removal far from Europe, either by death or perpetual confinement, to allow law to bo pleaded or justice to be done. The great powers of nearly all Christendom united pronounced his doom, which Great Britain was eager and proud to carry into execution. Unexpectedly incident to that sentence, this country was constrained either tacitly to participate or, probably in vain, resist, what all Europe combined had determined to enforce. On the 3d of July, 1815, a convention was signed at London, by Messrs. Adams, Clay, and Gallatin, for the United States, and Robinson, Gouldburn, and xidams, for Great Britain, to regulate the commerce between the territories of the L^^nited States and of his Britannic Majesty ; by the third article of which the vessels of the United States were authorized to touch for refreshment, but not for commerce, in the course of their voyages to and from the British territories in India, or to or from the territories of the Emperor of China, at the island of St. Helena. After that commercial convention was ratified by Great Britain, the 31st of July, 1815, and before its ratification by the Senate of the United States, on the 22d of December of that year, the British charge d'affaires at Washington, Anthony St. John Baker, on the -4th of No- 362 ST. HELENA. vember, 1815, officially informed the American Executive that, in consequence of events -which had happened in Europe sub- sequent to the signature of the convention, it had been deemed expedient and determined, in conjunction with the allied sove- reigns, that St. Helena should be the place allotted for tlio future residence of General Napoleon Bonaparte, under such regulations as might be necessary for the perfect security of his person ; and resolved for that purpose that all ships and vessels whatever, as well British ships and vessels as others, excepting only ships belonging to the East India Company, should be excluded from all communication with or approach to that island. It had, therefore, become impossible to comply with so much of the third article of the treaty as related to the liberty of touching for refreshments at the island of St. Helena, and the ratification of that treaty would be exchanged under the explicit declaration and understanding that the ves- sels of tile United States could not be allowed to touch at, or hold any communication ^vllatever Avith that island, as long as it should continue to be the place of residence of Kapoleon Bonaparte. The Senate of the United States, in December, 181-3, rati- fied the convention of the preceding July, with knowledge of that British alteration. On the 20th of October, 1818, the convention of 181") was extended for ten years more by ano- ther convention, executed for the United States by Mr. Galla- tin, their minister to France, and Mr. Rush, their minister in England. Thus, from the time of Napoleon's confinement at St. Helena until his death there, the United States were passive participants in his punishment, while his brother Joseph was an inhabitant of this countr3^ Napoleon dying there, the 5th of May, 1821, on the SOth of July of that year the British government gave ours official notice that the restriction was at an end. One of Napoleon's last acts at the Elysian palace, before he went to Malmaison, was to tell Joseph, as he told me, that he had sent to his residence, rue du Faubourg St. Ho- nore, copies of the allied sovereigns' letters to keep, as well as Joseph could, and that the originals would be kept and taken SOVEREKJNS' LETTERS. 363 care of by the Secretary of State, the Duke of r)assano. Accordmgly Joseph found the copies on tlie table of his study, when he Avent home, and left them there with his other papers. Some days afterwards, when obliged to leave Paris, in order to follov*' the Emperor to Rochcfort, he desired his wife and se- cretary, Mr. Presle, to collect all his papers, secure them in trmiks, and send them to several reliable acquaintances, to be saved from the enemies about to enter Paris, which was done : but soon after his departure, the friends with whom tlie trunks were left, fearing that the Bourbon police would be making search for them, requested Queen Julia (Joseph's wife) to take the trunks back again, which were then removed to her sister's, the princess royal of Sweden, where it was thonght they wovdd be safer. The republicans of the world, and all thinking freemen, have been, unfortunately, and no doubt surreptitiously, deprived of the knowledge and just appreciation of those siiccimens of imperial and royal unworthiness. They were letters, on various occasions, addressed to Napoleon, both as Consul and Emperor, by the Emperors Paul and Alexander of Pussia, the Emperor Francis of Austria, his future father-in-law, the Electors whom he made kings of Bavaria and Wirtemburg — the first-mentioned of whose daughters married Eugene Beau- harnois, and the last mentioned, Jerome Bonaparte — and by the Spanish royal family. Some of the disgraceful letters of the latter have been published ; but none of the former sovereigns have been subjected to that wholesome animadversion which their exposure would have elicited, to prove how infe'rlor tliey were to Napoleon in virtue as well as wisdom. CoucIkmI in terms of base adulation and rapacious solicitation, those impe- rial and royal missives were so unlike what is, by the ignorant, commonly supposed, and by most of the wise, who lashion public sentiment, inculcated as regal, that Napoleon often spoke to Joseph with sovereign contempt of their authors, not meri'ly as monarchs, but as men ; poor devils, he said, no more fit for thrones than (using a favorite expression of his own) I am to be a bishop. During the hostile occupations of the French capital, in both 1814 and 1815, those original documents are 364 sovereigns' letters. believed to have escaped the recapture which the couqnerors visited on the monuments of art, sent there by I*sapoleon, as trophies of his conquests. M. Meneval, whose means of information were excellent, says that it is not known what became of those originals, for which, during ten years, the Duke of Bassano searched in vain. From among the originals, of which he caused copies to be taken, by Napoleon's order, for Joseph, the letters of the Spanish princes were missing, the bundle containing them being empty, and a memorandum left in it, stating that it had been delivered to the Duke of Blacas, by order of the minister. The Duke of Blacas was King Louis XVIII. 's first favorite, who may have desired to save the Spanish Bourbon family from the publication of their villanous correspondence. But it seems strange that he did not, if he could, also snatch that of the other sovereigns from exposure. In 1837, Joseph Bonaparte, at London, instituted an inquiry concerning these sovereigns' letters, and ascertained, as far as the partial, for it was not a full and unreser\ed, acknowledgment of Mr. INIurray, an eminent publisher in Al- bermarle Street, went, that somewhere about the year 1822, what purported to be the original letters were offered to him for sale ; but that he refused to buy them, in consequence of some doubts of their authenticity on the part of his advisers and friends. He mentioned the Duke of Wellington as one of those who doubted their genuineness ; doubts which, it after- wards appears, as Mr. Murray affirmed, in 1837, had no foun- dation ; and his refusal, founded upon which doubts, he much regretted. INIr, Murray further said, that the letters were represented to him as having been forwarded from the custody of a French marshal, whose name he had forgotten. On naming the Duke of Bassano to him, he said that was it. The letters written by the Emperors of Russia were, at the sugges- tion of ]Mr. Murray, offered for sale to Prince Lieven, the Russian ambassador, who gave ten thousand pounds for that portion of the correspondence. There are improbabilities in this statement. The Duke of Wellington, Lord Castlereagh, and several other persons, on seeing the letters, must have been able to decide whether they were genuine. And Avould sovereigns' letters. 365 the Russian ambassador purcluvsc liis sovereign's portion of them >vitlioat apprising tlie ministers of Bavaria and Wirtem- lurg that tliey could likewise preserve those of tlieir respective sovereigns from publication ? The Duke of Bassano, -whose daugliter married a son of Alexander Baring, Lord Ashburton, has been suspected of offering the letters for sale ; as Mr. Mur- ray, to whom they were offered, said that his offer came from ■the Duke of Bassano, a French marshal. But that duke was not a marshal, nor, like most marshals, was his dukedom forti- fied by much wealth. lie was poor ; and hence suspicion arose of him among some not apt to be uncharitable. But, in all the stages of Napoleon's downfal, the Duke of Bassano re- mained exemplarily faithful to him ; and it is not reasonable to suspect him, without proof, of so base a contravention of what he well knew was Napoleon's disposition of those original letters. More than one copy of them was taken for preservation and publication, in case of need. The copies given by the Emperor to Joseph were deposited in a trunk, left at the hotel Langeron, St. Ilonore Street, which he occupied; which trunk passed through several hands, before being sent to its destina- tion. But when there was question of sending it from Paris to Point Breeze, it was untouched. The important documents it contained had been put, by parcels, in the bottom of trunks of linen and other things, to conceal them from the search of the police. The Emperor, exasperated and debilitated by inhuman treat- ment at St. Helena, after enduring its torments nearly four years, when hope of liberation, of kinder custody, and of almost life was at an end, resolved to expose the sovereign authors of his sufferings by publishing their disgraceful let- ters. The Irish surgeon, O'Meara, who accompanied from Europe the captive, not allowed his own choice of a medical attendant, was charmed by Napoleon's ftmiiliar intimacy, as almost any one would have been, even though he had been an obscure individual, instead of a prodigious hero, who was in turn fond of his physician, as any one is apt to be. One of the barbarities inflicted was, therefore, to break up that 366 sovereigns' letters. cordialitj, by T\-hich Napoleon Avas left for twelve months dan- gerously ill, without a phj'sician. When O'Meara was taken from him and sent away, Napoleon charged that gentleman, on his arrival in Europe, to inform Joseph that Napoleon de- sired him to give O'Meara the parcel of sovereigns' letters ; which O'Meara was directed to publish ; " to manifest to the world," said Napoleon, "the abject homage Avhich those vassals paid to me, when asking favors or supplicating thrones. When I was strong and in power, they quar- relled for my protection, and the honor of my alliance, and licked the dust under my feet." Mr. O'Meara's book adds, that the person with whom Joseph deposited the copies W'ith which he was charged basely betrayed Joseph, as some one brought the original letters to Loudon for sale. The Emperor, about the same time, caused Bertrand to write to Joseph to publish his copies of the letters. As all that he wrote from St. Helena was examined by his jailors there, be- fore it was put on the way to its destination, it was known to Sir Hudson Lowe and all the commissioners of custody, who made it also known to their respective sovereigns that the letters were about to be exposed to the world. What occurred in Europe with the originals, or any other copy of them than that deposited with Joseph, I am unable to state, further than as before mentioned. Nor do I know to whom Mr. O'Meara alludes as keeper of Joseph's copies, who basely betrayed him ; unless he intended to intimate that Bernadotte got possession of those copies and delivered them to his great northern pro- tector, the Emperor of Russia ; which was suspected by Joseph. An attempt to destroy them in this country was suspected also, when Joseph's residence at Point Breeze was burned, the 4th of January, 1820. At that time his house, furniture, and a large amount of valuable property were destroyed by fire, be- lieved to be the work of an incendiary servant, suspected as the instrument of a female member of the Russian embassy in this country, who often sojourned at Bordentown, adjoining Point Breeze. There was no proof of that perpetration, beyond inference, from the strong motive impelling the barbarian patriotism which reduced Smolensk and Moscow Joseph's departure. 367 to heaps of ruins, as sacrificos of Russian loyalty. Napo- leon's directions to O'Mcara to have the letters published ■were given in July, 1818, and his letters by Bertrand to Joseph, -written about that time. Allo\Ying a twelve month or somethinrr more for those orders to be made known to the Russian and other governments, and for thcir instructions to their foreign ministers to prevent the exposiu'c, by getting and destroying the letters, the destruction of Joseph's copies may have been attempted in America early in 1820, -when the box supposed to contain them had been ordered from Paris to his American residence. And in 1822 the originals "were oS'ercd fur sale to Murray, the London bookseller. The whole subject, however, is involved in impenetrable obscu- rity, except the mere existence of the sovereigns' letters to Napoleon, -which -«-ere seen by too many persons attesting that fact to leave any doubt of it. The iniquities imputed by legi- timate monarchy and aristocracy to the alleged usurper of thcir rights -would 'be relieved of much of theu' darkest hues by ex- posure, in their true colors of his accusers, to whom, as he said, his greatest inferiority and fatal demerit was that he could not be his own grandson. Such is the vast and, in some respects, just influence of ancestry, and dread, not always irrational, of innovation. Joseph Bonaparte, resident with his wife and two daughters at the Luxembourg palace, left Paris on the 30th of June, 1815, the day after the Emperor's departure, to follow him to Rochefort, and embark with him for America. They together examined maps and fixed on the place for residence which Joseph purchased in New Jersey, near Bordentown, between the two chief American cities, Philadelphia and New York. In moments of occasional tranquillity, the Emperor not only talked of his American existence, but gave some orders fur horses, dogs, and other means of recreation in exile. Joseph's companions, travelling with him in two carriages, were General Expert, one of his aids as khig of Si)ain; a young attendant, M. Louis Maillard, who became in exile his most confidential companion in America, England, and Italy, as he had been in France and Spain ;^ a young Spaniard, named Unzaga ; and a 368 Joseph's DErx\KTURE. cook, named Francois Parrot. At Bcaujency, ^vllcrc they passed a night, they fell in with M. Le Ray de Chaumont, who desired to sell the Emperor land for his residence in America ; and through whose introduction Joseph became acquainted with Mr. James Caret, for several years a member of his American family. Mr. Caret's written narrative of those occurrences is here incorporated with my Sketch, as a more accurate, actual, and indicative account than I can m'ite, preceded by my state- ment of some circumstances unknown to Mr. Caret, as they have been related to me by Joseph. Encouraged by tidings from his wife at Paris, he proposed to Napoleon to put himself at the head of the forces commanded by General Clauscl, at Bourdeaux, and raise the standard of the Empire. Napoleon refused. " If," said he, " I did any thing of that sort, I would take command of the more considerable army under General Lamarque, on the Loire. But any such attempt would bo civil war, to which I feel invincible repugnance, which, though it might last some time, would be uncertain in its results, and, if it failed, would dishonor me as an adventurer. Besides," he added, " I have seen too much of the vile time-serving- treachery of those whom I have loaded with honors to trust them for such an enterprise." Napoleon was unwell. He was so at Waterloo ; the fatigue he underwent prior to which misfortune, and the distress afterwards, had much demoralized him. Joseph's last proposal, at Rochefort, was to save his brother by taking his place, as Lavalette's Avife soon after saved his life. He offered Napoleon that, unwell as he was, he (Joseph) would go to bed and stay there for several days, as Napoleon confined by illness, while Napoleon might escape to America, as Joseph, in the vessel he had engaged, and with the means prepared for his passage. The Emperor, however, was averse to all merely fugitive expedients, which he deemed unworthy his great position ; and moreover flat- tered himself that English magnanimity and justice would save him from all but temporary, and that not rigorous confinement. Mr. Caret's narrative, entitled "Recollections of 1815," is as follows : — caret's narrative. 369 " \\"p were in the last days of June ; the Emperor Napoleon had ;ibdicated in favor of his stm, and the power was in the hands of a provisional govern- ment, of wiiich Carnot and Fouche were the principal members. The ene- mies allied against France heard of the abdication with joy, and directed their armies with more confidence against Paris. On their side, the French saw the number of their soldiers increasing under the walls of the capital, (--roucliy had brought back there jiis corps d'armee untouched, and it was rapidly increasing by the junction of other divisions, which naturally directed themselves towards Paris. The Emperor, who observed with vigilance every thing that occurred, thought the moment favorable for arrci^ling tlie enemy in his march, and hastened to offer his services to the provisional government as general-in-chief, thinking, with reason, that the enthusiasm of the army, on again seeing their Emperor at their head, would cause it to make supernatural efforts to deliver the country from a foreign yoke. The generous ofl^ers of the Emperor were not accepted, and that refusal deter- mined him to ask the means of leaving France without further delay. The government placed at his disposal two frigates, which were lying in the port of Rochefort. The Emperor set oft', on the 29th of June, 1815, from Mal- naison, where he had been for several days, accompanied by several generals, and also by General Becker, appointed by the provisional govern- ment to accompany him to the place of iiis embarcation. The next day, I was presented to his brother. King Joseph, at Bellevue, above Sc^vres. Naturally timid, I was soon reassured by the habitual benevolence of his conversation, and the expression of kindness that animated his fine face. It was settled that I should accompany him to the United States of America, whither the Emperor also wished to repair. We got into two carriages, and took the road to Orleans. Arrived at Angerville, King Joseph deter- mined to return to Paris, where he had left the Queen and her children, and that he might look after occurrences there. He entrusted me witli a letter for the Emperor, and, causing me to be accompanied by one of the persons of his household, sent me off, post, in a little caliche. We soon reached Orleans, and followed the fine road that leads to Tours, on the right bank of the Loire. Four leagues from Blois, we perceived, on an elevation to our left, the ancient castle of Chaumont, with its majestic towers, where my wife and children, two sons, were, the youngest scarcely four months old. I begged my travelling companion, Baptiste Dalamon, to wait for me at the post; and, taking a light boat, crossed the Loire, and bid farewell to my family, not knowing what my destiny would be, or when I should be permitted to see them again. Soon I resumed the road to Rochefort ; we rode very fast, in hope of overtaking the Emperor; and, arriving at Niort on the 2d of July, at 2 o'clock in the morning, learned that he was Ptill there, at the Prefecture. I went there at once, and was received by General Gourgaud, who introduced me into the apartment of Marshal Bcr- trand, who was abed, but rose to speak to me. 'I have a letter from King Joseph for the Emperor.' 'Give me vour despatch, and in a few minutes I Vol. III. — 24 370 caret's narrative. will present you to his Majesty.' The Marshal came for me, and I was introduced to the Emperor; seated iji an arm-cliair, with one of liis leijs extended on another chair ; green frock, blue pantaloons, and riding-boots. Holding ill his hands King Joseph's letter, he asked me where I had left his brother; and a conversation began, in which Marsiial Bertrand took part; for I answered in so low a voice, that the Emperor was obliged to make the Marshal repeat what I said. Informed by a naval officer that the English already blockaded the port of Rochefort, he had him called, and put several questions to him about the strength of the port, and the direction of the winds. During this conversation, having overcome my first moments of timidity, I told Marshal Bertrand that, if the Emperor could embark in an American schooner, whose sailing was greatly superior to the other vessels, he would be much more likely to escape the English cruisers; especially if at first protected by some French vessels of war engaging the enemy ; and that, if they could get some other merchant vessel to set off" at the same time, success would be more probable, by obliging the English to divide their attacks among a greater number. The Emperor listened to me, and asked the naval officer if there was any American vessel at Rochefort. On his negative answer, I askeIorfontaine, his French resi- dence, and such contrivances, I believe, are not uncommon in England. They afi'ord private entrance for the baker, butcher, and others, who supply families, without being seen in the upper and better part of the house ; and allow gentlemen to 382 ' FRENCH EXILES. fro down Into tiiem, when sometimes tliev do not clioose to be importuned by visiters ; in which way, but none other, Joseph Bonaparte may have concealed himself in his. The subter- ranean passage gave occasion for some of the absurdities with which public opinion was misled concerning the ex-king, his residence and deportment. The subterranean, constructed merely to afford a passage, without being exposed to tlie weather, was reported to be for escape underground from pursuit ; which, it is hardly necessary to say, was a foolish notion. In 1817, the Legislature of New Jersey, by a special act, authorized Joseph Bonaparte to hold and transmit real property in that State ; and, in 1825, the Legislature of New York made a similar provision in his favor. In 1821 and 1828, his two daughters, from Europe, with the elder's husband, Charles Bonaparte, visited their father. In 1824, the younger unmarried one, Charlotte, returned to her mother, then at Brussels, leaving many of the chambers in her father's house covered with her drawings. In 1827, the elder daughter, with her husband and children, returned to Europe, by President John Quincy Adams' permission, on board the American ship- of-the-line Delaware. Marshal Grouchy, General Clausel, Ge- neral Bernard, Generals Charles and Henry Lallemand, General Lefebvre Denouettes, General Vandamme, Colonel Combes, Colonel Amable de Girardin, Colonel Latapie, Colonel and Captain Grouchy, the two sons of the marshal, all officers of the French army, exiled to this country, frequented the Count of Survilliers' hospitable residence ; also Regnaud de St. Jean d'Angely ; Count Real, the prefect of police ; Count Miot de Melito, an old friend of Joseph and one of his ministers in Spain ; M. Lacanalle, a member of the National Institute in France ; Count Quinette, ex-prefcct ; the present Duke of Montebello, son of Marshal Lannes ; Eugene Ney, third son of the marshal ; two sons of Fouche, well-educated and intel- ligent young men ; nearly all of whom I have met there. Other less conspicuous French, besides Americans, English, and persons of other nations, were Avelcomed to the constant but unostentatious hospitality of Point Breeze ; where personal or political attachment, curiosity, necessity, and various other rOINT BREEZE. 383 motives attracted many persons. A cup of coffee, or tea, as you chose, brought by a servant before you were out of bed in the morning ; a meat breakfast, between ten and eleven o'clock ; a good library ; the host's prolonged and unceasing historical and biographical narrative ; horses and carriages, for excursions in the vicinity ; shooting, fishing, or whatever pastime you desired, till evening ; dinner between six and seven ; a drive round the grounds, a game of billiards, or some other amusement, after dinner, till an early bed-time, seldom, if ever, later than ten o'clock, were commonly the day's rou- tine. On Sunday, or any day when croAvds of persons, by steamboats, from riiiladelphia, visited the house and grounds, pictures, busts, and whatever else was remarkable, all thrown open to all, the French inmates were as much gratified by the invariable decorum and orderly conduct of their guests, as they w^ere, by the French furniture, ornaments and arrange- ment of the ex-king's residence. The Legislature of New Jersey, sometimes in a body, visited there, and were gladly entertained, their host boasting, as I have heard him, with evident gratification, how many bottles of wine they had drunk. His domestic service consisted of a secretary and his very handsome wife, a confidential attendant, four or five men- servants, and a coachman, with the cook who went with the Count from France, and on liis first voyage to England, all of whom grew rich (for them) on his bounty. The Fourth of July was celebrated at Point Breeze by all the immediate vicinage, with the household. I have heard it said that the deportment of the ex-king and his household affected royalty, which certainly I never saw, as well as one ignorant of royal forms may judge. A gentleman who had been eight years a king, brother of the greatest monarch of modern times, and not without recollections of recent elevation, was accustomed, from his dependants, to that respect which is hardly ever with- held from age alone in Europe, though much less practised in this country of domestic and personal, political, and, some- times, peremptory independence. But the Count of Survil- liers was, in his manners and behavior, unassuming and polite, studious to please, and careful to avoid annoyance or ofl'ence ; 384 JOSEPH BONAPARTE. as simple, unpretending, and direct, as any farmer in his neighborhood. From early life accustomed to good society, in the chief places of France and Italy, and habituated to social refinements, his behavior was the polished suavity and forbear- ance of the best good-breeding : in mixed company, reserved, though unaffected ; free and locjuaciously communicative Avith those from whom he apprehended no misrepresentation. Con- tinually, and with unfeigned pleasure, he recalled the humlile life of the well-born, but indigent family, who, from total obscurity, shone forth with so many kings, queens, and princes, upon plebeian thrones. Like all those retired from the stage of action, with a long past and short future, Joseph delighted to tell of the wonderful scenes and performers he had wit- nessed ; and never was conversation more rationally fascinating than his in that respect. When I first heard him chat, as he would for hours together, personally familiar with nearly all the imperial, royal, princely, and eminent personages he described ; all of them, like the subjects of an absolute mo- narch, whatever their rank or title, from Joseph's lofty position, individuated, levelled and estimated with perfect freedom and candor — it was reading history, biography, polities, and phi- losophy in their most attractive pages. Of the Emperor, he always spoke with affection and admiration ; of the Bourbons, always with aversion ; of the banishment, confiscations, and other wrongs which they inflicted on the Bonapartes, with indignation ; but, always mild, though animated, he seldom used harsh or vituperative language. He could not, and sel- dom, if ever, attempted to speak English. His secretaries and servants conversed with him with more freedom than is common, in this country or England, between menials and their employers. Recollections of former grandeur, and a feeling that he was entitled to the respect due to past or fallen royalty, sometimes appeared in Joseph Bonaparte's conversa- tion. His French visitors and correspondents mostly addressed him as prince ; and probably that title was no more unwelcome than that of emperor to his brother. He seldom or never, as was common in his family, spoke of King Louis, King Jerome, Queen Hortensia, Queen Julia, and Queen Carolme. Titles, JOSEMI BOXAPAIITE. 885 everywhere convenient, are much affected in tliis republican country, although constitutionally forbid. The Society of Friends, who reject even Esquire and Mister, many of them, in polite conversation, arc often perplexed for words to sub- stitute as conversational terms of civilit3^ Vanity, a universal inclination of savages, and even beasts, is there any humanity without, or even above it ? Joseph Bonaparte declined the crown of Mexico, when tendered to him at Point Breeze by a Mexican deputation. Flattered as he felt by that proffer from former Spanish subjects, who once repudiated his reign, he told them that, after having worn two crowns, he had no wish to try a third ; and that, moreover, he did not consider Ame- rica the soil suited to thrones. All his American experience convinced him that free institutions are best for this hemi- sphere. In fact, his attachment, even when king, to the reforms of the French Revolution of 1789, remained con- stantly the same : the royal parts he was called on to perform, and even his brother's imperial dictatorship, Joseph deemed corollaries of that great problem, whose meliorations he never for a moment ceased to prefer and inculcate. Like Napoleon, however, Joseph was inflexibly conservative; dreaded and detested such demagogues as those who ruled in the Reign of Terror ; and, addicted to both equality and liberty, was invincibly attached to law and order, perhaps to royalty, but constitutional and, like that of England, mixed with demo- cratic institutions. lie told me, after his return from Eng- land, that what he learned there, by comparison between that country and this, had changed some of his former American political predilections ; though while there he was uniformly the vindicator of our establishments, but became reconciled t" many of the great British endowments and developments of moderate, conservative, and durable freedom. What the Eng- lish stigmatized as American repudiation of public debts, oc- curred while he was in England, and he was a considerable loser by American stock investments. The tariff controversy, too, settled in 1832-3, alarmed him abroad for the stability of our Union ; and he often told me of, I forget what English bishop, who said to him, " "What better can there be, or should A'uL. III. — 25 386 LA FAYETTE. "\ve desire, than the state of tliino;s hero?" Lucien inclined to the Tories, Josejjh said; but Joseph to the Whigs, if not the radicals ; and the passage of the Reform Bill had much in- fluence in inducing him to change his residence "when he did, from America to England. La Fayette's misplaced confidence in the Bourbons was soon requited by aversion, and in 1824 he made his well- known visit to America On the 23d of September, 1824, with the Governor of New Jersey, he paid a visit at Point Breeze to Joseph Bonaparte, negotiator of the treaty by which La Fayette was liberated from the odious Austrian prison of Olmutz. The General's secretary, Levasseur, says that the ex-king appeared much affected by that visit from the guest of the nation, whom he kept to dinner, and treated with a sensibility and cordiality which convinced La Fayette that time had not enfeebled the sentiments of affection formerly testified by Joseph. Before dinner Joseph took La Fayette into his study, where they passed an hour together in private, of which no account is given by the General's secretary. The substance of that conference, as often since told by Joseph Boniiparte, was La Fayette's acknowledgment of his regret at what he had then done to reinstate the Bourbons. " Their dynasty," he said, "could not last; it clashed too much with French national sentiment. We are all now persuaded in France that the Emperor's son will be the best representative of the reforms of the revolution." He therefore told Joseph, that, if he would put two millions of francs ($400,000) at the disposal of the committee La Fayette indicated, with that lever, in two years Napoleon II. would be on the French throne. Joseph declined the proposal, not deeming the means adequate to the end. As love of money was no part of his nature, it was not the magnitude of the sum that deterred him. Vr^hen it was suggested that by means of a large sum Napoleon might be rescued from St, Helena, Joseph, without hesitation, offered to contribute all he was worth in the world ; and sometimes regretted that his expensive mode of life in America, parts of which, however, were liberal donations to distressed or impo- verished follo^Yer3 of his family, diminished his power to afford, LA FAYETTE. 387 if needed, larger subscriptions toward the expulsion from France of the dull dynasty that mortified and oppressed the nation. Joseph and La Fayette parted on the kindest terms, "^vhich were never interrupted, although six years afterwards they differed as much as ever on La Fayette's last, and again unfortunate, instrumentality in the attempt to restore a Bour- bon monarch. M. Levasseur's work mentions the rich wainscots of the ex-king's American house, the display of royal furniture, fine paintings of the Italian and French schools of painting, ex- quisite bronzes, and marble in elegant profusion. But among them all he thought Joseph did not look happy, because he had not altogether forgot the misfortune he had of being king, "when the peaceable possession of so large and fine a property seemed to M. Levasseur, who probably spoke La Fayette's sentiment also, preferable to that of the distracted kingdom of Spain. On the expulsion of Charles X. from the French throne, mainly by La Fayette's instrumentality, correspond- ence took place between him and Joseph Bonaparte, kind and friendly, yet explicit and controversial, as to the once noble republican general's frequent, indeed constant, preferences of Bourbon monarchs to Napoleon. Joseph always held that, on several great conjunctures. La Fayette misjudged French in- terest, welfare, and glory : once by his flight from the head of the French army, in 1792 ; again, by his acquiescence in Ahe Bourbon restoration of 1815 ; and a third time, when he helped the Duke of Orleans to the throne ; all calamitous for his country. Perhaps the vanity and self-esteem inseparable from humanity rendered General La Fayette jealous of Gene- ral Bonaparte, Nor will it be unjust to add, that La Fayette, as an emigrant, received, if I am not mistaken, considerable sums as indemnity for confiscated property, voted to his family by the French chambers under the Bourbon government. Like Napoleon, never moved by avaricious or sordid consi- derations, La Fayette's sympathies of caste were, however, with the royalists; and, if not incapable of jealousy, that feel- ing, as general, may have been excited by the immense supe- riority of another general. 388 REVOLUTION OF 1830. Bj exj^elling that extremely weak prince and one of the foTV remaining adherents of Bourbon royalty, Charles X., the French revolution of 1830, "with its prodigious agitation of all the elements of representative government, not only in France, l3ut in Belgium, Italy, England, and elsewhere, anticipated the Bonaparte hope of restoration, at least to France, and peradveuture to power. Two days after intelligence of that event reached this country, on the 5th of September, I visited Joseph at Point Breeze, on the occasion ; where I found Gene- ral Charles Lallemand (Henry Lallemand died sometime before) and a French deputy, Beslay, just from France, all in much excitement. A letter from Joseph, in answer to one from Lallemand, proposing to accompany him to France, Switzer- land, or England, in order to be at hand for eventualities, and announcing the principles by which Joseph would be governed, was prepared for publication, with strong hopes that no Bour- bon would be enthroned, and that the resulting question be- tween a republic and Napoleon II. would be decided by his choice by the nation. Joseph's doctrine was, that the nation had the sole right to choose and legitimate ; but that Napo- leon's son had the right of succession, without further action, as proclaimed by the deputies in 1815, unless the nation made some other choice. France he did not deem ripe for a re- public ; and, any Bourbon king being out of the question, the only alternative was the young Napoleon ; which postulates were argued by Joseph's letter to Lallemand. Soon after, Lallemand sailed for France, with Joseph's letters and several thousand dollars advanced to him. The money he never ac- counted for ; the letters he delivered to King Louis Philippe, who told him, as I have understood, to burn them ; that nothing by or for the Bonaparte family could be done ; but that the Orleanists and Bonapartes had the same interest in France, and that he woidd employ them, as he did Lallemand, against the old Bourbons. On the 19th of September, Joseph came again to Philadel- phia, and sent for me to the United States Hotel, where, after dinino; at seven o'clock in the evenincf, he read to me his seve- I'al letters to the Empress Maria Louisa, to her father, to REVOLUTION OP 1830. 389 Prince Mettcrnicli, and to tbe French Chamber of I)ci)utics ; all asserting the Duke of Reichstadt's rightful succession, and proposing, as his father's nearest male relative, to accom- pany his restoration. As I suggested the propriety of con- sulting •with Mr. Duponceau, ■\Yhose counsel as a lawyer and services as notary public Joseph had often used, Ave went to his office, and remained there in conference till eleven o'clock that night. After considering the several letters, it vais settled that I should translate and publish Joseph's answer to General Lallemand, as announcement of Joseph's intention, motives, and principles. But next morning, the 20th of Sep- tember, came tidings from Europe of the proclamation of the Duke of Orleans, as Louis Philippe, King of the French, in- ducing me to withhold the intended publication ; of which I immediately informed Joseph, who had gone to Point Breeze, and received his letter in answer to mine, approving of it. There were j^ublications in newspapers ; but the only one ac- knowledged was Joseph's letter to the Chamber of Deputies, dated New York, the 18th of September, 1830. Informa- tion that the French had chosen a Bourbon monarch, Avith La Fayette's entire approbation, and with great promise of liberal government, sustained by many if not most of the distinguished Bonapartists, and their general employment, induced Joseph, under such circumstances, merely to verify his letter to the deputies, and make notarial registry of it, as a protest. That was not done till the 30th of May, 1831, when Judge Ilopkinson and I testified before Mr. Duponceau that we had seen the letter towards the middle of September, 1830. Judge Hopkinson having no memo- randum, as I had, to fix the time precisely, towards the middle of the month was the phrase used for his sake. Joseph attended at Mr. Duponceau's office, and made arrange- ments for the official act on the 24th of May, 1831 ; from Avhich time till the 30th of that month Mr. Duponceau was employed drawing the papers in form. Between the 24th and 30th of May, 1831, advices reached here that the Chamber of Depu- ties was dissolved to whom the letter in September, 1830, was addressed; whereupon Joseph required the official act to 890 REVOLUTION OF 1830. bear date the 24th of May, when he attended at Mr. Dupon- ceau's and arranged it, instead of the oOth of May, when the registry Avas actually completed and made. These contra- ventions of the 20th September, 1830, and May, 1831, fore- shadowed the ill luck which, by the death of the Duke of Reichstadt, totally marred Joseph's voyage to England, in 1832. Joseph wrote on that occasion, probably, to several confiden- tial persons in France for information, to determine whether he should venture there, or anywhere in Europe ; anxious to return to his country, and hoping that it might be as uncle of a new young monarch, to supersede the Bourbon family. The question between monarchy by divine right and sovereignty of the people was fully presented by the French election of the Duke of Orleans ; notwithstanding whose election and support also by the English nation, the Bonapartes flattered themselves that they would be recalled from banishment, and perhaps to the throne. Among those Josei^h wrote to in September, 1830, was Count Flahaut, a nobleman of the imperial creation, reputed son of Talleyrand by Madame de Sousa, wife of the Portuguese minister in France during the Consulate and part of the Em- pire. Talleyrand, a lover of Madame de Stacl, who was not handsome, and Madame de Sousa, who was, in a boat witli Madame de Stael, on Lake Geneva, being asked by her, " If Madame de Sousa and I were both in this boat, and it should upset, which would you save?" wittily replied, "You can SAvim, I believe?" Count Flahaut, distinguished at the battle of Waterloo by the bravery so common there, and still more by honorable adherence to the Emperor till he abdicated, mar- ried an English lady of fortune. On the 25th of May, 1831, Joseph read to mo his answer, dated London the 10th of March, to Joseph's letter of inquiry whether he might safely go to England. Count Flahaut in- formed him that he would be perfectly safe in England, but unwelcome, inasmuch as the British government and nation sided with Louis Philippe, as king of the French. Joseph's first act, after the news of the French revolution, was to write to La Fayette, on the 7th of September, 1830, a REVOLUTION OF I80O. 391 letter, to be carried by General Lallemand ; but, be l-eing detained a few days by an accident, it was carried by A'ictor Beslay, son of tbe liberal deputy of the French house of repre- sentatives, ■whom I met at Joseph's residence. Protesting against any Bourbon as ruler of France, and laying down his favorite positions, tliat individual families have duties to per- form, in their relations to nations, but nations alone have rights to exercise, and among them that of choosing their own rulers, Joseph assured La Fayette that, but for perceiving the name of the Duke of Orleans among those at the head of affairs, he would go at once to France — not forgetting that his nephew had been called to the throne by the deputies, in 1815, dispersed by foreign bayonets. On the 26th of No- vember, 1830, La Fayette answered, as his letter begins, " with all the affection and respect for the kindnesses of which you have at all times given me proofs, and for which my gra- titude and attachment could not but be fortified by our last conversation, when we spoke confidentially of the past, the present, and the future." Ilis letter then explains at large why he preferred Louis Philippe to Napoleon — " your im- mense and incomparable brother, but whose system, imbued with despotism, aristocracy, servility, and war, would, with glory, restore those scourges." La Fayette's reasons for per- sonally preferring Louis Philippe are also stated, completely reversed as that judgment soon came to be. On the 15th of January, 1831, Joseph replied by a letter (which, having been mislaid, did not go till again dated, on the 1st of April, with a postscript), defending the Emperor, " forced by the English to war, and by war to dictatorship ; which four words contain the whole history of the Empire, whose aristocracy was but the method of reconciling Europe to it." After Joseph's ar- rival in England, La Fayette wrote to him again, the 13th of October, 1832, in terms of grateful and affectionate attach- ment ; to which, on the 10th of November, 1832, Joseph replied, with similar regard. Joseph received many letters, from various persons in France, encouraging his return, by assurances of the favorable state of public opinion to the imperial family, and to its June- 892 REVOLUTION OF 1830. tion Avitli tlic republicans, to constitute a national party against tlic royalists. Victor Beslay, Avliom I met at Point Breeze tlio preceding September, wrote to that effect, as did also Co- loni.'l Coombes (afterwards killed before Constantine, in Al- giers), whose letters Joseph read to me the 4th of April, 18ol. At the same time, he read to me a letter from one of the two sons of Fouche, who came to this country, each with the title of Count Otrante, according to the French, unlike the English, method or license of distributing a father's title in parcels among all his sons, instead of leaving it exclusively to the eldest. As before mentioned, Fouchc died at Eliza Bonaparte, Princess of Bacchiocci's residence, near Trieste, completely dis- graced by the Bourbons he helped to restore, and repentant for the injury he had done to the Bonapartes : rich enough to make his several sons rich ; two of whom, after having been kindly received by Bernadotte, as King of Sweden, came to this country. Joseph Bonaparte, with his constant benevolence, having made them welcome at his residence, where I met one of them, on the occasion of the revolution of 1830, employed him to take his letters to the Empress Maria Louisa, to her father, and to Prince Mctternich. On the 4th of April, 1831, Joseph read to me Count Otrante's answer, dated, I forget where, in Prussia, stating that he had delivered all the letters to IMetternich, who promised an answer. The Count Otrante added, that he had frequently seen the Duke of Beichstadt. I do not remember whether he stated that he had conversed with him. No answer to any of these letters was ever received. The impression in Joseph's family was, that Metternich never delivered them. Besides the many letters and messages received by Count Survilliers, in 1831, came M. Goubard, a portrait painter, and M. Orsi, son of a Leghorn banker, in December of that year, sent by Ilortensia, the Avife of Louis Bonaparte, and her son Louis, urging Joseph to go, assuring him that tho movement was propitious for overcoming Louis Philippe ; who, though they did not prevail on him to go, yet their DUKE OF REICIISTADT. 39-3 coming impressed Lim Ayith strong hopes, and tended toAvard the resolution Avhicli he finally took. The centre of Bonaparte attraction and hope of the family, on the expulsion of the elder Bourbon branch, was the DidvC of Reichstadt, then a fine, handsome, intelligent youth, twenty years of age. Proclaimed successively King of Bome, Em- peror of the French, Duke of Parma, and Austrian Prince, by the title of Duke of Reichstadt, the birth, life, and death of that offspring of Napoleon's rash ambition, and, as was be- lieved, completion of his utmost hopes, were among the most romantic occurrences of the imperial reverse, the lamentable catastrophe of which began with the marvellous consummation of that child's being torn, apparently dead, from his mother, and, for several minutes, without sign of life, ushered into the world. Brought up in the close but kind seclusion of the Austrian imperial family, and there deprived of his first name, Napoleon II. lived to man's estate, without knowing whose sou he v.'as, or ever hearing of his father's exploits, filling the wdiole globe, except the son's otherwise well-informed and in- quisitive understanding. Instructed by those who destroyed and ruined his father, the Duke of Reichstadt was at last ap- prised, by Marmont, of his marvellous paternity and all its prodigies. Such disclosures were enough to unhinge any mind, and in that of a youth so deeply interested, full of intelligence, distracted between admiration for his hero-father and habitual veneration for his affectionate imperial grandfather, excited a storm of conflicting emotions, which the French revolution raised to intolerable perplexity. The immediate author of his father's ruin was the son's informer. The father's Bour- bon supplanters had banished the son and all his family from France, on pain of death. At an English ambassador's young Napoleon became acquainted with Marmont. Another of his father's generals, Maison, was the ambassador at Vienna of Louis Philippe, who, with jealous rigor, continued the law of banishment against the Bonapartes. Revolution threat- ened, war appeared inevitable. The Duke of Reichstadt was, like most other princes, bred to arms. Not to use them in case of war would be disreputable ; to bear them against 394 DUKE OF REICIISTADT. either France or Austria would be unnatural. Vienna -was thronged by emissaries from France and for France, and from the Bonapartes, from various places of their dispersion, in Europe and America. Montbel, one of the ministers expelled with Charles X., a refugee at Vienna, whose position and as- sociations gave him the best opportunities of indubitable infor- mation, says, that a personage, whose name was celebrated in the fasts of the Revolution and the Empire, and mixed v.itli every epoch of their revolutit)nary convulsions, always farLied for talents by the various parties he served, Foucho, visited the Austrian capital, with positive proposals for the Duke of Reich- stadt, under the veil of a quite different mission, wdiosc proposal was listened to with such chilling coldness that he soon went away. Numerous other attempts were made to get the young duke to show himself either in France or Italy ; carefully developed by circumstantial expositions, explaining the state of parties and resources, their means and objects, and the danger to all the rest of Europe of leaving France without a settled government. "What do you want," said ]Metternich, " and wdiat do you expect from us ?" " That you will let the young Duke of Reichstadt be taken to the frontiers of France, where the magic of Napoleon's name will, in an instant, over- turn the frail, tottering edifice, weighing down our country and menacing yours with ruin. "We want monarchy by inhe- ritance, but with the will of the people declared by universal sufiVage." " What guarantee would the Duke of Reichstadt have for his future?" "The ramparts that would surround him of French love and courage." Metternich rejected all these instances, until young Napoleon, not long after, expired, under the agitation, distress, and disappointment of his pre- dicament. Perhaps the bravest, certainly the most adven- turous, of his Bonaparte rescuers, like the Duchess of Angou- leme, whom Napoleon called the only man of her family, was Eliza's only child, married to the Italian Count Camarata, who boldly undertook, by herself, to snatch her cousin, the young Napoleon, from Austrian thraldom, and display him before the French nation. What the result of her success would have been cannot be said; but that it would have driven THE CAMARATA. 395 Louis Philippe from France, as triumphantly as Napoleon drove Louis XVIII., is as certain as the excitability of French enthusiasm and the romantic spirit of French adventure. One evening, as the Duke of Rcichstadt was mounting the staircase of the palace, a young woman, wrapped in a Scotch plaid cloak, rapidly approached him, seized his hand, ^Yhich, in mute fervour, she kissed, with a look of extreme tenderness. "What are you doing there?" cried the prince's attendant, both of them astonished. " Y\"hat do you mean?"' " Vv'ho shall refuse," said she, with exalted aniraatiun, "ray kissing the hand of my sovereign's son ?" and then disappeared. A full-length likeness of that extraordinary woman, when a young girl, was among the statues at Point Breeze : remarkable ahvays for her strong resemblance to Napoleon in face, mind, and disposition. AYith the most active imagination and daunt- less resolution, she excels in riding on horseback, handling fire-arms, and other attributes of masculine spirit. Leaving her Italian residence, she repaired to Vienna, without any dis- guise or male protector, established herself at the Swan Hotel, in the much frequented street Carynthia, rode in the Prater and about the environs of Vienna, wherever there was any chance of meeting the Duke of Reichstadt, and for a long time sought in vain opportunities of personal communication with him. Accosting him, as before described, one evening she at leniTth contrived to have a letter laid on his table, which it took a whole week after it was written to get there, dated the 17th, but not received by him till the 24th of November, 1831, signed with her name, Napoleone Camarata, stating that the man who delivered it would take charge of the prince's answer, and that, if he was a man of honor, he would not refuse her one. " It is the third time I have written to you. Let me know if you have received my letters, and whether ^-ou mean to act as an Austrian archduke or a French prince. If the former, give me back my letters. Destroying me, will elevate your condition ; but, if you take my advice, and act like a man, you will see how obstacles give way to a strong, calm will. You will find a thousand ways of speaking with me, which I cannot take alone. You can have no hope, but in yourself. 396 DUKE OF EEICIISTACT. Let not the idea present itself to you of confiding in any one. Know that if I asked to speak with you before a hundred wit- nesses, my request would be refused. Know that you are dead for whatever is French — for your family. In the name of the horrible torments to which the kings of Europe have condemned your father ; think of that agony of the banished by which they made him expiate the crime of having been too generous to them ; think that you are his son — that his dying eyes were fixed on your image. Penetrate yourself with so many horrors, and impose on their authors no other punish- ment than seeing you seated on the throne of France. Take advantage of the moment, Prince. I have, perhaps, said too much. My fate is in your hands ; and I can tell you that, if you use my letters to destroy me, the idea of your baseness will cause mc more pain than all that others can make me suffer." The Camarata's romantic adventure came to nothing. Her cousin, grandson of Maria Theresa and son of Napoleon, had been too well schooled in Austrian pupillage, to countenance her. Handing her letters and telling her adventure to his tutor, the young duke gave her no answer. She was left un- molested, and he continued perplexed till he died. Ilis illness increased so rapidly that Metternich, in the Emperor's absence, granted the physician's desire, that the moribund youth should try a change of air : permitting him to travel anywhere, except in France. Delighted with that, his first and last liberty, the prince was preparing to visit Naples. But his symptoms grew much worse ; and, on the 22d of July, 1831, he ex])ired, in the room where his father slept, when he dictated to his future son's grandfather the peace, of which the dearest trophy was the Austrian wife he there conquered, in whose arms to dream of perpetuating their dynasty, but who, from the corpse of her imperial orphan son, returned to her one-eyed paramour and bastards in Parma. On the 9th of April, 1831, Joseph read to me a letter from Baron Meneval (his former secretary, and the Emperor's, and who attended the Empress when she returned from France to Germany), and a letter from Count Cornaro, who had been an aid-de-camp of Eugene Beauharnois, both letters dated in JOSEPH BONAPARTE. 397 Parir;, and abounding ■s^■ith pavticuLirs unfavorable to Louis riiilijipc and promising for the Bonapartes. Coi'iiaro's letter, addressed to Joseph as "your majestj^," stated tliat citlier Lucien Bonaparte, or Louis, the son of Louis, married to Joseph's younger daughter, Charlotte, would be chosen king of Ital}^ Many other accounts, from appointed agents as -well as friendly correspondents in France and England, encouraged Joseph's return, and recommended certain expenditures, which, to no great amount and to no good end, he incurred for agents and presses to advance his family : one, I remember, for the Globe newspaper. In November, 1831, Mr. Poinsett, since minister to Mexico and Secretary of War, returned from Europe, strongly im- pressed with the belief that the Duke of Reichstadt would be called to the French throne, if his uncle Joseph put himself at the head of the movement ; to whom, at Mr. Poinsett's in- stance, I made it known. Joseph then read to me a letter from A'ictor Hugo, confirming Mr. Poinsett's impression ; also a letter from Dr. Stockoe (who had been with the Emperor at St. Helena), enclosing a copy of a note from Lord Grey to Sir Pobcrt Wilson, conceding Joseph's right to visit England unmolested, but denying its propriety. On the 21st of De- cember, 1831, Joseph read to me letters from Count Cornaro and Madame de St. Jean d'Angely, dated Paris, from xichilles Murat, in Brussels, and from M. Peugnet, at New York, just arrived from France, all strongly urging Joseph to place him- self in England or Switzerland, at hand to sustain a movement for the overthrow of Louis Philippe and restoration of the Bo- napartes, which these letters represented as highly probable. The republicans were said to be ready to join the Bonapartists, for whom, in the Chamber of Deputies, Mauguin, Salverte, Lamarque, D'Argenson, and other members, were mentioned as favorable to Napoleon II. Neither money nor any kind of clandestine contrivance was deemed necessary or advisable, according to those accounts, or would be of any avail, but events would develope themselves, and all that need be done was to be at hand to second them. Joseph came to Philadel- phia on the 2-4:th of December, 1831, to get Stephen Girard 398 FRENCH IX A^IEPtlCA. to buy the Black Elver lands he had purchased of Lcraj de Chaumoiit; to be sold, he told me, at almost any price, in order to raise funds for his voyage, resolved to be undertaken next spring, should the Reform Bill become an English Act of Parliament; for in that reform he appeared to place much hope of French movement to produce imperial restoration. Within forty-eight hours of his visiting Philadelphia to bargain Avith Stephen Girard, that aged French republican died of an attack of influenza, his demise being one of the several untoward cir- cumstances Avhich, with his nephew's unexpected death encoun- tering Joseph Bonaparte on his landing in England, continually counteracted all his plans, until at last, with his nephew Louis Napoleon's frustrated attempt forcibly to overthrow Louis Philippe, disappointment broke down Joseph's health and hastened his dissolution. Early in June, 1831, I had the pleasure to meet my former Bonapartist friend M. Serrurier (the Emperor's minister in this country at his downfal) and his charming wife. Degraded for his unluckily hasty, hearty adhesion to the Emperor during his last hundred days, and reduced thereby to insignificance, M. Ser- rurier lived fifteen years in retirement and poverty. Chie of Louis Philippe's early acts was to reappoint him to the American mission, in which he officiated till soon after that pacific but able king's seeming controversy with President Jackson, for the French indemnity stipulated by treaty to be paid by France to the United States, drove M. Serrurier home from this coun- try, where he had no intercourse with the brother of his former monarch. In 1831, M. de Tocqueville and M. Beaumont, commissioned by the French king to report on the subject of American prisons, and recommended personally by letters of introduction from Levett Harris, American charge d'affaires in Paris, came to the United States, also, I believe, without see- ing Joseph Bonaparte. This country, full of imperial French fugitives in 1815, as ten years before it was of royal emigrants, including Louis Philippe, by his election in 1830 as king, re- turned them all but the Bonaparte family to their own country. Throughout the winter of 1831-2, the following spring and summer, Joseph still lingered here, but bent on his European Joseph's dei>aiiture. 899 voynge. His argument -was, that, as eldest of tlic Emperor's faniilj, it was liis duty to afford his adherents the opportunity, wliieh they nearly all assured him was good, for restoring the Bonaparte authority. Peter, one of the sons of Lucicn, a wild, handsome youth, sent by Joseph to serve under General Saiitandcr, in South America, was with him at Point Breeze ill May, 1832. On the 5th of that month, Joseph told me tli;it, although he considered things unpromising for the Duke of Beichstadt, yet his agent in Vienna wrote that they were favorable, and that Prince Metternich desired him to stay there. On the 7th of July, 1832, Colonel Collins arrived from Vienna, and by his accounts determined Joseph to go. Colonel Collins had been an aid-de-camp of General Excels- mans, was Flemish born, had a brother employed in the Aus- trian court, and assured Joseph that things were ripe for the j)lans by which Napoleon 11. was to be enthroned in France. Colonel Collins remained, I believe, at Point Breeze till his departure Avith Joseph for England. On the 7th of July, 1832, I met him there, together with M. Lacoste, noAV consul-general of the French Bepublic in this country, who was a frequent guest and constant adherent of Joseph Bonaparte. On the 19tli of July, 1832, he called to take leave of me ' Alarming accounts were in the public journals of the extreme illness and probable death of the Duke of Beichstadt, which I was about mentioning to his uncle ; but, perceiving that any such intima- tion would prove extremely unwelcome, as every thing was fixed for his sailing next day, I checked myself, without allu- sion to them. He was in excellent spirits and health, hopeful, though not sanguine, of a prosperous voyage. Next day, the 20th of July, 1832, he embarked from Philadelphia, in the ship Alexander, Captain Brown, with Colonel Collius ; Joseph's secretary. Captain Sari, his wife and three children ; M. Louis IMaillard, Joseph's most confidential attendant during many years, now his testamentary executor ; Parrot, the cook who came with Joseph to America ; three other men-servants, and one female. General Thomas Cadwalader, going to Europe for the Bank of the United States, concerning the five per cent, stocks, as mentioned in my Chapter 12, Vol. ii., page 400 JOSEPH IX ENGLAXD. 270, went fellow-passenger in tlio same vessel. On tlic lOtli of August, 1832, they readied Liverpool ; where the pilot who boarded their vessel gave Joseph his first intellio-ence of the Duke of Reichstadt's death. Encouraged, by the enactment of the English Reform Bill, to believe that establishing popu- lar sovereignty in England Avould help to overthrow divine right royalty in France, urged by several of his ovrn family and many of their advocates, and considering that his position and his duty required him to afford, by his personal presence, an ojiportunity to the imperialists to try their strength with iJie nation, the senior male member of the Bonaparte family ventured to place himself in England, at hand for any French movement. His mother's extreme old age, and his wife's feeble health, were ostensible motives for the voyage. His mother's plain good sense and strong affection for the son who, after raising her humble family to the pinnacle of grandeur, had been tortured to death in English imprisonment, revolted at the residence of any of her children in England, and disap- proved of Joseph's going there ; but his brothers, Lucien and Jerome, both needy and extravagant; his brother Louis's son, Louis Napoleon, now President of the French Republic ; Eu- gene Beauliarnois's son, the Duke of Leuchtenburg ; Joseph's younger daughter, Charlotte, widow of Louis's eldest son, and many of the French, discontented with Bourbon government, visited Joseph in England. An effort was made there to unite the republican v>"ith the imperial party, on which errand Messrs. Bastide, Rouen, Thibodeaux, and Thomas, all repub- licans, visited Joseph, and held long confidential consul- tations with him, in London. Some of the French military men, unable to go there, met, by appointment, at Ostend, Louis Napoleon, the present President of the republic, who reported, on his return to his uncle, encouraging accounts from ' La Fayette and Lafitte. Louis Napoleon, young, ardent, and sanguine, went so far in the projected fusion of the imperial and republican parties as to ask in marriage one of La Fay- ette's granddaughters. But the attempted union of parties failed, as Joseph believed, by reason of Louis Philippe's suc- ceeding to get the republicans to reijuire conditions to which JOSEPH IX EXiiLAXD. 401 Joseph would not subscribe. Lueicn and Jerome ■vvcrc not parties to that projected aUiance. Louis's son, Louis Napo- leon, agreed "with Joseph in all but one thing : the senior was invariably opposed to all rash, precipitate movement ; -whereas the young man, more enterprising, insisted on inmicdiatc action. On the 12th of October, 1832, Joseph, by a kind letter, opened a correspondence with which he condescended to honor me, "though he had no news to give, always waiting for answers to demands, to enable him to see what was to be his futm-e, of which he knew no more than tlie first day of his arrival. Still he wrote, firmly convinced that I was one of his Ameri- can friends who most regretted the fatal tidings which met his landing at Liverpool. His reception by the population at Liverpool and London, and that which he received from all classes, astonished him, and very agreeably. Opinion was quite changed ; and, by the good will he experienced, he might think himself in the United States. It had been out of his power to visit Italy, notwithstanding pressing instances of his mother and his Avife, both very ill there. All that had been published of his mother's vdll was mere invention, for what purpose he did not know. lie knew no more in London about peace or war than was known in Philadelphia. He found the public mind in Europe much Americanized. I must not doubt how happy he was to say A^hat he could of our happy country ; which satisfied a sentiment of gratitude by performing the duty of a man of truth." On the 13th of January, 1833, he wrote that he " hoped to see me in the L^nited States before the close of that year, hoping that I knew him well enough to think that nothing but a sentiment of duty would detain him in Eu- rope. He was not yet able to go to Italy. His youngest daughter had joined him in London ; and iji the spring they would sec about it." On the 11th of February, 1833, he wrote that "he had heard with great pleasure of the settlement of the controversy between the United States and parolina ; desiring me, if I saw Mr. Clay, to recall him to that gentleman's recol- lection, by whose reception at Washington, on the point of his departure, he had been much gratified. Nothing should be Vol. III.— 26 402 JOSEni'S LETTERS. omitted to preserve the union of the States, wliich some modi- fications of the tariff ought not to affect. Union coukl not Le purchased at too high a price. Its injury woukl give free sco})e to the calumnious outbreaks of the puffers of the doc- trines of the middle ages. Europe is far from being at ease. The principles of the two ages are at issue. The majority are cvery\Yhere agreed to march with the age ; organized minorities are invested with all the influences and all the powers conferred by existing political organizations. Great riches are also coa- lesced among themselves to remain what they are, and even, God helping, to become what they were in the good old times. The issue will be favorable to the progress of human reason : but it is possible that this foreseen success may not be the impromptu you desire. It is not improbable that I shall be with you before the end of the year. The misery is extreme here. He did not think that at any epoch of history a nation has been so oppressed with the weight of fiscal duties, ren- dering the existence of every individual a problem. Parlia- ment is assembled, and much expected from its deliberations. But you get the English papers, and know as much as I do of the country." lie continued to write thence throughout 1833, '34, and part of 1835, much in the same way. "No individual," he said, " was of any avail ; movements must be the acts of mul- titudes." Disappointed in expectations, never sanguine, he looked anxiously to permanent return to this country. In a letter of the 3d of May, 1834, he wrote — "Wlial is passing in Europe justifies the apprehensions you had three years since. England is the only shelter trom the Holy Alliance; and not so good as America. You are very happy there. Try to be convinced of it, and to preserve your happiness." On the 19th of July, 1834, he v^Tote — "In France a cruel and sanguinary despotism has supplanted the reign (it" order and liberty, with which good people flattered themselves, and the rognes who raised to the throne the son of Philip Egalite. They iiave gatliered the grain they planted. The nation was violated, after three days, by certain deputies, either sold or duped. It is poor consolation for you and mo to have predicted what has happened ; and I should be with you as Joseph's letters. 403 soon as this letter, if not detained hy duties j)urely domestic, and tlie abso- lute will of my mother and wife, whom I have promised to wait here still another year, in the hope that, between now and then, there will be a mo- ment of light in politics, to allow me to go and say a last farewell to an octogenarian mother and a sick wife, both women of the most angelic virtue and sublime resolution. I am more than ever disgusted with Europe, and if I could hope to snatch from it my mother and wife, without fearing to lose them both on the way, you would not be delayed in seeing us all on your happy shores. But, apprehending the fate of the Trojan, I give one more year to filial piety and conjugal love. Politics have nothing to do with the prolongation of my stay in Europe. I believe that time has accomplished, and that the time has already come, which we predicted three years ago, when those who made 1830 are themselves unable safely to conduct the bark for those who will take charge of it after them. See what has befallen your hero. Nothing good, in the end, came of a bad principle. The usurpation of national power by certain individuals, whatever may be their good qualities, cannot have the assent of the popular masses. Fever is in their blood; who is the man of force to appease it and restrain them? America offers a better destiny. I send you a work less irrational than so many others with which the tactions inundate the public on Napoleon, to w hid) I have added some marginal notes." That book and letter were brought to me from England by the Count of Survilliers' cook, before married in this country, and anxious to return to it, being succeeded in England by Chandeleur, the Emperor's cook at St. Helena. In a letter of the 27th of August, 1834, he wrote — " The misfortune is, that you and I were right four years ago. Would to God we had been mistaken, and that the three days' revolution, ending by a great political crime, the usurpation, by a few individuals, of the popular power, raising to the throne an individual not voted by the people, had not borne its fruits. But injustice produces only injustice and public misfortune. Try to live quietly, in order to escape the grave which encloses Europe, and from which no one is able to emerge. Or rather preserve, where you are, that spirit of equality, which is individual justice, which I will come to enjoy, and we will make vows that Europe may enjoy too, when tired of the system of deception, of venality, of sordid interest, of envenomed hatreds among all classes of society, who are themselves labored by the demon of avarice to such a degree that, in order to reacii wealth, they will have only large budgets, of which tiie proceeds are dis- puted at the expense of the people, kept under by the billion of soldiers that cover Europe." On the 18th of October, 1835, he returned to Philadelphia in the ship Monongahela, Captain Brown, after three years' 404 Joseph's return to America. residence in England, -where tlie social tone, the climate, tlic facilities for personal intercourse with his brothers and other members of his family, all pleased him. But the expense of living as he deemed it proper, Avas very great — one year, I believe, as much as a hundred thousand dollars. Still he v.'as gratified on the whole ; and, on the olst of December, 1835, told me that actual practical comparison between England and America had changed some of his opinions in favor of that country against this. In April, 183G, he told me that Lucien, in and from England, lu'ged Joseph to establish himself in England, in order to be at hand for any favorable opportunity. Lucien was poor and expensive, and, I believe, found Joseph accommodating for his wants. He asked me what I thought of his returning to Europe, where his visit, he said, had been very expensive, as he had to live beyond his means, among the very opulent, whose style of living was very ostentatious. The death of his mother, however, added a hundred thousand dollars to his funds (he told me, sometime afterwards, one hun- dred and fifty thousand). The impression had been, he said, that he was an inferior man, and he believed that personal intercourse with him in Europe had tended, and would still further tend to remove that impression. As his hopes were in popular elevation, he relied much on O'Connell and reform. With all those impressions, and additional means of living at least another year in England, he suddenly made up his mind to go there again. On the 28th of June, 1836, he wrote to me from New York, that he was there to embark on the first of July, as he did in the ship Philadelphia, Captain Morgan, for London ; whence he wrote to me, on the 16th of August, 1836, that he was not then allowed to go to Italy, but in per- fect health, and begged mo to believe he stated nothing but the truth, when declaring that he hoped to see me one day on the banks of the Delaware. Next spring, on the 27th of April, 1837, he wrote, complaining of the detestable climate, w^here the sun was seldom visible ; all his household had had the influenza, and had found the first three years of his London residence much more agreeable in temperature than the last. JOSEPH IN AMERICA. 405 Ilis nephew's attempt at Strasbourg, in October, 183G, to overthrow the government of King Louis Philippe, was made not only without Joseph's knowledge, but extremely against his settled and pronounced judgment of what was best, lie was inflexibly opposed to all conspiracy, insurrection, and vio- lence of any sort ; firmly convinced that all any Bonaparte could or should do was to follow spontaneous popular move- ments, not lead or force them. I have understood (but not from Joseph, whom I never heard mention the subject) that the Strasbourg revolt was better planned, more formidable, and more likely to succeed than its immediate and apparently easy defeat indicated. Louis Napoleon, arrested, tried, con- demned, pardoned, banished, and transported to South Ame- rica, came to the Lt^nited States, spent a month or two in New York, and hastened to Switzerland, where his mother M^as very ill. On the 30th of September, 1838, Joseph landed, from Eng- land, in America, with M. Thiebaut, as secretary, in place of Captain Sari, and M. Thiebaut's daughter, instead of Madame Sari, as the lady of his household. In Ajjril, 1830, his family was distressed by tidings of the death of his daughter Char- lotte, widow" of Napoleon Louis, eldest son of Louis Bonaparte, who died in 1830. By the will of his uncle. Cardinal Fesch, dated the 4th of January, 1839, and who died in that year, a large collection of paintings at Rome, valued at much more than they sold for, were bequeathed to Joseph. Thus induced, and by accession of means enabled to return to England again, on the 25th of October, 1839, he called to tell me that he was to embark at New York the first of November. I spent the evening with him, at his town residence, in Girard Row, Chest- nut street, Philadelphia. During his last visit to this country, his health, though still good, was not so invariable as it had been, and he wished to be in town during winter, near Dr. Chapman. "With the feverish feelings, hopes, and fears kept up by visits to Europe, dreams of restoration to France, perhaps to high station there, the quiet residence on the banks of the Delaware lost part of its philosophical attractions, and Joseph's calm mind underwent great changes of views. After his return 406 JOSEPH IN AMERICA. from England, in September, 1838, be told me, in a long dis- cursive confidential talk, at bis town residence, Cbristmas of that year, that be bad no hopes. The powers of Europe, he said, were all against the Bonapartes, who had nothing left for them but the chapter of accidents. They were as much, he thought, opposed to the Bourbons. Eugene Bcauharilois had some chance, because Russia and Austria might support him ; and all European monarchies were opposed to a French republic. In order to get up some provisional or republican movement, his nephew, Louis Napoleon, had proposed to marry a Lasteyrie, granddaughter of La Fayette, and so unite with him. Talleyrand, Joseph said, used to represent La Fayette to the Emperor as a knave, false and hypocritical, pretending to simplicity ; and Talleyrand always strove, from bis per- sonal American experience, to prejudice the Emperor against this country. In that conversation, Joseph mentioned the de- sign to marry his eldest daughter (Charles Bonaparte's wife) to the Emperor of Austria ; for which, be said, she was edu- cated, one of the emperor's four wives having been sister of the wife of Eugene Beauharnois. Between that conversation, in December, 1838, and his sudden return to England, in No- vember, 1839, Joseph's mind seemed to be quite changed from despondency to confidence. On the 25th of October, 1839, when he called to take leave of me and announce his departure from New York the first of November, he was in good hopes and spirits. Captain Morgan, of the packet-ship Philadelphia, with bis family, had paid a visit to Point Breeze, and assured Joseph of a short, pleasant passage from New York to Liver- pool, which encouraged his going when he did, sooner than before intended. Although by Cardinal Fesch's Avill nearly all his property, and the testamentary disposition of it, were bequeathed to Joseph, yet there were small legacies to other members of his family, who were extremely urgent that he should be in Europe to expedite their interests. That business and his wife's infirm health were ostensible motives for his de- parture from New York, in the ship Philadelphia, Captain Morgan, the first of November, 1839, who landed him in Eng- land, after a short passage. Hiring a pleasant house, in Re- JOSEPH IN EXGLAXD. 407 gent's Park, London, ho passed the -winter there, seeing his nephoAV, Louis Napoleon, constantly, and inclined to believe that their authorized restoration to France was at hand. French and English public journals coincided in predicting important events soon to take place in France, -where M. Thiers was bringing Louis Philippe's administration nearer than it ever had been to Bonapartist and anti-English senti- ments. Joseph was led to consider his return to Europe ne- cessary and beneficial to his family and their cause. Ilis recep- tion in England, by all classes, was flattering ; government gave orders, such as are awarded only for princes and foreign ministers, that his effects should pass the custom-houses with- out examination ; his health was excellent, and his hopes higher than they ever had been. A letter from a member of his household to mo, dated June 1st, 1840, predicted great results, if not a new order of things, from the resolution of the French Chamber of Deputies to transport the Emperor's remains from St. Helena, with great funeral pomp, to Paris. " M. Thiers has opened the barrier. Will he be able to turn it to Louis Philippe's advantage ? All the world is occupied with the reparatory ceremony. All the young and generous want to go to St. Helena. The affair must bring about great changes. If the ministry expect to do things by halves and only popularize Louis Philippe, they may mistake ; for the masses in Franco clearly pronounce themselves in favor of the great man and his family." Just then, and for nearly the last time, Joseph Bonaparte appeared before the world to vindicate his brother's rights concerning the Emperor's sword, which King Louis Philippe took from its depository. General Bertrand, by unworthy royal coercion, placing Bertrand in a very false position. "When he visited this country, in 1844, where he was welcomed and feted with universal respect and admiration, as the most faithful of the followers of the fallen Emperor, General Bertrand appeared to be a mild, modest old gentleman, little like the warrior who followed Napoleon over so many bloody fields. Whether gen- tleness of spirit, or the almost universal proneness of men to obsequiousness to monarchs, induced Bertrand to surrender 408 napoleon's sword. Napoleon's sv/ord to a BourLou ^vllo, in Spain, asked leave to draw his own against him, and was the most jealous and un- compromising of the three Bourbon kings, to keep the Bona- parte family out of France, certain it is that the Emperor's glorious weapon was given up by Bertrand to Louis IMiilippo v.ith unmanly subservience, when the grand-marshal of his palace should and might have much enhanced his high histo- rical character for fidelity and constancy, by preferring his old master's sword to his new master's favor. By Napoleon's will, his arms were left to his son, to be de- livered to him at sixteen years of age ; which bequest his grand- father, the Emperor of Austria, took care should not be fulfilled at that or any other period of young Napoleon's life, whose death, at twenty-two years of age, devolved the arms upon the other members of his father's family. By the will, Bertrand was charged to take care of and keep " the sword which I ^vore at Austerlitz," together with several other articles mentioned in the same clause with it, " and to deliver them to my son, when he shall be sixteen jcars old." Bertrand put the sword away in a place of safe concealment, and kept it eighteen years or more, without endeavoring to deliver it, as young- Napoleon was alwaj's under strict Austrian tutelage ; nor was it till 1831 that the fugitive Marmont was allowed by the x\us- trian grandfather, and his mentor, jMetternich, to let the once King of Rome know Avho his father was, or open the soii's mind to that father's marvellous life, death, and history. By that time, the Empress i\Iaria Louisa had become the mother of several illegitimate children ; a daughter, who married the son of Count San Viteli, her chamberlain of Parma ; a son, called Count Montenuovo, commissioned in an Austrian regi- ment ; and a second daughter, who died a child. It is not certain wliether that degraded princess waited her husband Napoleon's death before she suflered an Austrian ofiicer, born in France, named Niepperg, whom she finally married, to 1jc- corae the father of those children. It is said that her dis- gusting sensuality sought gratification, at last, with her stable- boy. That unworthy relict claimed Napoleon's arms, and other things, on the death of their son. Joseph, in London, napoleon's swoiiD. 409 in 1832, hearing of tliat profanation, immodiately took tlic legal opinion of Odilon ]>arrot, -wliicli resumed an elaborate view of the whole subject by the conclusion that, by the civil law, the arms, &c., devolved on the paternal family of Napo- leon's son ; by the political law, they are the jn-opcrty of France, and should be delivered to the French government ; by which delivery, Napoleon's trustees would satisfy, at tlie same time, the principles of right, the presumed will of the testator, and the honor of France. Eighteen more of the eminent lawyers of France, among them Philip Dupin and Cremieux, who drew Joseph Bonaparte's will, confirmed Bar- rot's opinion. On the 28th of August, 1833, from London, Joseph wrote to those legal advisers, that, pursuant to their opinion, Napoleon's arms should be, without any intervention, appended by General Bcrtrand to the national column, and confided to the charge of the people of Paris. Tlie French government, under Louis Philippe, endeavored to possess itself of those effects of Napoleon. But Joseph's letter, with natural feelings of both affection and aversion, declared that he who received them from Napoleon's hands, with his last sigh, would not betray his vow by confiding them to enemies' hands, of whatever country they might be. After Bertrand's return from America to France, Avhen King Louis Philippe was prevailed upon, by his minister, Thiers, to ask England to allow Napoleon's remains to be transported from their burial- place in St. Helena to France, for that purpose the king's naval son, the Prince of Joinville, was sent with a frigate, and General Bertrand accompanied him, to fetch the remains. Before going, Bertrand, being pressed by the government to deliver the Emperor's SAVord to the king, published that, to his inquiry of Napoleon what Bertrand should do with the arms bequeathed, in case of the son's premature death preventing their delivery to him, the Emperor said, " Then you will keep them; you may as well have them as another." As soon as this tardy revelation was thus published, Joseph opened a cor- respondence with Bertrand, who finally wrote that he had no right to the arms, and would deposit them, as Joseph pre- scribed, at the Hotel of Invalides. On the 'Jth of May, 1840, 410 napoleon's sword. Bevtrand, fvom Paris, wrote to Joseph, in London, tliat " t!:e Empei-or's last wisli had become that of all France, Avhicli he considered it his duty to accomplish. Even though the result should not be as favorable as we must desire, the arms of Na- poleon shall be delivered to the government of the Invalidos, and you will recognise, in what remains for me to do, all my desire to be agreeable." Misled by the equivocal terms of that promise, Joseph, on the 20th of May, 1840, wrote from Lon- don to Marshal Moncey, then governor of the Invalides, that the Emperor's sword would be taken by his grand-marshal, whom Joseph had charged to deliver it to Moncey, as governor of the Invalides, where his ashes were about to be deposited. But, on the 4th of June, 1S40, the sword was handed, at a public presentation, by Bertrand to the king, previous to Ber- trand's departure for St. Helena, to fetch the ashes. " I depose," said he to the king, "in your majesty's hands, these glorious arms, which I have been so long obliged to hide, and which I hope soon to place on the coffin of the great captain, at the illustrious tomb destined to fix the regards of the uni- verse." The king acknowledged the deposit, but refused to accept it from the Emperor's family, resisting, as Bertand Avrote to Joseph, his most pressing instances for that piu'pose. Bertrand, confessing to Joseph his pain at being thus over- ruled, nevertheless suffered the king to keep the sword in his palace, till the general's return from St. Helena with the Em- peror's remains. On the Gth of June, 1840, Joseph, from London, replied to Bertrand 's letters with dignity and pro- priety, protesting against his subserviency. The Emperor's nephew, Louis Napoleon, also, and with more pungency than Joseph, published his protest, in the newspapers, against be- traying the trust "by surrendering to one of the lucky Inj Wa- terloo, the sword of the con(|uered there." The treaty of Fontainebleau, of the 11th of April, 1814, was broke in all its stipulations by the Bourbon government, to the wrong of the Bonapartes. Befusing to pay them the sums it stipulated for their support, those royal faith-breakers, insolently npt to hold themselves a])ove contracts, provoked and justified Napoleon's return from Elba to France, not only by Joseph's donation. 411 witlihokling the means stipulated for liis support, but by con- trivances to get rid of him, either by assassination or trans- portation to the tlistant and bak'ful rock, "where, undi-r color of imprisonment, his lingering dissolution was perpetrated. Bertrand's surrender of the sword -which, at AusterUtz, dazzled and confounded the brilliant autocrat of Russia, terrified and vanquished the mighty Emperor of Germany, and struck the greatest of British premier's death-blow, was one of the innu- merable proofs that the brave-ennolded creatures of Napoleon's Empire were almost all no better than followers of his fortune, constant to that only, faithless to him, to themselves, to honor, and truth. What a contrast Macdonald's even relative fidelity is to the despicable time-serving of nearly all the rest I The last of the vexations and mortifications Joseph under- went in England preceded so shortly his prostration there by palsy, in June, 1840, that it was supposed to have partly caused that misfortune. At Rochefort, in July, 1815, -when about to embark for America, Napoleon made a sort of testamentary disposition of certain bonds or exchequer bills, payable to order, secured on the national forests of France, amounting to six millions of francs, which he told Joseph, if it so liappcned that they never met again, to use as he might deem that Napoleon wou.ld desire. On the 3d of May, 1815, the Emperor was about reimbursing himself and his family twelve millions six hundred thousand francs, arrears of their pension, stipulated by the treaty of Fontainebleau, wdiich the Bourbon govern- ment, in violation of that treaty, had not paid. Tlie Emperor would have ordered payment in coin, but that Carnot, his Secretary of AYar, complained of the scarcity of cash to pay the recruits every day marching to the army, and Joseph sug- gested that in similar straits, in Spain, he bad issued paper- obligations, payable for public dues at the treasury. Instead of taking payment in gold, the Emperor therefore caused bonds or exchequer bills, payable to bearer, to be issued, se- cured on the national forests. One of Louis XVIII. "s unge- nerous acts of wanton and spiteful power, within four days after the battle of "Waterloo, was to annul those exchequer bills or bonds. The whole twelve millions six hundred thou- 412 JOSEPH'S DOXATIOX. sand francs, appropriated to pay the Bonaparte family the pensions due to them by the treaty of Fontaincbleau, were declared void. In 1840, Marshal Clausel, as chairman of a committee, reported to the Chamber of Deputies a resolution appropriating one million of francs, to pay the charges of conveying Napoleon's remains from St. Helena to France ; ■vvhcn a motion, by another member, proposing to add another million, being rejected by vote of the chamber, Joseph, on the 20th of May, 1840, wrote from London to JMarshal Clause], offering to subscribe the additional million, but payable out of the annulled six millions of exclic(|uer bills, ■which had been buried in a strong box, by M. Clary, Joseph's brother-in-law, and restored to him when he first visited London, in 1832. Two millions of the six Joseph there let his brother Jerome have ; two more he proposed, in 1840, to give, of which one million was to pay for trans- porting the Emperor's remains, and another million to be dis- tributed among the survivors of the Emperor's old guard. But the whole twelve millions six hundred thousand francs issued by the Emperor in exchequer bills, of which the six millions were a part, having been annulled, Joseph's gift of the two millions was therefore not only repudiated by the French go- vernment as worthless, but charged as a cunning contrivance to realize an extinguished and unfounded claim. The public journals, and, what was most annoying to Joseph, among them the republican, contradicted and censured his attempt, as they said, not only to bestow what he had not, but to keep for him- self the balance of two millions, which would remain and be his property, if allowed to dispose of the other two millions which he affected to give away. Accused of an unworthy attempt to realize what had no value, and make a show of patriotic muni- ficence by a fictitious, if not fraudulent, donation, that was, I believe, the first time when Joseph was ever charged with the duplicity often imputed to Napoleon as one of his Italian charac- teristics. Joseph's reputation had been that of an honest, but weak and subservient man. In this affair, the double dealing, in which Napoleon's enemies said he dealt, was published as also part of Joseph's character. Instead of any credit for the Joseph's illness. 413 gift he seemed to make, the Frcncli government press im- peaclied him for a fraud, and the repuLlican press, llie French republican party, by -which he sought restoration to France and to power, joined in the impeachment. In 1815, at lloclie- fort, when Joseph asked Napoleon what he shouhl do witli tlie six millions of francs in bonds which ho handed to him, Napo- leon told him that they would be annulled by the royal govern- ment ; so that it was in fact a mere demonstration against King Louis Philippe and his ministry that Joseph attempted, in 1840, by means of that confiscated fund. About the time of that occurrence, Joseph sent to Paris for ]M. Cremicux, to go to London, for the purpose of drawing his last will and testament. M. Cremieux, an eminent lawyer and member of the French Chamber of Deputies, largely in- strumental in the revolution of February, 1848, which de- throned Louis Philippe, accompanied by his wife, went from Paris to London, and there drew the will, on the 14th of June, 1840, which was not signed and executed till the 17th of that month. Meantime Joseph was struck with the palsy, from which, though much relieved at first by copious bleeding, and afterAvards still more by the tepid baths of Wildbad, in Ger- many, he never entirely recovered. His right hand and leg and all that side were rendered extremely feeble, sometimes useless. Then seventy-two years old, disappointed in most men, dis- gusted, mortified, harassed, and tried beyond endurance, struck down by the paralytic attack, which nearly deprived him of the use of half of his body, he languished four years, till relieved by death, A hearty feeder, and so extremely abstemious of drink that it seemed to me his health would have been better for eating less and drinking more, in addition to the vexations of his life in London, deprived there of the robust exercise which at Point Breeze was his daily enjoyment, out of doors from sunrise to sunset, perhaps in this country Joseph might have lived longer. Shortly before he first went to England, excellent in health and buoyant in spirits, he spoke to me cheerfully, almost merrily, of living as long as his mother, who survived till eighty-four years old. But from the time he left 414 Joseph's distress. America, exercised by alternate hopes and fears, till at length highly excited to encouragement by the translation of the Em- peror's remains to France, still tormented by exclusion from his country, provoked by King Louis Philippe's spoliation of the Emperor's talisman suord, and mortified by the recoil of his U]ilucky proffer of additional funds to commemorate the Emperor's glory, his brother Joseph sunk. From his landing in England, in August, 1832, ■when the fatal death of the Duke of Reichstadt encountered him, throughout his eight years of fitful, equivocal abiding in Eng- land, six times crossing the Atlantic for it, in all that period nothing went well. Joseph's last years, not indeed as disastrous as Napoleon's, were distressingly portentous of the end of any Bonaparte dynasty. In the last letter he could write to me, on the 11th of June, 1840, he said: "My position is very singu- lar. The more favorable French opinion is to us, the more do the unjust laws Avhich remove us from our country acquire force as to those for whom they are made, and who seek to deceive the public by deceitful testimonials of interest tlicy affect for the Emperor and for the fifty persons who are out of France only because the people wish them in France. I have written to Paris for a newspaper, to be sent to you, by Avhicli you may have the penetration to judge whether we shall remain abroad or return to France." The suspense and con- flict jDroved too mucli for him. On the 22d of July, 1840, a letter from a member of his family apprised me of his danger- ous attack, three weeks before. Though constantly getting better, his physicians, deeming the English climate unfavora- ble to him, advised the warm baths of Wildbad, in Wirtendjurg, and then repose in the mild climate at Florence, with his family. Lucicn Bonaparte, a man almost as remarkable for his strong peculiar characteristics as Napoleon, intended to make a long stay in London, where he enjoyed the hospitalities returned extensively for those which, in the days of his prosperity, he had bestowed on the English. Poor, but intellectual, engaging, and distinguished, Lucien, more brilliant than Joseph, like him a constant supporter of Napoleon in misfortune, died at Vi- JOSEril AT FLORENCE. 415 tcvbo, on a visit to Italy, "wlien Joseph was too ill in Eiiirland to bear the emotion of bein;^ informed of his brother's death. Louis Napoleon's second attempt, that at Boulogne, occurred in August, 1840. On the ITtli of September, 1840, Joscpli returned from Germany to England. " The King of Naples and Grand Duke of Tuscany," said my letter from his house- hold, dated the -7th of that month, " are afraid that his sojourn at Florence might injure them. The warm baths at Wildbad were beginning to do him good, when the affair at Boulogne, the death of his brother Lucien, and this last cry- ing injustice, have again deranged his health, which needs the utmost care and management. IIow we regret the quiet of Point Breeze and excellent Dr. Chapman, to establish his pre- cious health. By leaving the United States, there are proofs at hand to show, that he sacrificed himself for his relations. He cannot write, but charges me with his friendship for you." A postscript, of the 28th September, 1840, adds : " This is the day when the trial of the accused at Boulogne begins." On the 27th of February, 1841, another letter, from the same correspondent, informed me that Joseph had hired Lord Den- bigh's country-seat, Lutterworth, ninety miles from London by the Birmingham railroad, the London atmosphere being deemed unwholesome for him ; and that Count Demidoff, a rich Russian nobleman, had married Jerome Bonaparte's daughter Matilda. Joseph's name in his own writing, much deteriorated, was signed to a kind letter dictated b}^ him to me, from Florence, the 28th of September, 1841, where he was at last settled in the midst of his family : his wife, their eldest daughter and her husband, with eight or nine children, his brothers, Louis and Jerome Bonaparte, with Jerome's two sons. Other letters of the same kind followed. One, dated Florence, the 14th of March, 1843, says : " I can not but approve your project of writing in English my brother's life, taking the time necessary to col- lect all the information you will need ; and I do not doubt its success. I regret much that my health does not permit my helping you ; but I have written to ]\Ir. Presle, my former secretary and agent at Pai'is, to send you the note you desire of the best works to consult, and to add to them all the infor- 416 Joseph's death. mation lie can aiford. lie has written to me that he will cm- ploy himself and Avrite to you on the sn1»ject. Abel Hugo's abridgment of the Emperor's history, which I gave you, will be very useful. It is written in a good sense." On the 10th of June, 184-3, M. Presle wrote to me from Paris that, con- formably to Count Survilliers's recommendation, he had con- ferred with some friends there, who agreed with him in recom- mending to me M. Gallois's Avork, and that of M. Thiboudeau, in ten volumes, entitled "History of the Consulate and the Em- pire," remarkable for the talents and impartiality of the author, who was in a position to see well and judge well. " Those works, added to information you have from conversations with Count Survilliers, will enable you to compose the biography." A letter, dated Florence, the 7th of August, 1844, informed me of Joseph Bonaparte's death there, the 28th of July of that year. His last moments were without suffering, and he expired surroimded by his family, solaced by the truest devo- tion and the deepest respect. Great part of the people of Florence assisted at his funeral. The Grand Duke's troops escorted his remains to the chapel where, according to his last will, they are to remain till the gates of France are opened for their interment there, as it directs. Joseph, a mild and amiable, was not, however, an effeminate man. At school, he excelled in belles-lettres, while mathe- matics were Napoleon's favorite stud}'. Joseph helped Napo- leon with his Latin and French learning ; Napoleon helped Joseph with his algebra and Euclid. Joseph was born for peace and quiet ; Napoleon for war and tumult. Joseph wrote verses and recited those of the great masters ; Napoleon pre- ferred Plutarch. Yet Joseph behaved with courage in battle ; with fortitude and good sense on all occasions. As deputy, diplomatist, soldier, king, and exile, he was uniformly liberal, well informed and disposed, respectable, benevolent, and just. From the principles of '89 he never swerved ; would have in- corporated them with the institutions of every country ; and, after long, calm, clear, practical comprehension of them in their American development, was convinced that they might be carried further than they ever had been elsewhere. Like Joseph's ciiArvACTER. 417 Napoleon, vain as an Italian or Frcnclimaii, more vain tliuu an Englishman or American, thoiigli a better republican, as re- garded equality, than either the English or Americans, he "ft-as less republican in his ideas of personal liberty. In England, he would have been a "Whig, in this country, a disciple of Washington. He abhorred the excesses of the French reiijn of terror, yet vindicated Robespierre, Avhom he well knew, an honest, incorruptible enthusiast, no sans culotte, but always well dressed and behaved, crushed, said Joseph, under the iron wheels of the revolutionary car, as he in vain endeavored to check its sanguinary course. Robespierre's brother, who served in a civil capacity in the army with Napoleon and Joseph, who were both intimate with him, was remarkably amiable, honest, virtuous, and disinterested. Eclipsed by Napoleon, Joseph looked small beside that giant. Joseph's love of ease fur- thermore disparaged him, compared with his indefatigable brother. Yuthout the energetic conceptions that produce daring courage, war did not electrify Joseph's faculties like Napo- leon's, nor battle rouse him to heroism ; tranquil in victory, resigned in defeat. When he offered Napoleon to take his place in bed, at Rochefort, feign illness, then embark as the Emperor, be probably captured by the English, and, from the strong likeness of the two brothers, risk all the Emperor's perils of captivity or death, while Napoleon, as Joseph, might escape to America, the man of peace displayed courage as great as ever signalized the man of war. Without Na- poleon's genius, Joseph was quite as fearless. On the 28th of Germinal, year XII., Bonaparte, First Consul of the Re- public, by special message, nominated to the conservative senate the senator Joseph Bonaparte, as having testified the desire to share the perils of the army encamped on the shores of Boulogne. "The Senate will see with satisfaction that, after having rendered to the Republic important services by the solidity of his counsel in the weightiest circumstances, by the knowledge, skill, and wisdom displayed in several negotia- tions, by the treaty of Morfontaine, which terminated our dif- ferences with the United States of America, by that of liUne- ville, which pacified the Continent, and latterly by that of Vol. III. — 27 418 josErii's WILL. Amiens, -which made peace between France and Enghind, the Senatox- Joseph Bonaparte should be put in a condition to con- tribute to the vengeance which the people of France promise themselves for the violation of the last-mentioned treaty, and to acquire further claims to the esteem of the nation. Having served under my eyes in the first campaign of the war, and given proofs of his courage and good qualifications for the callin'T of arms in the grade of major, I have nominated him as colonel, commandant of the fourth regiment of the line, one of the most distinguished corps of the army, counted among those who, always placed in the most perilous posts, have never lost their colors, and have very often restored or decided victory. I therefore ask leave of absence for him from the Senate while serving with the army." , • His last will, drawn by M. Cremieux, who went from Paris to London for that purpose, was executed in London on the 18th of June, 1840 ; Dr. Granville, one of the witnesses, cer- tifying that he guided the testator's hand, enfeebled by remains of palsy. Most of his American real estate is devised to his eldest grandson, Joseph, entitled Prince of Musignano. To- kens of remembrance, with characteristic kindness, are be- queathed to several friends, among them the late Judge Joseph Hopkinson, named one of the executors of the will, Dr. Chap- man, Mr. Short; and to me the small bronze statue of Napo- leon as general, in the beginning of his career, with his hair in a queue, small boots, and other marks of the costume of that period. To remove all doubt that might be caused by his inability to sign without help the will made in London, a codicil to it was added, at Florence, the 17th of September, 1841, and the whole there registered according to Tuscan law. On the 23d of June, 1845, in company w^ith M. Louis Mailliard, the surviving testamentary executor, I deposited seven large trunks of Joseph Bonaparte's manuscript papers at the LTnited States Mint, in Philadelphia. These papers, consisting of several hundred of Napoleon's letters, written by him at different times to Joseph, and never published, part of a life of Joseph, written by himself, but not finished or published, and unpublished memoirs of Marshal Jourdan, were kept con- REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. 419 coaled by Joseph in Europe, and after his death sent by stealth to this country, by his grandson. Apprehending that they might be safer from fire, theft, or other accident, in a public than a private place of deposit, at the instance of the executor and grandson to whom they were bequeathed, I procured per- mission from Mr. Robert J. Walker, Secretary of the Trea- sury, to put the seven trunks in the Mint ; where they were accordingly placed, in a dry vault, by Mr, Robert M. Patter- son, the president of that institution ; remaining there till, conformably to Joseph's will, they became his grandson's pro- perty, on his attaining twenty-five years of age, the 18th of February, 1849. By virtue of his powers of attorney, they were taken from the Mint, the 23d of October, 1849, and de- livered to M. Adolphe Malliard, son of the testamentary executor, by whom they have been sent to Europe. These precious documents are calculated to shed much light on the true character of the great man of whom more has been writ- ten, and with more misconception, than of any other person- age. It is to be anxiously hoped that the young member of his family, to whom the trust of their publication is assigned, may prove equal to the task, above seduction and temptation. During the sixty years from just before Napoleon Bona- parte's first appearance to his death, dreadful revolutions con- vulsed Europe. On his return to Paris, from his last Italian campaign, he told the Directory that the era of representative government had arrived. On his way a j^risoner banished to Elba, he said, it was not the coalition, but liberal ideas, which dethroned him. The solace of his incarceration at St. Helena was to compose a democratic constitution for the French Em- pire. Prophet and victim of that advent, was he not likewise its principal architect ? Would France now endure another fifty years of such a reign by divine right as that of Louis XV. ? Stupid simplicity of Louis XVI., crafty concessions of Louis XVIII., silly reaction of Charles X., wise and vigorous, but unrepresentative government by Louis Philippe, nothing withstood popular sovereignty, which all Napoleon's genius and glory did not enable him to contradict. His catastrophe put an end to divine vice-regency for monarchs. In 1800,- 420 FRENCH REVOLUTIONS. there was but one parliament in Europe. In 1821, wlicn Na- poleon expired, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, Sardinia, Saxonj, Wirtcmburg, and Bavaria, all bad followed England in that novelty. Whether melioration or detriment, it was a fact v,'hich history must recognise. Several millions of common people, and so many eminent personages, put to death in revolutionary struggles, induce most who write of such events to deplore and disfigure their occurrence Avithout philosophical explanation, or marking their benefits. The number of noble and well-born sacrificed in half a century to reform, misleads history. Between forty and fifty kings and queens, emperors and princes, dethroned, executed, murdered, poisoned, suicided, banished, imprisoned, dying of grief, are conunemorated by subjects in every lan- guage, and their calamities denounced to indignation. Louis XYL, his queen and sister beheaded, his son poisoned or tor- tured to death, the Duke of Orleans executed, his son Louis Philippe and Charles X. deposed, the Duke of Engliein shot, the Duke of Berry assassinated, the Duke of Bourbon suicided, Napoleon dethroned and imprisoned for life, Joseph, Louis and Jerome Bonaparte, Eliza and Caroline dethroned, Murat de- throned and shot, Eugene and Ilortensia Bonaparte, Em- presses Josephine and Maria Louisa dethroned, other Bourbons and Bonapartes banished, together with numbers of illustrious put to death, faintly epitomise French revolutionary regalia convulsing all Europe. The Emperor Paul of Russia assassi- nated, the Empress Catharine, Emperor Alexander, and his l)rothcr Constantine, not one of them believed to have died natural deaths ; two Turkish sultans, Selim III. and Mustapha IV., massacred; three Spanish kings, Charles, Ferdinand, and Joseph, deposed and banished ; several in Portugal, John, Pedro, Michael, and Maria ; two emperors of Austria, Joseph II. and Leopold II., poisoned ; and a son of Eugene Beau- harnois, r)uke of Leuchtenburg, consort of the Queen of Por- tugal ; the Queens of Prussia and of Naples driven from their countries and dying of grief; the Kings of Sardinia and of Eiruria, the Dukes of Modena and of Pai'ma, and legions of petty German sovereigns dethroned ; one King of Sweden BONAPARTE. 421 assassinated, another deposed; tlic King of (>reat Britain insane ; popes put in confinement ; American monarclis, Cbris- t')pl)e imprisoned, and Iturbide sliot — such arc some of the memorable casualties which adorn and pervert revolutionary history. But if the misfortunes of comparatively few, how- ever eminent, open an era beneficial to all mankind, was too much guifered for the acquisition ? During- twenty years of this vast strife, the genius or de- mon was Bonaparte. Letters, when a boy at school in France, to his parents in Corsica say, one of them, " I dress but once a week ;" another, "• I eat but one meal a day ;" a third, " Can't you spare me 300 francs ($80), to go to Paris and seek my fortune?" "When, by wisdom, labor, and promotion, superhuman, his fortune was made, vanity, weakness, and error, blasted the plans of the prodigious hero, with whom no other can be compared for intelligence and capacity. "Washington, by virtuous moderation, sm-rounded by it in his countrymen, founded a republic, rather doubting its stability. Another American contemporary, Bolivar, founded another republic, without W^ashington's advantages ; for Bolivar had to overcome the traditions and propensities of his countrymen. Bonaparte, vainest man of the vainest nation, failed in all but what it preferred. The glacial, plain good sense of the justly- called Iron Duke, who alone in battle vanquished him, stands erect on his Doric pedestal, while the magnificent Corinthian column of Bonaparte lies in still brilliant fragments at the other's feet. Capable of intense abstraction, with never sur- passed reasoning faculty, imbued with mathematical investiga- tion, Bonaparte either never had, or lost the power of pa- tience ; had no fortitude, but was a creature of passion ; v.orked, raged, ruled, narrated, and expired prematurely, the most perplexing illustration of the vanity of human wishes. Posterity will account weakness what contemporaries impute as Avickedness. Less sanguinary, not more rapacious than most of them, of his immensity scarce a wreck remains. By unequalled victories enormously aggrandized, his empire sub- jugated, was reduced below royal or republican France. Gigantic despotism provoked universal hostility ; and of all 422 REPRESENTATIVE COVERNMEXT. his acliievements, what remains ? Not founder, but chief European builder of popular election, the permanent result of his career is representative government. Revolutionary terrorism and imperial despotism enable his- torians, mostly royalists, to deny beneficial reform ; some deny that representative government is reform. But few peasants any longer believe, or priests teach, that kings are so by right divine. Sovereignty of the people, in many parts of Europe, in America universally and unanimously, is recognized as their right ; acknowledged by several monarchical governments there and here. American misapprehension demands democracy as indispensable. But recent English exceeds American progress, political and economical. Revolution, in 1849, retrograded, by attempting to reconstruct society, in addition to reforming government. Still, time, the great innovator, is at work. Religious reform, in three centuries, has not yet accomplished general toleration. English, American, and French revolu- tions vindicate profane philosophy, that the voice of the people is the voice of God ; monumental, colossal, and erect, among the ruins of Napoleon's immensity and downfal. END OF VOL. III. / J . -s- -:>. .0' <-.. -^ .-f^' h;i^^^- " ,^" \' ^o/-c':^*\o^ ^. ' -' "^ .^ ^ v^\.r,' . V-^ ^^. ' ' ^^ '/- > « tr- ■f^. v-^' >^- .0 -"^ ^:-.r/K* .h^ o. -f' ^0^ ^ ''^^. 0' t'^*' „ ■< • -:?' c ,0" ^. » -> .\^ » ■■, ■ A. ^ C°' "■^-'-7', ■• -4 0^ :■£' ,<"^ V ,\' \ "( S ■ \ .' ■■.■.^' V^ . , ^ .'^',1, ' -^ , T) \^ --5- SN' .0-r ^. K^ -i> .0 0' \^' "°.. = . -^ ^0' xO'<^ 0' ,V •^. .V r ' V. 0' . w s\'' '. ^0' t ' ' ^ o 'h c ; . -J T . V : ^^-' 0^ "^O v^' ' .^^ °x. >>^ •n^ ,\' 0'" .^^ ■1^ .X^ ^"'^^. \^ ^^. ... C - r. * '^x. ' t^. -> A'