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ble being. Incomprehensible we term him, for with all his faults and all his foibles, it is a mystery that we cannot penetrate, by what charm he is able to attach to his person and his service,

with a devotedness which aspires to
immolation, those who are best ac-
quainted with the first, and most fami-
liar with the last.
E.

ART. 2. Letters written on board His Majesty's ship the Northumberland, and at St. Helena; in which the conduct and conversations of Napoleon Bonaparte, and his suite, during the voyage, and the first months of his residence in that Island, are faithfully described and related. By William Warden, Surgeon on board the Northumberland. London: Published for the Author. No date. 8vo.

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Tis extremely difficult to determine try, are calculated to persuade the inthe merits or demerits of cotempo- considerate reader, that the hero of his raries. There are few cases where we memoirs is a man more sinned against can bring to the trial an unbiassed mind. than sinning.' Sympathy for the unWe weigh, with exactness, the worth of fortunate, is so natural a sentiment, that those only with whose character we we cannot find it in our hearts to conhave immediate concern, and our judg- demn it. Indeed, we should be ashamed ment is apt to incline to the side to- not to have shared it in some degree. wards which our wishes preponderate. But it is a 'failing,' that hardly 'leans But the difficulty of correct decision to virtue's side,' in our commiseration is incalculably augmented, when the of the suffering, quite to forget their subject of our scrutiny has exercised vices in their wo.' We should be caresuch a sway over political events, as to ful that pity for the criminal do not have materially affected the condition lessen our detestation of crime. Still of every individual in the community. we do not mean to prejudge the quesIt is not only that we are ourselves fa- tion in regard to Bonaparte. For his vourably, or unfavourably, impressed in ambition we can easily find an excuse regard to him, by the benefit expe- in the circumstances that conspired to rienced or hoped from his success, and inflame it. It is for his abuse of power the injury felt or dreaded from his de- that he stands arraigned, not for its acpression-it is not with our own pre- quisition. Or if the latter be involved, dilections, merely, that we have to it is rather in reference to the turpitude contend-every avenue through which of the means by which it is charged the evidence is derived, that must in- to have been sought and attained, than fluence our estimate, is tinged with to the atrocity of the aim. prejudice and communicates its taint. But, happily, facts survive opinions, and the sentence of posterity will reverse error, if it cannot compensate for injustice. To them we shall leave it, to settle the mooted character of Bonaparte.

Many of the more important accusations that have been alleged against him are discussed, and plausibly extenuated, in Mr. Warden's pretended Conversations.

The Quarterly Reviewers have cross-examined this volunteer witness, with legal acumen, and

It is our duty, however, to exhibit have detected him in falsehood from as impartially as possible, the grounds his own testimony. We trust that on which his vindication, or conviction their very able critical investigation rests. Mr. Warden's letters, which are will be generally interesting; and that the subject of the following review, and this will prove no unacceptable accom which have been published, at length, paniment to the preceding article. in most of the newspapers in this counVOL. 1.-No. 11.

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'Anecdotes of the private life of re

'Now we are constrained to say, that

ration, we shall be able to prove that this work is founded in falsehood, and that Mr. Warden's profession of scrúpulous accuracy is only the first of the many fictions which he has spread over his pages. "It will not, we trust, be thought necessary for us to say more, and the justice we owe to our readers will not allow us to say less."

markable persons are one of the most correct. It will not, I trust, be thought amusing and not least valuable depart- necessary for me to say more, and the ments of history; they bring the read- justice I owe to myself will not allow er more intimately acquainted with me to say less." Int. vii. the character of the individual than public events can do. The latter are notwithstanding this pompous assevenever entirely a man's own; a thousand circumstances generally influence or contribute to them; it is in familiar life alone that a man is himself; there his character exhibits all its various shades, and thence we become best acquainted with the familiar chivalry of Henry the Fourth-the ingenuous and simple magnanimity of Turenne-the phlegmatic temper and fiery courage of William the Third-the mean and audacious spirit of Bonaparte. But of this species of history, minute truth and accuracy ought to be, more than any other, the essential characteristics: or the month, the latitude or the lonbecause the portraits are painted by faint and scattered touches, the falsehood of any one of which tends to destroy the value of the whole; and because the most important anecdote may depend on the single testimony of an individual; and we know, in the most ordinary occurrences of life, how much men are in the habit of colouring their report of any particular event.

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It has been under these impressions that we have hitherto* traced the course of Bonaparte, from the Russian campaign down to his seclusion in St. Helena. While we have admitted all those interesting and authenticated facts, which displayed his real character, we have rejected all that was apocryphal, and have not condescended to repeat even the minutest circumstance, of the truth of which an accurate inquiry had not previously satisfied us. Of the necessity for this precision, Mr. Warden is so convinced, that of the Letters before us, he says, "every fact related in them is true; and the purport of every conversation

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Our first proof will astound our readers, and, perhaps, decide the affair. 'Mr. Warden's first letter is dated at sea; he has indeed cautiously omitted to prefix to any of his letters the day

gitude; but this prudence will not save him from detection. In this he announces to his correspondent the surprise he must feel "at receiving a letter which, instead of the common topics of a sea voyage, should contain an account of the conduct and information respecting the character of Napoleon Bonaparte, from the personal opportunities which Mr. Warden's situation so unexpectedly afforded him." (p. 2.) And again he says, "such has been the general curiosity about Bonaparte, that he feels himself more than justified in supposing that particulars relative to him and his suite, will be welcome to the correspondent and those of their com mon friends to whom he may choose to communicate the letters." p. 3.

From this it is evident that Mr. Warden is addressing a person who had not expected such a communication, and he accounts to him for his motive in commencing a series of letters so different from what might have been expected. All this is very well: but when the second letter, also dated at sea, came to be fabricated, Mr. Warden had forgot his first professions, and writes as if he were answering the in

quiries of a person who had entreated return of Mr. Warden-he returned inhim to give a daily journal of Bonaparte's proceedings: "My dear

"I renew my desultory occupation -la tache journaliere, telle que vous la voulez," (p. 27.)-" the daily task which you enjoin me." Mr. Warden did not recollect that between the first letter at sea and the second letter at sea, he could not possibly have had an answer from his correspondent "enjoining the daily task." In a subsequent letter he falls into the same blunder, by calling Bonaparte the object of his friend's" inquisitive spirit," (p. 93.)and he in consequence gives a description of his person.

In another letter, dated from St. Helena, but without a date of time, there is this passage:

"I answered Bonaparte, that there was not, I thought, a person in England who received Sir Robert Wilson, or his companions, with a diminution of regard for that part they had taken in La Valette's business." p. 165.

'Now this answer to Bonaparte must have been made some time prior to the 10th of May, 1816, for a subsequent letter states itself to be written after the arrival of the fleet from India in which lady Loudon was embarked, and this fleet arrived at St. Helena at the time we have just mentioned; when Sir R. Wilson, so far from being in London, enjoying the congratulations of his acquaintance for his success in La Valette's escape, was still a prisoner in the Conciergerie; his sentence was pronounced only on the 24th April; and could not, of course, have been known at St. Helena prior to the 10th of May; so that all Mr. Warden's statement, and Bonaparte's subsequent reply, (which conveys an infamous imputation against Sir Robert,) must be wholly and gratuitously false; nay, what makes the matter quite ridiculous, is that Sir Robert did not, we believe, return to England till after the

deed before these precious letters from St. Helena were concocted; and Mr. Warden, or the person employed by him to forge the correspondence, mistook the period at which he wrote for that at which he affected to write.

These are minute circumstances, but it is only by such that imposition can be detected; a liar arranges all the great course of his story, and it is only by dates which he omits, and trifles which he records, that he is ever detected. This original imposture throws a general discredit over Mr. Warden's subsequent relations; some of them may be, and we know, are well-founded; but they are to be credited on better grounds than those of Mr. Warden's veracity. In fact we have heard, and we believe, that he brought to England a few sheets of notes, gleaned for the most part from the conversation of his better informed fellow-officers, and that he applied to some manufacturer of correspondence in London to spin them out into "Letters from St. Helena;" a task which, it must be allowed, the writer has executed with some talent, and for which we hope (as the labourer is worthy of his hire) Mr. Warden has handsomely rewarded him.

'Mr. Warden says, that in publishing these Letters "he has yielded, rather reluctantly to become an author, from persuasion he scarce knew how to resist, and to which he had some reason to suspect resistance might be vain." (p. vi.) He consented reluctantly to become an author!-if the letters had been written, he was already an author, though his work was unpublished; the fact is, no such letters existed. have also reason to believe that he did not yield reluctantly, but that he had, from the first moment, resolved to publish, and that he received with great dissatisfaction some advice which was given him to the contrary. How he could be forced, by an irresistible power, to publish is more than we can com

We

prehend, unless, as we shrewdly sus- ly," (p. 131.) and is so far encouraged pect, that irresistible power was a talismanic paper inscribed with certain figures of pounds, shillings, and pence, which were at once the object and reward of the imposture.

'He affects to write colloquial French, and relates with great effrontery his direct conversations with Napoleon and his suite. The fact is, the surgeon is wholly ignorant of that language; and of this we find positive proof in his own book.

'In the first place, no man who understood French could have written the words tâche journalière as he has done; in his mode they mean a spot, and not a task.

by the easy communicative manners of the ex-emperor, (not a word of the interpreter,) that he continues to make his observations without reserve. (p. 142.) "I was resolved (he says) to speak my sentiments with freedom; and you may think I did not balk my resolution."

'Again,'

"Here Napoleon became very animated, and often raised himself on the sofa where he had hitherto remained in a reclining posture. The interest attached to the subject, and the energy of his delivery, combined to impress the tenor of his narrative so strongly on my mind, that you need not doubt the accuracy of this repetition of it." p. 144. As if Mr. Warden wished us to suppose that he gave the very words of the man.

All these are, we admit, only insinuations and equivocations; but in the second letter there is a direct and palpable falsehood.

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In the next place, Mr. Warden lets slip the avowal, (page 130,) that he spoke to Bonaparte by an interpreter, and that this interpreter was the veracious count de Las Cases, a kind of secretary and ame damnée of the exemperor, (who is now said to be under arrest for attempting a secret correspondence,) and who seems to be, of Bonaparte is represented as inquirthe whole suite, the person who is the ing after the health of Madame de most careless of truth, and the most Montholon, and attributing her illness ready to say, not what he believes or to her horror of the idea of St. Helena knows, but what he thinks most con- Mr. Warden says he repeated to his venient at the moment. "This wor- doctor the quotation of Macbeth in the thy person," says Mr. Warden, “inter- following manner: preted with great aptitude and perspicuity, and afforded me time to arrange my answers." Notwithstanding this avowal, Mr. Warden describes himself as conversing with ease and volubility with Bonaparte, whom he represents as speaking English.

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"Can a physician minister to a mind diseased, "Or pluck from memory a rooted sorrow?"

"At this time Bonaparte could not have pronounced the three first words of this quotation; he could as well have written Macbeth. Nay, in one of his last interviews, Mr. Warden represents his utmost efforts in English to be a stammering attempt to call madame Bertrand his love, or his friend.—p. 161.

"The moment his eyes met mine, he started up and exclaimed in English, Ah, Warden, how do you do?" I bowed in return, when he stretched 'Mr. Warden says, "that the Briout his hand, saying, 'I've got a fever.' tish government proscribed Bertrand I expressed," &c. (page 131.) And so from accompanying Bonaparte," and on for a long conversation, in which "that Lord Keith took on himself the the interpreter is entirely sunk. When responsibility of including such an atthe Doctor replies, he replies not tached friend in the number of his at-· like a person who "wanted time to tendants." (p. 20.) This is notoriously arrange his answer," but " rather quick

false,

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'Again he says,'

"A delicacy was maintained in communicating to Bonaparte the contents of the English Journals. That truth is not to be spoken, or in any way impart ed at all times, is a proverb which was now faithfully adhered to on board the Northumberland."-p. 26.

'Mr. Warden here speaks truly as of himself and his French friends; but it is well known that Sir George Cockburn is as much above any such paltry deceit as is here imputed to him, as he is above giving a person in Bonaparte's situation any intentional offence. The truth, we believe, is, that the newspapers, both English and French, were freely sent to Bonaparte; and if the contents of the former were ever kept from him, it must have been by Las Cases, who was his usual interpreter; and upon whose veracity in this office, so much of Mr. Warden's own credit unfortunately depends.

'Mr. Warden affects to relate to us the Abbé de Pradt's famous* account of the interview at Warsaw, and lo! the tall figure who enters the AbbéAmbassador's hotel wrapped up in fur is -not Caulaincourt-but Cambacérès, poor old gentleman! He cannot even write the name of one of Bonaparte's followers, whom he attended in a dangerous illness, and who studied English under him; he an hundred times calls general Gourgaud, general Gourgond; and lest this should appear an error of the press, he varies his orthography and calls him general Gourgon ! (p. 46;) but never does he call him by his proper name; Maret, Duke of Bassano, be confounds with Marat, (p. 209;) count Erlon he calls Erelon; and colonel Prontowski is always Piontowski; doctor Corvisart is Corvesart, (pp. 184. 190,) and sometimes Covisart, (p. 80;) the baron de Kolli, a Swiss, is metamorphosed into the baron de Colai, (p. 70,) a pole; Morbihan is Morbeau; the duke of Frioul becomes Frieuli:

Vid. Vol. XIV. Art. XXVII. p. 65.

in short, there is no end to these errors, which prove Mr. Warden to be very ignorant or very inaccurate, or what we believe to be the real state of the case --both.

Such is the blundering, presumptuous and falsifying scribbler, who has dared to speak of the sensible and modest pamphlet of lieutenant Bowerbank, as "trash which he is ashamed to repeat, and which he wonders that this Review" (which we are sorry to find he calls a respectable work) "should condescend to notice."

'He takes upon himself even to assert, that some of the facts quoted in our 27th Number from that pamphlet and other authentic sources, are mere silly falsehoods, and he endeavours to represent Bonaparte as concurring in this assertion. We rather wonder that Bonaparte did not; it would have been but a lie the more, an additional drop to the waters, another grain of sand to the shores of the ocean; but unluckily for Mr. Warden, the ex-emperor did not take his bait, and only said, with that kind of equivocation which is his nearest advance to truth, "Your editors are extremely amusing; but is it to be supposed that they believe what they write?"

After this detailed exposure of Mr. Warden's ignorance and inaccuracy, it now becomes our duty to say, that though his letters are a clumsy fabrication, and therefore unworthy of credit, yet there are some of his reports which are substantially correct, and which, as we before said, Mr. Warden may have heard from those who had at once the opportunities and the means of holding a conversation with Bonaparte, and who were not obliged to put up, like Mr. Warden, with secondhand stories from M. de Bertrand, general Gourgaud, and the count de Las Cases, who seem in their conversations with Mr. Warden, to have given a more than usual career to their dispositions for fabling; and the simplicity

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