An American vessel, ‘a very fast sailer’, appeared off the island in July 1816 but eluded the British frigates that tried to intercept her. It returned day after day, as if reconnoitring landing places. It may have been the True Blooded Yankee; Bathurst had sent Lowe intelligence in May that this privateer had sailed from Bahia, Brazil, with the aim of liberating Bonaparte. Lowe supported Admiral Malcolm’s request for another fast vessel to ward off such attempts: ‘I really consider a small corvette well to windward as essential to prevent the approach of any suspicious vessel. There is hardly any obstacle otherwise to their coming in close to the shore during the night-time, sending in a boat, and disappearing before the morning.’1
Napoleon now found a use for the billiard table the governor had sent up to Longwood: to lay out his escape-plan maps. Montholon had received an offer from an English captain to help get Napoleon past the barrier of sentries, off the island and transport him to the United States, ‘for a million, to be paid on landing’. Gourgaud took part in the discussion around the baize table: ‘Napoleon said: “It could be assumed I was remaining in my room. The Governor is used to my remaining indoors for several days on end. We could send one of our ladies, or perhaps both of them, to call at Plantation House; O’Meara would go into town, and while Lady Lowe was making polite conversation about me in her drawing room, we should leave this accursed place.”’ But he then rejected such tempting visions, shaking his head: ‘It is a very seductive picture, but alas it would be madness. I must either die here or France must come and get me.’2
Soon after, Betsy and Jane Balcombe called. They found Napoleon firing at a mark with pistols and Betsy noted ‘a gleam of the former playfulness’ he had shown at The Briars. ‘He put one into my hand, loaded, I believe, with powder, and, in great trepidation, I fired it off; he often called me afterwards “La petite tirailleuse” [tirailleur or skirmisher] and said he would form a corps of sharp-shooters, of which I should be the captain.’ He invited them to inspect his new billiard table. ‘I remember thinking it too childish for men, and very like marbles on a larger scale. The emperor condescended to teach me how to play, but I made very little progress.’3
On 24 July, O’Meara sent a secret report to Sir Thomas Reade, noting that Bonaparte had spent over two hours in the Montholon apartment the previous evening. ‘This will make Madame Bertrand as jealous as the deuce, though I believe the real reason is that he has no other room to sit in until the chimney is finished or the library put to rights. Madame Montholon however exults much at the favour shown to her, and actually putteth on two extra gowns daily, in consequence thereof.’ This was not the first of O’Meara’s sly insinuations about Albine de Montholon, and it would not be the last.4
The following day, Admiral Malcolm came to Longwood and stayed for four hours, bringing French newspapers which had arrived on the HMS Griffon.5 An insurrection at Grenoble cheered Napoleon immensely. The Bourbons, he said, were seated on a volcano. The admiral and Bonaparte had taken the measure of each other and respected what they saw. Throughout their protracted discussion, they walked around the drawing room with their hats under their arms, for Sir Pulteney knew not to be seated while his host remained standing. He understood Bonaparte’s need to salvage what vestiges he could of courtly dignity; he ‘saw that he was determined to keep up as long as he could, within his own house, the state of an emperor’.6
On 6 August, William Balcombe made a visit not entered in the orderly’s logbook and went for a ride in the carriage with Napoleon. He continued to raise hopes in a manner that, if the governor had known of his comments, would have caused him to be ejected from the island. Bertrand gave an account in his private journal, explicitly naming the purveyor: ‘Mr Balcombe has gone to Longwood and promenaded for two hours in the carriage with the Emperor. He maintains that of all the officers who are here, there is not one who would not give something for Napoleon to return to his throne. All the officers of the 66th who crossed France declare that everyone, in the inns and cafes, mourns the Emperor, because, they say, he has been chosen, or because, say others, he gave to France much glory. In England the same, the party for Napoleon is growing; opinion is changing on his account.’7
On the same day, a lieutenant, two midshipmen and a party of seamen from the Newcastle arrived at Longwood to repair the garden marquee torn in recent rains. Napoleon strolled over and chatted with one of the midshipmen.8 Betsy noted how impressed he was with the elegant youth: ‘Napoleon was fond of sailors, and liked entering into conversation with the young midshipmen who conducted the fatigue parties at Longwood. On one occasion a remarkably handsome and high-born young reefer attracted his notice, from the activity he displayed in setting his men to work in erecting a commodious marquee out of studding-sail. He inquired his name, and when he heard it was the Honourable G C, he remarked that he was one of the very few instances in which he had observed high birth combined with so much amiability and intelligence.’9
Dame Mabel Brookes, in her St Helena Story, tells us that this midshipman was the Honourable George Carstairs, Betsy’s first love interest.10 It is clear that Betsy was intrigued by the youth, for the next time she saw Napoleon she said that she ‘had the pleasure of being acquainted with the young middy he so much admired, and that he was the most popular of any of his young companions in the wardroom’. Her first sight of ‘G C’ had been after Admiral Cockburn’s ball. He was drunkenly singing with other ‘middies’ (midshipmen) on top of a cart blocking the exit from the castle courtyard.11
On 10 August, Napoleon was breakfasting in the new marquee when the governor arrived to personally invite him to the Prince Regent’s birthday celebrations. He hid from sight and Lowe went away disappointed.
Later that day, Sir Pulteney Malcolm and his wife had no trouble finding Napoleon, who invited them for what he called ‘a drive round the Park’ in his carriage. As they clattered between the gumwood trees and around the ‘steep, black, dreary-looking hollow’ of the Devil’s Punchbowl, Lady Malcolm considered that ‘going so fast, it did not seem quite safe; but the two Paris postilions were excellent’.12
Napoleon was interested to learn that the admiral had rowed around the island the previous day. It was useful information that a rowing boat could approach the cliffs.
The Prince Regent’s birthday on 12 August was celebrated with a grand field day at Deadwood Camp. Salutes were fired from the batteries. Pacing about the Longwood garden, Napoleon watched the distant parade on the plain and the governor’s review of the redcoats.
In the evening, a formal dinner for fifty was held at Plantation House, the women in their silks, satins and jewellery and the men’s uniforms blazing with decorations, reflected from the great crystal chandelier above the table. Dinner was followed by a ball at Deadwood in a marquee lit by lanterns. The women came up from town crammed into carts pulled by horses or oxen, carrying their evening dresses in boxes. ‘We got down from the carriage,’ recalled one lady, ‘into mud up to our knees in the damp darkness.’13 Lady Lowe chose to stay in town; she was seven months pregnant and had told Major Gorrequer that she would never have married again ‘if she had thought she would have got pickaninnies from a second husband’.14 Furthermore, she complained, the local people showed no special attention to a governor’s wife.
At the Deadwood ball, in the absence of his wife, Sir Hudson partnered Lady Malcolm for the first set. Betsy was invited up for the quadrille by the Honourable George Carstairs, ‘the greatest beau that ever came to St Helena’. It would seem that if she had fancied him at first, her interest had since waned. She learned that he was ‘such an exquisite’ that before dressing for dinner or a dance he would sit for an hour with his feet propped above his head so he could squeeze them into elegant tight shoes. He wore huge showy epaulettes, his sword belt embroidered with golden oak leaves, and more embroidery around his silk stockings. He told her he was appalled that the provincial ladies of St Helena ‘understood nothing but kitchen dances and reels’, and he offered instruction in the mysteries of the quadrille. Even Mrs Balcombe joined his class, until she ‘unceremoniously put her foot on his heel, because he stood bending before her’ and the swallowtails of his coat nearly poked out her eye.15 She retired, but the young people continued dancing until the dawn cannon fired.
Napoleon was amused when he heard Betsy’s description, and urged her to obtain a pass for Carstairs to visit Longwood again. When one was procured, he told the young man, ‘putting on a most comical look’, that he ‘had heard from Miss Betsee that he was a great dandy—which was anything but pleasing intelligence to the young hero, who began to think he was indebted for the honour of his interview with the great man to the circumstance of his being considered a sort of tom-fool’.16 (Carstairs styled himself on Beau Brummell, unaware that the modish buck had recently left England because of gambling debts, having also angered the Prince Regent by describing him as a ‘fat friend’.17) After the visit, Napoleon told Betsy that it was unrealistic for her to consider Carstairs as a romantic prospect: ‘He is far too aristocratic for you, Betsee.’ It was kindly advice, considering the possibility of social disgrace familiar to Jane Austen’s readers (the fate of Lydia Bennet, for instance) which could befall a girl like Betsy: too pretty not to attempt to seduce, too poor or low in rank to marry. But according to Dame Mabel Brookes and Betsy’s diary account, she answered ‘You are jealous because he dances with me.’ Napoleon pulled her ear and turned away towards the pavilion without answering.18
Three days after the Regent’s fifty-fourth birthday, Napoleon’s forty-seventh was observed with little fanfare. He breakfasted in the garden marquee with members of his court. Gourgaud annoyed him by making up a floral bouquet, saying it was from Napoleon’s son, the King of Rome. ‘Bah!’ Napoleon exclaimed. ‘The King of Rome does not think any more about me now.’19 In the evening, according to O’Meara’s sardonic account, ‘the second class of domestics, including the English, had a grand supper and a dance afterwards. To the astonishment of the French, not an Englishman got drunk.’20
The following day, a birthday gift from Lady Holland was sent by the governor, an amazing machine for making ice using an air pump.21 Admiral Malcolm rode up to Longwood and discovered Napoleon and his companions in awe at a demonstration by the local upholsterer, ‘who understood the process’.22 Napoleon was fascinated when a cup of water was frozen in his presence in fifteen minutes. He remarked what a gratification that would have been in Egypt.23
Betsy and Jane came with their father to see the marvel. Napoleon was now the expert on the machine’s workings. ‘After making a cup of ice, he insisted upon my putting a large piece into my mouth, and laughed to see the contortions it induced from the excessive cold. It was the first ice that had ever been seen at St. Helena.’24
The governor called at Longwood for a discussion ‘principally about the necessity of reducing the expenses of the establishment’. He gave written instructions to Bertrand that the household budget be kept within £8000 a year. He offered to go through the items with him, but Bertrand replied: ‘The less communication you and I have either verbally or in writing the better.’ Lowe said the wish was reciprocal, and departed.25
If relations between Bonaparte and Lowe were bad before, they were about to become a great deal worse. On Sunday 18 August, Admiral Malcolm met the governor at Hutt’s Gate and, accompanied by Sir Thomas Reade and Major Gorrequer, they rode to Longwood together. They saw Bonaparte walking in the garden with Madame de Montholon and Count de Las Cases. The confrontation that followed was to sever all personal relations between the governor and his prisoner for the remainder of their lives. It was particularly painful for Lowe because he was insulted in front of the admiral and his own staff, with Dr O’Meara and Captain Poppleton listening in the background.
At first Napoleon exchanged pleasantries with the admiral, pointedly ignoring the governor’s presence. Lowe interrupted, saying he was sorry to raise a disagreeable subject but that the rude and improper conduct of Count Bertrand made it necessary. His instructions were that the expenses at Longwood had to be resolved and he needed to know with whom he could communicate.
Napoleon was silent for several minutes, walking to and fro, then he addressed himself to the admiral: ‘Count Bertrand is a man well known and esteemed in Europe; he has been distinguished and has commanded armies.’ He nodded in the direction of the governor: ‘He treats him like a corporal. Madame Bertrand is a lady well born, who has been accustomed to the first place in society; he does not treat her with the regard that is her due; he stops her letters and prevents her seeing those that wish to visit her, except under restrictions.’
Lowe interjected that he merely carried out his instructions; if his conduct was disapproved of by the government, he might readily be removed. ‘Since your arrival we have experienced nothing but vexations,’ Napoleon said, turning to him. ‘Your instructions are the same as Sir George Cockburn’s—he told me so—but you execute them with fifty times more rigour. He never vexed us with trifles . . . but there is no dealing with you—you are a most intractable man. You suspect everything and everybody. You are a Lieutenant-General but you perform your duty as if you were a sentinel; you never commanded any men but Corsican deserters. I know the name of every English general who has distinguished himself, but I have never heard of you except as a clerk to Blücher, or as a commandant of assassins. You do not know how to conduct yourself towards men of honour, your soul is too low. Why do you not treat us like prisoners of war? You treat us like Botany Bay convicts.’
Lowe spoke with cool deliberation: ‘I have every desire to render your situation as agreeable as is in my power, but you prevent me . . . I am the subject of a free government. I hold every species of tyranny and despotism in execration, and I will repel every attack upon my character on this point.’
Bonaparte turned to the admiral again. ‘There are two kinds of people employed by governments—those whom they honour, and those whom they dishonour; he is one of the latter; the situation they have given him is that of an executioner. I, who have been the Master of the World, know the type of man such positions are given to. It is only the dishonoured who accept them.’26
Soon an account of the meeting was circulating around the island. Sir Hudson Lowe had been spoken to with intolerable rudeness and Bonaparte knew it. ‘I must not see that officer again,’ he told Las Cases. ‘He makes me lose my temper and forget myself. I said things to him that would have been inexcusable at the Tuileries. If they are excusable here it is because I am in his hands and in his power.’27
The governor would never speak to Bonaparte again. For the next five years he saw him only occasionally and at a distance. His next close view was when he inspected the prisoner’s corpse. For the present, he resented Admiral Malcolm’s apparent friendship with Bonaparte—and with William Balcombe. He had heard that Balcombe had told Bonaparte that he, the governor, was gossiping about Madame Mère’s letter and her offer to travel to the island to be with her son—something he categorically denied.28 In his mind The Briars was shaping as a hostile camp. A hostile naval camp. He would ensure that Major Sir Thomas Reade kept the Balcombes under surveillance.
The next day Montholon delivered a long letter, signed by him, to the governor. It had been composed by Napoleon with input from his companions. It stated the rights he claimed as prisoner, listed all their grievances and demanded redress. A copy eventually found publication in Europe, where it became known as ‘The Remonstrance’ and caused a sensation. It concluded by explaining the impossibility of reducing household expenses: ‘You demand from the Emperor £4000 sterling, your government allowing only £8000 for all expenses. I have already had the honour to tell you that the Emperor has no funds.’29 Las Cases was confident that the document would ‘set Europe on fire’. Malcolm asked Lowe for a copy and was offended to be refused. He noted that the governor ‘was very desirous to have it kept secret . . . not so those at Longwood; they read it in French and English to everyone that called and offered copies, but none were taken’.30
Acting on his threat, Lowe further restricted the boundary of Longwood and commanded the 23 sentries to move close to the house at dusk, rather than at 9 pm, denying the prisoner his evening stroll in the garden, for he refused to go out under guard. Instead Bonaparte requested (not entirely seriously) that the servants dig ditches around the perimeter, eight or ten feet deep if necessary, so he could walk in privacy.31 He then directed Montholon to write to the governor saying that if Count Bertrand could no longer grant passes to visitors, ‘the Emperor desired the Governor would not give any, neither to officers, nor to the inhabitants, nor to passing strangers, for they rambled about the grounds and annoyed him’. Lowe sent this letter on to the admiral and asked that he refuse passes to naval officers as well. This had the effect of also inhibiting the Malcolms from visiting. Lady Clementina’s Diary noted: ‘It is understood that Bonaparte wrote this letter under the influence of passion, and wished it recalled, but pride would not permit him to say so.’32
At the beginning of September, Captain Poppleton informed the governor that Captain Piontkowski had approached Lieutenant Nagle, who was shortly leaving for England. The Pole had asked if Nagle was going to France and whether he would be willing to deliver certain correspondence. Nagle refused and reported the matter to Poppleton.
At about the same time, the governor’s secretary Gorrequer told Montholon that the reduction in annual household expenses was going into effect and he should arrange matters with Balcombe. Montholon protested mightily, but the truth was that pilfering and extravagance had been carried on at Longwood on a grand scale. Balcombe’s prices were exorbitant. The chef, butler and valets, accustomed to the luxury of the Tuileries, had refused to lower their standards. While Napoleon was a moderate drinker, many in his retinue found alcohol a comfort during their windswept lonely exile. Each fortnight, 630 bottles of wine were sent to Longwood, where servants conducted a lucrative business at the kitchen door, selling wine to the soldiers of Deadwood Camp. Local residents, most of whom lived in straitened circumstances, heard about the high living and were appalled. It was said that they ‘hated Bonaparte more for eating their sheep and running through all their poultry than for bringing England to her knees by his blockade’.33
Montholon advised Gorrequer that by discharging seven household servants, they could reduce yearly expenses to about £15,000, the bare minimum.34 The blunt response from Plantation House was that this was not acceptable; if they exceeded the budget of £8000 they would have to send for further funds themselves.
Napoleon found it hard to credit that as a prisoner he was being asked to pay for his own detention. Two days before the deadline, according to O’Meara, he ‘had a conversation with Mr Balcombe relative to the concerns of the establishment’.35 He had devised a strategy that would create huge publicity for his situation, shame the governor and, incidentally, produce some income. ‘Have my silver broken up with axes,’ he ordered. Marchand collected a basketload of table silver (cutlery, salvers, covers, jugs and platters), erased the imperial eagles and coats of arms to avoid their becoming trophies, and then smashed the lot. He took 952 ounces of broken silver to Jamestown and, in the presence of Sir Thomas Reade, sold it to Solomons’ store. Reade ordered that the resulting £240 should be held by Balcombe and drawn from in small sums as necessity required. O’Meara was amused that Reade asked him ‘to try to get him some of Napoleon’s plate whole, which, he observed, would sell better in that state than if it were broken up’.36
Two more sales of household silver followed. The ruse worked brilliantly. Locals came to believe that the French were reduced to this in order not to starve. Shortly afterwards, the governor, on his own initiative, revised Longwood’s household allowance to £12,000 a year, the same as his own for Plantation House.
At the end of September, Lowe received a July despatch from Lord Bathurst. A London businessman named Menet based in Milan had written to say that there was a traitor among the English on the island: ‘Your government is deceived. Napoleon has won over a person at St Helena. If you are a true Englishman, profit by this information which is given by a sincere countryman, and advise your Government to be upon its guard.’ A second note from Menet read: ‘Perfect confirmation. We cannot give the details, but the fact is positive. Keep your eyes well open; watch the slightest movement, and take away certain powerful means that always succeed in corrupting (gold). Burn this.’37
Even more alarming, his lordship sent on a warning from the British ambassador in Paris: ‘The French Government have received intelligence that a person named Carpenter, who is a citizen of the United States of America, is equipping a fast sailing vessel in the Hudson River for the express purpose of facilitating the escape of Bonaparte from the Island of St Helena.’38 In transmitting these enclosures, Bathurst stressed the need for further precautions. He believed that Bonaparte had hundreds of millions of francs held by supporters in Europe against the day when he would make his move. Any requests to visit Longwood should be refused, in order to prevent ‘the clandestine communications sent over by Bonaparte’s followers. It will be impossible to counteract this evil, but we must try to limit its extent.’ In particular, he suspected O’Meara of being responsible for a recent letter which had appeared in a Portsmouth newspaper. Bathurst had decided that the time had come for the meddlesome doctor to leave the island, but told Lowe that ‘in removing him you will so concert your measures, as to do it in the manner least likely to draw attention on the one hand and the one best calculated on the other to prevent his becoming the instrument of mischief on his arrival in Europe’.39
The governor was more than eager to dismiss the doctor, but as O’Meara was an Admiralty appointment, he had to take care how he did it. Meanwhile, he instituted Bathurst’s other instructions. On 4 October, Bertrand was summoned to Plantation House to nominate the departure of four people to reduce expenses. Captain Piontkowski, for his misdemeanour, was ‘particularly pointed out’.40 Also to go were two household servants—Santini and Rousseau—and a groom, Joseph Archambault, the younger of two brothers. Those who stayed had to sign, stating their desire to remain ‘and participate in the restrictions imposed upon Napoleon Bonaparte personally’. (Requests to insert the title ‘Emperor’ were rejected.) They were told that refusal to sign would mean instant deportation. Bathurst had urged Lowe that ‘they cannot be too frequently reminded that their continuance in the island is an act of indulgence on the part of the British Government’. In the end they all signed the ‘obnoxious paper’.
Bertrand’s journal that day mentioned that Balcombe visited and informed Napoleon that the more the authorities tried to interrupt his communications, the more he should feel gratified, ‘because it is proof that the urgency to keep you here increases, so your affairs are going well’. Two nights later, after returning home from Longwood, Bertrand wrote an enigmatic entry: ‘At dinner, the Emperor speaks of letters inserted into newspapers and how one deals with St Helena intelligence.’41
He was not the only one busy with his quill pen by candlelight. In his room at Longwood, O’Meara composed a long letter to John Finlaison at the Admiralty. He described the events of recent weeks, including the epic verbal battle between his patient and the governor. He said that Bonaparte described Lowe as a weak man, ‘a man of too weak intellect to be cleverly a wicked man’, whereas ‘the Admiral [Malcolm], who is really a man of talent, has perceived the imbecility of that coglione [arsehole]’. O’Meara relayed more of Bonaparte’s vituperation against the island and its governor, but he assured his exalted readers (he knew there were several) that ‘I beg you not to imagine that I participate in Bonaparte’s sentiments, because I record his words’.42
When the letter reached the Admiralty two months later, the Sea Lords decided that O’Meara’s intimacy with Bonaparte made him a far too valuable resource. It was worth keeping him there, passing information to them, despite any attempt to remove him planned by the Secretary of State.