One could wish that the conduct of our Government in this matter had been more chivalrous.  It is true that we had only on two occasions acknowledged the imperial title, namely during the negotiations of 1806 and 1814; and to recognize it after his public outlawry would have been rather illogical, besides feeding the Bonapartists with hopes which, in the interests of France, it was well absolutely to close.  Ministers might also urge that he himself had offered to live in England as a private individual, and that his transference to St. Helena, which allowed of greater personal liberty than could be accorded in England, did not alter the essential character of his detention.  Nevertheless, their decision is to be regretted.  The zeal of his partisans, far from being quenched, was inflamed by what they conceived to be a gratuitous insult; and these feelings, artfully worked upon by tales, medals, and pictures of the modern Prometheus chained to the rock, had no small share in promoting unrest in France.

Apart from this initial friction, Napoleon’s relations to the Admiral and officers were fairly cordial.  He chatted with him at the dinner-table and during the hour’s walk that they afterwards usually took on the quarter-deck.  His conversations showed no signs of despair or mental lethargy.  They ranged over a great variety of topics, general and personal.  He discussed details of navigation and shipbuilding with a minuteness of knowledge that surprised the men of the sea.

From his political conversations with Cockburn we may cull the following remarks.  He said that he really meant to invade England in 1803-5, and to dictate terms of peace at London.  He stoutly defended his execution of the Duc d’Enghien, and named none of the paltry excuses that his admirers were later on to discover for that crime.  Referring to recent events, he inveighed against the French Liberals, declared that he had humoured the Chambers far too much, and dilated on the danger of representative institutions on the Continent.  However much a Parliament might suit England, it was, he declared, highly perilous in Continental States.  With respect to the future of France, he expressed the conviction that, as soon as the armies of occupation were withdrawn, there would be a general insurrection owing to the strong military bias of the people and their hatred of the Bourbons, now again brought back by devastating hordes of foreigners.[544]

This last observation probably explains the general buoyancy of his bearing.  He did not consider the present settlement as final; and doubtless it was his boundless fund of hope that enabled him to triumph over the discomforts of the present, which left his companions morose and snappish.  “His spirits are even,” wrote Glover, the Admiral’s secretary, at the equator, “and he appears perfectly unconcerned about his fate."[545] His recreations were chess, which he played with more vehemence than skill,