Some three years before, Lord Keith was horrified when Captain Maitland informed him on board the Bellerophon, in Torbay, that the Duke of Rovigo, Lallemand, Montholon, and Gourgaud had said that their Emperor would not go to St. Helena, and if he were to consent, they would prevent it, meaning that they would end his existence rather than witness any further degradation of him.  Lord Keith is indignant, and replies to Sir Frederick Maitland, “You may tell those gentlemen who have threatened to be Bonaparte’s executioners that the law of England awards death to murderers, and that the certain consequence of such an act will be finishing their career on a gallows.”  Precisely!

The noble lord’s fascinating little speech is quite in accord with justice, but did he ever raise a finger to prevent his colleagues and their renowned deputy from committing the same crime at St. Helena, and after this same Bonaparte’s demise, were any steps taken to call to account those whom the great soldier had consistently declared were causing his premature death?  Lord Keith, with his eyes uplifted to heaven, had said, “England awards death to murderers,” and in this we are agreed, but there must be no fine distinction drawn as to who the perpetrators are or their reason for doing it.  Whether a person for humanity’s sake is despatched by a friendly pistol-shot or the process of six years of refined cruelty, the crime is the same, the only difference being (if life has to be taken) that it is more merciful it should be done expeditiously.

The French revered their Emperor, and could not bear to witness his dire humiliation at the hands of men so infinitely his inferiors, hence the thought of unlawfully ending his existence.  On the other hand, members of the British Government were swollen out with haughty righteousness; they regarded themselves as deputies of the Omnipotent.  They determined in solemn conclave that the man against whom they had waged war for twenty years, and who was only now beaten by a combination of circumstances, should be put through the ordeal of an inquisition.  If he held out long, well and good, but should he succumb to their benign treatment, their faith would be steadfast in their own blamelessness.  They were quite unconscious of being an unspeakable brood of hollow, heartless mediocrities.  Why did Lord Keith not give them, as he did the devoted Frenchmen, a little sermon on the orthodoxy of the gallows?  They were far more in need of his guiding influence.

The British public were deceived by the most malevolent publications.  The great captive was made to appear so dangerous an animal that neither soldiers nor sailors could keep him in subjection, and the stories of his misdeeds when at the height of his ravishing glory were spread broadcast everywhere.  Nothing, indeed, was base enough for the oligarchy of England and the French Royalists to stoop to.

For a time the flow of wickedness went on unchecked.  At last a few good men and women began to speak out the truth, and as though Nature revolted against the scoundrelism that had been and was now being perpetrated, a sharp and swelling reaction came over the public.  Men and women began to express the same views as Captain Maitland’s sailors had expressed, viz.:  “This man cannot be so bad as they make him out to be.”