documents or books written for the most part by the very men who they say are not to be relied on as giving a true version of all that took place during their stay at St. Helena.  It cannot be disputed that these gentlemen were in daily and hourly contact with England’s prisoner, and, as they aver, jotted down everything that passed in conversation or that transpired in other ways between themselves and the Emperor, or anybody else.

The history of the St. Helena period, as written by authors who were on the spot, is, in the present writer’s opinion, singularly free from exaggeration, let alone untruths.  Besides, what had any of them to gain by sending forth distorted statements and untruthful history?  No one knew better than they that every line they wrote would be contested by those who had relied on the rigid regulations suppressing all communications except those which passed through the hands of Sir Hudson Lowe.  Certainly O’Meara cannot be accused of having ulterior motives, nor can any of the others—­not even Gourgaud, who acted alternately traitor and devoted friend.  Gourgaud alone seems to have had a mania for sinning and repenting, writing down during his childish fits of temper about his supposed wrongs on his shirtcuffs, and not infrequently his finger-nails, some nasty remark or some slanderous thoughts about the man whose amiable consideration for him was notorious amongst the circle at Longwood, and even at Plantation House.  These scribblings were intended for precise entry in his diary, and if the peevish temper lasted until he got at this precious book, down they went in rancorous haste.

Yet this hot-headed, jealous chronicler, guided by blind passion and never by reason while these moods were on him, has been held up as an authority that may be relied upon as to the doings and sayings of Napoleon and his immediate followers at the “Abode of Darkness.”  It is a well-known axiom that persons who speak or write anything while jealousy or temper holds them in its grip may not be counted as reliable people to follow, and that is exactly what happened in Gourgaud’s case.  He was the Peter of the band of disciples at St. Helena, and it may be considered fairly reasonable to assume that those who have written up the General as a sound historian have done so with a view to backing up prejudices, big or small, against the Emperor.

But surely they have committed a very grave error in singling out as their hero of veracity a man who, in his more normal and charitable moods, pours out praise and pity for his Imperial chief in astonishing profusion.

O’Meara’s position was very different from any of the other diarists or writers.  He was well aware that if he wrote an honest history it meant his complete ruin, yet he faced it, and defied the world to controvert his statements.  “In face of the world,” he says, “I challenge investigation,” and “investigation” was made with a vengeance worthy of the Inquisition.