In reading through these State letters, one is struck with the diplomatically(?) cunning composition of them.  There does not seem to be a manly phrase from beginning to end.  Trickery, suspicion, cruelty, veiled or apparent, and an occasional dash of pious consideration and bombast sums up these perfidious documents.  A few extracts will convey precisely the character of the men who were carrying on negotiations which should have been regarded as essentially delicate.

In February, 1821, Bathurst writes to Lowe:—­

“Sufficient time will have elapsed since the date of your last communications to enable you to form a more accurate judgment with respect to the extent and reality of General Bonaparte’s indisposition.  Should your observations convince you that the illness has been assumed, you will of course consider yourself at liberty to withhold from him the communication which you are otherwise authorised to make in my despatch No. 21,” &c.

On April 11, 1821, Lowe writes to Bathurst:—­“The enclosed extract of a letter from Count Montholon may merit, as usual, your lordship’s perusal.” (This, of course, is intended as wit.) “It may be regarded as a bulletin of General Bonaparte’s health, meant for circulation at Paris.”

Dr. Antommarchi, in writing to Signor Simeon Colonna on March 17, 1821, after dilating on his master’s health, the climate, &c., bursts out in a paragraph:  “Dear friend, the medical art can do nothing against the influence of climate, and if the English Government does not hasten to remove him from this destructive atmosphere, His Majesty soon, with anguish I say it, will pay the last tribute to the earth”; and in a postscript he adds:  “I offer the undoubted facts stated above, in opposition to the gratuitous assertions in the English newspapers relative to the good health which His Majesty is stated to enjoy here.”

On March 17, 1821, Montholon writes to Princess Pauline Borghesi:  “The Emperor reckons upon your Highness to make his real situation known to some English of influence.  He dies without succour upon this frightful rock; his agonies are frightful.”  At the time Napoleon was suffering thus, letters were published in some of the Ministerial newspapers purporting to have come from St. Helena and representing him to be in perfect health.

On May 6, 1821, Lowe writes to Bathurst announcing the death of the Emperor.  It is a long rigmarole not worth quoting, except that he condescends to allow the body to be interred with the honours due to a general officer of the highest rank.  Then follows the majestic reply of Bathurst.  He says, “I am happy to assure you that your conduct, as detailed in those despatches, has received His Majesty’s approbation”; which indicates that Lowe did not feel quite happy himself as to how the effusions would be regarded by his employers, now that the Emperor had succumbed to their and his own wicked treatment.