Besides, it was not necessary for Napoleon to make Rochefort or Rochelle his starting-point.  The troops and seamen at these and the neighbouring ports were all devoted to him, and would have risked everything to save him from capture.  He knew all this, but he was possessed of an innate belief in the chivalry of the British character, and left out of account the class of men that were in power.  He knew them to be his inveterate foes, but was deceived in believing they had hearts.  Their foremost soldier had taken an active share in his defeat, and he acknowledged it by putting himself under the protection of our laws.  The honest English seamen who were his shipmates on both ships were not long in forming a strong liking to him, and a dislike to the treatment he was receiving.  They felt there was something wrong, though all they could say about it was that “he was a d——­d good fellow.”

Lord Keith was so afraid of his fascinating personality after his visit to the Bellerophon that he said, “D——­n the fellow! if he had obtained an interview with His Royal Highness, in half an hour they would have been the best friends in England.”  In truth, Lord Keith lost a fine opportunity of saving British hospitality from the blight of eternal execration by evading the lawyer who came to Plymouth to serve a writ of Habeas Corpus to claim the Emperor’s person, and the pity is that an honoured name should have been associated with a mission so crimeful and an occasion so full of illimitable consequences to England’s boasted generosity.  Except that he too well carried out his imperious instructions, Lord Keith does not come well out of the beginning of the great tragedy.  The only piece of real delicacy shown by Lord Keith to the Emperor was in allowing him to retain his arms, and snubbing a secretary who reminded him that the instructions were that all should be disarmed.  This zealous person was told to mind his own business.

Napoleon asks the Admiral if there is any tribunal to which he can apply to determine the legality of him being sent to St. Helena, as he protested that he was the guest and not the prisoner of the British nation; and Keith, with an air of condescending benevolence, assures him that he is satisfied there is every disposition on the part of the Government to render his situation as comfortable as prudence would permit.  No wonder Napoleon’s reply was animated, and his soul full of dignified resentment at the perfidy that was about to be administered to him under the guise of beneficence.

Scott describes the interview with Keith as “a remarkable scene.”  He says:  “His (Napoleon’s) manner was perfectly calm and collected, his voice equal and firm, his tones very pleasing, the action of the head was dignified, and the countenance remarkably soft and placid, without any marks of severity.”  That is a good testimony from the author of the “Waverley Novels,” who was anything but an impartial biographer.