With regard to Napoleon’s reclamations against the decision of the English government, it may probably suffice now to observe—­1st, that that government had never, at any period, acknowledged him as Emperor of France, and that it refused to be a party to the treaty under which he retired to Elba, simply because it was resolved not to acknowledge him as Emperor of Elba.  These things Napoleon well knew; and as to his recent re-exercise of imperial functions in France, he well knew that the English government had continued to acknowledge Louis XVIII. as King all through the hundred days.  Upon no principle, therefore, could he have expected beforehand to be treated as Emperor by the ministers of the Prince Regent; nor, even if he had been born a legitimate prince, would it have been in the usual course of things for him, under existing circumstances, to persist in the open retention of his imperial style.  By assuming some incognito, as sovereigns when travelling out of their own dominions are accustomed to do, Napoleon might have cut the root away from one long series of his subsequent disputes with the English government and authorities.  But in doing as he did, he acted on calculation.  He never laid aside the hopes of escape and of empire.  It was his business to have complaints.  If everything went on quietly and smoothly about him, what was to ensure the keeping up of a lively interest in his fortunes among the faction, to which he still looked as inclined to befriend him, and above all, among the soldiery, of whose personal devotion, even after the fatal catastrophe of Waterloo, he had no reason to doubt?  Buonaparte, in his days of success, always attached more importance to etiquette than a prince born to the purple, and not quite a fool, would have been likely to do:  but in the obstinacy with which, after his total downfall, he clung to the airy sound of majesty, and such pigmy toys of observance as could be obtained under his circumstances, we cannot persuade ourselves to behold no more than the sickly vanity of a parvenu.  The English government acknowledged him by the highest military rank he had held at that time when the treaty of Amiens was concluded with him as First Consul; and the sound of General Buonaparte, now so hateful in his ears, who had under that style wielded the destinies of the world, might have been lost, if Napoleon himself had chosen, in some factitious style.

To come to the more serious charges.  Napoleon, driven to extremity in 1814 by the united armies of Europe, abdicated his throne, that abdication being the price of peace to France, and to soothe his personal sufferings, obtained the sovereignty of Elba.  When he violated the treaty by returning in arms to Provence, the other provisions, which gave peace to France and Elba to him, were annulled of course.  When the fortune of Waterloo compelled him to take refuge in the Bellerophon—­what was to be done?  To replace in Elba, or any similar