CHAPTER LXII.

VOYAGE TO ST. HELENA-CESSATION OF CARICATURES.

THE 'Northumberland' crossed the Line on September 23, and the sailors had their then usual bit of fun. Neptune and Amphitrite came on board, and Napoleon's suite were introduced to them in a ceremonious and courtly manner, escaping the usual ordeal by some small presents to their Majesties. Napoleon, of course, was sacred, and, when he was told of the extreme, and unusual, tenderness with which his followers had been treated, he wanted to give the crew a hundred napoleons; but the admiral would not allow it. The caricaturist, however, gives a different version of the affair.

Boney crossing the Line' is by Marks (September 1815), and illustrates the rough sports which then obtained on board ship. Napoleon, blindfolded, is thrown into a tub, where he is being subjected to the usual rough usage, at the command of Neptune, who, with his spouse, are drawn on a gun-carriage by sailors. Neptune says, ‘I command you'l cleanse him from his iniquities.' Poor Boney little likes his treatment, I no like de English valet de Chambre, Have mercy.' Two French generals stand by, blindfolded, ready to undergo the same treatment. One says, 'I wish de Dirty Job was over;' the other, 'Be gar, me no like de shaving shop.' But a sailor remarks to them, Have Patience Gentlemen, and we'll shave you

directly, and give you a good lathering as Old Blucher did!!!'

The last caricature I shall reproduce is called 'Fast Colours, Patience on a monument smiling at grief, or the

FAST COLOURS.

Royal Laundress washing Boney's Court dresses (G. H. invt, G. Cruikshank fect October 26, 1815).' It shows the poor fatuous Bourbon trying to wash out the tricolour, thus bemoaning the task: 'Bless me, how fast these colours are, I'm afraid I shall not get them white, altho' I have got such a strong lather.' Napoleon, seated on his rocky home, says, 'Ha, ha! such an old woman as you, may rub a long while before they'll be all white, for they are tricoloured in grain.' There is another print of the same date and subject, uncoloured, which has the addition of Wellington, Russia, Prussia, and Austria stirring linen in a copper of Holy Water.

From this time the caricatures of Napoleon practically ceased; and, in the collection of prints in the British Museum, I can find but two more, published in 1816— the Mat de Cocagne' and 'Royal Christmas boxes'--both of which are too silly to reproduce or describe. It is to the credit of the English, that, in this instance, they reNapoleon had been captured, disarmed,

spected the fallen.

! The Bourbon colour.

and held in safe durance, and from that time, until his death, we hear but very little of him, and none of that news is either satirical or spiteful. Clearly, therefore, this book ends here. It has nothing to do with the voyage to St. Helena, or with the perpetual squabbles of Napoleon and his suite with Sir Hudson Lowe, which are fully recorded by O'Meara and Las Cases. To all intents and purposes, Napoleon was dead to the English when he left our shores; and when he passed to his rest on May 5, 1821, all animosity died with him. Years had even tamed the bitter scribes of the Times,' as is evidenced by the leader in that paper (July 5, 1821) announcing and commenting on his decease :

Thus terminates in exile, and in prison, the most extraordinary life yet known to political history. The vicissitudes of such a life, indeed, are the most valuable lessons which history can furnish. Connected with, and founded on, the principles of his character, the varieties of fortune. which Buonaparte experienced are of a nature to illustrate the most useful maxims of benevolence, patriotism, or discretion. They embrace both extremes of the condition of man in society, and therefore address themselves to all ranks of human beings. But Buonaparte was our enemy —our defeated enemy-and, as Englishmen, we must not tarnish our triumphs over the living warrior by unmanly injustice towards the dead.

'The details of his life are notorious, and we omit them. The community of which Buonaparte was in his early days a member, and the military education which he received, may, independently of any original bias of character, have laid the foundation of the greatness to which he attained, and of that mischievous application of unbridled power, through which he fell very nearly to the level whence he first had started. Nothing could be more corrupt than the morals

of military society among the French before the Revolution-nothing more selfish, or contracted, than the views (at all times) of a thoroughbred military adventurer.

'Buonaparte came into active life with as much (but we have no reason to think a larger share of) lax morality and pure selfishness as others of his age and calling. The public crisis into which he was thrown, gave to profound selfishness the form of insatiable ambition. With talents and enterprise beyond all comparison greater than any against which he had to contend, he overthrew whatever opposed his progress. Thus, ambition in him was more conspicuous than others, only because it was more successful. He became a sovereign. How, then, was this pupil of a military school prepared to exercise the functions of sovereignty? An officer, as such, has no idea of divided power. His patriotism is simply love of his troops and his profession. He will obey commands-he will issue them -but, in both cases, those commands are absolute. Talk to him of deliberation, of debate, of freedom of action, of speech, nay, of opinion-his feeling is, that the body to which any of these privileges shall be accessible, must fall into confusion, and be speedily destroyed.

'Whatever pretexts may have been resorted to by Buonaparte-whatever Jacobin yells he may have joined in, to assist his own advance towards power-every subsequent act of his life assures us, that the military prepossessions in which he was educated, became those by which he was influenced as a statesman; and we are well persuaded of his conviction, that it was impossible for any country, above all, for France, to be governed otherwise than by one sole authority-undivided and unlimited. It may, we confess, be no satisfaction to the French, nor any great consolation to the rest of Europe, to know through what means it was, or by what vicious training, that Buonaparte

was fitted, nay, predestined almost, to be a scourge and destroyer of the rights of nations, instead of employing a power irresistible, and which, in such a cause, none would have felt disposed to resist, for the promotion of knowledge, peace, and liberty throughout the world,

'In hinting at what we conceive to be the fact, however, we are bound by regard for truth; our business is not to apologize for Buonaparte; but, so far as may be done within the brief limits of a newspaper, to analyze, and faithfully describe, him. The factions, also, which he was compelled to crush, and whose overthrow obtained for him the gratitude of his country, still threatened a resurrection when the compressing force should be withdrawn. Hence were pretexts furnished on behalf of despotism of which men, more enlightened, and better constituted, than Buonaparte, might not soon have discovered the fallacy. Raised to empire at home, his ambition sought for itself fresh aliment; and foreign conquest was at once tempting and easy.

'Here the natural reflection will obtrude itself-what might not this extraordinary being have effected for the happiness of mankind, and for his own everlasting fame and grandeur, had he used but a moiety of the force, or perseverance, in generous efforts to relieve the oppressed which he wasted in rendering himself the monopolist and patron of oppression! But he had left himself no resource. He had extinguished liberty in France, and had no hold upon his subjects, but their love of military glory. Conquest, therefore, succeeded to conquest, until nothing capable of subjugation was left to be subdued. Insolence, and rapacity, in the victor, produced, among the enslaved nations, impatience of their misery, and a thirst for vengeance. Injustice undermined itself, and Buonaparte, with his unseasoned empire, fell together, the pageant of a day.

'His military administration was marked by strict and