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in a more outrageous manner than on the 18th of last month. The Governor followed me out of the room, vociferating after me in a frantic manner, and carried his gestures so far as to menace me with personal violence. After this, orders again given me to attend Plantation House twice a week."

The interview thus briefly alluded to and summarily dismissed deserves a fuller notice. It was not to be expected that O'Meara would give a faithful account of it. He might, indeed, with no greater dishonesty than he has exhibited throughout his book, have garbled it to suit his purpose; but it was more convenient not to attempt any detail of a conversation which covered him with disgrace. For he confessed to the Governor on that occasion, after much hesitation and with great reluctance, that, notwithstanding his frequent spontaneous communications to himself, and his series of gossiping and garrulous letters to Mr. Finlaison, from May, 1816, to December, 1817, a period of nearly twenty months, he was during the whole of that period under a pledge to Napoleon not to reveal the conversations that passed between them, unless they related to his escape!

Major Gorrequer was desired by the Governor to take a note of the expressions used by O'Meara, and he put them down in the following words:

“Mr. O'Meara says, he pledged his word to Napoleon Bonaparte not to reveal the conversations that passed between themselves, except they had a tendency to his (Napoleon Bonaparte's) escape, last May was a twelvemonth."

He then showed O'Meara what he had written, who read it, and said it was what he had expressed, and, if required, he would give it in his own handwriting. The Governor then said, "What, Sir! and you have thus pledged yourself with

In his report of a conversation with the Governor on the 17th of February, 1818 (Voice, vol. ii. p. 376), O'Meara tells us that, when Sir Hudson Lowe said to him he did "not think a person under a pledge to Napoleon Bonaparte ought to be received into company," he replied, "I was under no other pledge to Napoleon than one which was tacitly understood in every society of gentlemen."

out consulting me about it, or even thinking proper to apprise me of it until now, and you do not blush to avow it!" O'Meara answered, "I beg your pardon, Sir, I told you of it." This the Governor immediately denied, and O'Meara did not persist in the assertion.

Sir Hudson Lowe afterward asked-"If you engaged your promise not to reveal any thing that passed in conversation between Napoleon Bonaparte and yourself, except what had a tendency to his escape, how came you to repeat to me all that you have mentioned of those conversations which had no tendency whatever to escape?" He answered, "Because you had asked me, and I thought they might be interesting to Government; but, though I told you some parts I did not tell you all; besides, I thought I might in some things depart from it [i. e. the promise] without impropriety."

The Governor said, that a person who had made such a promise was not fit to remain in such a situation; and, after in warm language pointing out the impropriety of his conduct, which he characterized as dishonorable and uncandid toward Government and himself, he told him he did not wish him to remain in the house any longer, and desired him to quit it. It will, however, I think be generally felt that O'Meara was more to blame for systematically violating his promise when once made, than for making it in the first instance. The promise might be an error of judgment; the breaking it was the deliberate breach of a solemn engagement.

On the 23d O'Meara wrote a long letter to Sir Hudson Lowe, which is nowhere noticed in his printed works. The reason of this no doubt was, that it would have been very difficult to do so without revealing to the world that he had given the pledge of secrecy to Napoleon, which he so repeatedly violated. After saying that his principle was "to forget the conversations he held with his patients on leaving the room, unless as far as regarded his allegiance as a British officer to his sovereign and country," and that, if he had consented to report to the Governor verbatim his conversations with Bonaparte, he would have acted "a most base and dis

Major Gorrequer's Minutes.

honorable part," and in fact been a "spy" and a "mouton,” and that "such conduct would cover his name with well-merited infamy, and render him unfit for the society of any man of honor," he thus proceeded to develop his conception of the duties of his office :1

"He who, clothed with the specious garb of a physician, insinuates himself into the confidence of his patient, and avails himself of the frequent opportunities and facilities which his situation necessarily presents of being near his person, to wring, under the pretense of curing or alleviating his infirmities, and in that confidence which has been from time immemorial reposed by the sick in persons professing the healing art, disclosures of his patients' sentiments for the purpose of afterward betraying them, deserves most justly to be branded with the appellation of Mouton.'"

To this sentence of condemnation upon the physician who violates his trust no exception can be taken; and out of his own mouth shall O'Meara be judged. We are lost in amazement at the effrontery of a man who could so write after he had deliberately, during the whole period of his residence at St. Helena, broken, not merely the implied agreement which according to himself tacitly subsists between the physician and his patient, but his express promise to Napoleon. So far from "forgetting conversations with his patients on leaving the room," he used to hurry to his apartments, where he was seen noting down in his journal all that had occurred.2 Moreover, he did not scruple afterward to publish to the world the sayings of Napoleon which he had heard from him solely through means of the access which he had to his privacy in the character of physician. And from time to time he sent off his narrative of conversations with the Exile of the most confidential kind to his friend at the Admiralty, to be by that friend communicated to the ministers of the Crown. So that

1 That no injustice may be done to O'Meara, the letter is printed at length at the end of the work.

See the statement made by Count Montholon on this subject in the next volume.

it was clear to demonstration that either he had given no such pledge as he asserted, or he had constantly and deliberately been in the habit of violating it.

And here it may be convenient to mention that not long afterward Sir Hudson Lowe was officially made acquainted with the fact that O'Meara continued to forward his letters to Mr. Finlaison, for on the 23d of January, 1818, Mr. Goulburn wrote thus to Sir Hudson Lowe :-" Lord Bathurst thinks it proper that you should be informed that this correspondence is still kept up, and that it is so with his Lordship's knowledge; for, as the letters received from Dr. O'Meara are regularly submitted to Lord Bathurst's perusal, he has thought it advisable not to do any thing which, by driving Dr. O'Meara to seek another channel of correspondence, might deprive Lord Bathurst of the knowledge of its contents, and of the objects with which it is evident that his communications are made."

CHAPTER XVIII.

QUESTION OF THE TITLE OF EMPEROR-THE FOREIGN COM MISSIONERS-CONVERSATIONS WITH O'MEARA RESPECTING

THE REGULATIONS-CIRCUMSTANCES CONNECTED WITH THE

DEPARTURE OF GENERAL GOURGAUD-O'MEARA'S CHARGE AS ΤΟ FICTITIOUS BULLETINS RESPECTING NAPOLEON'S HEALTH CONSIDERED-DEATH OF CIPRIANI.

AT the beginning of the year 1818 Sir Hudson Lowe received some dispatches from England, in one of which Lord Bathurst said that, although he could not but applaud the delicacy which had influenced the Governor in allowing the French at Longwood to give to Bonaparte the title of Emperor, in their official communications with himself, while by addressing Count Bertrand, who assumed the title of Grand Marshal, instead of writing direct to "the General," he had in fact treated the latter with all the circumstances of respect which are considered due to sovereign princes, yet, considering the tone of overbearing authority adopted by Bertrand in his letters, it was necessary to instruct Sir Hudson in future, in any communications which he might find it necessary to make direct to Bonaparte, to do so in person or by letter written by himself; but in addressing any of the suite he was to leave it to one of his staff to write the letters by his command. He was also instructed to notify the followers of Bonaparte that he would not receive any letter or any communication from them in which the title of Emperor should be given to the former, and that if any such letter or communication were transmitted to him it would be returned forthwith. At the same time

1 Sir Hudson Lowe himself, at a subsequent period, attributed few of his difficulties to the vexed question of the imperial title. In a manuscript found among the papers he says, "This question, it is said, raised difficulties on every side and embittered all the communications between the persons at Longwood and all those who held official appoint

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