“Sir, I observed in the London papers which I received yesterday, a letter from General Gourgaud, which I beg you will have the goodness to reprint, with this communication and the papers accompanying it.
“It appears, that the General is greatly displeased, because, availing myself of formal official documents, I have represented him, in my Life of Buonaparte, as communicating to the British Government and the representatives of others of the Allied Powers, certain statements in matter, which he seems at present desirous to deny or disavow, though in what degree, or to what extent, he has not explicitly stated.
“Upon these grounds, for I can discover no other,
General Gourgaud has been pleased to
charge me, in the most intemperate terms, as the agent of a plot, contrived by
the late British Ministers, to slander and dishonour him. I will not attempt to
imitate the General either in his eloquence or his invective, but confine
myself to the simple fact, that his accusation against me is as void of truth
as it is of plausibility. I undertook, and carried on, the task of writing the
Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, without the least
intercourse
| 64 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“The papers relating to General Gourgaud and his communications were not pointed out to me by any one. They occurred, in the course of my researches, like other pieces of information, and were of too serious and important a character, verified as they were, to be omitted in the history. The idea that, dated and authenticated as they are, they could have been false documents, framed to mislead future historians, seems as absurd, as it is positively false that they were fabricated on any understanding with me, who had not at the time of their date the slightest knowledge of their existence.
“To me, evidence, ex
facie the most unquestionable, bore, that General Gourgaud had attested certain facts of
importance to different persons, at different times and places; and it did not,
I own, occur to me that what he is stated to have made the subject of grave
assertion and attestation, could or ought to be received as matter of doubt,
because it rested only on a verbal communication made before responsible
witnesses, and was not concluded by any formal signature of the party. I have
been
| GENERAL GOURGAUD—SEPT. 1827. | 65 |
“At the same time, in availing myself of these documents, I felt it a duty to confine myself entirely to those particulars which concerned the history of Napoleon, his person and his situation at St. Helena; omitting all subordinate matters in which General Gourgaud, in his communications with our Ministers and others, referred to transactions of a more private character, personal to himself and other gentlemen residing at St. Helena. I shall observe the same degree of restraint as far as possible, out of the sincere respect I entertain for the honour and fidelity of General Gourgaud’s companions in exile, who might justly complain of me for reviving the memory of petty altercations; but out of no deference to General Gourgaud, to whom I owe none. The line which General Gourgaud has adopted, obliges me now, in respect to my own character, to lay the full evidence before the public—subject only to the above restriction—that it may appear how far it bears out the account given of those transactions in my History of Napoleon. I should have been equally willing to have communicated my authorities to General Gourgaud in private, had he made such a request, according to the ordinary courtesies of society.
“I trust that, upon reference to the Life of Napoleon, I shall be
found to have used the information these documents afforded with becoming
respect to private feelings, and, at the same time, with the courage and
candour due to the truth of history. If I were capable of failing in either
respect, I should despise myself as much, if possible, as I do the resentment
of General Gourgaud. The
historian’s task of exculpation is of course ended, when he has published
authorities of apparent authenticity. If General Gourgaud
shall undertake to prove that the subjoined documents are false and forged,
| 66 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“There is indeed another course. General Gourgaud
may represent the whole of his communications as a trick played off upon the
English Ministers, in order to induce them to grant his personal liberty. But I
cannot imitate the General’s disregard of common civility so far as to
suppose him capable of a total departure from veracity, when giving evidence
upon his word of honour. In representing the Ex-Emperor’s health as good,
his finances as ample, his means of escape as easy and frequent, while he knew
his condition to be the reverse in every particular, General Gourgaud must have been sensible, that
the deceptive views thus impressed on the British Ministers must have had the
natural effect of adding to the rigours of his patron’s confinement.
Napoleon, it must be recollected,
would receive the visits of no English physician in whom Sir Hudson Lowe seemed to repose confidence,
and he shunned, as much as possible, all intercourse with the British. Whom,
therefore, were Sir Hudson Lowe and the British Ministers
to believe concerning the real state of his health and circumstances, if they
were to refuse credit to his own aide-decamp, an officer of distinction, whom
no one could suppose guilty of slandering his master for the purpose of
obtaining a straight passage to England for himself, instead of being subjected
to the inconvenience of going round by the Cape of Good Hope? And again, when
General Gourgaud, having arrived in London, and the
purpose of his supposed deception being fully attained, continued to represent
Napoleon as feigning poverty whilst in affluence,
affecting illness whilst in health, and possessing ready means of escape whilst
he was com-
| GENERAL GOURGAUD—SEPT. 1827. | 67 |
“It is no concern of mine, however, how the actual truth of the fact stands. It is sufficient to me to have shown, that I have not laid to General Gourgaud’s charge a single expression for which I had not the most indubitable authority. If I have been guilty of over credulity in attaching more weight to General Gourgaud’s evidence than it deserves, I am well taught not to repeat the error, and the world, too, may profit by the lesson. I am, Sir, your humble servant,
