“Having met the Duke of Wellington accidentally in the Park at Brussels, and walked with him at his request to the French Minister’s house, Monr. Mallet du Pan, and having talked a good deal about France now that the Allies had just evacuated it, I said:—
“‘Well now, Duke, let me ask you, don’t you think Lowe a very unnecessarily harsh gaoler of Buonaparte at St. Helena? It is surely very disreputable to us to put any restraint upon him not absolutely necessary for his detention.’*
“‘By God!’ he replied in his usual manner, ‘I don’t know. Buonaparte is so damned intractable a fellow there is no knowing how to deal with him. To be sure, as to the means employed to keep him there, never was anything so damned absurd. I know the island of St. Helena well. I looked at every part of it on my return from the East Indies’—and then he described three or four places as the only ones by which a prisoner could escape, and that they were
* “The irritation displayed by the captive of St. Helena in his bickerings with his gaoler affect most men more than the thought of the nameless thousands whom his insatiable egotism had hurried to the grave.” [Lecky’s European Morals, i. 139, ed. 1869.] |
| 1817-18.] | SIR HUDSON LOWE. | 289 |
“‘As for Lowe, he is a damned fool. When I came to Brussels from Vienna in 1815, I found him Quarter-Master-General of the army here, and I presently found the damned fellow would instruct me in the equipment of the army, always producing the Prussians to me as models; so I was obliged to tell him I had commanded a much larger army in the field than any Prussian general, and that I was not to learn from their service how to equip an army. I thought this would have stopped him, but shortly afterwards the damned fellow was at me again about the equipment, &c., of the Prussians; so I was obliged to write home and complain of him, and the Government were kind enough to take him away from me.’
“During the same autumn of 1818, being one night at Lady Charlotte Greville’s, then living at the Hôtel d’Angleterre, the Duke of Wellington coming in asked me if I had any news from England, to which I replied ‘none but newspaper news,’ viz. that the Duke of Wellington was or was going to be Master of the Ordnance: to which he said ‘Ho!’ or ‘Ha!’ but quite gravely, and without any contradiction, so I was sure it was true. From that hour he was an altered man—quite official in everything he said, tho’ still much more natural and accessible than any other official I ever saw, except Fox.
“A day or two after this conversation I met Alava, and, knowing his devotion to the Duke, I asked him what he thought of his new situation. He said he never was more sorry for any event in his life—that the Duke of Wellington ought never to have had anything to do with politicks—that he ought to have remained, not only as the soldier of England, but of Europe, to be ready to appear again at its command whenever his talents and services might be wanted. I have seen a good deal of Alava at different times, and a more upright human being, to all appearance, I never beheld.’
