“ROYAL HIGHNESS: Exposed to the factions which divide my country and to the hostility of the greatest powers of Europe, I have closed my political career. I have come, like Themistocles to seek the hospitality of the British nation. I place myself under the protection of their laws, which I claim from your Royal Highness as the most powerful, the most constant, and the most generous of my enemies. “NAPOLEON.” On the 15th of July he embarked on the English ship, the “Bellerophon,” and a week later he was in Plymouth. [Illustration: NAPOLEON ON BOARD THE “NORTHUMBERLAND.” Engraved by Steele, after Orchardson.] Napoleon’s surrender to the English was made, as he says, with full confidence in their hospitality. Certainly _hospitality_ was the last thing to expect of England under the circumstances, and there was something theatrical in the demand for it. The “Bellerophon” was no sooner in the harbor of Plymouth than it became evident that he was regarded not as a guest, but as a prisoner. Armed vessels surrounded the ship he was on; extraordinary messages were hurried to and fro; sinister rumors ran among the crew. The Tower of London, a desert isle, the ends of the earth, were talked of as the hospitality England was preparing. But if there was something theatrical, even humorous, in the idea of expecting a friendly welcome from England, there was every reason to suppose that she would receive him with dignity and consideration. Napoleon had been an enemy worthy of English metal. He had been defeated only after years of struggle. Now that he was at her feet, her own self-respect demanded that she treat him as became his genius and his position. To leave him at large was, of course, out of the question; but surely he could have been made a royal prisoner and been made to feel that if he was detained it was because of his might. The British government no sooner realized that it had its hands on Napoleon than it was seized with a species of panic. All sense of dignity, all notions of what was due a foe who surrendered, were drowned in hysterical resentment. The English people as a whole did not share the government’s terror. The general feeling seems to have been similar to that which Charles Lamb expressed to Southey: “After all, Bonaparte is a fine fellow, as my barber says, and I should not mind standing bareheaded at his table to do him service in his fall. They should have given him Hampton Court or Kensington, with a tether extending forty miles round London.” [Illustration: LONGWOOD, NAPOLEON’S HOUSE AT ST. HELENA. Etching by Chienon.]