On his arrival there at Plantation House he found that Napoleon had
already had scenes with Admiral Cockburn, of H.M.S. "Northumberland,"
and that he had sought to induce the former governor, Colonel Wilks, to
infringe the regulations prescribed by the British government (see
_Monthly Review_, January 1901). Napoleon and his followers at Longwood
pressed for an extension of the limits within which he could move
without surveillance, but it was not in Lowe's power to grant this
request. Various matters, in some of which Lowe did not evince much
tact, produced friction between them. The news that rescue expeditions
were being planned by the Bonapartists in the United States led to the
enforcement of somewhat stricter regulations in October 1816, Lowe
causing sentries to be posted round Longwood garden at sunset instead of
at 9 P.M. This was his great offence in the eyes of Napoleon and his
followers. Hence their efforts to calumniate Lowe, which had a
surprising success. O'Meara, the British surgeon, became Napoleon's man,
and lent himself to the campaign of calumny in which Las Cases and
Montholon showed so much skill. In one of the suppressed passages of his
_Journal_ Las Cases wrote that the exiles had to "reduce to a system our
demeanour, our words, our sentiments, even our privations, in order that
we might thereby excite a lively interest in a large portion of the
population of Europe, and that the opposition in England might not fail
to attack the ministry." As to the privations, it may be noted that Lowe
recommended that the government allowance of £8000 a year to the
Longwood household should be increased by one-half. The charges of
cruelty brought against the governor by O'Meara and others have been
completely refuted; and the most that can be said against him is that he
was occasionally too suspicious in the discharge of his duties. After
the death of Napoleon in May 1821, Lowe returned to England and received
the thanks of George IV. On the publication of O'Meara's book he
resolved to prosecute the author, but, owing to an unaccountable delay,
the application was too late. This fact, together with the reserved
behaviour of Lowe, prejudiced the public against him, and the government
did nothing to clear his reputation. In 1825-1830 he commanded the
forces in Ceylon, but was not appointed to the governorship when it
fell vacant in 1830. In 1842 he became colonel of his old regiment, the
50th; he also received the G.C.M.G. He died in 1844.
See W. Forsyth, _History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena_ (3
vols., London, 1853); Gourgaud, _Journal inédite de Sainte-Hélène_
(1815-1818; 2 vols., Paris, 1899); R. C. Seaton, _Napoleon's Captivity
in relation to Sir Hudson Lowe_ (London, 1903); Lieut.-Col. Basil
Jackson, _Notes and Reminiscences of a Staff-Officer_ (London, 1903);
the earl of Rosebery, _Napoleon; the Last Phase_ (London 1900); J. H.
Rose, _Napoleonic Studies_ (London, 1904). (J. Hl. R.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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