NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE--after a fair trial, you have been found guilty of various high crimes and misdemeanours, in different parts of this world. I am a man that delights not in blood; I therefore sentence you to be turned over to the care of my trusty and beloved friend Mr. Pidcock, proprietor of the Wild beasts over Exeter ‘Change in the Strand; there to be publicly shewn to my fellow citizens, inclosed in an iron cage for three months; after the expiration of which time, I sentence you to be transported to your native town of Ajaccio in Corsica for three months, and, for the remainder of your life, to be hung up by your legs in the mines of Mexico. Mr. Pidcock attended with a cage, and disposed of the prisoner according to his sentence; he appeared extremely hardened during the whole of the trial. The Court was uncommonly crowded. ‘Buonaparte’s Soliloquy at Calais, written and designed by G. M. Woodward,’ was published September 21, 1803. It is as follows:-- To go or not to go? that is the question;-- Whether ’tis better for my views to suffer The ease and quiet of yon hated rival, Or to take arms against the haughty people, And by invading, end them? T’ invade,--to fight,-- No more! and by a fight, to say we end The envy and the thousand jealous pangs We now must bear with; ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish’d. T’ invade--to fight-- To fight?--perchance be beat: aye, there’s the rub; For in our passage hence what ills may come, When we have parted from our native ports, Must give us pause there’s the respect That makes th’ alternative so hard a choice. For who would bear their just and equal laws, Their sacred faith, and general happiness, That shew in contrast black our tyrant sway, Our frequent breach of treaty, and the harms Devouring armies on the people bring, When he himself could the dark shame remove By mere invasion? Who would tamely view That happy nation’s great and thriving power, But that the dread of falling on their coast, (That firm and loyal country, from whose shores No enemy returns,) puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear the ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action. [Illustration] ‘The Fable of the Bundle of Faggots exemplified, or Bonaparte baffled,’ by an unknown artist (September 20, 1803), shows Napoleon unable to break the bundle of _Britons_. His foot rests on a heap of broken faggots, all conquered nations, but this is too hard a job for him, as he confesses: ‘Au diable! all I can do, they’ll neither bend or break.’