Doubtless he calculated upon, and perhaps overrated, all these more favourable chances. Yet, if the worst should arrive, he saw even in that _worst_, that island of St. Helena itself, the certainty of personal safety, which he could not be assured of in any despotic country, where, as he himself must have known pretty well, an obnoxious prisoner, or _detenu_, may lose his life _par négligence_, without any bustle or alarm being excited upon the occasion. Upon the 16th August, while on his passage to St. Helena, he frankly acknowledged, that though he had been deceived in the reception he had expected from the English, still, harshly and unfairly as he thought himself treated, he found comfort from knowing that he was under the protection of British laws, which he could not have enjoyed had he gone to another country, where his fate would have depended upon the caprice of an individual. This we believe to be the real secret of his rendition to England, in preference to his father-in-law of Austria, or his friend in Russia. He might, in the first-named country, be kept in custody, more or less severe; but he would be at least secure from perishing of some political disease. Even while at St. Helena, he allowed, in an interval of good tempered candour, that comparing one place of exile to another, St. Helena was entitled to the preference. In higher latitudes, he observed, they would have suffered from cold, and in any other tropical island they would have been burned to death. At St. Helena the country was wild and savage, the climate monotonous, and unfavourable to health, but the temperature was mild and pleasing.[194] [Sidenote: CAPTAIN MAITLAND.] The allegation on which Napoleon had insisted so much, namely, that Captain Maitland had pledged himself for his good reception in England, and received him on board his vessel, not as a prisoner, but as a guest, became now an important subject of investigation. All the while Napoleon had been on board the Bellerophon, he had expressed the greatest respect for Captain Maitland, and a sense of his civilities totally inconsistent with the idea that he conceived himself betrayed by him. He had even sounded that officer, by the means of Madame Bertrand, to know whether he would accept a present of his portrait set with diamonds, which Captain Maitland requested might not be offered, as he was determined to decline it.