In many ways his kind and sociable disposition made him so much liked,
that it is very probable that if the officers of the law had come to
take him back to Europe, he would have received such timely notice of
their approach that it would not have been necessary for him to hurry
away through his underground passages. New Jersey is a reasonable and
hospitable State, and when an ex-king comes to reside within her
borders, he will be as well treated, so long as he behaves himself, as
if he were a poor immigrant from Europe, coming with his wife and family
to clear away the forest, and make himself a home.
Just before Joseph started for America, the affairs of his family were
at their lowest ebb. His great brother, the emperor, had fallen from his
high state, and could look forward to nothing but imprisonment by the
European countries, whose thrones he had for so long been in the habit
of upsetting or threatening. In his last interview with Napoleon, when
on his way to the ship which was to take him to America, Joseph
generously offered to change places with his brother, and to let the
ex-emperor fly to America instead of the ex-king. It was very difficult
for any one of the Napoleon family to get away from France at that time;
but Joseph had made a very excellent plan by which passports were
provided for two persons coming to America on business, and his brother
could have used one of those as well as himself.
But the great Napoleon declined to run away in this manner. He remained,
and was sent to St. Helena. What would have occurred in the neighborhood
of Bordentown, N.J., had Napoleon Bonaparte, conqueror of Europe, ruler
of nations, and disposer of crowns, the hero of Austerlitz, Marengo,
and Wagram, taken up his residence at Point Breeze, and established
himself as a citizen of the State, cannot easily be imagined. The
geniality, sociability, and hospitality of the ex-king could hardly have
been expected from the ex-emperor; and, surrounded as he would have been
in time by devoted followers who would have exiled themselves from their
country for his sake, there might have been a little empire in New
Jersey which would have been exceedingly interesting to tourists.
Moreover, if the allied powers of Europe had sent over a fleet to bring
back their great enemy, who knows but that they might have found, when
they reached Bordentown, not a tall lookout tower and underground
passages for escape, but a fort with ramparts, redoubts, a moat, a
drawbridge, and mounted cannon ready to sweep the Delaware and the
surrounding country? However this might have been, it is certain that
Napoleon's refusal to take his brother's place must ever be a source of
satisfaction to the people of Bordentown and the rest of the country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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