15 



loaded with regal treasures, without ever a cent misappropriated or 

 coveted, perfectly confidential, unreservedly free, exhibiting the 

 writers naked and bare to mankind, whatever they thought, hoped, 

 designed, did, how they loved, hated, rose, reigned, fell, fled, and 

 were to the last devoted to each other — the realities of their very be- 

 ings are monumentally laid bare in print, more durable than brass or 

 marble. 



The censorious may condemn Joseph's evacuation as King of Ma- 

 drid, and as Lieutenant-general of Paris, his almost inexplicable sub- 

 mission to his brother, and perhaps detect other defects in his charac- 

 ter. But that no one ever lived so long through such incredible 

 changes without fault or mistake, we may cite the last of the French 

 legitimate kings for a remarkable averment. After his banishment, 

 on his way abroad, admiring the fine appearance of the ship Charles 

 Carrol, freighted to take him and his family from France to England, 

 King Charles the Tenth, smiling, said, "This is a fine vessel, is it 

 not, captain ? Are we not doing as well in our marine ?" " I do not 

 think," M. d'Urville made answer, " that we have, sire, in our mer- 

 chant marine, a vessel so well rigged, so well found, and so tho- 

 roughly equipped." " The Americans are doing well," the king 

 added. " Yes, sire, in sixty or eighty years more they will be able 

 to dispute with the English the sceptre of the seas." " It is to us, 

 though," said the king, " they owe all that." " Yes, sire, to your 

 majesty's brother, to King Louis the Sixteenth. They have not for- 

 gotten it." The king remained pensive, and then resumed : " It was 

 a fault, a very great fault on the part of Louis the Sixteenth. But 

 who has not committed some in his life?'''' 



In that royal moral reflection Joseph Bonaparte coincided that to be 

 faultless is not human ; but, even as King Joseph, he uniformly and 

 cordially recognised, as great blessings for mankind, those principles 

 of freedom and reform from inveterate abuses which King Charles 

 the Tenth deplored as fruits of the American revolution, unfortunately 

 encouraged by France. This country, in its original and genuine 

 free developments, had no more earnest, judicious, or confirmed advo- 

 cate. Far from deeming Louis the Sixteenth's espousal of the Ame- 

 rican revolution a great fault, or its ofl?shoot, the French revolution, a 

 great misfortune, the Bonapartes, deploring Louis Sixteenth's fate, 

 and abhorring bloodthirsty Jacobinism, were necessarily American- 

 ized by their French position, strengthened in Joseph, especially, by 

 long residence here, profoundly and dispassionately mastering our 

 institutions and policy. Liberal but conservative, cherishing freedom. 



