VISIT TO SOUTH AFRICA. 579 
Jiiis mind been accompanied and directed by what constitutes true 
greatness, by generosity, goodness of heart, a conscientious prin- 
ciple, and rehgious attention to justice and trutli in his deahngs, 
he would indeed have deserved all the praise bestowed upon him, 
either by those who were dazzled by his meteoric splendor, or by 
men, who in our own country, set him up, more, I trust, to please 
their party, than to sound the trumpet, and further the designs 
of the most determined and illiberal enemy England ever had. 
But now we see, that in adversity, that species of greatness, 
which he possessed, will not support him. It cannot indeed be 
supposed, that he should feel happy in his present situation, and 
I could not visit his present domain, without feeling pity foi- a 
man, fallen so low, and who, had his senses not forsaken him in 
that (to him) most evil hour, might yet, after all his defeats, by 
honestly yielding to necessit}', and signing the proposed treaty of 
Chaumont, have been left in possession of more power and military 
glory, than any other Potentate in Europe. But the old adage, 
*' Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat," was never more com- 
pletely verified, than in the case of this singular man. He w as, 
no doubt, an instrument in the hands of a just God, to chastise 
the nations for their apostacy, and laid aside, when his work was 
done. If any thing tends to lessen or destroy that compassion, 
which one must feel even for the greatest delinquent, under the 
lash of well-merited punishment, it is that petulance and irritability, 
which he shows in his present situation, and which a mind truly 
great would know how to suppress. 
Ever grumbling, finding fault with every person and every thing 
about him, dissatisfied with his food, peevishly complaining of 
neglect, when circumstances alone perhaps produced some tran- 
sient disappointment, and, if not the author, yet the promoter of 
the most unjust accusations against Sir Hudson Lowe, the Gover- 
nor, who, though he knows and does his duty to his Sovereign, in 
guarding the charge committed to him, has, in more than one in- 
stance, spared and befriended his prisoner! can such conduct pro* 
