24 
ST. HELENA. 
The British Government having determined on the undignified 
proceeding of banishing the Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte to the 
Island of St. Helena, he arrived there in H.M.S. Northumberland, 
under the command of Rear-Admiral Sir George Cockburn, on the 
15th October, 1815. He was accompanied by Marshal and Countess 
Bertrand, Count and Countess Montliolon, General Gourgaud, Count 
Las Cases with his son, and eight servants. The excitement caused 
in the Island was naturally very great, and rendered more so by the 
very unexpected nature of the event, the inhabitants having received 
no intelligence on the subject until a few days previously, when, by 
the arrival of H.M.S. Icarus, they were informed of the proximity 
of Napoleon. 
It was of course necessary for the Crown to appoint the officer 
into whose custody Napoleon was to be entrusted, and accordingly 
Lieut. -General Sir Hudson Lowe arrived at the Island on the 14th 
April, 1816, in that capacity, and also relieved Colonel Wilks of 
the Government. The Island was stiil to belong to the East India 
Company, but as this appropriation of it would necessarily involve a 
heavy expenditure, it was arranged that the Company should 
bear the annual expenses of the place to the extent of the average 
sum which had been spent in former years, and that the Crown 
should bear the remainder. 
The history of Napoleon’s life and captivity at St. Helena has 
already, through differences of opinion, led to much discussion, and 
filled several large-sized volumes. It is not, therefore, intended 
here to enter further into the matter than to record the leading 
events connected with his sojourn at the Island. 
The merits and demerits of Sir Hudson Lowe have been fully set 
forth, as well as Napoleon’s behaviour under such severely trying- 
circumstances. lo a man ot his mind and character his trial must 
have been of the most bitter kind, and if there had been any desire 
on the part of his captors to ameliorate or soften the galling- circum- 
stances which at every point surrounded him, there seems to have 
been a failure certainly in the selection of the man to whom his 
keeping was confided. 
Until the arrival of Sir Hudson Lowe, the custody of Napoleon 
was in the hands of the Admiral who had taken him to the Island, 
and with whom he appeared to be upon the most friendly terms! 
