. A life of Napoleon Boneparte:. f the question; but surely he could have beenmade a royal prisoner and been made to feel that if he wasdetained it was because of his might. The British government no sooner realized that it hadits hands on Napoleon than it was seized with a species ofpanic. All sense of dignity, all notions of what was duea foe who surrendered, were drowned in hysterical resent-ment. The English people as a whole did not share thegovernments terror. The general feeling seems to havebeen similar to that which Charles Lamb expressed toSouthey: After all, Bonaparte is a fine fell
. A life of Napoleon Boneparte:. f the question; but surely he could have beenmade a royal prisoner and been made to feel that if he wasdetained it was because of his might. The British government no sooner realized that it hadits hands on Napoleon than it was seized with a species ofpanic. All sense of dignity, all notions of what was duea foe who surrendered, were drowned in hysterical resent-ment. The English people as a whole did not share thegovernments terror. The general feeling seems to havebeen similar to that which Charles Lamb expressed toSouthey: After all, Bonaparte is a fine fellow, as my bar-ber says, and I should not mind standing bare-headed athis table to do him service in his fall. They should havegiven him Hampton Court or Kensington, with a tetherextending forty miles round London. But the government could see nothing but danger inkeeping such a force as Napoleon within its limits. It evi-dently took Lambs whimsical suggestion, that if Napo-leon were at Hampton the people might some day eject the. 282 NAPOLEONS SURRENDER TO ENGLAND 283 Brunswick in his favor, in profound seriousness. On July30tli it sent a communication to General Bonaparte—theEngHsh henceforth refused him the title of emperor, thoughpermitting him that of general, not reflecting, probably,that if one was spurious the other was, since both had beenconferred by the same authority—notifying him that as itwas necessary that he should not be allowed to disturb therepose of England any longer, the British government hadchosen the island of St. Helena as his future residence, andthat three persons with a surgeon would be allowed to ac-company him. A week later he was transferred from the Bellerophon to the Northumberland, and was enroute for St. Helena, where he arrived in October, 1815. The manner in which the British carried out their de-cision was irritating and unworthy. They seemed to feelthat guarding a prisoner meant humiliating him, and of-fensive and unnecessary restricti
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