concerning the inhabitants of Longwood, that was not promptly passed along.  Needless to say, these communications relieved the dull monotony of the exiles, and even Gourgaud was driven to cynical mockery by the ridiculous character of some of the piteous stories that filtered through.  There never was any difficulty in verifying the truth of them when it was thought necessary or useful to do so.  On the authority of Lowe’s biographer, we are told that this immortal High Commissioner was presented to his precious sovereign on November 14, 1821, and was on the point of kissing his hand, but His Majesty, overwhelmed with the preeminence of the great man who stood before him, indicated that there was to be no kissing of hands.  His services to his King and country demanded a good shake of the hand and hearty congratulations from His Christian Majesty.  Lowe’s arduous and exemplary task was admitted with tears in the kingly eyes, and so overcome was His Majesty that he took Lowe’s hand again, and shook it a second time, combining with the handshake a further flow of grateful thanks and the appointment to a colonelcy of the 93rd Regiment These compliments were well deserved, coming, as they did from a monarch whose will he had discharged with such brutal fidelity.  But what of the afterthought, the reaction which began to hum round his ears almost immediately after this fulsome display of enthusiastic approbation?  A vast public, never in favour of the Government’s vaunted policy of heroism over an unfortunate foe, swung round with a vengeance.  The indignation against the perpetrators of this cruel assassination had no bounds.  It was not confined to Britain.  The civilised world was shocked.  The willing tool of the Government got the worst of it, and the perfidy will cling to his name throughout eternity.

O’Meara’s book, “A Voice from St. Helena; or, Napoleon in Exile,” published in 1822, sold like wildfire.  In vain Bathurst, Castlereagh, and Liverpool tried to check the flood of public censure that poured in upon them from everywhere.  Sir Hudson Lowe, beside himself with apprehension, appealed to them for protection, but none was forthcoming.  Indeed, they were too busy searching out some means by which the blow could be eased off themselves, and with studious politeness left their accomplice to plan out his defence as best he could; and the world knows what a sorry job he made of it.  His coadjutors in the great tragedy were not the kind of people to share any part of the public censure that could be reflected on to their gaoler.  Pretty compliments had been paid to him by the King and some of his Ministers previous to the realisation of the full force of public indignation.  Bathurst sent him a letter in 1823 reminding him that his treatment had been beyond that of ordinary governors, that he was working out an idea of having him recommended to a West Indian governorship, and that he was not to suppose that this gracious interest in him was in order to silence the clamour that was being raised against him.  This communication was made in November, and in December Lowe was told that he was to go to Antigua as Governor.  For special reasons this favour was refused, and two years afterwards he accepted command of the forces at Ceylon, and was still there when Sir Walter Scott’s exculpation of the British Government appeared in 1828.  Scott was employed for that special purpose.