a vacancy of the governorship should occur and he might lose his opportunity.  He was assured of the Government’s appreciation of him as their most trusted and loyal public servant, while as a matter of fact it was ludicrously obvious that his presence was quite as objectionable to them in England as it was to the exiles in St. Helena.  He was fully alive to, and did not underestimate, the amount of dirty work he had done for them, and very properly expected to be amply rewarded.  It never occurred to him that retribution was over-shadowing them as well as himself, and that they could not openly avow their displeasure at the odium he was the cause of bringing on the Government and on the British name by reason of his having so rigidly carried out their perfidious regulations.  Had public opinion supported them, their action would have been claimed as a sagacious policy, but it didn’t, so this poor, wretched, tactless, incompetent tool became almost as much their aversion as the great prisoner himself.  In fact, things went so ill with them that they would have preferred it had Lowe indulged every whim of his prisoner, granted him full liberty to roam wherever he liked, recognised him as Emperor, and even been not too zealous in preventing his escape; and they must have wished that, in the first instance, they had not thought of St. Helena, but wisely and generously granted him hospitality in our own land.  This last would have been the best thing that could have happened for everybody concerned.

Ill-treatment of the most humble prisoner or assassination of the most exalted can never be popular with the British people.  Sir Hudson got a cold douche when he obtained an interview with the Duke of Wellington.  His Grace in so many words told him that they wished to have nothing to do with him.  He could not recommend him for a post in the Russian army.  He could not hold out hopes of him getting the governorship of Ceylon should a vacancy occur.  He had been hardly used, but there was no help for it.  Parliament would not grant him the pension he asked for.  Lowe replied that he would stand or fall by its decision, but the Duke snapped him off by stating that Mr. Peel would never make such a proposal to the House of Commons.  No other course was open to him now but to return to Ceylon.  He did not get the vacancy which occurred in 1830, and returned to England, but never got a public appointment again.

He presented a wordy memorial in 1843, complaining of having been kept out of employment for twelve years.  The governorship of Ceylon had been vacant three times, the Ionian Islands four times; he had been Governor there in 1812.  In other parts of the Empire appointments that he supposed he could have filled were given to others.  Poor creature!  He died in 1844, a broken and ruined man.

He lacked every quality that is essential in an administrator, and was utterly void of humour, imagination, or the capacity to manage men.  His suspicious disposition and lack of judgment made it eminently impossible for him to fulfil any delicate position, and it was a monstrous libel on the knowledge of the fitness of things to entrust him with the governorship of St. Helena.