Napoleon never altered his opinion of Lowe’s perfidy towards him.  On one occasion, in conversation with the truthful Gourgaud, he exclaims, “Ah!  I know the English.  You may be sure that the sentinels stationed round this house have orders from the Governor to kill me.  They will pretend to give me a thrust with a bayonet by mistake some day.”  Gourgaud reports him as saying on another occasion, “Hudson Lowe is a Sicilian grafted on a Prussian; they must have chosen him to make me die under his charge by inches.  It would have been more generous to have shot me at once.”

It would be absurd to affirm that Napoleon said these things without sound foundation, and although, when his personal vanity and abnormal jealousy was aroused by some fancied injury to himself, Gourgaud would resort to the most remarkable fibbing, what he relates as to his master’s opinion of the Governor may be relied on, being, as it is, confirmed in a more complete form by O’Meara, Las Cases, Montholon, Bertrand, Antommarchi, and each of the Commissioners.  The former sacrificed everything rather than be a party to what he termed treatment that was an “outrage on decency.”

These are only a few of the men who bear witness against Sir Hudson being termed “good”; and I may add one other to the galaxy, poor Dr. Stokoe, who shrank from having the abominable indignity of inquisitor and spy tacked on to his high office and distinguished profession.  He refused, as O’Meara had done, to sacrifice his manhood or his sense of honour.  Tricked into a false position by Lowe and the virtuous (?) Sir Robert Plampin, Dr. Stokoe, who had only paid five professional visits to Longwood, was deprived of his position and all its advantages, after twenty-five years’ service in the Navy, because he refused to become a sneak and a rascal at the bidding of these two unspeakable Government officials, the one disgracing the service of his country in the capacity of Governor and the other the name of a sailor and an Admiral.

In 1819 Stokoe resigned his position on the Conqueror, and sailed for England.  Lowe sent a report addressed to the Lords of the Admiralty by the same vessel, and Stokoe had scarcely landed when he was bundled back to St. Helena.  He rejoined the Conqueror under the impression that his conduct had been approved, but was disillusioned by being forthwith put under arrest.  A bogus court-martial was instituted in the interests of Lowe, and Plampin and these packed scallywags sentenced him to dismissal from the Navy.  The charges against Stokoe were that he failed to report himself to Plampin at the Briars after a visit to Longwood, and that in his report he had designated the patient as the Emperor instead of General Bonaparte.  This is a sample of the “good old times” that a certain species of creature delights to show forth his wisdom in talking about.  I believe the immortal John Ruskin indulged occasionally in reminding a twentieth-century world of these days that were so blissful.