HOME TRUTHS ABOUT NAPOLEON
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English
Documents
2014
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14
pages
English
Documents
2014
Le téléchargement nécessite un accès à la bibliothèque YouScribe Tout savoir sur nos offres
George Home was a 19-year-old midshipman on the Bellerophon, the ship Napoleon boarded after the Battle of the Waterloo when he tried to claim political asylum in Britain. Home was on the same vessel as the Emperor for three weeks and his memoirs of the events he experienced, what occurred, and what he witnessed are absolutely fascinating. Home is the antidote to those biased and bigoted British historians that claim everyone in England hated Napoleon. Although he had fought against the French and Napoleon was his enemy, Home's admiration for the fallen Emperor was immense.
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HOME TRUTHS ABOUT NAPOLEON
For Ben Weider – in fond memory
Eastlake – Napoleon on the Bellerophon
JOHN TARTTELIN FINS – Legion of Merit
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‘It was the infatuate resistance that England made from the beginning to Napoleon that raised him to the mighty pitch of power he attained. No sooner were the foreign powers humbled and exhausted by the arm of his power, than fresh out-pourings of our gold stimulated them to new resistance.’1
As the two hundreth anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo rapidly approaches we can expect the usual vitriolic attacks upon Napoleon and misrepresentations of his achievements and legacy, especially here in Britain. One book published recently calls him a ‘monster’. Such language belongs to fairy stories and whenever a supposed historian uses such terminology he is undermining his own work by exhibiting naked and nationalistic prejudice of the most blatant kind. I have news for such writers. Not only are they often wrong in terms of historical fact, people were saying the exact opposite long before they were even born. George Home was one such person. A British sailor who actually fought against the French, Home was a midshipman on the Bellerophon when Napoleon sought asylum upon the vessel after Waterloo. He met Napoleon in person and therefore his words and views count for much more than the splenetic utterances of latter day historians who have obviously not done their Home work. George Home was born on December 8th 1794 in a poverty stricken cottage lost amidst the wild moors of Scotland and was lucky to survive his first winter. His humble origins belie the fact that his father was ‘the heir-male and representative of one of the most ancient families in the annals of Border history.’2Hence George entitled his life storyMemoirs Of An Aristocrat And Reminiscences of the Emperor Napoleon.3Throughout his life he would try in vain to regain his noble title in a Dickensian legal battle with another branch of his family. Listening to the stories told by his half-blind father – the old Commodore – of ‘the swarthy beauties of Tongataboo’4and his circumnavigation of the globe with Captain Cook must have fired the boy’s imagination. Indeed, the Commodore had been with the great explorer when he was killed at Owyhee (Hawaii) and had a host of tales from that intrepid voyage alone. So it comes as no surprise that George decided to go to sea himself. Born a Scot, Home fought for England against a Corsican who had become the Emperor of France. But unlike many of his fellow sailors, George would get to meet Napoleon in person and spend three weeks with him aboard the Bellerophon in 1815. It was a topsy-turvy time of changing allegiances and swapping sides for countries and individuals. The young Napoleon had even applied to join the British Navy! Many professional soldiers and sailors fought for nations that were not their
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own. The Captain of the Bellerophon, Maitland, was also a Scot, while the brutal captain of Home’s previous vessel had been Irish: ‘a more pestilential pigmy, and engrained petty tyrant never trode a quarter-deck.’5Well might Churchill encapsulate the British Navy with the phrase ‘rum, sodomy and the lash.’ It was a harsh environment where many men were pressed into service much against their will. Although the British Admiralty might claim that they were fighting for the freedom of the seas, many of their own vessels were full of pressed men, little more than slaves forbidden to set foot ashore for months, or even years on end, in case they ‘deserted’. Despite such a background, George Home was a thoughtful and humane man who could clearly see the big picture. His empathy for Napoleon and his psychological awareness of the history being made around him makes for a remarkable account by an exceedingly perceptive eyewitness. Meeting Napoleon in the flesh was obviously the greatest event in his life: ‘How distinct is every feature, every trait, every line of that majestic countenance in my mind’s eye at this moment, now that two-and-twenty years have passed away: but who could witness such a scene and ever forget it.’6Home wrote his memoir in 1838. It is worth repeating, that George Home had fought against Napoleon and was his enemy. All he would have heard from his superiors would have been negative and hostile references to the Emperor of France. Yet he describes how, on the Bellerophon: ‘us young gentlemen took up our station on the poop to feast our eyes with a sight of the great man whose name had been sounded in our ears since we drew our first breath, and become, like a second nature to us, - a name of fear.’7 In hisNapoleon’s Wars(sic), Charles Esdaile mentions none of the following historians and military men in either his index or bibliography: Bourgogne; Home; Maitland; Napier; Runciman; or a single line from any of the many books by Ben Weider. Of sources in general, the great American historian Colonel John Elting states at the opening of his bibliography inSwords Around A Throne: ‘In preparing this book I have used original sources whenever possible but have ignored the alleged memoirs of Louis Bourrienne, Paul Barras, Clare de Remusat, Laure Permon, and Miot de Melito, which are mendacious and worthless.’8In contrast, Esdaile quotes Bourrienne eight times; Barras six; Remusat seven; Permon five times; and Miot de Melito twice.9One is tempted to see a pattern here. It is strange how sources generally accepted to be more favorable to Napoleon are never even alluded to, yet alone quoted from. And Esdaile does not mention Colonel John Elting either… What George Home wrote in 1838 drives a coach and horses through Esdaile’s contrived thesis. And let us remember, Home wasthere, he was not writingnearly two hundred years after the events in question. He
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literallyknewwhat he was talking about, having lived through it and experienced it. Home is an excellent primary source on Napoleonic history. As an enemy of Napoleon his testament is even more revealing. Home also warns us about Bourrienne: ‘No one who has lifted the pen has done anything like justice to the French Emperor save Bourrienne, and even he is often carried away by prejudice and envy.’10He goes on to explain why he is not to be trusted. Napoleon’s ‘old school-fellow and worthy secretary was troubled with a small itching for thepecunia,which sometimes overran discretion and exceeded the bounds prescribed by the economical Napoleon; and in one or two instances we find, by his own confession, though under the head of complaint, that he is very unceremoniously stripped of his ill-gotten gains by his lynx-eyed schoolmate of Brienne…’11Yet Esdaile appears to trust his doubtful scribblings and believes what he says. Similarly, Home warns us about Sir Walter Scott, the famous novelist in regard to his biography of Napoleon: ‘really from him I expected something good; but it proved a complete failure… Sir Walter Scott has too much of the old school about him, and too much of the politician, I mean that petty policy, a fear of offending the powers that be… to do justice to the character of Napoleon.’ And Home adds: ‘The proper historian of that wonderful man is probably still unborn.’12 Home’s description of Napoleon’s arrival on the Bellerophon mark the situation and the man as something truly exceptional: ‘when Admiral Hotham and the officers of the Bellerophon uncovered in the presence of Napoleon, they treated him with the respect due to the man himself, to his innate greatness, which did not lie in the crown of France, or the iron crown of Italy, but the actual superiority of the man to the rest of his species.’13From the moment he appeared on the deck of theBilly Ruffian, Napoleon electrified the whole crew, all the officers and especially the men. From the very start, George Home had a great deal of sympathy for the fallen Emperor’s plight: ‘Most certainly, had he once imagined that we were capable of treating him the way we did, he would surely have made a desperate effort for personal liberty; but such a thought, I am convinced, never struck him. We had never before refused the protection of our shores to a fallen foe, or to anyone who claimed our protection.’ 14 One of Home’s shipmates could barely contain himself as Napoleon’s barge approached the Bellerophon: ‘While in this state of eager anticipation, a young midshipman, one of the Bruce’s of Kennet, I think, walked very demurely up to Manning, the boatswain… (and) gently laid hold of one of his whiskers, to which the boatswain good-naturedly submitted, as the youngster was a great favourite with him. “Manning” says he, most sentimentally, “this is the proudest day of your life; you are
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this day to do the honours of this side to the greatest man the world ever produced, or ever will produce… and along with the great Napoleon, the name of Manning, the boatswain of the Bellerophon, will go down to the latest posterity; and, as a relict of that great man, permit me, my dear Manning, to preserve a lock of your hair”.’15 Grabbing a handful of his friend’s whiskers, the young midshipman ran off howling with laughter. Even in a jest, the common English sailor knew greatness when he saw it. Meanwhile, such an epoch making occasion was not even lost on the very youngest of the Bellerophon’s crew. After initially being greeted as a general officer by Captain Maitland – and not with the full honours due to him in Home’s eye – Napoleon asked for a tour of the ship. As he followed the Captain: ‘a young middy who, boy-like, had got before the Emperor, and was gazing up in his face, he honoured with a tap on the head, and a pinch by the ear, and, smiling, put him to a side, which the youngster declared was the highest honour he had ever received in his life, viz. to have his ears pinched by the great Napoleon!!!’16 So overwhelming was the effect of the Emperor’s presence that, when he was invited aboard Admiral Hotham’s ship the Superb, a rumour swept the Bellerophon that Hotham’s men were going to have the honour of carrying Napoleon back to Blighty: ‘so thatourman thought we would try the effect of our ten rounds upon the Superb, sooner than quit Boney; and so much alarmed was our ship’s company that this would really be attempted, that they came aft in a body to Captain Maitland, to state their intention of resisting by force any attempt of Admiral Hotham to detain the person of Napoleon…’17 And how many bigoted and biased British historians have told us that Napoleon was hated and loathed by everyone in England? Here were the men of one of His Majesty’s vessels so besotted with their new guest that they were tempted to fire on their own Admiral rather than give him up prematurely. Furthermore, Home speaks at length on the underhand method of Napoleon’s capture in the first place and his admiration for: ‘the calm majesty of his deportment, through this most trying and truly tragic scene. I think, in saying tragic, I do not use an expression too strong. Castlereagh did not certainly imbrue his hands in the blood of Napoleon, but, beyond all question, the plot for his destruction was concerted between our minister and the Allies, even before thisvoluntarysurrender, destined to commence on the deck of the Bellerophon, and to end on the scorching peak of St. Helena.’18 George Home knew in his heart of hearts, that this was not British justice nor was it so-called English fair play.
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He had his own view of what should have happened that summer of 1815: ‘…Napoleon, instead of receiving that protection which it would have been the proudest page of our history to record, found a barren rock, a vertical sun, a tyrant of a governor, and a grave at Longwood.’19 Home also describes a telling incident that would certainly never appear in a book by Esdaile, Black, Nicolson, Geyl, Strawson, Fregosi, or the myriad other detractors of Napoleon. During the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon: ‘observed a young British officer lying on the ground severely wounded, and likely to be crushed to death by the cavalry. Upon which he ordered him to be carried to the rear and duly attended by his own medical staff. The young man’s life was saved; - the battle was lost…’20 The victim in question was a relative of Admiral Keith who, as fate would have it, became Napoleon’s jailor when the Bellerophon arrived at Plymouth. A letter of thanks from the Admiral to Napoleon led to Home asking some questions of the French party on board and thus he heard of this life-saving intervention. And if there was ever a riposte to those legions of ‘Napoleon-haters’, here it is in Home’s words: ‘Such an act as this, even in the plenitude of his power, when victory and his name seemed inseperable, would have redounded more to his praise than a battle won; but when one thinks of him exercising such acts of humanity, at a moment when his whole soul, great as it was, must have been absorbed in the death-struggle he was now in the midst of, where empire, name, fame, life, and liberty, hung on the slightest turn of the balance, I say, that no language can express the greatness and intrinsic humanity of that man’s character…’21 A Home truth indeed. So next time you read how Napoleon supposedly covered the Continent in blood and never cared for the millions of individual soldiers who died, remember it was British gold that paid for those armies to attack him, and British politicians, safe across the Channel, who goaded their often reluctant allies to once more attack France. Yet, despite all that, here we have Napoleon himself, saving the life of aBritishsoldier. Britannia should be hiding her face in shame. Home was also impressed by Napoleon’s personal manner and his attitude to the crew in general: ‘Nothing seemed so much to surprise him as the slowness of promotion in our service, and that men from before the mast, or soldiers from the ranks, were rarely promoted, be their services what they might.’22The last thing the so-called aristocratic elite in power in Britain wanted was promotion on merit or careers open to talent. Heaven forfend! Officers bought their rank and the common soldier was brutally flogged at the drop of a hat. Whereas in France such punishment had been banned. As Home well knew: ‘With the French army, it was totally different; the most of Napoleon’s officers had been private
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soldiers, and owed their promotion entirely to their own merit and bravery. In his army, as well as in every other department of the state, the door was open to the humblest individual and promotion certain if the person possessed integrity and courage. With us it has been notoriously the reverse…’ 23 As he studied Napoleon, Home felt that likenesses he had seen of the Emperor were accurate. He often put his hands in his breeches pocket rather than pose with his hands folded across his chest, or stood with one hand in his waistcoat while in the other his held his snuff-box. Accentuating the status of the Bellerophon’s guest even more Home adds: ‘But these are trifling matters, only worth recording of one man in a thousand years, and Napoleon being the most remarkable of the last four thousand, being thus particular in such trifles may be pardoned.’24 When introduced to the officers of theBilly Ruffian, Napoleon had bowed slightly and smiled at each of them. Similarly, he knew how to appeal to the common man. One of the lieutenants of the marines suggested a play to while away the time: ‘What the piece was I do not recall, but when it was announced to the Emperor, by Captain Maitland, and the immortal honour of his imperial presence begged, for a few minutes, he laughed very heartily, consented instantly… Napoleon and his whole suite attended. He was much amused with those who took the female parts… after good-naturedly sitting for nearly twenty minutes, he rose, smiled to the actors, and retired.’25There was no divine right hauteur with Napoleon. Can anyone imagine Louis XVIII, D’Artois, or even Wellington, deigning to pass the time with ‘the scum of the earth’? In one very moving passage, George Home shows both his sympathy and profound empathy with Napoleon. The occasion was the Emperor’s last sighting of Ushant – the very last glimpse of his beloved France. By sheer chance, Home had the morning watch: ‘I shall never forget that morning we made Ushant. I had come on deck at four in the morning… when, to my astonishment, I saw the Emperor come out of the cabin at that early hour, and make for the poop-ladder. Had I known what human misery is as well as I do now, when I have myself experienced the most cruel injustice and persecution on a lesser scale, the restlessness of Napoleon, or his being unable to close an eye, would have in no way surprised me. If a petty care can break our sleep, what must have beenhis feeling who had lost the fairest empire on the face of the globe; nay, who had lost a world?’26 Anxious for the illustrious passenger’s safety on the slippery newly washed deck, Home offered him his arm and helped Napoleon up the ladder to the poop deck: ‘nodding and smiling thanks, for my attention, and pointing to the land he said, “Ushant, Cape Ushant.” I replied, “yes, sire,” and withdrew.’27Once again, how many royals or members of the
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privileged elite of any of the European powers would have thanked a mere commoner for anything? Home could only imagine what Napoleon was thinking, but in his heartfelt sympathy he demonstrated a depth of humanity and feeling light years ahead of his ‘betters’ in London. Pocket-glass in hand, Napoleon stared at the shore, for hour, after hour, after hour: ‘In this position, he remained from five in the morning to nearly mid-day, without paying any attention to what was passing around him, or speaking to one of his suite, who had been standing behind him for several hours.’28 Home continues: ‘No wonder he thus gazed, it was the last look of the land of his glory, and I am convinced he felt it such. What must have been his feelings in those few hours, how painful the retrospect, and how awful the look forward! –therestill lay before him that land which he had made so famous, where his proud name had risen until it “o’er-shadowed the earth with his fame;” there had he been worshipped almost as a god, and bowed to by every servile knee, that now, in the hour of bitter adversity, had basely deserted and betrayed him.’29 Napoleon had lost everything, his empire, all his power and influence, all those he had ever loved. They were gone forever, forever… It was enough to crush the soul of a stoic, yet Home admired the way Napoleon faced his fate. He said absolutely nothing: ‘his emotion was visible, he hung upon the land until it looked only a speck in the distance… He uttered not a word as he tottered down the poop ladder, his head hung forward, so as to render his countenance scarcely visible…’30 Yet, on his daily walks upon the quarter-deck: ‘when the five children of Lady Bertrand were sure to find their way to the Emperor’s side, and, by touching his hand or taking hold of the skirts of his coat, endeavoured to attract his attention, looking imploringly up at him to be honoured with a smile or a tap on the head; this was never denied the tiny supplicant …’31 Napoleon had lost all his power and prestige, yet he had always had the time for a wounded British soldier or a simple child. So much for the puerile espousers of vitriol who called him an ‘ogre’; so much for Esdaile branding him the ‘ubiquitous brigand’; so much for Robert Harvey or Nigel Nicolson calling him a ‘monster’.32So much tosh. Such verbal chaff had been common currency for years back in Blighty as the British Establishment scythed through Napoleon’s reputation and achievements and denigrated him as a man and as a ruler in any way they could. The result was apparent to George Home when the Bellerophon docked at Torbay. Captain Maitland sent dispatches to Lord Keith via a first lieutenant who was conveyed to the shore by Home. Almost immediately the small boat was besieged by a bevy of young ladies who had heard that Napoleon was on the ship. This is the sort of nonsense he
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heard: ‘What like was he – was he really a man? Were his hands and clothes all over blood when he came on board?... Were we not all frightened of him? Was his voice like thunder? Could I possibly get them a sight of the monster…’33 Cartoons by Gilray depicting Napoleon as a malignant dwarf had also fed into the mix of slander and mockery flying in the Emperor’s direction. Home replied: ‘that the reports they had heard were all nonsense; that the Emperor was not only a man, but a very handsome man too; young withal, had no more blood upon his hands and clothes than was now upon their pure white dresses; that if by chance they got a look of him at the gangway, they would fall in love with him directly; that so far from his hands being red with blood, they were as small, white, and soft as their own charming fingers, and his voice, instead of resembling thunder, was as sweet and musical as their own. This account of the Emperor’s beauty perfectly astonished the recluses of Torbay; some misbelieved altogether, while the curiosity of others was excited beyond all bounds.’34 The most famous man on Earth was soon at Plymouth Sound, the Bellerophon riding at anchor. No wonder thousands of small vessels all crowded around the ship, their occupants eager to catch the merest glimpse of the fallen Emperor. Napoleon had become ‘Enemy Mine’ and everyone wanted a piece of him. Home speaks of ‘the enormous rush that was made from every part of the country to Plymouth Sound, to get a single glance of the hero of Marengo and Lodi Bridge, he must have conceived that he was as much admired by the English, as by his own beloved French. The Sound was literally covered with boats; the weather was delightful; the ladies looked as gay as butterflies; bands of music in several of the boats played favourite French airs, to attract, if possible, the Emperor’s attention, that they might get a sight of him, which, when effected, they went off, blessing themselves that they had been so fortunate.’35A strange reception for a monster and an ogre that… Then came the terrible news that the famous prisoner was to be banished to Saint Helena, a tiny speck of rock lost in the wilderness of the southern Atlantic Ocean. Napoleon was stunned and horrified. To rub salt into the wound, news came from the Admiralty saying that from henceforth he was to be addressed only as ‘general’ and not as Emperor. George Home was disgusted: ‘How ridiculous and contemptible was this conduct in or ministry. We had exchanged prisoners with him repeatedly as Emperor of France, and we had made peace with him as First Consul of the French Republic; but Castlereagh took his cue from the holy allies, who grudged him a mouthful of air, far less the title of Emperor…’36He goes much further in denouncing the policy of his own government: ‘I never think of the proceedings which I then witnessed, without feeling
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my blood boil with indignation, and my face blushing crimson for my degraded country.’37Home was as psychologically perceptive as ever: ‘Then why display such a mean fear of him, for our very cruelty bespoke our terror.’ 38 Home compares Napoleon with Socrates: ‘both done to death by petty tyrants who feared and hated them.’39Of England’s many wars with the French, he is equally forthright. In the disastrous Russian campaign of 1812, Napoleon ‘lost the most numerous, best disciplined, best appointed, and most heroic army that ever the world witnessed, in the trackless regions of the frozen north. His invincible courage and perseverance, however, had re-assembled a second army, nearly as numerous as the first… even with those green troops, so mighty was the genius of the man, and so terrible his name, even in adversity, that the scales hung long nearly equally balanced between him and combined Europe.’40And when France was invaded in 1814: ‘Still, I think, at that moment, Napoleon appeared greater than at any former period of his unparalleled career… Treachery, however, did what numbers could not effect.’41 Home is scathing about the resultant peace and of how ‘most beneficial it might have been to this country, had the conclusion of the treaty fallen into the hands of a man of sense,or in his senses, or one who had the good of his country at heart; but Castlereagh sacrificed the best interests of the nation to a vain feeling of disinterested glory, instead if making those continental despots, into whose countries we had been pouring our money, as if our hordes were inexhaustible, for the previous twenty years, relinquish their mercantile advantages to us, who had saved them from destruction…’42He calls it ‘a useless and unprofitable war, which, but for the catastrophe of Napoleon’s grand army in Russia, must have terminated in the complete subjugation of Europe to the French yoke and the downfall of this country.’43 Notwithstanding his admiration for Napoleon, George Home was a patriot. He further decries all the poverty and misery suffered by the British people after the war ended as the country was virtually bankrupt after all the colossal subsidies it had given to its continental allies. Of Napoleon’s final campaign in 1815 Home says: ‘Thus, not unprepared for war, he asked for peace, which was indignantly rejected, and, of course, he had nothing for it but to submit his fate to the chance of arms, which ended in a wanton sacrifice of the lives of fifty thousand of the flower of Europe.’44Yes, Esdaile, Black, Nicolson et al – Home blames the British Government for this unnecessary bout of renewed carnage. To Home, Napoleon’s legacy is obvious: ‘ He shewed us what one little human creature like ourselves could accomplish in a span so short. The
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fire of his intellect communicated like electricity to all around him and while under its influence, men performed actions quite beyond themselves.’45 When Napoleon left the Bellerophon: ‘Here, indeed, was adversity, and here was true greatness struggling against it; but to a mere mortal it was a heart-rending scene.’46When the moment came for the Emperor to disembark, it was a scene much more dramatic than any of Shakespeare’s plays: ‘What a horrid gloom overhung the ship: had his execution been about to take place there could not have prevailed a more dead silence, so much so, that had a pin fallen from one of the tops on the deck, I am convinced it would have been heard; and to any one who has known the general buz of our seventy-fours, even at the quietest hour, it is a proof how deeply the attention of every man on board must have been riveted.’47 Quoting Gibbon, Home says: ‘when a nation loses its generosity, it is a proof of its being on the decline,’48and adds: ‘we must only attribute the barbarous treatment of Napoleon to the vile faction by which the country was then governed, and not the absolute degradation of principle in the nation at large.’49Home continues: ‘It will, however, be a vile stain upon our name to the latest ages; and the more the character of Napoleon gains its true place in the page of history, the more dastardly will appear our conduct. Could only Castlereagh and the Holy Allies feel the odium of indignant posterity, it would be well; but it is England, upon England will the odium fall…’50 Thus does a true patriot describe the treatment of his Great Enemy. Home struggles to understand how ‘England’s great name was so degraded,’51and how his own country could be so much in the wrong: ‘I have often asked what had we to do with the French and Napoleon. To drive him within his own frontier, I confess, our right extended, but no farther.’52As for Napoleon’s return to France and the Hundred Days, Home describes how the French: ‘with shouts of love, almost amounting to adoration, they received in their bosom their glorious chief, covered with the laurels of a hundred victories…. But I still say, what had we to do with Napoleon and the French people? They hailed him to a man… yet nothing would serve England and the Allies, but they must depose Napoleon, and thrust a hated Bourbon upon France, even in the final struggle, at the expense of fifty thousands souls, the choicest in Europe.’53 There are few things more noble in life than to offer succour to a vanquished foe. George Home’s attitude and behaviour is eminently worthy of respect and praise. As a great Briton, I salute him. Home’s disgust and revulsion with the political posturing and flagrant warmongering of his own government is still ringing down the years. After apportioning blame, his conclusion regarding England’s wars
