CHAPTER I

AT THE OUTSET OF THE CAPTIVITY

STOKOE APPOINTED SURGEON OF THE CONQUEROR, ADMIRAL PLAMPIN’S FLAG-SHIP—HE STARTS FOR ST. HELENA ON MARCH 15, 1817—THE GENERAL IGNORANCE IN EUROPE OF WHAT WAS HAPPENING ON THE “ISLAND OF EXILE”—STATE OF AFFAIRS WHEN STOKOE ARRIVED (JUNE 29, 1817).

IN DECEMBER 1816 A SHIP of the line was being fitted out at Portsmouth. This was the Conqueror, on which Sir Robert Plampin had just hoisted his flag. Dr. John Stokoe was offered the post of surgeon on this vessel, which was to start for St. Helena in the spring, and not to return until 1820.

It was no very tempting prospect, to remain so long upon a desolate island, a mere speck, 6000 miles from Europe, in the great expanse of sea lying between Africa and America! Stokoe had completed twenty-one years of service; he would soon be entitled to his retiring pension. He might have finished his time in his own country, in a naval hospital in some quiet roadstead in Great Britain. His seniority gave him the right to a stationary appointment. If he still wished to wander, the English could easily give him a pleasanter station than St. Helena; in the Mediterranean, in India, or at the Antilles. He had only to make his choice and to ask for a post, which he was bound to receive.

Yet he preferred St. Helena. This barren rock, a short time before almost unknown, had suddenly become famous. England had chosen it for Napoleon’s last pedestal. “I thought,” said Stokoe, “that I should see the great man and probably have the honour of conversing with him—little did I think at that time that the honour would be so dearly purchased!”

The Emperor had then been for fourteen months in the solitude of the Southern Atlantic. Nothing was now known of him whose fame had caused his slightest gesture to be noted. No news came from the land of exile. George III.’s Ministers had isolated it from the rest of the world: they allowed no indiscreet correspondence to issue from it, even forbidding the soldiers and sailors of the garrison to speak about Napoleon in their letters or to mention his name. The police and secret bureaus of Europe used every effort and gave every help that this silence might be maintained, and Louis XVIII. had agents in the principal ports, who watched the arrivals from St. Helena, dogged the footsteps of suspected travellers, and stole their papers.

For information about the island which the Conqueror with its 74 guns was to guard, Stokoe consulted the papers, but in vain—the press was under orders of silence.

Some pamphlets had appeared, professing to satisfy the universal curiosity. He obtained and read them. The information gained from these sources seemed very vague. Some of it, in its improbability, verged on the ridiculous.

A personage named Tyder, for example, boasted of having been able to “interview,” as we should say nowadays, “the Imperial convict.” Napoleon had confided to him that it would not be very difficult to escape from St. Helena. He might be inclined to make the attempt. In an “air-balloon gondola” he would cross the 1200 miles which separated the island from the coast of Africa. He would civilise the negroes of this continent, and once more form a vast empire, summoning to him his partisans and brothers, his wife and son. In the meantime he amused himself with one of Madame de Montholon’s maids, took snuff in huge quantities, and played at war in the following manner. “He had brought from France five or six cases containing 20,000 to 30,000 wooden men, two inches high, and of all colours, generals, officers, artillerymen, knights, and foot soldiers. With the help of his companions he placed them in battle array on a mahogany table, and all these battalions, broken up at will, set forth the movements of two hostile armies, one commanded by Bertrand, the other by Napoleon, whose army was always the victor.”

More bona fide were the “Letters written on board the Northumberland and at St. Helena,” by Dr. Warden. Unfortunately they consisted mainly of details as to the Emperor’s campaigns, politics and past life, in the form of conversations between the author and Napoleon, or the members of his suite. His present position, far more interesting to Stokoe, was dealt with very briefly.

It was, however, depicted by Santini, in his “Appeal to the English Nation.” This servant of Napoleon, whom Sir Hudson Lowe had banished from St. Helena, practically described the Emperor as dying of hunger on damp straw in a dungeon, with no food but “unsound meat” and “rotten bread, full of worms.” But who could believe assertions so palpably exaggerated? Might one rely upon such information?

Stokoe read one more pamphlet, the sensational title of which seemed to promise much. Again a disappointment! The “Manuscrit venu de Sainte-Hélène d’une manière inconnue” only contained thoughts and maxims of government attributed to Napoleon by an imaginative writer.

The mystery surrounding the Emperor extended even to the geography of the island. Nothing definite was known of St. Helena. Its shape and climate, its fauna and flora, its geology, population and fortifications were described in the most contradictory terms. Ernest Hoffman, a contemporary journalist, discussed the subject as follows:

“In an account just published in Paris, the anonymous writer declares that the island of St. Helena is circular in form: the map in Mr. Cohen’s book represents it as a square: some travellers say that it is as much as fifteen miles in diameter; others that its circumference scarcely measures twenty-one miles.

“Either through a printer’s error, or intentional exaggeration, the population has been stated to be 24,000, whereas it amounts at the most to 3500, including the garrison.

“All travellers who have called there praise the mildness of the climate, the eternal spring and the evergreen freshness of favoured St. Helena. Lord Macartney asserts that the higher altitudes of this island are very cold, and that fruit hardly ripens there.

“Classic writers picture the Happy Isles in no more glowing colours than modern ones have used in regard to St. Helena. They speak enthusiastically of its charming valleys and picturesque hillsides. It is another Otaheite, a miniature paradise. Yet, hear M. Bory Saint Vincent: The island is covered with ashes and volcanic scoriæ, and vegetation languishes. Naturalists regard St. Helena as the product of an eruption which suddenly raised it above the level of the sea. Lord Macartney declares that no part of it is of volcanic origin.

“According to some, rats are so numerous in this island that they prevent every kind of agriculture; according to others, these animals only damage cereals. Some affirm that an insect of a peculiar shape destroys all the pear and other European trees; others speak of the beauty of the trees, peach, apple and otherwise, which grow luxuriously in this fertile soil. Lord Valentia in particular saw peach-trees of every size, and flowers and fruits from the four quarters of the globe.

“To take the verdict of this nobleman, St. Helena is badly defended; the island could not resist a serious attack. The guns are mounted far too high above the level of the sea; they could do but little harm to vessels approaching the coast. The only fort containing properly mounted guns is situated in a spot devoid of water. It would be an incalculable misfortune to allow this island to fall into the hands of the enemy; therefore, he declares that it must be fortified afresh. But to turn to other accounts; St. Helena is a second Gibraltar; no vessel can approach it without the risk of being blown to pieces; nature has raised around the island an impregnable rampart; the only three openings in a coast-line, 1200 feet high, are defended by numerous batteries; a tiny creek, through which a solitary gunboat could hardly creep, is as well fortified as if it could give access to a fleet.

“Subjects about which a misunderstanding is hardly conceivable are described in as many diverse ways. Mr. Brooke, the author of the account translated by Mr. Cohen, declares that oak-trees naturalised at St. Helena grew with amazing rapidity and, contrary to the experience of botanists in every other country, acquired a density greater than that of any oak-trees in Europe. Lord Valentia said that the trees of St. Helena had soft spongy wood. Which of the two are we to believe? Mr. Brooke lived on the island as Government Secretary, and must have been well acquainted with it. Lord Valentia, on the other hand, owing to his rank and position, was in close communication with the Governor, and gathered from him all the details which he gives, besides which he crossed the island in every direction and remained there for thirty-five days, more than long enough to notice such a trifling matter. We must, therefore, remain in doubt on this point as on many others.”

Such was the uncertainty on the subject of St. Helena when the Conqueror set sail for that island, March 15, 1817. The vessel arrived on June 29, a few weeks before the termination of Napoleon’s second year of captivity. It would be difficult to understand the events in which Stokoe took part without a brief resume of the history of this period.

St. Helena deserved neither all the good nor all the bad said about it. It is not a...