APPENDIX

A(see p.34)

MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

Asterisks indicate members not re-elected in 1802, and italics new members.

B(see p.51)

PEERS

An asterisk indicates that the wife accompanied her husband.

Dukes—Bedford, Cumberland (Duchess), Gordon (Duchess), Newcastle (and Dowager-Duchess), *Somerset.

Marquises—Bute,[307]*Donegal, *Tweeddale.

Earls—Aberdeen, *Bessborough, *Beverley, Buckinghamshire, Cadogan (see p.54), Caledon, Camelford, *Carhampton, Cavan, *Cholmondeley, Clarendon, *Conyngham, Cowper, Dysart (Countess), Egremont, *Elgin, *Fife, Fitzwilliam, Granard (Countess), *Guilford, *Kenmare, Kingston (Countess), Lanesborough (Countess),Lauderdale, Longford, Mexborough (Countess), Minto, Mount Cashell, *Mount Edgecumbe, *Oxford, Pembroke, Pomfret, Sefton, Shaftesbury, *Shrewsbury, Winchilsea, Yarborough.

Viscounts—Annesley (Viscountess), Barrington, Castlemaine, Falkland, Gosford, Maynard (Viscountess), Monck, Strangford.

Barons—Blayney, Boringdon, *Bradford, *Cahir, Carington (Baroness), Cloncurry, Coleraine, Crofton (Baroness), Grantham, *Holland, Hutchinson, Longford, *Montfort, Northwick, *Say and Sele, Stawell, *Whitworth.

Eldest sons or other successors of Peers—General George Abercromby (son of Baroness Abercromby), William Annesley (Earl of Annesley), Archibald Acheson (Viscount Gosford), Viscount Althorp (Earl Spencer), Lord Charles Beaulieu (Earl of Beaulieu), Viscount Boyle (Earl of Glasgow), Viscount Brooke (Earl of Warwick), Lord John Campbell (Duke of Argyll), John Somers Cocks (Lord Somers), Earl of Dalkeith (Duke of Buccleuch), John De Blaquiere (Lord De Blaquiere), Augustus Dillon (Viscount Dillon), Marquis of Douglas (Duke of Hamilton), Lord Duncannon (Earl of Bessborough), Sampson Eardley (Lord Eardley), Francis Henry Egerton (Earl of Bridgewater), Viscount Fincastle (Earl of Dunmore), Admiral Garlies (Earl of Galloway), Lord Gustavus Hamilton (Viscount Boyne), Viscount Hinchingbrook (Earl of Sandwich), John Hely Hutchinson (Earl of Donoughmore), Charles Kinnaird (Lord Kinnaird), Edward Lascelles (predeceased the Earl of Harewood), Viscount Loftus (Marquis of Ely), Lord Lovaine (Earl of Beverley), Viscount Maitland (Earl of Lauderdale), Viscount Mathew (Earl of Landaff), Colonel W. J. Molesworth (Viscount Molesworth), Viscount Morpeth (Earl of Carlisle), Viscount Ossulston (Earl of Tankerville), Charles Pelham (Lord Yarborough), Viscount Petersham[308](Earl of Harrington), Lord Henry Petty (Marquis of Lansdowne), Dudley Ryder (Viscount Sandon, afterwards Earl of Harrowby), St. Andrew St. John (Lord St. John), John Scott (predeceased the Earl of Eldon), Admiral Tollemache (Countess of Dysart), John Hampden Trevor (Viscount Hampden), Charles Tufton (Earl of Thanet), Colonel John Vesey (Viscount de Vesci), John Charles Villiers (Earl of Clarendon) and Earl of Yarmouth (Marquis of Hertford). Several of these have been mentioned among actual or prospective M.P.’s. There was also Lady Ancrum, daughter-in-law of the Marquis of Lothian.

C(see p.300)

LORD JOHN RUSSELL AT ELBA

I have been favoured by the Hon. Rollo Russell with a copy, and permission to publish it, of the letter addressed in 1868 by his father, Earl Russell, to the eminent Belgian statesman, M. Van de Weyer. A few copies were then printed for private distribution.

Pembroke Lodge:Nov. 28, 1868.

My dear Van de Weyer,

You wish to have some account of my visit to the First Napoleon at Elba.

It is long since I paid that visit, and I can give you only glimmering recollections.

I was at Florence in December 1814, with my father and his family.

I wished very much to see Napoleon; some of my friends had been to Elba; a cousin of mine by marriage, Mr. Whitmore, was going there.

I was told that the season was bad, and that I should do well to put off my journey till the spring. But I determined to go then.

Colonel Campbell, the Commissioner of the British Government, was usually resident at Florence; he was then returning to Elba, and a brig-of-war had been placed at his disposal. I was glad to take advantage of the opportunity. He told us on the way that Napoleon had sate up late at night, revising the list of the Municipal Council of Porto Ferrajo for the ensuing year. Colonel Campbell seemed to consider this circumstance a proof that the deposed Emperor could be as busy upon a trifling affair as on the destinies of Europe. But no doubt Napoleon wished to have a municipality on whom he could rely in case of need.

The first person Whitmore and I saw at Porto Ferrajo was General Bertrand, and he introduced us to his wife, a Dillon by birth.

In conversation with General Bertrand, he asked us the meaning of a paragraph in theCouriernewspaper, sent him by Colonel Campbell, to the effect that the Congress of Vienna had it in contemplation to send the Emperor to St. Helena. We had not seen the paragraph, and could not account for it. I have never referred to theCouriernewspaper of that period to ascertain its wording, or guess at its origin. But it had evidently made a great impression on General Bertrand.

In the evening of that day, about eight o’clock, I went to the house at the top of the town where Napoleon resided. He received me in his drawing-room. He was dressed in uniform—a green coat, single-breasted, white breeches, and silk stockings. I was much struck with his countenance—eyes of a muddy colour and cunning expression; the fine features which we all know in his bust and on his coins; and, lastly, a most agreeable and winning smile. He was very courteous in his manner. I was with him for a long time—I think an hour and a half. He stood the whole time, only sometimes leaning on the chimney-piece.

What struck me most in his conversation was a certain uneasiness about his position—a suspicion that something serious was about to happen to him, and he seemed to have a desire to entrap me into giving him information which I was neither able nor willing to afford. With this view, as I supposed, he asked me a number of questions of little interest to him—such as, whether I was in the House of Commons or the House of Lords, whether my father had kept up muchstate as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and whether the Lady-Lieutenant had anydame d’honneurin her suite? When I replied that she had only a young lady, who was her cousin, in the house with her, he remarked, ‘C’était une dame de compagnie, pas une dame d’honneur.’ These questions he would intersperse with eager enquiries respecting the state of France; and when I replied that I had not come through France, but by sea from Portugal, he would not let me off, but asked me what Lord Holland, whom I had seen at Florence, thought of French opinion—enquiring, with much emphasis, ‘L’armée est-elle contente?’

He spoke also of Italy; and when I said that Italy had no union, and therefore would probably remain quiet, he said, ‘C’est vrai.’ I told him that I had heard everywhere, that during his reign the robberies and pillage, which had been so common before, had almost ceased; he said quickly, ‘C’était la gendarmerie.’

He seemed alarmed regarding his own safety, asking me, more than once, whether our Minister at Florence was a man to be trusted; whether fearing that he might be carried off by force, or wishing to obtain some assurance of safety and protection from Lord Burghersh, the British Minister, I cannot tell. I told him that Lord Burghersh had been attached, as a military officer, to one of the allied armies which had invaded France; but of this he seemed to know nothing.

It was evident to me that the paragraph in theCourier, which had been mentioned to me by General Bertrand, had been shown to Napoleon, and had produced a great impression upon him. He seemed to me to be meditating some enterprise, and yet very doubtful whether he should undertake it. When weheard afterwards of his expedition from Elba, the Count de Mosbourg, a minister of Murat, was asked what could have induced Napoleon to run so great a hazard; ‘Un peu d’espoir et beaucoup de désespoir,’ was his reply. Such appeared to me to be, when I saw him, the state of his mind; and when I got to Rome, I wrote to my brother, Lord Tavistock, that I was sure Napoleon was thinking of some fresh attempt.

Napoleon seemed very curious on the subject of the Duke of Wellington. He said it was a great mistake in the English Government to send him Ambassador to Paris. ‘On n’aime pas voir un homme par qui on a été battu.’ He had never sent as Ambassador to Vienna a man who had entered Vienna as an officer of the French invading army. (Count Lebzeltern, the Austrian Ambassador at Rome, denied the truth of this assertion.) As I had seen a good deal of the Duke of Wellington in Spain, Napoleon asked me what were likely to be his occupations. I answered that during his campaigns the Duke had been so much absorbed by his attention to the war that I did not well understand how he could give his mind to other subjects. He remarked, rather sharply, as if he thought I was inclined to think lightly of military talents, ‘Eh bien, c’est un grand jeu, belle occupation!’ He spoke at some length of his plans respecting Spain. He would have divided the large landed properties in the hands of the grandees, of the monasteries, and of the clergy. He would have introduced into Spain the enlightened principles of religious toleration and facilitated commercial intercourse in the interior, etc.

I said that I thought Spain was not ready for such changes, and that the Spanish people would resistthem. ‘Ils succomberaient,’ he said, and then the subject dropped.

He asked me whether I knew anything of what was passing at the Congress of Vienna. I said, ‘Nothing.’ He said he expected that each Power would have confirmed to it by treaty the territories which its forces occupied. In respect to the three great military Powers, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, this prediction was nearly verified. Mr. Pitt, however, had intended, in 1805, to give Belgium to Prussia; Lord Castlereagh gave it to the Netherlands.

Napoleon spoke of Lord Ebrington, whom he had recently seen, and said he was ‘un homme fort instruit; du moins, il m’a paru un homme fort instruit.’ It struck me afterwards that while he had spoken to Lord Ebrington of great events of his past life—of Jaffa, of the execution of the Duc d’Enghien, and other acts on which the world had passed its judgment—he spoke to me almost entirely of the existing aspect of affairs. His past history had ceased to be his main object, and his mind was busy with the present and the future. He said, ‘You must be very well satisfied, you English, to have finished the war so successfully.’ I answered, ‘Yes, Sire, especially as at one time we thought ourselves in great danger.’

He burst out laughing, ‘Ha! ha! ha! C’était le système continental, eh?’

I said, ‘Yes, Sire; but as that system did not ruin us, it did us a great deal of good. For men are much governed by their physical wants.’

The interview ended soon after this. The next morning I was told that a horse from the Emperor’s stable was at my disposal, and I rode to a villa which he was constructing for his summer occupation.

The day after I embarked, in the gun-brig in which I had come, for Civita Vecchia.

I remain, my dear Van de Weyer,

Yours truly,

RUSSELL.

Lord J. Russell in his diary, wrote of Napoleon:—

‘His manner is very good-natured, and seems studied to put one at one’s ease by its familiarity; his smile and laugh are very agreeable; he asks a number of questions without object, and often repeats them, a habit which he has no doubt acquired during fifteen years of supreme command. To this I should also attribute the ignorance he seems to show at times of the most common facts. When anything that he likes is said, he puts his head forward and listens with great pleasure ... but when he does not like what he hears, he turns away as if unconcerned, and changes the subject. From this one might conclude that he was open to flattery and violent in his temper.’

Sir Spencer Walpole in hisLife of Lord J. Russell, adds:—

Lord John was with him [Napoleon] an hour and a half, conversing on many subjects—the Russell family, Lord John’s own allowance from the Duke, the state of Spain and Italy, the character of the Duke of Wellington, and the arrangements likely to be made at Vienna for the pacification of Europe. He used to say in his old age, that as the Emperor became interested in his conversation, he fell into the singular habit which he had acquired, and pulled him by the ear.

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