A VOICE

FROM

ST. HELENA.

21st. April, 1817.-NAPOLEON has been for some days in very good spirits. On Saturday, the 19th, several captains of East Indiamen came to see Count and Countess Bertrand. Captains Innes, Campbell, and Ripsley, with Mr. Webb, stationed themselves at the back of the house in such a situation as to be likely to see Napoleon on his return from Bertrand's, where he had gone about four o'clock. Napoleon beckoned to, and conversed with them for nearly an hour, during which time he asked many questions respecting India, the East India Company, Lord Moira, their own profits, &c.; and to the commodore, who had a very youthful appearance, in a laughing manner he observed, that he was a child, and ought to be ashamed of commanding captains so much older than himself.

Asked the emperor whether it was at Lodi or Arcola that he had seized the standard, and precipitated himself among the enemy's troops. He replied, "At Arcoia, not Lodi. At Arcola, I was slightly wounded; but at Lodi no such circumstance occurred. Why do you ask? Do you think me lâche ?" said he, laughing. I begged to assure him of my thorough conviction of the contrary, which was too well known to be doubted; and that it was merely to solve a difference of opinion that had arisen between some of us English who had not the means of procuring at St. Helena any books to satisfy us at which of the two it happened, that I had taken the liberty to ask him. "Those things," said he, with a smile, "are not worth mentioning."

Had a long conversation with him on medical subjects. He appeared to entertain an idea that in cases purely the province of the physician, the patient has an equal chance of being despatched to the other world, either by the doctor mistaking the complaint, or by the remedies administered operating in a different manner from what was in tended and expected, and was for trusting entirely to nature. With respect to surgery, he professed a far different opinion, and acknowledged the great utility of that science. I endeavoured to convince him, that in some complaints, nature was a bad physician, and mentioned in proof of my argument

the examples that had taken place under his own eyes of the cases of Countess Montholon, General Gourgaud, Tristan, and others; who if they had been left to nature, would have gone to the other world. I observed that in practice we always had a certain object in view, and never prescribed remedies without first having considered well what we had to expect from their operation. Napoleon, however, was sceptical; and inclined to think that if they had taken no medicine, maintained strict abstinence from every thing except plenty of diluents, they would have done equally well. However, after having heard all my arguments, he said, "well, perhaps if ever I have a serious malady, I may change my opinion, take all your medicines, and do what you please. I should like to know what sort of a patient I should make, and whether I should be tractable, or otherwise, I am inclined to think the former." I reasoned with him afterwards about inflammation of the lungs, and asked him if he thought that nature, if left to herself, would effect a cure in that complaint. He appeared a little staggered at this at first; but after asking me what were the remedies, to which I replied that venesection was the sheetanchor, he said, "that complaint belongs to the surgeon, because he cures it with his lancet, and not to the physician." I then mentioned dysen-tery and intermittent fevers. "The remedies given

remove.

in intermittent fevers," said he, "frequently produce worse complaints than the disease that they Suppose now that the best informed physician visits forty patients a day; amongst them he will kill one or two a month by mistaking the disease, and in the country towns the charlatans will kill about half of those who die under their hands."

"The country towns in England, as well as in France," said he, "abound with Molière's doctors. Are you a fatalist ?" I replied, "in action I am." Why not every where else?" said the emperor; I said, that I believed a man's dissolution, in certain cases, to be inevitable if he did not endeavour by the means placed in his power, to prevent his fate. For example, I said, that if a man in battle saw a cannon shot coming towards him, as sometimes happened, he would naturally step to one side, and thereby avoid an otherwise inevitable death; which comparison I thought would hold good with certain complaints, by considering the ball to be the disease, and stepping aside, the remedy. Napoleon replied, "perhaps by stepping to one side, you may throw yourself in the way of another ball, which otherwise would have missed you. I remember," added he, "an example of what I tell you having occurred at Toulon, when I commanded the artillery. There were some Marseillois artillerymen

sent to the siege. France, the Marseillois are the least brave, and indeed, generally speaking, have but little energy. I observed an officer, like the rest, to be very careful of himself, instead of shewing an example. I therefore called out and said, 'Monsieur officer, come out and observe the effect of your shot. You do not know whether your guns are well pointed or not. At this time we were firing upon the English ships. I desired him to see if our shot struck them in the hull. He was very unwilling to quit his station; but at last he came over to where I was, a little outside of the parapet, where he began to look out. Wishing, however, to make himself small, and to secure as much of his body as possible, he stooped down and sheltered one side of his body behind the parapet, while he looked under my arm. He had not been long in that position before a shot came close to me, and low down, which knocked him to pieces. Now, if this man had stood upright, and more exposed to danger, he would have been safe, as the ball would have passed between us, without hurting either."

Now of all the people in

I recounted to the emperor, after this, a circumstance which had happened in the Victorious, seventy-four, Captain Talbot, when I was on board of her, which I explained minutely to him. During the action with his ship the Rivoli, a man who