Three days after this article, The Times reported that Stokoe had already arrived and been interviewed at the Admiralty and was returning to St Helena immediately: ‘This gentleman, we understand, was on Tuesday examined by ministers, and the result has been that he is immediately to resume his functions at St Helena. The inference from this is, that his conduct has been fully approved of.’14
The Balcombes were longing to depart for the island themselves, but could not do so until official permission was received from the East India Company, although it seems they heard encouraging rumours. However, Sarah Timms could endure England no longer. Balcombe travelled up to London with her and arranged her passage on the ship Larkin and her travel bond with the Company.
While in London, Balcombe called in to see Holmes the naval agent and booked into lodgings next door to his Kennington house—something that would count against him. He wrote letters from there to Cole and Fowler, which Holmes arranged that a ship’s officer would deliver to St Helena, bypassing the official mail. Yet another foolish mistake.
Lowe was alarmed to hear that Balcombe still had every intention of returning to the island, and that although the purveyorship to the French had gone, he planned to resume his other business interests if permitted to do so by the East India Company. In a private letter to Bathurst, the governor noted that two more letters had recently arrived from Balcombe, brought by a ship’s officer for Cole and Fowler. Cole had shown Lowe his letter and there was not a great deal in it. Balcombe had said that ‘he had been recommended by Sir T. T. to go to Plymouth for Economy’. The officer delivering the letter admitted that he had picked it up from Balcombe at Kennington, ‘the place where Mr O’Meara & Mr Holmes met’.
The governor then informed Cole ‘that the partnership of Balcombe, Holmes & O’Meara in England could not be long found compatible with that of Balcombe, Cole & Fowler at St Helena’. Cole replied that he understood that. Lowe wrote to Bathurst: ‘I was inclined to make this remark as Mr Balcombe enjoys the benefit of the Naval contract in this Island for the supply of Beer & Vegetables, delivering perhaps to him & his house here not less than £2000 a year. He still retains also the Situation of Superintendent of Public Sales, for which, however, if he does not return here, one of the Company’s Civil Servants, tho not at my suggestion, has applied. If Mr B thinks such matters worth pursuing, the only way I conceive he has to proceed is to make a full compleat disclosure of everything that has passed & to recant. He will probably avoid this, so long as he can play a desirable game & secure an interest in both quarters. The Person whom I conceded would have been able to obtain everything from him was Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, but if all these arguments from him have failed, I presume those of his Interests may still succeed.’15
Sarah Timms arrived back on the island in late June and reported to Lowe, who thoroughly questioned her. He wrote to Goulburn: ‘She mentioned that Captain Wallis had gone down to Plymouth to see Mr Balcombe & his family & was with them two or three days. Mr Balcombe, she said, took lodgings next door for some time to Mr Holmes at Kennington. She knows nothing of their connection, nor is not likely to have brought out anything from them.’16
On the same day, 29 June, Albine de Montholon, claiming ill health, announced that she was departing St Helena, leaving her husband to keep Napoleon company. She had had enough of the island’s loneliness, the bickering and Fanny Bertrand’s hostility. She may have had enough of occasionally warming Napoleon’s bed. Although his declining health probably meant that he was incapable of much sexual activity, she was a comfort to him. It was rumoured that Albine was heading to England to warm the bed of Lieutenant Basil Jackson, something hinted at in her own later Journal Secret d’Albine de Montholon, maîtresse de Napoléon à Sainte-Hélène, in which her relationship as ‘mistress’ to Napoleon was explicit in the title. The journal lay unpublished for almost two centuries.17 She left the island, with her children, on the Lady Campbell on 2 July. Napoleon was said to be devastated by her departure.18
Bathurst wrote to Lowe, counselling him against directing ‘any prosecutions against the Morning Chronicle or Mr. O’Meara’s publications’, not because he felt indifference on the subject, ‘but because London juries are very uncertain in their verdicts, and one ill-disposed juryman would be able to acquit the parties, which would give occasion for triumph and appear to justify the complaints which have been made against you’. Knowing that Lowe was likely to be disappointed by this advice, he offered some good news: ‘With respect to Mr. Balcombe, you will let it be known that, in the event of his arriving at St Helena, you have orders to send him away. His partners must not be allowed to continue their contract if his name is in it. I imagine he cannot be dismissed from his office of Surveyor of Sales but by order of the Court of Directors; and I am not sure what may be the result of the representation which I shall probably make to them on the subject. I say probably, for I do not much like making representations of that description unless there is a good chance of their being attended to.’19
However, there was another member of the suspected ‘naval cabal’ whom Lowe had no wish to see return to the island. He wrote to Bathurst that a Portsmouth newspaper indicated that Stokoe was a passenger on board the Abundance and was returning to St Helena to resume his duties as a naval surgeon. The news had given rise to ‘an extraordinary declaration’ from Count Balmain, that in his view ‘Mr Stokoe was not in any respect to blame’. Lowe still refused to acknowledge that Balmain was courting his stepdaughter Charlotte, and he found the man’s comment outrageous.20
The first Plymouth and Dartmoor Railway Act successfully passed through Parliament in July 1819 as a result of Tyrwhitt’s exertions. In a ceremony on 12 August, Sir Thomas laid the first iron rails on granite sleepers.21
There was a small setback for the project when the largest original investor, Sir Masseh Lopes, a wealthy Devon landowner, local magistrate and (even by the standards of the time) notoriously corrupt politician, was convicted of electoral bribery at the County Assizes in 1819 and gaoled for two years. Born a Portuguese Jew (who had later converted to Protestantism), he was probably a convenient scapegoat for token parliamentary reform.22
In August, Napoleon’s fiftieth birthday passed with little fuss on St Helena.
The following day, 16 August 1819, would long be remembered as a day of shame in England. In Manchester some 60,000 men, women and children, wearing their Sunday best, walked peaceably, carrying no arms, to St Peter’s Field to listen to the famous radical orator Henry Hunt. He called for ‘quietness and order’ and the crowd complied.23 But the Manchester magistrates had a warrant for Hunt’s arrest. England still possessed no police force, but out of sight, in case of trouble, was an enormous force of soldiers; at the front was the local yeomanry, shopkeepers and ‘newly enriched manufacturers’, armed and on horseback.24 It was this local militia that made a bungling charge to arrest the speaker and attacked the crowd, which tried to prevent Hunt’s removal. The troops followed, sabres drawn, charging into the melée and killing up to fifteen people and wounding more than 400. It was a massacre of the defenceless, leaving a field strewed with ‘caps, bonnets, hats, shawls and shoes . . . trampled, torn and bloody’.25
The reverberations of ‘Peterloo’, as it came to be called, on the British middle class led eventually to parliamentary reform.
CHAPTER 25
AN ITEM OF NEWS
News from St Helena was always welcome to the Balcombes, still living at Plymouth. In mid-August 1819, the Morning Post had two stories which would have delighted them. It noted that General Sir George and Lady Bingham were departing the island for England: ‘Report says that he will soon return as its Governor.’ That was bound to please many islanders too, for the article mentioned that the locals knew ‘nothing of what passes in Europe, as all the newspapers that arrive are obliged to be forwarded to Sir Hudson Lowe, who destroys them after perusal’.
What was particularly delicious was the story of Sir Thomas Read
e, the deputy-adjutant-general, who had been ‘desirous of gratifying Lady Lowe with the representation of a naval night action’. He had therefore given directions to the captain of the visiting naval warship HMS Eurydice. ‘Accordingly at ten o’clock at night, the Eurydice, after a brilliant discharge of rockets, blue lights &c commenced a vigorous cannonade, which was answered by a brig, and kept up with great spirit on both sides, to the great admiration of such ladies as were in the secret, and to the consternation of the inhabitants, amongst others, of Admiral Plampin.’ It was astonishing that Plampin, the admiral of the South Atlantic naval station, had not been informed; ‘imagining that the Yankees were endeavouring to land in order to carry off Bonaparte, he sent his Secretary and the signal midshipman galloping down the steep sidepath from the Briars at the risk of their necks, to ascertain what was the matter. Nothing could exceed the confusion amongst the natives, the greatest part of whom flocked to the alarm-posts, where they remained until daylight.’ The article concluded: ‘Nothing further is known about Bonaparte, than that he is on the island.’1
Betsy and Jane and their parents would have wondered about Napoleon’s actual state of health, with rumours that an Italian doctor had now arrived to look after him. That mention of The Briars, still occupied by Plampin, must have caused more than a twinge of heartache and determination to return to the island, especially if the good General Bingham was to be governor there.
The Times of 3 November provided an account of the tribulations of their friend John Stokoe: ‘Our readers will learn with surprise and no doubt with indignation, the disingenuous manner in which Mr Stokoe, Naval Surgeon on board the Admiral’s flag-ship at St Helena, has been treated.’ Stokoe, ‘this most respectable naval surgeon’, had ‘like his predecessor incurred the displeasure of Sir Hudson Lowe’ because of the bulletins he wrote on the ex-emperor’s state of health. He had been allowed to return to England on half-pay, and ‘was received in the most gracious manner at the Admiralty’, then given an order to return to the island and his station on the flagship. ‘No sooner, however, had he arrived at St Helena,’ the report continued, ‘than he was told that a court-martial was to be assembled to try him on several charges, preferred against him by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, relative to his conduct during his attendance on General Buonaparte! They are such as would, in any other case and situation, be considered frivolous and vexatious; but coming from so high an authority, and supported by the local influence of his enemy, he can have very little hope of relief.’ Because Stokoe had returned with expectations of taking up his old position as flagship surgeon, he had left behind in England ‘the original documents of official correspondence’ which would have supported his case, as well as ‘testimonials of character, which after twenty years of approved service, he had received from every commander under whom he had sailed. The system of terror so powerfully operates in St Helena, that a military officer declined giving Surgeon Stokoe his countenance and assistance, during the trial, on the plea of ill-health.’
The ten charges were extraordinarily petty, even in the view of The Times: ‘The first charge, we understand, was for having held communications with Buonaparte otherwise than in his professional capacity and the last, for having in his official documents designated or described Buonaparte as “Napoleon” and the “Patient” and not as “General Buonaparte”.’2
The outcome was inevitable and merciless. Stokoe was found guilty of all charges and stripped of his naval career. The court-martial judges, ‘in consideration of his former faithful services and his excellent character, recommended him to the Lords of the Admiralty to be placed on the half-pay list’.3 All Stokoe’s fears of angering the governor and Admiral Plampin if he offered Napoleon any medical attention had come to pass. The emperor’s shadow had fallen on him, but looming behind it was the bitter, punitive spectre of Sir Hudson Lowe.
Balcombe was still awaiting the decision of the East India Company regarding his application of February to return to his beloved island. The St Helena Archives still holds the court book with the decisions of the Court of Directors on various applications.4 On 8 December, the directors gave the answer he had hoped for: ‘Resolved. That adverting to the Court’s Resolution of the 24th February last, Mr William Balcombe be permitted to return to St Helena for the purpose of resuming his former situation of Superintendent of Public Sales at that Island.’ Despite his gout, Balcombe might have danced a jig if he had known of that result. Unfortunately, he never did. One week later, before it was communicated to him, the decision was reversed. It was noted in the court book that Lord Bathurst had ‘declined to comply’ with the court’s request for ‘the proposed return of Mr W. Balcombe to St Helena’ and ‘would not consider himself justified in departing from that decision’. The application was refused.5 Whatever friends Balcombe might have had influencing the Court of Directors, Bathurst—who in this instance was going to oblige Lowe—was more powerful.
It was a heavy blow for the whole Balcombe family, particularly for William and his wife. She had first thought of St Helena as ‘worse than Botany Bay’, but had come to love their ‘dear island’, the friends they had there, such as the Bertrands, and most of all their beautiful home, The Briars. Balcombe’s worries were predominantly financial. He had a great deal of money tied up in the Briars property and the brewery; the naval contract alone, for supplying beer and vegetables, was worth £2000 a year to his company.6 Admiral Plampin was still neglecting to pay rent, having apparently seen the fracas surrounding the ‘clandestine letters’ as a justification for not doing so, and only a trickle was coming from Cole and Fowler for the business, through Wm Burnie & Co. in London.
Tyrwhitt was not in a position to help Balcombe financially, having directed all his funds towards his passion, the Plymouth and Dartmoor Railroad, and had taken out a heavy mortgage on it as well. At the same time, he was much occupied in discussions and actual arguments with the Prince Regent. Old King George III was totally delusional, in ever failing health and expected to die at any time. As J.B. Priestley wrote: ‘The idea of the mad old King haunted the Regency like an accusing ghost.’7 The Regent insisted that when he acceded to the throne, he would not have his legal wife, Princess Caroline of Brunswick, as his queen. Tyrwhitt advised that he could not do otherwise, but the Regent said that he had a legal right to annul the marriage if she had proved to be unfaithful. Princess Caroline was living in Italy and there was a rumour that she had a lover. Tyrwhitt may have been asked to go on a mission to ascertain this fact, but if so, he refused. Prince George wanted to marry again. With the death of his daughter Charlotte, he now had no legal heir to the throne. His younger brother Edward, the Duke of Kent, the fourth son of George III, had just that year produced a daughter, the Princess Victoria.8 His other brothers had plenty of illegitimate offspring but no legitimate children, and now a few of them were scrambling among the European princesses to find a wife who would deliver a male heir. The Regent was determined to outwit them.
The Duke of Wellington had no time for any of the King’s seven surviving sons, lumping them all together as ‘the damnedst millstones about the neck of any government that can be imagined’.9 One of those millstones sank soon after: Edward, Duke of Kent, died suddenly on 23 January 1820.
His death was followed six days later by the more expected passing of his father, George III. There was an outbreak of mourning among the English for the late King; they had developed a real affection for their ‘Farmer George’. They feared what would happen to the nation under the rule of his spendthrift, disreputable, roistering eldest son.
George IV acceded to the throne at Windsor Castle, and plans were made, with the help of Tyrwhitt, for his coronation.
Lowe wrote promising news for Bathurst about the new gardener at Longwood: ‘Nothing can exceed the bustle & activity which has been recently displayed by General Bonaparte in giving directions about his Flower Garden & superintending the servants employed in it. He is hemming it in, all
round with as bushy trees and shrubs as he can get transported & with rock walls so as to screen himself as far as possible from external observation.’10 For Lowe, it confirmed his belief that there was nothing wrong with the general—he had been malingering all along. Napoleon, who had always been so particular in his dress, was now sometimes seen in the garden in loose blowsy trousers and a Chinese coolie hat. The orderly officer had even sighted him in a dressing-gown!11
Betsy and the Emperor Page 29