Letters (118 page)

His letter sent on its way, Andrew rushes overland to the Channel, avoiding Paris lest in the confusion of the new government his credentials be too closely examined. But at Tours, at Rouen, at Dieppe, the news is the same: Louis wants Napoleon dead, is relieved to be relieved of the political consequences of seeing personally to his execution, but fears the British will give him asylum or let him go to America
despite their secret assurances to the contrary.
On July 20 he crosses from Dieppe to Newhaven; by the 21st he is in London, seeking out his erstwhile brother-in-audacity Admiral Sir George Cockburn. He has no plan, beyond learning what the Admiralty’s and the cabinet’s intentions are. He presumes that the dispatch boat carrying Napoleon’s “Themistocles” letter to the prince regent will have arrived, and remembers that Cockburn and the prince regent are friends.

I had learn’d in the Chesapeake,
he writes,
that the surest road to Sir George’s confidence was a frank confession of rascality, especially as apply’d against his rivals. And so I gain’d his presence as “one André Castine, bringing news of Napoleon”; but once in his company I reveal’d myself as Andrew Cook, & told him all that had transpired since we saw each other last off Baltimore. In particular I regaled him with the rivalry between General Pakenham & Admiral Cochrane at New Orleans, & the tale of Mrs. Mullens, & Cochrane’s disgust that the peace came ere he had properly ransom’d a city. I then recounted the details of Bonaparte’s surrender (whereof England had as yet heard only the fact) & his hope for passport or asylum.

He has judged his man correctly. At first incredulous, then skeptical, Cockburn is soon delighting in the story of Admiral Malcolm and Mrs. Mullens, of Cochrane’s artillery duel with Andrew Jackson. He calls for maps, and argues persuasively that even after the January massacre it was Cochrane’s fecklessness and General Lambert’s shock that lost New Orleans: at the time of the burial truce the British had command of the west bank of the Mississippi above Jackson’s line, 50 armed vessels en route upriver and a blockade at its mouth, and clear superiority of numbers; to withdraw and rebegin a whole month later from Fort Bowyer was a foolish judgment and crucial loss of time, since everyone knew the peace was imminent. But that was Cochrane! Did Andrew know that the man had left Admiral Malcolm the ugly job of getting rid of all those Negroes and Indians he had so ardently recruited with false promises, and himself rushed home to litigate for prize money? And that while he was about it he was suing for libel any who dared say in print what everyone said in private: that he was a fool and, but for the odd foolhardy display, a coward?

As for Napoleon (whom Cockburn, in the English fashion, calls “Buonaparte”), the truth is that the British cabinet have no mind whatever to grant him either passport to America or asylum in England: they wish him heartily to the Devil and are annoyed that he did not conveniently dispatch himself to that personage. They dare not put him on trial, for they know him to be a master of manipulating public sympathy. Their resolve is to whisk him as speedily, quietly, and far as possible from the public eye forever. The legal and political questions about his status are many and delicate (Is he a prisoner of war? Of Britain or of the Allies? Does habeas corpus apply? Extradition?), and no one wants either to deal with them or to incur the consequences of not dealing with them. Now Sir George happens to know that Prime Minister Liverpool has already decided to confine the man for life in the most remote and impregnable situation in the empire, and consulting the Admiralty on that head, has been advised that the South Atlantic island of St. Helena, owned by the British East India Company, best fits the bill.

How does Cockburn know? Why, because he himself has been proposed for promotion to commander in chief of His Majesty’s naval force at the Cape of Good Hope and adjacent seas—i.e., the whole of the South Atlantic and Indian oceans—and the immediate reason for this promotion, he quite understands, is to sweeten the responsibility of fetching Bonaparte to St. Helena and seeing to it he stays there until a permanent commission has been established for his wardenship! He expects his orders daily, and though he readily accepts the “sweetening,” it is in fact an assignment he welcomes: perhaps his last chance to walk upon the stage of History. For that reason, while the cabinet would be relieved to hear that their captive has taken poison aboard
Bellerophon
en route to Tor Bay, he Cockburn would be much chagrined: he looks forward to many a jolly hour with Old Boney.

Speaking of whom, and of the splendid absurdities of that “English law” on whose protection the rogue has thrown himself: has Andrew heard the tale that bids to bring together General Buonaparte and Admiral Cochrane? Andrew has not.
Well:
it seems that Sir Alexander’s return from New Orleans in the spring, and his commencement of prize litigations, prompted a number of sarcastic comments in the London press about his being more eager to fight in court than on the high seas. Among his detractors was one Anthony Mackenrot, an indigent merchant who had done business with the West Indies fleet under Cochrane’s command back in 1807, and who lately declared in print that out of cowardice Sir Alexander had failed to engage the French fleet in that area that year, though it was known to be of inferior strength and vulnerable. Ever tender of his honor—especially when a fortune in prize money was still litigating—Cochrane had clapped a libel suit on this Mackenrot, hoping to intimidate him into public retraction. But he misjudged his adversary: with an audaciousness worthy of Buonaparte himself (or the teller of this tale), Mackenrot had promptly sought and got from the chief justice of Westminster a writ of subpoena against both Napoleon and his brother Jérôme—who we remember had left the French West Indies fleet in 1803 with his friend Joshua Barney to come to Baltimore—commanding them to appear in court at Westminster 9 A.M. Friday, November 10, 1816, to testify as to the state of readiness of the French fleet at the time in question! And this subpoena, mind, Mackenrot had secured in June, before Waterloo, when Buonaparte was still emperor of the French and at war with England!

Cockburn must set down his Madeira (“carry’d twice ’round the Horn for flavor, in the holds of British men-o’-war”) and wipe his eyes for mirth. English law! Let that Napoleon has cost more British blood and treasure in fourteen years than a normal century would expend, he may count upon it that no sooner will
Bellerophon
drop anchor in Tor Bay than a cry of habeas corpus will go up from the Shetlands to the Scillys, to give the devil his day in court! Only the decommissioning of his own
Northumberland
in Portsmouth, and the unfitness of old
Bellerophon
for so long a voyage, keeps Sir George from petitioning the prince regent to let him intercept Maitland at sea, effect the transfer, and head smack for St. Helena before the newspapers know what’s what.

Andrew has heard enough: legal passage to America being out of the question, Napoleon must be rescued before he can be shipped off to exile, and the most immediate hope of rescue is delay. He reaches Tor Bay on the afternoon of the 24th to find that
Bellerophon
has arrived there that same morning; it rides at anchor off the quay of Brixam, already surrounded by flotillas of the curious. Next day the crowd increases, and security around the ship is tightened; Andrew cannot negotiate his way aboard. And on the 26th (the newspapers are talking already of St. Helena, and of habeas corpus, and of the right of asylum, at least of trial) the ship is moved around to Plymouth harbor and anchored between two frigates for greater security. Andrew removes there as well, and haunts Admiralty headquarters, where he learns that Cockburn’s new command has been issued and his flagship
Northumberland
ordered back in commission—to the great chagrin of her crew, who have just completed a long tour of sea duty and were expecting shore leave. Cockburn himself will board ship at Spithead in a week or ten days; a fortnight should see the business done. By now Napoleon must understand that neither asylum nor passport is forthcoming; the cabinet have not even acknowledged receipt of his “Themistocles” letter, lest such recognition be argued against the Allies’ decree of outlawry. Andrew hopes that Las Cases has brought him around to the Louisiana Project…

But how to rescue him? Every day the crowds grow, increasing both the confusion and the Admiralty’s measures of security. A thousand small spectator boats jam Plymouth Sound; the quays and breakwaters are thronged. Bands play French military airs; vendors sell Bonapartist carnations; cheers go up whenever the emperor appears on deck or when, to placate the crowd in his absence,
Bellerophon’s
crew obligingly post notice of his whereabouts on a large chalkboard: AT TABLE WITH CAPT. MAITLAND; IN CABIN WRITING LETTERS. It is common knowledge that any number of Channel fishermen were until recently in Napoleon’s pay, supplying him with information about British ship movements; but our ancestor’s attempt to locate and organize a company of such fishermen is fruitless: they are all reaping a golden harvest from the tourists.

Now the cabinet are chafing at the delay, lest it complicate relations among the Allies. The press have only one story, Bonaparte; the habeas corpus movement has become a ground swell; the emperor has never been more popular in Britain. Should he by any means once touch foot on British soil, he will not easily be got rid of. On the other hand, so great has been the publicity, Bonapartist naval vessels might imaginably attempt to intercept
Northumberland
at sea: a convoy of six brigs, two troopships, and a frigate must therefore be commissioned and assembled to escort the ship-of-war to St. Helena. More delay!

Faute de mieux,
Andrew begins to practice the forgery of subpoenas, no easy matter by reason of their sundry official seals. If he cannot board
Bellerophon
illegally, he will do so “legally”—as Anthony Mackenrot, defendant in
Cochrane
v.
Mackenrot,
come to serve a writ upon Napoleon Bonaparte.

It is August 4 before he has one ready. The thing lacks finish, especially the engraving of the seals, but he can wait no longer. Rumor has it that Napoleon has decided upon suicide rather than St. Helena; that his officers are conspiring to assassinate him in order to spare themselves and their families such an exile; that orders are en route to
Bellerophon
to go to sea until rendezvous is made with
Northumberland,
lest Bonaparte escape or a habeas corpus writ be served. Andrew endeavors to imagine the accent and appearance of a Scotsman gone bankrupt in the Caribbean; he goes to the Plymouth house of Admiral Keith, commander in chief of the Channel fleet, in whose jurisdiction
Bellerophon
is, to demand permission to serve his subpoena. He tries out his accent on the admiral’s secretary, who angrily asks how many Mackenrots has Cochrane sued, and sends him off “to where your brother already is”: the offices of the Admiralty. Puzzled, Andrew hurries there, learns that Keith is that moment being rowed out to the
Tonnant
in the harbor (where lie also other veterans of the Chesapeake, among them Peter Parker’s
Menelaus)
to escape “you damn’d lawyers.” Cook rushes to the quay, to hire a launch. The only one in sight is being bargained for already. No matter, Andrew will double the bid—but then he sees the chap gesticulate with a rolled, sealed paper; hears him protest with a Highland burr that the boatsman’s rates are
pir-r-ratical…

Pocketing my own writ, I enquired, Mister Mackenrot? The same, said he. I introduced myself then as one who knew & sympathized with his business, having the like of my own, and offer’d not only to share the hire of the launch but to point out Admiral Keith & the
Tonnant
among the throng of naval officers and vessels in the sound. Which (he accepting readily) at 1st I did, & was gratify’d to observe that so seriously did Keith apprehend this whimsical finger of the mighty arm of English Law, at our approach he fled the
Tonnant
for the frigate
Eurotas,
hard by
Bellerophon.
And whilst we were scrambling to come a-port of
Eurotas,
he scrambled down a-starboard and fled off toward shore at Cawsand! Where we would surely have caught him, had not his barge been mann’d by 12 oars & ours by but 4. Splendid, preposterous spectacle: an admiral of the world’s mightiest navy in flight from a lone eccentric Scotsman with a scrap of paper! Behind which, however, lay such authority as might well upset the combined resolve of the Ally’d Nations.

Indeed, this same reflection, together with two physical observations—that
Bellerophon
is hove short with topgallant sails bent, ready to sail at a moment’s notice, and that the Count de Las Cases is on the quarterdeck, watching their chase with interest—begins to suggest to Andrew a radical change of plan. Should Bonaparte now be landed in so determinedly lawful a country, where sympathy for him seemed to increase with every day’s newspaper, could he ever be persuaded to “escape” to America? Even if he could, how rescue him from so mighty a fortress as the British Isles, from whose invasion the emperor himself, at the height of his power, had quailed? WRITING WITH HIS OFFICERS, reads the board now on
Bellerophon…

He directs Mackenrot’s attention to the sailing preparations aboard that ship and proposes they divide their pursuit. Let him, Cook, return to
Eurotas,
where boarding might now be permitted him to keep him from reaching Keith; he will endeavor to talk his way thence to
Bellerophon
and remind Commander Maitland that contempt-of-court proceedings await him if he weighs anchor to avoid Mackenrot’s subpoena. Then let Mackenrot proceed to Cawsand and press after Admiral Keith.

The Scotsman agrees (Keith meanwhile, Andrew observes, has fled toward
Prometheus,
where he will order out the guard boats to fend off all approaching craft), adding that if he fails to catch the admiral at Cawsand he will return directly to
Bellerophon
and attempt to serve his writ through Maitland. The chase has taken most of the morning; as Andrew hopes, they are permitted to board
Eurotas
“just long enough to state their business,” and, per plan, Mackenrot pulls away as soon as Andrew steps onto the boarding ladder, so that they cannot order him back to his hired boat. But no sooner has Mackenrot drawn out of range than Andrew sees him rowing furiously back, and then observes the reason:
Bellerophon
has weighed anchor and, wind and tide both contrary, is being towed by her guard boats out toward the Channel!