had racked his intellect to construct, and then vanishing from the
benevolent custody of his saintly Government to again wage sanguinary
war and spill rivers of blood. The awful presentiment of escape and
the consequences of it were ever lacerating his uneasy spirit, and
thus he never allowed himself to be forgotten; restrictions impishly
vexatious were ordered with monotonous regularity. Napoleon aptly
described Lowe as "being afflicted with an inveterate itch."

Montholon, in vol. i. p. 184, relates how Lowe would often leap out of
bed in the middle of the night, after dreaming of the Emperor's
flight, mount his horse and ride, like a man demented, to Longwood,
only to be assured by the officer on duty that all was well and that
the smitten hero was still his prisoner. When Napoleon was told of
these nocturnal visitations, he was overcome with mirth, but at the
same time filled with contempt, not alone for this amazing specimen,
but for the creatures who had created him a dignitary.

The tragic farce of sending the Emperor to the poisonous plateau of
Longwood, and giving Lowe Plantation House with its much more healthy
climate to reside at, is a phenomenon which few people who have made
themselves conversant with all the facts and circumstances will be
able to understand. But the policy of this Government, of whom the
Scottish bard sings so rapturously, is a problem that can never be
solved.

To a wise body of men, and in view of the fact that the eyes of the
world were fixed upon them and on the vanquished man, their prisoner,
the primary thought would have been compassion, even to indulgence;
instead of which they and their agents behaved as though they were
devoid of humane feelings.