'I am come here voluntarily to throw myself on the hospitality of your nation, and to claim the rights of hospitality. I am not a prisoner of war. If I were a prisoner of war, you would be obliged to treat me according to the law of nations. But I am come to this country a passenger on board one of your ships of war, after a previous negotiation with the commander.' It was a snare which had been set for him. And as for the island of St Helena, it would be his death sentence.
'What am I to do on this little rock at the end of the world? The climate is too hot for me. No, I will not go to St Helena; Botany Bay is better than St Helena. If your Government wishes to put me to death, they may kill me here.' He demanded to be received as an English citizen. 'What danger could result from my living as a private person in the heart of England under surveillance, and restricted in any way the Government might imagine necessary?' He reminded them that he had been an emperor who had stood among the sovereigns of Europe and the British Government had no right to treat him as a mere general.
When Admiral Keith and Sir Henry Bunbury left the ship Napoleon sent for Captain Maitland. He showed him the letter which he had been given and angrily protested at the decision to send him to St Helena. 'To be placed for life on an island within the Tropics, at an immense distance from any land, cut off from all communication with the world, and every thing that I hold dear in it!' He would prefer to be delivered up to the Bourbons, or confined in the Tower of London. But within a few hours his anger had evaporated. He appeared on deck as usual that evening to show himself to the crowds, and astonished Maitland by his cheerfulness at dinner. However his companions were less able to contain their feelings.
The letter read out by Bunbury had specifically mentioned that General Lallemand and General Savary would not be allowed to accompany Napoleon to St Helena. This must mean that they would be returned to France where they would almost certainly be executed as traitors. They protested strongly to Captain Maitland. He had frequently assured them that their lives would be safe in British hands and Maitland now felt that his word and his honour were at stake. That evening he wrote a personal letter to Lord Melville on their behalf which concluded, 'I most earnestly beg your Lordship's influence may be exerted that two men may not be brought to the scaffold who claimed and obtained at my hands the protection of the British flag.' Melville was not too pleased with the letter but in the end Savary and Lallemand were deported to Malta, then a British possession.
Other members of the French party were equally distressed but the most dramatic protest was made by Madame Bertrand. Like Napoleon she had fondly expected to be able to settle in England where she hoped to resume the place in society to which she was accustomed. It was evident that her husband, who was the highest ranking and most devoted of all Napoleon's followers, would go with him to St Helena, a prospect which appalled her. Before Admiral Keith had left the Bellerophon she had accosted him with her fears: 'My husband is so weak as to be attached to that man, and he will go with him. I have three children. My health is bad; I shall never reach the island. We have no money. If I stay behind, I must starve. Besides, to leave my husband would kill me.'
Around 9 pm that evening, after Napoleon had retired to his cabin, Lieutenant Bowerbank was on watch when he observed Madame Bertrand walking with her husband on deck and pleading with him not to accompany Napoleon into exile. When he refused her entreaties she suddenly broke away from him, and ran to Napoleon's cabin where she threw herself at his feet and said, 'Sire, do not go to St Helena. Do not take my husband!'
Napoleon, who had been listening to Las Cases translating the latest newspapers, regarded her in astonishment. 'But Madame, I am not forcing Bertrand to go with me,' he said. 'He is entirely free.'
Madame Bertrand then rushed into the ward room where the ship's officers and their French guests were gathered as usual for an evening drink of wine and hot punch. Maitland invited her to sit down and join them but she refused and disappeared into the first lieutenant's cabin which she had been using during her stay on the ship. Montholon had noticed how distraught she was and followed her. He found her attempting to throw herself into the sea. She gave a loud shriek as she forced herself out of the quarter gallery window. Montholon caught hold of her legs and shouted for help. Someone shouted 'The Countess is overboard' and Maitland ran up on deck to alert the crew and lower a boat. He could see no sign of her in the water and, returning to the ward room, he found that she had been laid on her bed and was in a hysterical state. In his words she was 'abusing the English nation and its Government, in the most vehement and unmeasured terms; sometimes in French and sometimes in English.' In discussing her dramatic action later, most of the party, including Napoleon, seemed to think it was a protest gesture and not a genuine suicide attempt. But Montholon told Maitland that he had no doubt she would have fallen in the sea if he had not caught hold of her because he found her with most of her body outside the ship and only held by the protecting bar across the window.
The next week was a difficult one for all concerned. For much of the time Napoleon remained in his cabin and when he did appear he was pale, despondent, ill-looking and unshaven. He was heard pacing his cabin for much of each night and a rumour went around the ship that he was contemplating suicide. Madame Bertrand recovered but continued to besiege Maitland with protests about the British Government's decision, as did all the senior French officers except General Bertrand. Admiral Keith was having to field a succession of orders from London and was became increasingly concerned by the crowds which had descended on Plymouth Sound. 'The concourse of people to this place is beyond all imagination,' he wrote to Melville. 'The taverns are full and the sea covered with boats. Yesterday they pressed so much on the ship as to touch the side in defiance of the Guard Boats.' And he told his daughter, 'I am miserable with all the idle people in England coming to see this man.' Even the crew of the Bellerophon, who had initially enjoyed being at the centre of such a great event, were losing patience. It was a long time since they had seen their families and they were beginning to feel they were as much prisoners as the French men and women because of the strict requirements that there must be no communication with the shore.
Meanwhile there were problems with the ship which was to take Napoleon to St Helena. The Admiralty had decided that the 29-year-old Bellerophon was not up to the 5,000-mile voyage to the South Atlantic and had selected the 74-gun ship Northumberland to take her place. The Northumberland had been built at Deptford and launched in 1798. By a curious irony of history she was not a British design but was based on the lines of one of the six French ships captured at the Battle of the Glorious First of June. She had sailed round from the Medway to Spithead and was being loaded up with the stores for the voyage when some of her crew began objecting to being sent to St Helena. Twenty-four of them deserted the ship and her commander, Captain Ross, had to use the threat of armed troops and marines to avert a mutiny.
In London the authorities had their own concerns. They were worried about a legal challenge being mounted to their decision to exile Napoleon. (There was talk of a writ of Habeas Corpus being served.) They were worried about the crowds besieging the Bellerophon, and the possibility of Napoleon escaping. And they were worried by the massive publicity which Napoleon was attracting and the rabble-rousing tone of the articles in some of the newspapers.