Add MS 49528

CORRESPONDENCE AND PAPERS OF LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR HUDSON LOWE, G.C.M.G., K.C.B. (b. 1769, d. 1844); 1811-1819. Supplements Add. MSS. 15729, 20107-20240 (which include copies of all the present papers except ff. 3-4b), 29543, 33506, ff. 27-29, 36297, ff. 12-21, 41192, ff. 68-70b, 45517 and 56088-56091. See B.M.Q., xxiii, 1960-1, pp. 63-4. Purchased by Francis Capper Brooke, of Ufford, Suffolk, in whose family the volume subsequently remained, from William Brown, bookseller, of 35 High Holborn, circa 1845. See Brown's letters, etc., at ff. iv-viii. Brown presumably bought them, together with papers now in Add. MS. 15729 and others which later passed from his hands into the Dawson Turner collection (sale-cat., 6-9 June 1859, lot 325, and Sotheby's, 28, 29 Oct. 1957, lots 2484, 2645, 2647), from one of Lowe's two sons. Ff. ix-xxvii mostly comprise extracts from printed works and press-cuttings relating to Napoleon, 1854-1885, but include a letter on the collection to F. C. Brooke from Edward Fitzgerald, the translator of Omar Khayyam, 25 Aug. 1877 (f. xix), and two letters of James Ludovic Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford, to Brooke's son, Edward, 1912 (ff. xxvi, xxvii). Quaritch, cat. no. 767, 1957, item 36.

Paper; ff. xxix+103+xi*. Folio. 1811-1819. Boards of a nineteenth-century binding of brown calf, gilt-tooled, aft. 1845, by Robert Rivière (see f. iib) are preserved as ff. i, xxix.

As follows:–

1. ff. 1-2b. Letter of Lieutenant-General Sir John Stuart, K.B., G.C.B., Count of Maida; 1 July 1811.

2. ff. 3-4b. Letter of Admiral Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth; 22 July 1815.

3. ff. 5-6b. Warrant committing Napoleon, as a prisoner of war, to Lowe's custody, with authority to detain him at St Helena; 12 Apr. 1816. Signed and sealed by Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl Bathurst, as Secretary of State for War and Colonies. Printed, in part, from Add. MS. 20115, f. 47, by

W. Forsyth, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St. Helena, 1853, i,

pp. 452-3. The letter of Lord Bathurst forwarding the warrant to Lowe,

13 Apr. 1816, is now Add. MS. 15729, f. 19. Duplicates of both the warrant and the covering letter were Sotheby's sale, 29 Oct. 1957, lot 2484. Lowe's appointment as Governor of St Helena, 23 Aug. 1815, is now Add. MS. 45517, f. 37.

4. ff. 7-9. Despatch from Lord Bathurst; 26 Sept. 1816. Signed duplicate, the original being now Add. MS. 20199, f. 137.

5. ff. 12-71b. Thirty letters of the surgeon, Barry Edward O'Meara, consisting mostly of reports on Napoleon's health; 1816-1817. See also Add. MSS. 20118-20120, 20156. Forsyth prints an extract from ff. 12-13b, 10 Nov. 1816, (op. cit., i, p. 366) and ff. 16-17b, 24 Feb. 1817, and ff. 62-62b, 8 Oct. 1817, in full, (ii, pp. 102-4, 436-7).

6. ff. 72-91b. Letters, etc., of members of Napoleon's suite; 1816, 1817. French. Includes (ff. 74-83) declarations of willingness to share restrictions imposed on him; 14, 15 Oct. 1816. See Forsyth, op. cit., i, pp. 322-9.

7. ff. 92-101b. Papers of General Baron Gaspard de Gourgaud, 'found in . . . [his] possession' (f. 101b), but actually handed over by him to Lowe, Feb. 1818. See Add. MS. 20121, ff. 181, 200b. Viz.:- (i) Memorandum of restrictions imposed on Napoleon and his suite; Dec. 1816. ff. 92-92b;-

(ii) Note dictated by Napoleon to Gourgaud for Comte Henri Gratien Bertrand; 14 June 1817. Printed in Correspondance de Napoléon Ier, xxxii, 1870, p. 399. f. 93;- (iii) Letter dictated to Gourgaud by Napoleon to Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool; 5 Oct. 1817. French. Three imperfect drafts, two (ff. 94, 95-99) dated 14 June and one (ff. 100-101b), 18 June 1817. On ff. 100b-101 are instructions to Gourgaud, printed in

P. Gonnard, Les Origines de la légende napoléonienne, 1906, pp. 48-50. See Forsyth, op. cit., ii, p. 213. Printed as Observations on Lord Bathurst's speech in the House of Peers on March 18, 1817, 1818. ff. 94-101b.

8. ff. 102-103b. Declaration by Napoleon protesting against violations of his privacy; 16 Aug. 1819. French. Signed. Printed in Recueil de pièces authentiques sur le captif de Sainte-Hélène, iii, 1822, pp. 348-350. See Forsyth, op. cit., iii, pp. 175-176.