A Conversation with Napoleon at St Helena, 1817
A discussion between Napoleon, exiled in St. Helena, and Henry Ellis, returning with Lord Amherst’s embassy to China, about England's international standing.
The following conversation between Napoleon and Henry Ellis took place at Longwood on 1 July 1817*, and was recorded by Ellis in a report sent to the Foreign Office. This document will be found in F.O. 27/85, among the Foreign Office papers in the Public Record Office, bound up with a collection of reports and letters relating to Lucien Bonaparte’s doings in England in 1811.
The meeting took place when members of Lord Amherst’s embassy to China, in which Ellis had been third commissioner, called at St. Helena on their return voyage to England from the Far East.
Lord amherst having presented me, Napoleon began by saying that my name was not unknown to him, that he understood I had been at Constantinople, and had a faint recollection of some person of my name having been employed in Russia. I in reply said I had been at Constantinople on my way to Persia. “Yes”, said he, “it was I who showed you the way to that country. Eh bien, comment se porte mon ami le Shah? What have the Russians been doing lately in that quarter?”
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