A Relic of the Napoleonic WarsAuthor(s): A. J. CollinsSource: The British Museum Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Mar., 1937), p. 68Published by: British MuseumStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4421940 .

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James Drummond, The Portraits of fohn Knox and James Buchanan,

1875- R. FLOWER.

46. A RELIC OF THE NAPOLEONIC WARS.

THERE is much in the Department of Manuscripts to testify that Napoleon Bonaparte once conquered Egypt in the name of

the French Republic, only to find the scene of his spectacular adven- ture turned into a prison by the stroke of Nelson at the Battle of the Nile (1-2 August 1798). Thenceforward all dispatches ran the gauntlet of a handful of British frigates left to patrol the coast. None, as the French soon came to realize, escaped, and among the papers so intercepted were the letter addressed by the youthful commander- in-chief to his brother Joseph in the first bitterness of disillusion at the reported infidelities of Josephine (Add. MS. 23003, f. 3) and a bundle of documents which has become Add. MS. 37076. These have now been augmented-thanks to the generosity of Lord Roth- schild-by yet another trophy of the blockade. The new letter, a formal reply in an optimistic strain to a report from the officer in com- mand of the fortress in Malta, hastily dictated to a secretary, cannot compare in human interest with the outpourings of the overwrought, injured husband. What is more strange, it displays a marked dif- ference of tone from a second official letter, written by Bonaparte on the same day (28 August I798) to another general at Malta, which doubtless fell a prey to the same British vessel (Add. MS. 37076, f. 49)- The interest of this faded sheet lies almost exclusively in the fact that it has served to record the thoughts, not only of Bonaparte, but of his one inspired antagonist, Nelson. The contrast is dramatic. Beneath the jaunty remarks of the Frenchman, in the inexpert, left- handed scrawl of the British admiral, stands the brief but grim com- ment 'mark the End'. A demonstration of the ironic import of these three words will be found in The Times of I 2 November 1936, where the letter was printed and reproduced. A. J. COLLINS.

47. LETITIA E. LANDON.

THE Museum acquired in 1933 a number of interesting docu- ments relating to Letitia E. Landon, perhaps better known by

the initials with which she was in the habit of signing her poems as 68

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