Excerpt from The Tragedy of St. Helena In my early sea-life, I used to listen to the eccentric and complicated views expressed by a race of seamen long since passed away. Occasionally there were amongst the crew one or two who had the true British hypothetical belief in the demoniacal character of Napoleon, but this was not the general view of the men with whom I sailed; and after the lapse of many years, I often wonder how it came about that such definite partiality in regard to this wonderful being could have been formed, and the conclusion that impresses me most is, that his many acts of kindness to his own men, the absence of flogging and other debasing treatment in his own service, his generosity and consideration for the comfort of British prisoners during the wars, his ultimate defeat by the combined forces of Europe, the despicable advantage they took of the man who was their superior in everything, and to whom in other days the allied Kings had bent in homage, had become known to the English sailors. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.