of the French as deliverers. Lodging with Bonaparte's forest-keeper, he was introduced to the Consul, and gave him lessons in English, with what success is doubtful, for Napoleon's ability to read English newspapers and reviews at St. Helena is a disputed point. "Watson became president of the Scotch college. At Rome in 1812 he made acquaintance with persons possessing documents respecting the Stuarts and the relations of the Vatican with them. He wrote to Lord Castlereagh, who commissioned him to buy the papers, but the Vatican, having learned their existence, had seized them. Negotiations ended in the Vatican retaining the papers affecting itself and in its giving up the others. Again living in London and falling into poverty, Watson committed suicide at the age of eighty-eight.[1]
For some years the British Government refused to entertain the idea of exchanging Frenchmen captured in legitimate warfare for the so-called hostages of 1803. In January 1805 there was some prospect of a cartel of exchange, not apparently to apply to this class, but it came to nothing. In April 1810 a British commissioner, Colin Alexander Mackenzie, arrived at Morlaix, and prolonged negotiations ensued. England had reluctantly agreed to an exchange of the hostages as well as of prisoners proper. The Earl of Beverley,[2] grandfather of the
