ADDENDA TO THE BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF JOHN WESLEY WRIGHT, ESQ. CAPTAIN IN THE ROYAL NAVY

Summary

In the conclusion of Captain Wright's personal narrative, there is an evident indication of distrust respecting the future conduct of the French government, in the ultimate disposal of him. He knew that a vindictive policy pervaded its measures, and might extend to him, although a mere individual, no otherwise discriminative than as a public enemy, active in the execution of the duties assigned him. But a tyrannical resentment is rarely exerted on its ostensible motives.

When Buonaparte had so distinguished himself by his extraordinary success in the republican cause, as to feel its consequences in the possession of an imperative influence on the army, and in a consciousness of the power it gave him—personal ambition, self-aggrandizement, and not the cause of France, became the motive of his public conduct.

He had subverted that constitution, for which, however erroneously considered as the palladium of popular liberty, the people had bled, and which he had engaged to maintain. He had, like another Cromwell, insulted the nation, by driving from their House of Assembly, with an armed force, its constitutional representatives; and finally, he had so far ascended, as to rule by no will but his own, and had planted disappointment in the breast of every unbought Frenchman, when the malign jealousy and suspicion of such a character, in such a situation, was to be excited and vexed by the noble firmness of a British captive.