staff could get away, and Talleyrand himself could do nothing when Lord Hawkesbury expressed surprise and astonishment at so extraordinary and unprecedented a step as the detention of English visitors.[1]
Lord Elgin, though in precarious health, was conveyed to Lourdes, not yet a resort for pilgrims, and for some time his family were ignorant of what had become of him. In October 1803 a London physician was allowed to see him at Barèges, the result being permission to pass the winter at Paris, where Lady Elgin joined him; but on an incorrect report that General Boyer was imprisoned in Scotland—he was really on parole at Chesterfield—Elgin was ordered to be arrested and sent back to Lourdes. There was an offer to exchange him for Boyer, but the English Government could not "sanction the principle of exchanging persons made prisoners according to the acknowledged laws of war against any of its own subjects who have been detained in France in violation of the law of nations and of the pledged faith of the French Government." Elgin was ultimately allowed to live at Paris, where a son, very short-lived, was born to him in 1805. He was released in 1806, simultaneously with Lord Yarmouth, M.P. for Lisburn, whose case was even harder. He went to fetch his family, inquired at Calais whether he might safely land, and was
- ↑ "England and Napoleon in 1803."
