In the early morning on 15th July in 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte boarded the British warship HMS Bellerophon to surrender himself.
Buonaparte’s dress was an olive – coloured great coat over a green uniform, with scarlet cape and cuffs, green lapels turned back and edged with scarlet, skirts hooked back with bugle horns embroidered in gold, plain sugar – loaf buttons and gold epaulettes; being the uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval of the Imperial Guard . He wore the star, or grand cross of the Legion of Honour, and the small cross of that order; the Iron Crown; and the Union, appended to the button – hole of his left lapel. He had on a small cocked hat, with a tri -coloured cockade; plain gold hilted sword, military boots, and white waistcoat and breeches .
– wrote Frederic Lewis Maitland, captain of the Bellerophon in his memoirs about the event, which ended an era.
George Home, who served as midshipman on the ship and later published his memoirs, wrote in his journal:
The barge approached, and ranged alongside. The first lieutenant came up the side, and to Maitland’s eager and blunt question, ” have you got him ? ” he answered in the affirmative . After the lieutenant, came Savary, followed by Marshal Bertrand, who bowed and fell back a pace on the gangway to await the ascent of their master. And now came the little great man himself, wrapped up in his gray greatcoat buttoned to the chin, three cocked hat and Hussar boots, without any sword, I suppose as emblematical of his changed condition. Maitland received him with every mark of respect, as far as look and deportment could indicate; but he was not received with the respect due to a crowned head, which was afterwards insidiously thrown out against Maitland . So far from that, the captain, on Napoleon’s addressing him, only moved his hat, as to a general officer, and remained covered while the Emperor spoke to him. His expressions were brief, I believe only reiterating what he had stated the day previous in his letter to the Prince Regent , ” That he placed himself under the protection of the British nation, and under that of the British commander as the representative of his sovereign . ” The captain again moved his hat, and turned to conduct the Emperor to the cabin. As he passed through the officers assembled on the quarter – deck, he repeated- ly bowed slightly to us, and smiled. What an in- effable beauty there was in that smile, his teeth were finely set, and as white as ivory, and his mouth had a charm about it that I have never seen in any other human countenance. I marked his fine robust figure as he followed Captain Maitland into the cabin, and, boy as I was, I said to myself, ” Now have I a tale for futurity.”
HMS Bellerophon was one of those warships were present at the most important seabattles of the Napoleonic Wars, including the Battle of Nile (1798) and the Battle of Trafalgar (1805).
📖 Sources:
Frederick Lewis Maitland: The Surrender of Napoleon: Being the Narrative of the Surrender of Buonaparte, and of his residence on Board H.M.S. Bellerophon, with a detail of the Principal Events that occurred in the ship between the 24th of May and the 8th of August 1815 (London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1904)
George Home: Memoirs of an Aristocrat and Reminiscences of the Emperor Napoleon by a midshipman of the Bellerophon (London: Whittaker and Co., 1838)