On our journey through England we passed many of these beacons,
then used for more peaceful purposes.
In 1815 another ship appeared in Torbay, with only one prisoner on
board, but a very important one. The ship was the British man-of-war the
_Bellerophon_, and the prisoner the great Napoleon Bonaparte. We had
already come to the conclusion that Torquay, with its pretty bay, was
the most delightful place we had visited; and even Napoleon, who must
have been acquainted with the whole of Europe, and who appeared in
Torbay under what must have been to him depressing circumstances,
exclaimed when he saw it, "_Enfin, voila un beau pays_!" (What a
beautiful country this is!) He arrived on July 24th, five weeks after
the Battle of Waterloo, and departed on August 8th from Plymouth, having
been transferred to the _Northumberland_ for the voyage to his prison
home in St. Helena, a South Atlantic island 760 miles from any other
land, and where he died in 1821. During the few days' visit of the
_Bellerophon_ at Torbay, thousands upon thousands of people came by land
and water in the hope of seeing the great general who had so nearly made
himself master of the whole of Europe, and although very few of them saw
Napoleon, they all saw the lovely scenery there, and this, it was said,
laid the foundation of the fortunes of the future Torquay.
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