The whole population of St Helena, all 3500 of them, white, black, Asian and mulatto, bond and free, seemed to have gathered, their lanterns and torches bouncing and flaring. With apologies to this person and that, acknowledging familiar faces among the many strangers and soldiers, the Balcombes made their way through the crush. Betsy, just returned from school in England, could hardly believe that the island contained so many inhabitants. She found a position outside the castle wall near the drawbridge. Further along near the landing stage she made out the courtly figure of the governor wearing his plumed hat and full dress uniform. Beyond the row of sentries, the surf smashed and hissed on the rocks.

A hush descended on the watching crowd when the slap of oars was heard. As the tender approached from the looming dark hulk of the warship Northumberland, Betsy saw five huddled figures. They stepped onto the landing stage from the bobbing craft, and she heard someone say that the man in the middle was Bonaparte. He brushed past Governor Wilks, who had extended his hand in formal greeting, and walked up the lines between the British admiral and another important-looking man. Napoleon wore the familiar cocked hat but was enveloped in a greatcoat, and it was too dark to distinguish his features. The diamond star on his chest glinted within the coat’s folds as he walked.

The crowd surged forward. Sentries with fixed bayonets moved to clear a path. Hundreds of eyes glared at that solitary figure but no word of welcome was uttered. As he went past, Betsy caught a glimpse of the famous aquiline face, tight with anger, his eyes downcast. He said later that he had been gawked at ‘comme une bête féroce’—like a savage beast.3

A mere four days earlier, Colonel Mark Wilks, the island’s governor, had received the astounding message, brought by a fast sloop-of-war, that he and the motley inhabitants of their small remote island were about to play host to the most dangerous man on earth. The prisoner was on HMS Northumberland, accompanied by a flotilla of warships, and already sailing towards them.

News always came late to St Helena. It was an awesome distance to the rock marooned in the Atlantic between the African and South American continents, a dot on the charts known to seafarers, to British ships on the home route from the Far East, India and the Cape. It was said to be the most remote inhabited place on earth—1120 miles from the nearest land in Africa and over 2000 miles from the Brazilian coast.4 For the past decade and a half of the Napoleonic Wars it had gained importance as a strategic base, but the St Helenians could still dream in the sun and proceed with their lives in their own relaxed, insular way. Mail took ten weeks to come from London to Jamestown, the island’s capital and only town, so the locals were accustomed to receiving belated accounts of the goings-on in the world. At the same time they had their own important affairs and pursuits.

Governor Wilks was regular in sending his despatches to his masters in London, the directors of the Honourable East India Company in Leadenhall Street. His post was hardly taxing, a reward for services to the Company in India, where he had been Resident at Mysore. He took an interest in poultry-keeping and agricultural projects, the eradication of the introduced blackberry, the problem of the wild goats and sheep, while he worked on his memoirs and a book, Historical Sketches of the South of India. Described by an admirer as ‘a tall, handsome, venerable-looking man with white curling locks and a courtier-like manner’,5 he was gracious with important visitors to the island, attended St Paul’s church on Sundays, and hosted the odd fundraising levée and whist drive.6 There was the usual Governor’s Ball at the castle in Jamestown and an annual garden party at Plantation House, and those representing society on the island generally saw fit to attend. Many of these property owners were also employees of the East India Company as officers, administrators or merchants. Those islanders in private commerce depended upon the ships bringing news and trade goods.

In 1815, William Balcombe had his official duties as superintendent of public sales for the Company but also his separate interests as senior partner in the firm Balcombe, Cole and Company, supplying vessels calling at Jamestown. Saul Solomon, proprietor with his brothers Lewis and Joseph of the town’s only emporium—‘Ladies’ Fashions, Fabrics, Lace, Jewellery and Rosewater’—studied the papers for trends, knowing that styles would be half a year out of date by the time their order arrived (allowing three months for the requisition and three for the despatch) but that this did not matter to the ladies of St Helena as long as they kept pace with one another. The officers of the St Helena Regiment did a little trading on the side with ships returning from the East, while the regiment’s 890 soldiers drilled, their garrison having been constantly on alert during the long war years. The 1200 or so black and mulatto slaves employed by the Company worked in the vegetable gardens and on the boats supplying fish to the local population, and the few hundred Chinese ‘coolies’ hewed wood and hauled water for passing vessels, with often up to fifty ships anchored off Jamestown.

While few people in the outside world bothered with St Helena, the islanders were eager enough for accounts of the world; for the bundles of newspapers and magazines, letters from relatives and friends, the items of gossip, delivered by passing ships. The newspapers that had arrived in April indicated that 1815 in Europe was shaping up as a very mixed year. They read that His Majesty King George III remained lamentably unwell; his son the Prince Regent had declined to attend the Congress of Vienna but still danced attendance on his mistresses; he continued to build his Oriental folly and reduce the national exchequer. Questions had been put in Parliament but waited for an answer.