Narrative Of The Surrender Of Buonaparte 1826. This intimate look at the surrender of Napoleon Buonaparte and his life aboard the ship H.M.S. Bellerophon is titled “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 That Ship, Between The 24th Of May And The 8th Of August, 1815,” By Captain F.L. Maitland, C.B., the Second Edition, published in London by Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street. 1826. Captain Maitland was an English officer who served with distinction against the French on the coast of Egypt in 1801. Napoleon had been defeated at Waterloo on June 18, 1815, and Maitland was ordered to keep watch on the coast of France in order to prevent the escape of Napoleon, and Napoleon felt pressured to leave France by the interim French government in Paris - if Napoleon delayed, he risked becoming a prisoner of the Bourbons, Prussians or Austrians. On July 10 Napoleon sent two emissaries out to Maitland’s ship, the Bellerophon, to meet Maitland and discuss the possibility of allowing Napoleon to travel to the United States; Maitland was under orders to prevent this, and instead offered to take Napoleon on board the Bellerophon and transport him to Britain. Further negotiations took place over the next few days, but with his options running out, by July 13 Napoleon decided to surrender to the British. On July 14 Maitland was given a letter informing him that Napoleon would come out to the Bellerophon to surrender the following morning, and when Napoleon boarded the ship the next day, that effectively ended almost 22 years of continuous war between Britain and France. After the Bellerophon made its way to England, the ship spent two weeks in Plymouth harbor while the English authorities decided what to do with Napoleon: on July 31, they told the former emperor that he was to be sent to the remote island of Saint Helena to live there in exile for the rest of his life, and Captain Maitland's account here of the time Napoleon spent on board his ship was published in 1826. With the former ruler in custody aboard a British warship, the Napoleonic Wars were finally over. After the wars, the Bellerophon was converted to a British prison ship for children up to the age of 14 who were awaiting transportation to Australia. Her years as a prison hulk lasted until 1836, when she was sold and broken up for scrap, and Maitland was the Bellerophon's last captain and the man who received Napoleon’s surrender. The book is 8vo. and measures 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 in. wide, the book is 3/4 bound, with four raised bands and a gilt title on the spine, marbled boards, white endpapers, a large fold-out map titled “Chart of Basque Roads and the Three entrances to the Port of Rochefort” for the frontispiece, the title page followed by a five-page Preface, eight pages of Contents (ix - xvi), 232 pages of text and a sixteen-page Appendix, and eight pages of advertisements for works published by Henry Colburn. The front board is detached, but all the pages are present and exceptionally clean, the fold-out map in the front has a one-inch tear on one fold, but is also very clean, and there are rounded corners at the tips and wear along the edges, and the book is an important history about the last days of Napoleon as a commander-in- chief and emperor who had plans to control all of Europe. #169 #1557