Читать книгу Prisoners of War in Britain 1756 to 1815. A record of their lives, their romance and their sufferings онлайн

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Las Cases quotes Bonaparte’s comments in this matter:

‘The English had infinitely more French than I had English prisoners. I knew well that the moment they had got back their own they would have discovered some pretext for carrying the exchange no further, and my poor French would have remained for ever in the hulks. I admitted, therefore, that I had much fewer English than they had French prisoners: but then I had a great number of Spanish and Portuguese, and by taking them into account, I had a mass of prisoners considerably greater than theirs. I offered, therefore, to exchange the whole. This proposition at first disconcerted them, but at length they agreed to it. But I had my eye on everything. I saw clearly that if they began by exchanging an Englishman against a Frenchman, as soon as they got back their own they would have brought forward something to stop the exchanges. I insisted therefore that 3,000 Frenchmen should be exchanged against 1,000 English and 2,000 Spaniards and Portuguese. They refused this, and so the negotiations broke off.’