A Diary of St. Helena. Edited by Sir A. Wilson.
(A. D. Lines and Co. 5e.)—Admiral Pulteney Malcolm, one of a distin- guished family, whose most illustrious member was Sir John Malcolm, of Indian fame, held the command for a year (1816- 1817) of the Cape station, his most important charge being the bland of St. Helena. He was accompanied by his wife, a grand- daughter of the tenth Lord Elphinstone. Lady Malcolm kept a diary, in which she recorded her own recollections of Napoleon and her husband's conversations with him, adding the lattees correspondence with Sir Hudson Lowe. There is little or nothing that is absolutely new in the book, but it is certainly interesting. There is the old story, which is good enough to bear repeating, of the Dey of Algiers who, hearing that France was fitting out an expedition against him, offered to burn the town himself for half the money that it would oost. It is somewhat surprising to be reminded that it was quite possible at one time that Napoleon might have had a commission in our own Army, and here is an ob- servation which has not lost its truth : "Trifles are great things in France—reason nothing." Here, again, is something for the anti-annexationists in the United States. There was then talk in America about taking Lampedusa, a little island between Tunis and Malta. "What fools there are in the world that these people, who may do as they please in half the globe, should wish to have a little bad island which would embroil them constantly with the European powers."
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