Thomas Hartwell Horne (1780–1862)
An illustrated record of important events in the annals of Europe, during the last four years: comprising a series of views of the principal places, battles, etc. etc. etc. connected with those events…
London: printed by T. Bensley and Son, for R. Bowyer, 1816
Harley-Mason.bb.84, plate opposite ‘The isle of Elba’

This, the last coloured plate in Horne’s Illustrated record, combines a map of Elba and a view of its principal settlement, Porto Ferraio, with a roundel portrait of Napoleon and two facsimiles of his signatures, the one on the left as Emperor and that on the right as Chief Consul. The publisher of the volume, Robert Bowyer, assured the patrons of the work that the signatures were ‘most correctly traced by himself from the originals’, and provided an anecdote of how Napoleon’s signature as Chief Consul was obtained:

‘In the year 1802, while Great Britain was at war with France, Mr. Bowyer was anxious to procure, in exchange for his own publications, some of the splendid works then issuing from the pencil and press in that country. After being assured by his friends of the impossibility of obtaining a passport for his Agent, unless by the express order of the Chief Consul, Mr. B wrote a letter to Buonaparte, and sent it to the Post-Office, addressed to the Chief Consul, Paris, requesting him as a friend to the Arts, to oblige him with a passport. A few weeks after, M. Otto, who was then resident in London, called on Mr Bowyer, and shewed him his own letter, with the following instruction written in its margin—“Refer this matter to M. Otto; and, if he see no objection, let a passport be granted to Mr Bowyer’s Agent,”—signed “Buonaparte.”

Mr Bowyer, accordingly, dispatched his Agent to Paris; who, after being there five days, was ordered to quit that city in twenty-four hours, and France in ten days,—whether with the knowledge and by the direction of the Chief Consul, he has never been able to ascertain.’

In his anecdote Bowyer employed the spelling common at the time in English sources, ‘Buonaparte’, even though his ‘most correctly traced’ facsimile clearly shows ‘Bonaparte’, now the generally accepted spelling.