The Court of Porto Ferrajo was the reverse of all this. Indeed, the whole place was, in one sense, deserving of the name of Cosmopoli, which Napoleon wished to impose on it. It was like the court of a great barrack, filled with military, gendarmes, police officers of all sorts, refugees of every nation, expectants and dependents upon the court, domestics and adventurers, all connected with Buonaparte, and holding or expecting some benefit at his hand. Rumours of every kind were buzzed about through this miscellaneous crowd, as thick as motes in the sunshine. Suspicious characters appeared and disappeared again, without affording any trace of their journey or object. The port was filled with ships from all parts of Italy. This indeed was necessary to supply the island with provisions, when crowded with such an unusual degree of population; and, besides, vessels of all nations visited Porto Ferrajo, from the various motives of curiosity or speculation, or being compelled by contrary winds. The four armed vessels of Napoleon, and seventeen belonging to the service of the miners, were constantly engaged in voyages to every part of Italy, and brought over or returned to the continent, Italians, Sicilians, Frenchmen, and Greeks, who seemed all active, yet gave no reason for their coming or departure. Dominico Ettori, a monk who had escaped from his convent, and one Theologos, a Greek, were considered as agents of some consequence among this group.
The situation of Sir Niel Campbell was now very embarrassing. Napoleon, affecting to be more tenacious than ever of his dignity, not only excluded the British envoy from his own presence, but even threw obstacles in the way of his visiting his mother and sister. It was, therefore, only from interviews with Napoleon himself that he could hope to get any information, and to obtain these Sir Niel was, as already noticed, obliged to absent himself from the island of Elba occasionally, which gave him an opportunity of desiring an audience, as he went away and returned. At such times as he remained on the island he was discountenanced, and all attention withdrawn from him; but in a way so artful, as to render it impossible for him to make a formal complaint, especially as he had no avowed official character, and was something in the situation of a guest, whose uninvited intrusion has placed him at his landlord's mercy.