To General Soult, commanding the Camp of St. Omer
13th February 1804
(This letter was published in the Correspondence No. 7541. The lines there described as illegible run as follows.)
(…) Make the skipper speak, and I even give you the authority to promise him his pardon if he gives information, and if he should seem to hesitate, you can go so far as to follow the custom as to men suspected of being spies, and squeeze his thumbs in the hammer of a musket.
p.22
New Letters of Napoleon – Omitted from the Edition Published under the Auspices of Napoleon III.
Translated by Lady Mary Loyd, New York 1897

Strange that a man who finds torture conter productive just orders that to be done