NAPIER, SIR CHARLES JAMES, G.C.B., was the eldest son of Colonel George Napier, comptroller of accounts in Ireland, and was born at Whitehall on the 10th August 1782. At an early age he removed with the family to Celbridge, a small town on the Liffey, about ten miles from Dublin, and there he attended school. By this time he held a commission in the 4th regiment, and was longing for an opportunity to wield his warlike weapons. An opportunity occurred during the Irish rebellion of 1798; and the boy-soldier bore himself with all the self-confident courage of a man. For the next ten years the most prominent incidents in his life were the changes which he made from one regiment into another. In 1800 he changed into the Rifle corps; in 1803 he was promoted to the staff of General Fox; and in 1806 he became a major in the 50th regiment. About this time large squadrons of troops were embarking for the French war. The fiery Napier chafed under the order that kept him in ignoble ease at home. At length in 1808 his regiment was ordered to the Peninsula, and he arrived in time to fight under his favourite general Sir John Moore. On the field of Coruña he led the 50th into the thickest of the battle, and was left, covered with wounds, in the hands of the enemy. His friends gave him up for lost, and were already disposing of his effects, when he arrived in England on patrol about two months after his capture. The reports of Wellington's victories soon rekindled his military enthusiasm, and in 1809 hurried him as a volunteer to the scene of war. For the next three years he shared in the perils and triumphs of the peninsular battles. He had two horses shot under him at Coa, and was taken up for dead on the field of Busaco. Promotion, hardly earned and long delayed, came at length in 1812, and drew him once more from active service. He was sent out to the Bermudas as lieutenant-colonel of the 102d regiment. A cruising expedition against America was fitted out in the following year, and Napier was appointed second in command. He was still employed in capturing vessels and making night descents on the coast of the United States, when the long-continued struggle with Napoleon was fast approaching a crisis. His return to Europe was hastened; but he arrived in time to find that the decisive blow had been struck three days before at Waterloo. With all its characteristic ardour his mind was next applied to study; and after an attendance of three years at the Military College he received a first certificate.
In 1825 Napier's talent for administration obtained for the first time a fair field of exercise, by his being appointed governor of the island of Cephalonia. His rule was characterized by an earnest and disinterested philanthropy. More than 100 miles of road were made; spacious streets were erected in the room of narrow dirty lanes; the administration of justice was reformed; and agriculture and commerce were encouraged and stimulated. At the same time, he co-operated with Lord Byron in the plan for the liberation of Greece, and would have accepted the offer of the chief command in that enterprise, had circumstances permitted. His career as a social benefactor was suddenly checked by his recall in 1830. Yet the Cephalonians com-
pletely annulled this implied censure by continuing to call him their father as long as he lived.
Napier had been for about two years commanding the military district of the north of England, and managing to suppress the Chartist demonstrations without bloodshed, when he was appointed commander of the Bombay army in 1841. On arriving at his destination, he found that the British cause was endangered by the recent defeats and disasters in Afghanistan. It therefore became his chief aim to retrieve the national reputation. With this view he drew up a plan for the Afghan campaign, which received the approbation of the newly-appointed governor-general Lord Ellenborough. In 1842 he entered into active service as commander-in-chief in Scinde. This province was then under the military despotism of the Ameers, who, under cover of an ill-defined and ill-understood treaty made with Lord Auckland, the late governor-general, were cruelly oppressing their subjects, and carrying on a cunning system of intrigues against the British power. To define this crude treaty, to elevate the Scindians from their abject slavery, and to bring their tyrants to bay, were now the difficult tasks to which Charles Napier, at the age of sixty, with a constitution shaken by wounds and disease, and under an oppressive climate, addressed himself. The enterprise went rapidly on towards a successful issue. Early in 1843 the Ameers found themselves convicted of perfidy, and forced to the alternative of signing a new treaty or of resorting to open warfare. They chose the latter. Napier was immediately on the field, and was already aiming a sudden and decisive blow. This was the capture of Emaum Ghur, a solitary fortress that stood in the middle of a waste wilderness of drifting sand, and was therefore considered the chief stronghold and ultimate refuge of the Ameers. By a laborious and ably-conducted march the British forces reached the desert castle, found it deserted, and shattered it to atoms with gunpowder. After thus achieving what the Duke of Wellington afterwards called "one of the most curious and extraordinary of all military feats," Napier returned to face the enemy in the field of battle. On the 17th February 1843 he confronted an army of 35,000 at Meenacee. To oppose this overwhelming force he had only 2000 raw soldiers. Yet his bold tactics and fiery courage inspired his men with a resistless valour. After a hard fight of four hours they defeated their foes, and drove them from the field. The Ameers resigned their swords, and the city of Hyderabad capitulated. In a short time, however, the conqueror was surrounded on all sides by hordes of wild Beloochees, and threatened in front by a large army under Shere Mohammed, surnamed "the Lion." Entrenching himself in Hyderabad, he dared his enemies to attack him, until he had contrived to procure a reinforcement. Then marching out at the head of 5000 men, he attacked and routed the 26,000 of "the Lion" at Dubba. "The Lion" retired to his native deserts, and soon returned with another army; but the brave barbarian was no match for the skilful English general. By the 8th June 1843 his force was hemmed in on all sides and forced to fight; his power was completely crushed; and the last blow was struck in the conquest of Scinde. Napier was now appointed governor of the province he had subjugated. Under the prostrating influence of the climate, the attacks of disease, and the more irritating attacks of intriguing malice, the old general began to rule the discordant elements of barbarism with the same fiery vigour and success with which he had swayed the fickle destinies of battle. The native laws were re-organized, an effective system of police was established, and all evil customs, such as suttee, infanticide, the murder of women, and the military tenure of land, were abolished. The Hindoo trader was protected, the Scindian slave was liberated, and the Beloochee cut-throat was tamed into a peaceful civilian. Commerce, suddenly springing
into new life, made her principal seat at Kurachee; and the province, which was little else than a hunting forest for the Ameers, became in a few years a well-cultivated land, waving with rich harvests and enlivened by industrious villages. This work of reform would have been carried out still further had not Sir Charles Napier been compelled by the declining health of his wife to return home in 1847. He had not enjoyed his retirement long when the news of the disasters of the Sikh war reached England. The general voice of the nation called upon Napier to save once more the British honour in India. He was reluctant to expose his reputation again to his enemies in the Indian government. But the Duke of Wellington's laconic argument, "If you don't go, I must," overcame his unwillingness. He embarked in March 1849, and in forty-three days was in Bombay. The war by this time had been successfully ended by Lord Gough; but there were abuses that Napier considered as dangerous enemies as the Sikhs. Applying himself resolutely to the inviolable task of reform, he travelled through the country, suppressing a mutinous spirit among the sepoys, and schooling the British officers in a severer discipline. At the end of two years the venerable warrior returned to England, worn out by his life-long and ill-appreciated labours in his country's service. He died on the 29th August 1853 at his seat of Oaklands, near Portsmouth, surrounded by the trophies of his many campaigns.
Sir Charles Napier was the author of Colonization in Southern Australia, 8vo; History of the Colonies—Ionian Islands, 8vo; Indian Misgovernment and Lord Dalhousie, 8vo; Lights and Shades of Military Life, 8vo; and Remarks on Military Law of Flogging, 8vo. He was brother to the present Sir William Napier, and cousin to the present Admiral Sir Charles Napier. The former has written his Memoirs in 4 vols. 8vo, London, 1857.