

E-text prepared by Shaun Pinder, Martin Pettit, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made
available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)



Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
      file which includes the original illustration.
      See 47887-h.htm or 47887-h.zip:
      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47887/47887-h/47887-h.htm)
      or
      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47887/47887-h.zip)


      Images of the original pages are available through
      Internet Archive. See
      https://archive.org/details/sircharlesnapier00butluoft





English Men of Action

SIR CHARLES NAPIER

[Illustration: Logo]


[Illustration: SIR CHARLES NAPIER.]


SIR CHARLES NAPIER

by

COLONEL SIR WILLIAM F. BUTLER







London
Macmillan and Co.
And New York
1890

All rights reserved




CONTENTS

   CHAPTER I
                                                     PAGE
   THE HOME AT CELBRIDGE--FIRST COMMISSION              1


   CHAPTER II

   EARLY SERVICE--THE PENINSULA                        14


   CHAPTER III

   CORUNNA                                             27


   CHAPTER IV

   THE PENINSULA IN 1810-11--BERMUDA--AMERICA--ROYAL
   MILITARY COLLEGE                                    46


   CHAPTER V

   CEPHALONIA                                          62


   CHAPTER VI

   OUT OF HARNESS                                      75


   CHAPTER VII

   COMMAND OF THE NORTHERN DISTRICT                    86


   CHAPTER VIII

   INDIA--THE WAR IN SCINDE                            98


   CHAPTER IX

   THE BATTLE OF MEANEE                               117


   CHAPTER X

   THE MORROW OF MEANEE--THE ACTION AT DUBBA          136


   CHAPTER XI

   THE ADMINISTRATION OF SCINDE                       152


   CHAPTER XII

   ENGLAND--1848 TO 1849                              175


   CHAPTER XIII

   COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF IN INDIA                        188


   CHAPTER XIV

   HOME--LAST ILLNESS--DEATH                          203




CHAPTER I

THE HOME AT CELBRIDGE--FIRST COMMISSION


Ten miles west of Dublin, on the north bank of the Liffey, stands a
village of a single street, called Celbridge. In times so remote that
their record only survives in a name, some Christian hermit built here
himself a cell for house, church, and tomb; a human settlement took root
around the spot; deer-tracks widened into pathways; pathways broadened
into roads; and at last a bridge spanned the neighbouring stream. The
church and the bridge, two prominent land-marks on the road of
civilisation, jointly named the place, and Kildrohid or "the church by
the bridge" became henceforth a local habitation and a name, twelve
hundred years later to be anglicised into Celbridge. To this village of
Celbridge in the year 1785 came a family which had already made some
stir in the world, and was destined to make more.

Colonel the Hon. George Napier and his wife Lady Sarah Lennox were two
remarkable personages. The one a tall and majestic soldier, probably the
finest specimen of military manhood then in the service of King George
the Third; the other a lady of such beauty, wit, and grace that her
fascination had induced the same King George to offer her all his heart
and half his throne. Fate and politics marred this proposed romantic
royal union, and the lovely Lady Sarah, after a most unhappy first
marriage, became in 1777 the wife of Colonel George Napier, and in the
following dozen years the mother of a large family, in whose veins ran
the blood of a list of knights and kings and nobles sufficient to fill a
peerage all to itself; for on one side the pedigree went back to the
best of the old Scottish cavaliers--to Montrose, and the Napiers of
Merchiston, and the Scotts of Thirlestane; and on the other it touched
Bourbon, Stuart, and Medici, and half a dozen other famous sources. It
would have been strange if from such parents and with such stock the
nest which was built in