The Press.
London, England, 1857-10-10 00:00:00

99'2

74; ittraturc.

cra 1 Sir Charles Napier and the Directors of
tit, East India Company. London: Wes-
terton.

Tun above is the title of a little brochure of
fot ty-five pages, compiled and issued by the
historian of the Peninsular war. It contains
the summary of a brief debate in Parliament
last session, on the motion of Mr. Henry
Bruce for the production of a letter from the
late Sir Charles Napier refuting a charge se-
cretly made against him by some members of
the Bombay Government relative to the dis-
posal of the grain received as revenue in
Scinde. The charge was that, in order to
swell the income of the province, he had
raised the price to famine rates, heedless of
the misery thus inflicted on the people of
Scinde. This charge, which Sir Charles had
in his lifetime thus refuted, had been revived
by the Directors, iantl embodied iu a Return
on the subject of land tenures in India made
to the House of Commons. But when the
answer before given to it by Sir Charles was
called for, the Directors declared that it was
not to be found. The remarks offered to the
house by Mr. Bruce, Sir William Codrington,
Mr. Roebuck, and Mr. Isaac Butt were full of
manly indignation at this disgraceful trick.
Mr. Willoughby, on the part of the Directors,
took a course which only sank them deeper
into the mire, while Mr. Denby Seymour,
seeing the disgust thus created on every side,
was glad to take shelter in an assurance that
the revival of the slander was unintentional,
and that no one could hold in higher estima-
tion the character of the dec..ased general than
himself.
Sir William Napier Ins given the missing
document to the public in this pamphlet,
along with the speeches of the members who
took part in the debate. He has also added
a couple of letters from a collector of Sir
Charles Napier in Scinde, one of which shows
that the highest average prices of wheat and
rice in any year during Sir Charles Napier's
government were 16s. and 10s. Bd. the impe-
rial quarter respectively, the lowest average
prices for any year having been I Is. lid. the
imperial quarter for wheat and 7s. Id. for rice.
It is tints proved incontestably that grain was
never sold during Sir Charles Napier's go-
vernment at famine prices at all ; while the
details given by Mr. Bruce to the House show
that the manner in which the public grain was
disposed of, together with the absence of any
protective duty. made it utterly impossible for
Sir Charles to have raised prices factitiously,
even if a man cf his known honour and huma-
nity could for a moment be supposed capa'ole
of such an act. Extracts from the testimony
borne to the kindliness, excellence, and abi-
lity of his Government by the Commissioners
who succeeded him complete the case, Sir
William adding some slashing remarks of his
own on the conduct of his brothers assailants
which are calculated to make an impression
on the thickest hide. Considering, however,
the grossness of the provocation, they do not
seem a whit more severe than the Directors
deserve.

As far as regards the character of the late
Sir Charles Napier the effect of this exposure
will be complete and the Directors will be
more hardy than we take them to be, if they
ever venture openly to assail his memory
again. Sir William may rest perfectly satis-
fied, therefore, with the triumph he has gained.
But the public interest in the matter is of a
deeper nature , it does not cease with the
vimlivation of the memory of one whose
eminent public services merited a far. better
requital than they received. What conuerns
us is not merely the rescue from insult of an
honoured name : we have further to consider
the affair as it affects ourselves. The question
we have to weigh—and it deserves our most
earnest thoughtfulness—is this :—lf the Direc-
tors have violated truth in a Return to Par-
liament in one case, what guarantee have we
for the trustworthiness of any similar docu-
ments that they present? The men who do
not hesitate thus to gratify their spleen against
a de!...: vo, are nut likely to be more