The Press.
London, England, 1854-05-27 00:00:00

NOTES ABOUT THE NAVY.

No. VII.—"OLD CHARLEY'S" EXPLOITS.
[Concluded.]
ON the bloody field of Busaco a spectator might
have observed a wounded British officer carried to
the rear. Amongst those assisting in his removal
might be seen a rather strange figure of the amphi-
bious kind, looking pugnacious enough, but with a
certain something in his air and manner suggestive
of salt-water associations. His dress and language
told of one who did not belong to the regulars under
Wellington. The wounded man was the late General Sir
James Charles Napier, Governor of Scinde, and the
other was the present Admiral Sir Charles Napier! For
after coming home to England in the Jason frigate
in 1809, Napier did not get another ship at once.
Sooner than be idle he went off to the Penin-
sula and joined the army as a volunteer, and was
again wounded in a skirmish—a proof of the re-
markable energy that animates this bold-hearted
officer.

In 1811 he went afloat again, having obtained an
appointment to the Thames, of 32 guns. From that
time until the close of the war in 1815 Napier was
employed in various kinds of active service, and dis-
tinguished himself in several boat actions. He was
chiefly engaged off the coast of Italy. In 1811 he
carried the heights of Palinuro, storming them in
gallant style at the head of a mixed party of soldiers
and sailors. On the 2nd of November in that
year he destroyed ten gun-boats, and so signalised
himself by coolness and "discretion" that he got
the special thanks of the admiral on the station, the
late Lord Exmouth. In 1812 he attacked and took
the port of Sapri, captured twenty-eight vessels laden
with oil, in doing which (there is now no harm in ob-
serving) he obtained the aid of "the Pilot sloop," as
is acknowledged in the London Gazette for 1812.
More might be said here on certain fighting that
took place at Sapri, but it is the events in the life of
Napier, and not of any other person, that are here
noted. In 1813 he took possession of the island of
Monza, and he was promoted to the EuryaluB, 36
guns. In the following winter he drove on shore in
Calai Bay the Balleine, French store-ship. He then
went with a fleet of transports to North America,
and took part in the expedition against Alexandria ;
and his services on that occasion are recorded in the

Gazette, in which the officer in command (Captain
Gordon) said that he owed Captain Napier more
obligations than he could express; and in other
enterprises at that time he was also conspicuous.
But a long interval of rest was now before him.
The war closed. The Euryalus was paid off in
June, 1815, when Napier was made a C.B. He did
not go afloat again till 1829, when be was appointed
to the Galatea, in which, until 1832, he performed
particular service. He had resided near Portsmouth
for several years, and was felt to be quite " a cha-
racter." At the Reform Club dinner Lord Pal-
merston alluded to some of the gallant officer's pecu-
liarities, and his readiness for turning his hand to
everything. The following anecdote of him (taken
from an old letter) is very much in keeping with his
style :

" He is certainly quite a character, and one or two anec-
dotes I have heard concerning him may amuse you. I
before mentioned the little attention he bestows on dress :

h is s.►id that, when standing for the boroughof Portsmouth,
one of his opponents styled him the gallant and ragged
candidate :' he felt this aspersion on his apparel so much,
that th• next day at a meeting he actually appeared in a
pair of clean and whole inexpressibles ; but the novelty of
the thing was such that he could not help alluding to it
himself, and he opened his address to the meeting by,
' Gentlemen, my opponents called me ragged : I have
therefore, as you perceive, put on a pair of clean and new
breeches, that they may no longer have this subject to harp
on.' He used frequently at his country residence near
Portsmouth to be annoyed by nightly depredations on his
poultry-yard, and made use of the follow►ng curious expe-
dient to intimidate those who took such liberties with h►s
ducks and geese. He killed a pig, and at night, after
everybody had retired to bed, he took the blood in a basin,
and sprinkled it across the yard and on the palings
which formed the boundary of it ; then returning
to the house, and undressing, he gave the alarm
that he heard somebody about the premises, and, seizing
a pistol, ran out, and after crying out Stop, or I'll
shoot you, by G—d!' he let fly, and the person who was in
the secret, and was concealed on the other side of the fence'
immediately roared out most lustily, and, taking a circuit,
returned unperceived to the house—all the inmates of
which were by this time on the move : a lantern was pro-
cured, the track of blood was followed to the extremity of
the yard, and all were astonished at the quantity the thief
must have lost in crossing the palings over which he es-
caped, at least mortally wounded. This story of course got
wind, and so far produced the desired effect, that since the
admiral's poultry have never been disturbed by their former
nightly visito►s. You may rely on thi3 being a true bill, as
I heard him relate it himself as a good joke."

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