The Express.
London, England, 1868-07-14 00:00:00

BANQUET TO SIR ROBERT NAPIER.

The East India United Service Club entertained
Sir Robert Napier at dinner last evening. A large crowd
waited in front of the house in St. James's-square, and
cheered the gallant guest on his arrival. The company,
numbering 100, included the Right Hon. W. E. Glad-
stone, Sir Bartle Frere, Colonel French, M.P., Sir Stafford
Northoote, Fiekl-Marshal Sir John Burgoyne, Sir C.
Staveley, General Scott, Sir J. I'ycroft, Lord W. Hay,
M.P., Sir A. Phayre, Sir H. L. Anderson, Colonel Probyn,
Colonel Helbert, General Sir W. Wylie, General Baker,
General Sir J. C. Coffin, fie.
Sir BsierLe Fiume, who occupied the chair, after pro-
posing the prelinunary loyal toasts, gave the health of the
chief guest, Sir Robert Napier. In doing so, he said he
had no intention of carrying his audience through the
history of the great operations of the Abyssinian campaign,
because they were much better narrated in the simple
despatches of Sir Roberti:lin:melt. It was useless to attempt
to gild refined gold, and it would be more than super-
fluous, after the national stamp had been affixed to the
gold issued from the royal mint itself, to try and add any
bUperallOW3 impression. (Cheers.) Around the table there
were men who for the last 45 years had served in every
part of the globe in which Sir Robert Napier had been
employed. There were men present who had fought and
bled with him at Lucknow, who stood with him in the
trenches at Mooltan, who were with him in the Punjaub
campaign. Others served with him in Oude, and were in
his company when he tracked the rebels through the
almost pathless jungles of Central India ; many had
served with him in China; and in the presence of such
men he (the chairman) should be ashamed to say anything
of Sir Robert Napier's character as a soldier. As a civi-
lian and man of peace, however, he might be per-
mitted to refer in passing to the effect which
Sir Robert's skill and science had had upon the wars in
which he had been engaged. At the present moment it
was • great question between philanthropists and
moralists all over the world whether, as we became more
skilled in science, we became more humane or more
brutalised ; and with regard to it, it was of importance to
direct our attention to the spirit and mode in which this
skilful and scientific soldier had always been engaged.
When the oldest of our warriors were appalled
at the position assumed by the enemy in the
Chinese war, Sir Robert alone, by his skill and science,
laid his finger upon the one weak place, and the result
was that the line of forts fell without that bloodshed
which our more experienced commanders thought inevit-
able. What Sir Robert did to alleviate the horrors of war
during the Abyssinian campaign everybody knew, and it
only remained for him (the chairman) to remind the com-
pany that these noble deeds of Sir Robert Napier as a
soldier had been but as episodes in a long life of labour.
Every five or ten years he had been called upon to
draw his sword, and to serve in the foremost ranks of the
fight, and he would ask any gentlemen present whether
he thought the years of cavil labour Sir Robert went
through previously had in any way incapacitated him for
service in the field Y (Loud cheers.) It was not, how-
ever, as a soldier, or great engineer, or eminent construc-
tor alone that they entertained their distinguished guest.
Long after he had distinguished himself as a soldier he
was called upon by men who stood in the front in India—
by Lord Dalhousie and others—to aid them in layingout a
scheme of civil works in the Punjaub, and the roads,
canals, and forts he constructed would remain long after
the fame of many of our military victories was consigned
to the pages of history. At the same time history would
remember the victories of Sir Robert Napier, while these
works would speak of other triumphs. It was, how-
ever. as Sir Robert Napier, the man and comrade
of the members of the East India United Ser-
vice Club, he asked them to drink Sir Robert's
health—as the man they had known intimately as
only Indians could know one another, aa the man who
for 40 years had never forsaken • friend, as the man who
never had been known to do a discourteous or unfriendly
act, as the man who in this age of Mammon worship amid
every temptation lived a blameless and pure life, as the
man who in practical life was no idle dreamer hut a steady
persistent worker in whatever he took in band. It was in
this light they were asked to drink long life to Sir Robert
Napier, and long enjoyment of those honours to which
her Majesty and the unanimous voice of the country had
elected him. (Prolonged cheering.)

Sir Bomar iTsrusis:43ir Barth; here, brother officers,
and friends, I can hardly hope to express in fitting
terms how deeply I feel the honour you are doing
me this evening. If any one had told me nearly
forty years ago, when I arrived in Calcutta a
second lieutenant of the Engineers, without a connec-
tion in the country but my contemporaries, that I should
have received such a welcome from the Indian service as
is accorded to me now I should have considered it a dream
and vision indeed. If I value deeply the too flattering
opinion which my friend in the chair has expressed this
evening, I value still more the feeling that it is not
merely a recognition of the occasion which has called
us together, but that it is the kind regards of
members of the service who have known me during my
whole Indian life., and who take this opportunity of ex-
prorring their approbation of my conduct since I have
been in the service. (Loud cheers. I have always felt
it • high honour to belong to the • service. It is a
service which sprang from a small beginning, and which.
raised to England en empire which has been go-
verned as no other colony has ever been governed,
and it has been governed by men of the civil
as well as military service. Indeed it is hard to say
which are soldiers and which civilians—the civilians have
been soldiers and the soldiers civilians. (Laughter and
cheers.) The service has produced some very honoured
names, which we need not go over now, because we find
in the present day names as honoured and distinguished,
and as capable of doing what is required, as in the past.
There is no neceesity to recount or fight again the battles
of the recent campaign, and I will merely content myself
with saying it is • campaign which has most
completely exhibited the amalgamation of the English and
Indian services. During the campaign no one has thought
which service the other has belonged to ; has been one
service animated by one heart. (Cheers.) It was said in
the Rouse of Lords the other day that the cheering of the
Deloche regiment was the knell of the Indian mutiny, and
I may add that the Abyeeinian campaign was an assur-
anee of the amalgamation of the Indian sad hsh ser-
vices. I find it difficult to express how mach I feel the
welcome you have given to me. I shall always remember
with gratitude and pride that I have won your friendship
and esteem, and it will always be remembered by my
family that I have received the distinction you have
honoured me with this evening. I look upon this as one
more mark of the amalgamation of the services, that I have
cumnandeel • mimed fame of milkers, many sent from the

ONE PENNY.

sloe s sit } lig hind ; and it is with peculiar pride I reflect
that the muted I revive at the hands of the
row nuutnt is given, perhaps, to the that Eng-
lish soldier who from a simple lieutenant, with no-
thing hut his name to liegdi with, has won the
&neer which has so
_generously been conferred upon
him by his sovereign. (Loud cheers.) Let me frankly
say, I thought seriously as to whether I should be wise in
accepting ro great an honour as that which I am informed
is to be confer ed win me ; but one great motive was,
that I should accept it as a member of the Indian service.
(Loud cheers.)
The CHAliteAtt, in giving the toast of "The Army,
Navy, and Volunteers," spoke in terns of praise of the
support rendered by the Commander in-Chief to the Abr.-
minion campaign; and Sir JOHN BURGOYNE, in responding
to the toast for the army, corroborated everything that
had ban said in praise of the guest of the evening.
Mr. GLsinvosx, in returning thanks for the toast of
" The Lords and Commons," eloquently proposed by the
chairman, said—l rise to discharge the double duty which
yeu have imposed upon me of returning thanks for the
House of Lords and House of Commons, and I must say
there never was en occasion when the names of those two
august assemblies could be more fitly associated, and when
the duty of acknowledging your kindness might.-be
more suitably entrusted either to one or to the other.
Never was there a time when those two houses were more
thoroughly in accordance, each within its own walls and
with each other, than when they were gathered together
for the purpose of giving expression to a sentiment like
unto that which has brought us hither to-night—that-of
doing honour to the man who has done honour to his
country. (Cheers.) It would indeed be idle if upon
this occasion I were to enter upon the
topics which upon ordinary cocasions form the
staple of these acknowledgments. None are
more familiar with the considerations that commend both
the houses of our legislature to the affection and re-
spect of Englishmen than the enlightened audience that I
have the honour now of addressing, for nowhere has tho
truly British character been reflected from the furthest
corners of the earth amongst those of our fellow country..
men whose lot has carried them to distant regiens as
in the civil and military services of the Indian empire.
(Cheers.) Therefore it is we have an entire sympathy with
you who are here met, and that we who have striven to do
our duty upon another occasion unite in this honoured and
joyful celebration. It is a celebration as joyful as it is
passable for history to record in conjunction with the con-
flicts of any of the nations upon earth. We have had a
just cause, managed and conducted by men who knew its
justice, and who were determined that it should not be
sullied by the taint of cruelty or ambition. (Loud cheers.)
And would to Cod that but a small fraction of the wars
that have from time to time stained the surface of the
earth were attended with the same gratifying re-
collections as those with which we can look
back upon the recent campaign. As regards the
House of Commons, it is now in that condition in
which the Phenix may be supposed to stand, for it has
dissolved into those ashes from which nevertheless in the
briefest interval a new representative of itw existence will
arise. (Laughter and cheers.) But it hardly becomes
us, under circumstances like these, to claim credit or to
allude in detail either to the past or future, beyond this,
that we never were more unanimous in appearance and in
spirit than when we endeavoured to perform the duty,
[ will not say of repaying, but at any rate of ac-
knowledging the debt we owe to the gallant
fumy of Abyssinia. I rejoice to think that upon such an
occasion we ree in the House of Lords a practical exem-
plification of that which we know to be one of its distin-
guishing eharactevisties—namely, that while upon its
ancient records it contains a long list of families who have
been illustrious from distant ages for their station and
public services, it likewise has an elasticity of constitution
which enables it to gather up from time to time the new
elements of honour, excellence, and virtue that
will come to the surface amidst the struggles
and honourable rivalry in the life of a free
people. (Loud cheers.) Some eighty years have passed
since one of our greatest statesmen—Mr. Burke —com-
plained that the age of chivalry had passed away ; but if
Mr. Burke could now bo amongst us wo could challenge
him to say what were the excellencies, the distinctive
virtues of that age of chivalry; and we might plead that
the age of chivalry might be recognised wherever you
find valour and skill in arms combined with modest
humility, and all that constitutes the grace of private
and manly life. Pointing to the distinguished and gal-
lant general whom you now entertain, even Mr. Burka
would acknowledge, in contemplating his brilliant and
noble and unselfish career, that the age of chivalry was
not altogether dead, and that in one man at least it still
survived, admitting the hope that it might yet live in
others. (Prolonged cheering.)
" The Health of the Secretary of State for India" W:1•4
proposed from the chair, and acknowledged by Sir
STAIYOBD NORTHCOTE.