The Sun.
London, England, 1854-02-24 00:00:00

. s Defects, Civil and Military, of the Indian Govern-
ment. By Lieutenant-General Sir Charles James
, Napier. Edited by Lieutenant-General Sir W.
F. P. Napier, K.C.B. Westerton.
Minutes on the Resignation of the late General Sir
Charles Napier of the Command of the Army in
India. By F.M. the Duke of Wellington, the
Marquis of Dalhousie, and General Sir Charles
Napier, &c. Murray and Blackwood.
Wellington and Napier. Comments by Lieutenant-
General Sir W. Napier, K.C.8., and Captain
Rathborne. A Supplement to "Indian Misgo-
vernment," by Lieutenant General Sir Charles
James Napier, G.C.B. Westerton.
A melancholy episode in the annals of our empire
in Hindoatan will be found recorded in these three
remarkable publications. It will be perceived from
them how monstrous has been the ingratitude of
- the - Company towards one of the most illustrious
of those great Captains to whose prowess, whose ge-
nius, and whose sagacity its councils are more pe-
Culiarly indebted for the glories of a vast territorial ag-
grandisement. It will be perceived from these deplor-
able pages—pages deplorable for their revelations
of habitual mendacity and of systematic turpitude
—that that most heinous ingratitude has extended
• beyond the tomb in which the heroic victim of
slander might be expected at last to repose iu tran-
• quillity. The holiest dictates of humanity have,
in this manner, been flagrantly violated. The
sanctity of the grave has been either forgotten or
conternned. Revilings the most unseemly =have
geed. heard in the midst of the awful stillness of
the Death-place.. The ordinary principles of honour,
the commonest sentiments of generosity, the cus-
mary impulses of truth, remorse, and magnanimity
' have been despised and discarded. After his de-
Parture from amongst Ira, when his brave heart
••,Us ceased to beat,' when the last sigh has
Passed from his lips,. when 'his eyes are closed
for ever, and his voice is' silenced, and his hand
nerveless and crumbling into dust—Sir Charles
„ Napier ie dragged, as it were, from his coffin, and
'teli-aigned at the bar of histOry—there to have
his character elaborately calumniated, his acts per-
Tersely distorted, and the whole of his glorious'
career blurred and clouded over by the most
odious and the most despicable misrepresentations.
There is something in all this so peculiarly de-
: testable, that we cannot but lift up our voice,
without further delay, and in.na measured terms,
against the accusers of the Conqueror of Scinde—
eager for one, at least, among the organs of public
opinion, to give utterance, however inadequately,
to the general indignation. -
During his lifetime Sir Charles Napier needed
no on. to fight his battles, to confront his antago-
.nistseto refute their slanders, to repel their accu-
sations. After his death those duties have devolved
upon a brother eminently qualified to undertake
the 'office of vindicating that bright and lofty, but
darkly outraged reputation. Even when many
ears shall have elapsed—when the very names of
his assailants shall have perished from the national
recollection—when
"The knight's bones are dust,
And his good sword is rust"—
these notable chapters exonerating Sir Charles
Napier from the blame endeavoured to be cast upon
him by the most ungenerous and implacable of his
fees, will survive to attest the purity of his fame,
While evidencing, at the same moment, the logic,
the eloquence, and the affection of his champion
after death—the historian of Scinde and of the vic-
tories won by British valour in the Peninsula.
The vindication of Si,r Charles Napier from the
calumnies of his antagonists had been marvellously
facilitated, it must be remembered, by the comple-
tion., shortly before his demise, of his posthumous
Work on " Indian Misgovernment." In that mas-
terly production the assailed ex-Commander-in-
Chief of our army in Hindostan had himself consi-
dered the mistatements made by his enemies, and had
refuted them categorically. He had therein himself
analysed mast minutely the whole oftheir carefully-
elaborated scheme of mirepresentation. The manu-
script pages thus completed only, so to speak, at
the instant when the pen fell from the grasp
of the Conqueror and Administrator, had the ad-
vantage, however, of being revised by the annalist,
of his Scindian Conquest and his Scindian Admin-
istration. The narrative, moreover, was rendered
complete by the addition of a supplementary chap-
ter by its editor—the volume being introduced with
this touching and effective
DEDICATION.
" The Author of this work is decd.
The care of putting it through the press is mine.
And to
The People of England
it is dedicated :
Because it exhibits faction frustrating
A great man's efforts to serve the public:
And shows
How surely the Directors of the E.I. Company
Are proceeding-, in -
The destruction of the great Empire
Unwisely committed to their
Misgovernment..
W. F. P. NAPIER, Lieutenant-General."
Scarcely, however, had this remarkable publica-
tion made its appearance, when a diso-racefal and
Ungenerous pamphlet was issued from the press by
order of the Directors of the East India Company,
in the name and on the authority of their collective
Government. It is the second production specified
at the head of this criticism—a pamphlet entitled
" Minutes on the Resignation of the late General
Sir Charles Napier of Command of the Army
in India" a pamphlet giving to the world
after the death of both parties a censure
written upon Sir Charles Napier by the Duke of
Wellil?gton. Remember (as Sir William Napier
tells us) that this doubly posthumous censure is
Literally nothing more nor less than " a memoran-
dum founded upon previous falsehood." It has
already been answered by the brochure mentioned
the third upon our list, crushingly and conclusively
answered by that chapter, briefly, but significantly,
entitled " Comments," but which its distinguished
Miter has subsequently and yet more significantly
deSignated " A Supplement" to Sir Charles Na-
pier's work on Indian Misgovernment. .Wherefore
la these three productions, in this memorable
volUme and in these two noteworthy pamphlets
published.. since as additionally illustrative of its
argument, the whole story is minutely given to the
public in all its details—the narrative of the great
wrongs perpetrated towards an illustrious man,
wrongs originating in unaccountable prejudice,
and in an altogether unparalleled 'ingratitude.
The history of this deplorable episode in the annals
of our empire in Hindostan, is thus recounted from
a period long anterior to Sir Charles Napier's arri-
val at Calcutta to take command of the armies in
India, to a time long subsequent to the date of his
resignation. It shows that all the misunderstand-
ings .which occurred between those two occur-
rences, the misunderstandings which immediately
followed Sir Charles Napier's arrival, and which
ultimately necessitated his resignation, originated,
as he himself has observed (p. 10), in the " silly
phalitom" of his ambition,"which to the last haunted
the mind of the GOiernor-General Loa Dalhousie.
That such-a- spectral dread really existed in Lord
Dalhousie's imagination was indicated at Simla dur-
ing the. very first interview that took place be-
tween the Governor-General and the new Com-
mander-in-Chief, in regard to which interview the
latter himself has here stated (ibid) that " in ten mi-
nutee Ate (Lord Dalhousie) told me in. substance,
nay tie words-were, that in letters from England
he had been warned against my endeavouring to
encroach upon his power, and had answered, he
tcoul4 take damned good care r rahawd not„—
laugufige, one might venture,to say, worthier of a
tosspa than of a viceroy. It is scarcely necessary
to remind-ourreaders of the peculiar circumstances
ands ;'*hick Sir Charles Napier had been nomi-
nated; tia the co-nimand-in-chief of the British forces
in Hiil4oSiall. It will be remembered that he was
gunißtined from domestic repoSe to that position of
supreme responsibility, not by political intrigue,
or by ministerial caprice, or by the aid of Court
favour", but by national acclamation.• The occa-
sion
was,one of great anxiety. According to the
latest accounts from the seat of war there had been
a series of lamentable reverses. Everybody in
England looked for aid then, at that mo me nt of
extreme emergency, to the genius, and the
prowess, and the sagacity, and the patriotism of
One man, and that man, Sir Charles Napier—
& warrior who had so recently shown his
capacity. in Generalship by the almost miraculous
completeness and rapidity of his conquest of Scinde
—a statesman who had still more recently, and if
possible, still more remarkably, demonstrated his
skill assn administrator, through the marvels effected
by his most efficient and tranquillising Govern-
ment. Everybody, we say, looked, as it were, in-
stinctively to him under the emergency. We our-
selves were the first to assert, in the column of this
journal, in the leading columns of The Sun, the
imperative necessity of nominating Sir Charles
itapier,•and no other than Sir Charles Napier, to
the supreme command of the British armies in
HindoStaii. We did this before his name had been
mentioned in connection with that command by
any other of 'the newspapers. This requisition of
the conqueror of Scinde spread at once, however,
with the swiftness of an electric enthusiasm through
the whole of our contemporaries. It was the demand
of the time—the cry of a great necessity. All were
unanimous. Saith Sir Charles Napier. himself
(p. When the Duke of Wellington first
told, me of it [meaning, of his appointment], I
objected that my many enemies in India would
mar its usefulness. He laughed at that, pressed
the matter home, and concluded, thus : If you
don't r, I must." Nay, the Duke, already when
requested to write down three names among those
Mug taceu would most recommend as the

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