The Sun.
London, England, 1846-11-03 00:00:00

NOVEMBER 3 1846.

value to this denial, for the following reasons:-s-rfind,
in the only three papers I have been able to procure,
that he did, in substance, impute motives; and I have
no reason to- suppose that three reporters`agreed to
falsify the matter of his speech. I de not find that he
corrected these alleged erroneous reports, when they
appeared, as he was bound, in justice to himself and
Sir Charles Napier, to have done. And lastly, in his
speech* on the case of the Arneers, at a special Court in
January, 1844, I find by the following instance how
little credit is due to Mr. Sullivan's fairness or accuracy.
In page 73 of that pamphlet he says—
" And we find, by a letter of the Gallant General, of the
30th of the same month (October) that they (the
Ameers) were apprised of the Governor-General's inten-
tions, and that it was only with a view to resist the
meditated encroachments of the English, and under the
alarm caused by our formidable military preparations, to
coerce them, that they began to make preparations for
defence, that their measures and preparations were then,
by the Gallant Generals own admission, merely defen-
sive.' "
Now, Sir, there is no letter at all from Sir Charles
Napier of that date, and there is no letter to the above
purport of any date from Sir Charles Napier, in the
Parliamentary Blue Book, nor (as I am assured by a person
on whose accuracy I can rely) in the Blue Book pub-
lished by the directors, but which I have not here. The
"intelligence" from 30th October to November 6th
begins with the following sentence :—" I note the daily
intelligence I have received during the last week as dis-
playing the temper of the chiefs, under the alarm caused
by the suspicious appearance of troops delaying here ;
all their measures and preparations, however, are
merely defensive, and will lead to nothing offensive, I con-
sider.'—B. 8., p. 433. The substance, and some of the very
words of this sentence, are attribnted to Sire. Napierrby
Me, Sullivan, who founds an argument against. him upon
them, while the sentence is really written by Colonel
Outram to express his own opinion, and his name is
signed to the document. Further, Mr. Sullivan, who
professes to be minutely acquainted with the documents,
must have known that Sir Charles Napier's opinion,
through nearly the whole period, was opposed to Colonel
Outram's on the question of the Ameers' hostile inten-
tions, and this knowledge alone should have checked
him, when speaking, and when preparing for publication
the passage I have cited, and should have caused him to
re-examine accurately such an improbable statement.
But in this, as in other instances, the object in view was
not truth and justice but matter for invective against
Sir Charles Napier. In p. 75 of the same speech Mr.
Sullivan says—
"l now come to notice the first important omis-
sion in this collection of papers (the Blue Book)
Major Outram, in reporting to the gallant General, the
attack upon his camp, sayst —‘ My dispatches of the
last few days will have led you to expect that my earnest
endeavours to affect an amicable settlement of Sinde
would fail.' Not one of thessakimportant letters are
given—most important, for in them the Major must have
apprised the General of what was passing day by day in
his conferences with the Ameers ; he must have told
him that the Ameers were about to sign the treaty—had
actually signed the treaty," &c.
What can the reader think of Mr. Sullivan's accuracy
in assertion, when I tell him that there are in the Blue
Book, p. 502, &c. nearly five folio pages of Colonel
Outram a notes of his conferences with the Ameers, on
the Bth, 9th, 12th, and 13th of February, 1843, relating
the very matters alluded to in the above extract from
his pamphlet? Will Mr. Sullivan answer that he was
speaking of "dispatches and letters," not of "notes?"
Can he deny that the substance of the conferences is to
be found in these notes, and that the dispatches them•
selves must have been framed from them, and that
his complaint is therefore substantively false, though
literally true?
In his late speech, according to the three reports I
have seen, he says the Ameers were imprisoned after Sir
Charles Napier had given " an assurance" that if they
"remained quiet" no harm would come to them—in
the Tinges, " a solemn assurance that they should re
ceive honourable treatment, and should not be harmed."
Where does Mr. Sullivan find such assurance or what
proof does he offer of it? Sir Charles Napier promised
only to spare their lives, but he performed more. He
did use them honourably. He gave back their swords
wl:ich he might fairly have kept. He left them in pos-
session of their palaces and gardens. He allowed their
followers and attendants free access to them. He allowed
800 well-armed Beloochees to guard their Zenanas, and
he treated them with respect and lenity till he found
that they availed themselves of this freedom to carry on
a treacherous correspondence with SfthheeeruebaaMtrtrealehyoomoffeHday,
hwdoehvreo.
2700a0few men,withmiles
which
iac
ht thhee
fhoeuadghot
abed in less than ten days after.
In the Morning Herald I find the opinion of what Mr.
Thompson calls " a talented writer in India," and " an
authority in India." They are evidently taken from
some Indian newspaper, and probably from the Booxbay
Thos.
,„..1 believe the Morning Herald admitted this
libellous trash into its columns only from the conviction
that the grossness of the language and the calumny
would recoil on its authors; for assuredly I have no
reason to think that that journal entertains any hostile
feeling towards Sir Charles Napier. The following are
extracts from the opinions of " this authority in
India":—
" For two years have our columns contained exposures
of the dishonesty, recklessness of truth, injustice, and
cruelty indulged in by the General who effected the con-
quest of Sinde." " Colonel Outram has at length come be-
fore the world, and made an exposure of profligacy and po-
litical incapacity on the part of Sir Charles Napier
which far surpasses aught that has appeared in our co-
lumns." " Our limits will not permit us to trace all the
acts of violence, all the infringements of ratified treaties,
all the flagrant breaches of most solemn promises, all the
falsehoods, quibbles, and evasions in which Sir Charles
Napier indulged, but we implore such of our readers as
have not already perused Colonel Outram's work to do
so with the utmost care." . . "Its (truth's) beams will in
due course of time dissipate the mists which now screen
this great bad man from the contempt and indignation
of his countrymen." . . . " The Horse Guards may
continue to caress the General whom the humblest private
sersing under him can taunt with falsehoods; Ministers
may throw over him the mantle of their protection; and
the nobles of England may deem it no derogation of
their honour .to associate and acknowledge their con-
nexion with a man- convicted of every disqualification
fO'r a British officer save cowardice and military unskil-
fulness; but the moral sense of Britain will, we feel con-
fident, ere long, assert its claims, and express itself with
an energy which will cover with confusion the criminal
and his abettors. Melancholy as are the revelations
made by Colonel Outram in the first part of his com-
mentary, they are trivial in comparison with those which
the continuation of his book will place before the public.
Hitherto the reader has but known Sir Charles Napier
as a violent and tyrannical oppressor of the weak and un-
resisting, and as the reckless promulgator of fictions : it
remains for Colonel Outram to exhibit him, and we trust
he will not shrink from the duty, as the falsifier of dates
in support of charges which he knew to be unfounded !
And yet we shall be told that he is an honourable man,
chivalric, and a hero! a fit associate of England's aris-
tocracy, a credit to the knighthood, worthy of the
Duke's regards, and far from a disgrace to that army
whose soul is honour, an army that would ignominiously
expel from its ranks any humbler man convicted of one
of Sir Charles Na.pier's many deliberate departures from
truth "

w rill t eorws , a Ina
n d I ptroopreapglaytortso
osfutchhemacacruesastiomonesofcothnveefyoeudlesitn,
such. language ? If I should say that the inventors,
falsest, and most calumnious of scoundrels, though it
would be a mere dry exposition of a fact, in barely
adequate language, yet my own self-respect—that which
is due to you, to your readers, and to the good taste and
feeling of society—must forbid such forms of contro-
versy, though just indignation might authorise them.
Bat even if' such respects were overborne by the strong
impulses of contumelious wrong, and although few among
the just and generous would blame me severely, yet
mere prudence would compel me to abstain from a mode
of contest in. which I must be finally defeated by those
who can draw their facts
" pure well of English nr.,defiled," the Bombay Times.
Under these denur
.ciationsm 'find their language from that
I ust leave leave Sir
Charles Napier tg r.uch consolation as he may •And in
the support o th© Horse Guards and the Duke of Wel-
lington, the prior ition of the Ministry, and the counte-
c' sae
nanc and jetty /of the aristocracy of England: When
the troops undo' r bim, and his countrymen at home, re-
cognising the, ;Bonibay Times as the exposition of their
sentiments ard 1 0
pinions, shall declare their " contempt
and indi
patic fa" at this " great bad man," it will be time
enough to clef end him from this " wide mouth"—
that
aped ks plain cannon fire, and smoke, and bounce."
The confle fence the troops under Sir Charles Napier
muFic have I; a the truth and opinions of that paper will
to appare 'lt from the following statement. In the
,Bombay ' flan.es of 6th May, 1843, an article appeared
"eaued " The Ladies of the Ameers' Zenanas ;" and
.43onclud• as • thus, where are they now ? They, who
three nolont .lis since were sharers of a palace, and in the
enjoyiniint of the honours of royalty, are the degraded
Lome ns. of the l'eringhee ! So it is, the harem has been
defiled. t 4t-he 'list drop of bitterness has been mingled
wl.th ch.e cup rpf misery we have given the Amters to
&rink, the li, laviest of insults Mahomedans can endure
has be, m he aped upon their grey, discrowned heads::
And so- it proceeds in the same strain, explicitly say ing
" the 1 nost attractive of the ladies of the Zenana now
sherc• the tents, of British officers."

Tne• officers appealed to Sir Charles Napier fir pro-
trietion_ to their characters, and for permission to answer
the chi, a•ge. Fie not only consented to this, but addressed
the ofli cers in. writing, confirming every word of their
denial, while he indignantly exposed the utter falsehood
of this sland.er,ma fabrication. The whole trauss.ttionh
filly stated i a pp. 514-19 of General I'
Napier
Tai. Napier's
s. Conquest t .f Sinde." The appeal '-
was signed by above 100 Enos.
i:
.s • "
o -Sir Charlesh
officers, of all ranks,
whose nun, as are there
'',:yen., The rottenness which Sir
Charles
N. apier thee. lard bare has since never ceased to
exhale 41 Peatilent.,al odour.
Sir Churles raP ier's military conduct is declared by
Messrs. Smile ;
~..anand Thompson, on the authority of
IC olonel
cannot O
pru ,
am, to have been in many instances insane.
eten€l to give any opinion on such matters,

t On 1, ' Published by Ridgway.
ontram,„th Februa,y, it was not a " camp," but Colonel
cept a)
residence as agent. The error is of no moment, ex-
,
4 jig lowing Mr. Sullivan's inaccuracy.

- -
but I learn from the Blue Book, that Colonel Outram
thought the Ameere "mode of warfare"would be,lshould
suppose, laying waste the country, " looting your camels,
and cutting Off your foragers: this would be the utmost
that they would dare."* Twelve days after he wrote
this they fought the battle of Aleeanee with 25,000 men.
I learn, too, from the same book, that while Sir Charles'
Napier fought and .won that perilous battle, Colonel
Outram burned a wood. . .
I will now give another instance of the veracity of his
assailants. Last year some Indian newspaper stated
that he had imposed a transit duty (on merchandise
going up the. Indus), and this was copied into many of
the English journals. It surprised me at the time, as I
knew he had previously abolished that duty, and his pri-
vate letters constantly expressed an anxious desire to
diminish all taxation. Still.this might have been true,
and I was not in a position to contradict it, but I wrote
to him upon the subject. In the meantime he wrote to
another person of his family tlie folloWing words:'—" I
only yesterday read a whole colinnn in three newspapers
saN mg—' Really the Government must interfere with
this man and not allow him to go on in this manner!
(besides all sorts of insulting epithets which I forgpt),
and for what? for putting on a transit duty and increase-
ing taxation.' The fellow now finds that his hypocri-
tical falsehoods are gradually expoSed by facts, and that
he cannot go on.'. Well, you would imagine there was
something on which an exaggeration was based! Not a
bit. I have never pit on a single tax in Sink, good,
bad, or indifferent, or revived a single tax that had be-
come absolete. I have abolished several, and among the
rest the transit tax, the very first of all! and by Lord
Ellenborough's Orders, who at once levelled that and the
slave trade. •
The answer toiny letter of inquiry whether' there was
any ground whatever for the satement, was in substance
as follows :—By the original treaties with the Ameers,
provisions and supplies which entered our camp and
cantonments were exempted from the duties otherwise
payable on such articles. This was necessary to prevent
the Ameers froin ruinously raising, by means of high
duties, the price of provisions to our troops, or even
starving them altogether. After Sinde was taken pos-
session of this necessity ceased ; but as the revenue was
for some time collected according to the existing sys-
tem, the exemption remained unnoticed till Sir Charles
Napier's; attention was drawn to the fact, by observing
that new shops and settlers were continually appearing
in the cantonments, at once diminishing the revenue,
and obtaining an unfair advantage over the shopkeepers
in the town and the country round. He determined,
therefore, that whatever duties were payable should be
paid by all alike. Then (to usehis own words) " a
warwhoop was raised against him, as a monster of folly."
Various predictions were made of the wrong he was
abO'ut to inflict on the troops, and so forth ; but he per-
sisted, and the result was that the troops got their pro-
visions at the same price as before (for when the shop-
keepers in the - cantonments tried to raise their prices,
the troops went to the town to buy their goods), and those
who had hitherto unfairly escaped the duties and put the
amount in their pockets, were now obliged to pay them,
like the rest of the people in the town and country.
I shall Row make some observations on Col. Outram's
conduct towards Sir Charles Napier. He and his
friends, above three years after the events passed, have
compounded a work (literally a thing of shreds and
patches) which we are told is to destroy Sir Charles
Napier's character for military skill, policy, truth,
humanity, integrity, and justice—even personal timidity
is insinuated against him. Col. Outram's opinion, CoL
Outram's statement, and Colonel Outram's book seem to
be the great mine which supplies, , in the shape of
speeches, letters, journals, reviews, and pamphlets,
much of the dross and refuse with which his followers
have encumbered the public. I do not know whether
the whole work is yet published. I have seen only the
first part ; and though I have looked at various passages
of it, I have hitherto been able to examine carefully
only fifty pages. I say carefully, for Colonel Outram's
skill in the less creditable arts of controversy soon con-
vinced me that a very careful collation of his quota-
tions with the original words, with the passages bearing
on the question, which he has omitted, or given only in
his own language, and of his assertions with the facts
as disclosed in the Blue Book, was essentially ne-
cessary.
It is still less practicable here than in Mr. Sullivan's
case to enter upon the details of this three years' joint
work of Colonel Outram and his friends. I will, how-
ever, draw out some of the rotten threads with which
the web is woven, as it may induce those who are dis-
posed to read, or review, or draw their facts from Colo-
nel Outram's work, to sift it fairly and thoroughly before
they take it as their text-book.

In p. 3, when claiming for himself " a practical and
accurate knowledge of the characters of its (Sinde's)
princes and its people," he says they are `°qualifications
for which Sir Charles Napier has never disguised his
contempt?' Here he proffers largely to enlist the reader's
judgment in favour of himself, and against the presump-
tion of one who scorns all other men's knowledge; yet
in the same page, a few lines lower down, we are told
that he communicated the results of his experience to
Sir Charles Napier, " who then bore very handsome
testimony to the value of the information supplied."
Again, in the same page he states, that a requisition had
been made for his services by Sir Charles Napier. It is
true, and the reason given by Sir Charles in the Blue
Book, p. 454, is that " Major Outram is the most fit
person. He has more local knowledge than any man
here, and has the most unwearied zeal for the public
service." Again, in the Blue Book, p. 364, Sir Charles
Napiersays—"lishall keep this memorandamf open till
the arrival of Major Outram, and will request of him to
peruse it, that he may give his opinion upon the view
which I have taken, an opinion which his experience of
these countries, his abilities, and the high situation in
which ho has been placed by the Governor-General, all
render very important. If Major Outram concurs in the
opinions which I have ventured to express, they wii
be strengthened; if not, the Governor-General will
be made acquainted with the opinions of one
possessing great local knowledge. In his instructions to
Colonel Outram, in p. 497, he says, " should any ar-
rangement (in the details of the new draft treaty) strike
you, by which all or any of the parties concerned may
be benefited, and which your great experience in Upper
and more especially in Lower Sinde, renders very pro-
bable, you are requested to propose such arrangement
to me, that I may, if necessary, submit the same to the
Governor-General for his Lordship's decision, it being
always understood that such modification or arrangement
be not contrary to the spirit and principle of the draft-
treaty, as signed by the Governor-General subject to
confirmation."

I could give more passages to a similar effect, from
the dispatches of this man, who never disguised his con-
tempt for practical and accurate knowledge, but these
are surely enough to meet Colonel Outram's unscrupu-
lous assertion.

In page 5, speaking of the attack on the Resi-
dency, he says —" Their spoliation and imprison-
ment had been justified solely on the grounds of a trea-
cherous attack on myself ; not only did I know them,
with the exception of Meer Shadad, to be entirely
guiltless of all participation direct or indirect in that
attack, but, I know further, that to their protection I
owed my life." Let me here appeal to the common
sense of your readers, to ask, if any man is entitled
to declare, in this unqualified manner, that none
but Shadacl took any part " direct or indirect" in
that attack ? How could Col. Outram know this? Would
the declaration of the parties themselves be conclusive
in his, or anybody's judgment? Yet on such evidence
he acquits them, and condemns Sir C. Napier. More-
over, Colonel Outram left Sinde on the sixth day after
this attack. Three of those nays were spent in actual
warfare, and I take leave to doubt whether, between the
18th of February, the day on which the Ameers sur-
renderea, and the 21st of February, when Colonel Outram
left. Sinde, he had many opportunities of investigating
Calm matter, or availed himself of them. But if he relies
on the evidence of the Beloochees (and what other can
he have?), is similar evidence to be wholly omitted or
rejected when it directly contradicts his assertions? At
the end of the supplementary Blue Book, pp. 136, &c., it
is stated that Meer Nusseer, of Khyrpore, and many
chiefs of lesser note, were there—Meer Mahomed Khan,
a cousin of Shadad, was wounded at the attack on the,
Residency (p. 510 Blue Book). Meer Nusseer of Hy-
derabad is said to have ordered the attack the night be-
fore; Meer Sobdar is also said to have desired Meer
Gholam Shah, who was in his service, to join in the at-
tack. This evident's° (with the exception of that relating
to Meer Mahound being wounded) is given by Meer
Gholam Shah, his brother, Meer Fuzzil Ali, nephew of
the chief Ameer Mahomed, and by Meer Bijjur, the
brother-in-law of Shadad. Why is Colonel Outram's
alleged knowledge of the perfect innocence of
all the Ameers except Shadad to outweigh the ex-
press evidence of these men, as to specific acts ? Are
these questions to be decided by Colonel Outram's broad
and absolute assertions of his knowledge of the Ameers'
innocence, and that in the teeth of opposite evidence ?
Really his mode of proving his case resembles that of
the counsel, who said, " My Lord and gentlemen of the
jury, Sarah Huggins is indicted for stealing Mary
Thompson's cap. She did steal it, did'nt she, Mary ?
' Yes, sir.' That's my case, my Lord."
In the same page (5), Colonel Outram says, " a ward
of my own, the youthful Ameer lloossam Ali, entrusted
to me by a dying-father, and that father a staunch friend
of the British. natton," &c. Here is another daring nsser-
tion "all:" opposed to evidence in the Blue Boui c,
passim. This father was Noor Mahonsed, the edhiby
ef
Acme!: in Sir Henry Pottinger's time, and described
him ib'coughout as our bitterest, most persevering, and
unprincipled enemy. I give a few, and but a few, ex-
trae:cs from Sir Henry Pottmger's opinion of Noor. In
p. 32, Blue Book, ho says, " Noor Mahomed has coati- 0
uued to evince the same suspicious, unfriendly, and (1,4 n.
peec • bl 4 conduct." P. 35, The great difficulty I have
in arriving at any positive conclusion as to what Noor
Mahotned Khan will do springs from his utter and
abandoned want of either truth or shame." P. 38, "It
seems to me very evident that Noor Mahomed's object
and hope were to gain a declaration from me, that we
would support him against his relations, and then to have
turned them against us." P. 39, " His perverseness, no
doubt, partly proce xis from his innate suspicious and
treacherous disposition." "It is impossible to trust his

* Supplementary Blue Bookii
frhis memorandum is the very dispatch of the 17th of
October, 1842, in which the misuse of the word " pretext"
occurs ; and he enlarges upon several points in it in COUSC-
queue of the opinion then_ given by Colonel Outram.