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No. 16 887. LONDON, TUESDAY
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THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.—The
prin-
ciple of this valuable invention is clearly demonstrated by
Professor Bachhoilher in his Morning and Evening LECTURES at
the ROYAL POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTION. Dr. Ryan's CHEMI-
CAL LECTURES, daily, and on the Evenings if Mondays, Wed-
nesdays, and Fridays. The principles and uses of the WORKING
MODELS, and ether specimens of the Useful. Arts, aro explained to
the visitors. The OPAQUE MICROSCOPE. The OXV-HYDROGEN
MICROSCOPE, by CART. re-produced with the most interesting
objects. The latest DISSOLVING VIEWS, by Charles, Smith, aro
of great interest and beauty.

SIR CHARLES NAPIER.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Sin,—Early in September the Indian mail brought an
account of the dreadful ravages of the cholera at Kur-
rachee, and,•at the same time, statements of the un-
shrinking devotion with which Sir Charles Napier at-
tended the sick and the dying. Even the Bombay Times
was forced, by the notoriety of the fact, to admit it into
its columns. But still true to itself—" Natura furea
expellas, tamers usque recurret"—followed up the ad-
mission by one of its usual attempts to cast obloquy
on Sir Charles Napier, alleging that ho falsified the
revenue accounts, and, by means of such falsification,
got his own salary raised from 7,0001. to 9,0001. a' year
—" that the poor, unresisting, overtaxed Ilindoo" is made
to provide the-means for supplying his wasteful expen-
diture in Sinde,
are filling their pockets at the public expense—" that
while he, and a few persons under him,
most of the revenue is collected in grain, to enhance its
apparent value ; this is sold at an excessive price to the
contractors, and purchased from them at a charge of
course equally excessive
India, by the commissariat so that
ia fact, pays doubly a portion of the netted in-
come of Mick Sinde pretends to boast."
,
Some of these accusations are taken from the letter of
an "eminent political authority at home." Now I simply
disbelieve the assertion that any " eminent political our-
thority" has written the alleged letter. I publicly defy
the Bombay Times to publish this letter, with the name
of the authority; and I defy this " eminent political
authority," if any such there be, to come forward, in his
own name, to, make those statements, and pledge his
" eminent political" character to the proof of them.
The nest mail; which arrived soon after, announced
the death by cholera of Capt. John Napier, one of the
General's nephews, causing deep affliction to a large
family. Capt. Napier's child also perished two days
before himself; and though this was not publicly known,
Sir Charles- Napier's attention to the sick, and the death
of my nephew were knower having been prdminently
stated in several newspapers ; in *a; for many days we
heard of the dead and the li‘ineselft that' painful period
only through the newspapers. This was the time chosen
by two East Indian proprietors—Messrs. Sullivan and
George Thompson (and by the chairman's remarks it
would seem chosen somewhat out of the usual course)—
for adding to affliction for the death of the young as
much bitterness as their malignant aspersions could
inflict on the family and friends of an absent man, of
whom they had just learned this—that neither age, nor
exhausting toil, nor gathering dangers, nor broken
health, nor the greatness of the public calamity, nor the
stings of private sorrow could make his heart falter or
his spirit slacken in the performance of his duty. At
the time this took place I was on a long journey in the
north of England, and could not for many days get ac-
curate accounts of what passed, or the documents neces-
sary for a reply. Now I am in a great measure pre-
cluded (by the letters which my brother, Capt. Henry
Napier, immediately published in the Times and the
Morning Herald) from expressing my sentiments as
fully as I should have otherwise done, though I shall
take this opportunity of declaring my full assent to all
ho has written. There are, however, some points he was
not quite aware of, or which the promptness of his reply
caused him to overlook. These I will supply, and add
some further information about Sir Charles Napier and
his traducers.
I cannot expect that you should print, or your readers
examine a long and particular answer to all the vague
generalities, the suppressions or perversions of docu-
mentary evidence, and the baseless assertions which
serve as grouting to the slender fabric of Mr. Sullivan's
oratory ; for he and his coadjutor, Mr. Thompson, treat
the Court of Proprietors as if it were one of those waste
places over which it is written "Rubbish may be shot
here."
To do this I must enter on the whole history of the
policy and the war in Sinde as unfolded in the Blue
Book. I must meet garbled quotations by supplying
the wilfully-omitted passages, which would efface his
false colouring. I must expose the dishonest inferences
drawn from detached sentences by long extracts to show
that such inferences are wholly at variance with the
whole context. In short, I must meet misrepresentations
and sophistry by the dull and tedious method of proofs
and fair argument—a process that, in such extensive
matters, could not be carried out in a public journal, and
certainly would not be read generally.
As I agree with the French writer who said, "Je Liens
infiniment u ce qu'on me list," I shall confine my remarks
to a few points that may row some light on the cha-
racter and conduct of those who thus systematically
abuse Sir Charles Napier.
Mr. Sullivan accuses him of gross premeditated in-
justice to the Ameers when he first entered Sinde ; and,
like several other persons of about equal candour, founds
his charge upon those words in Sir Charles Napier's
dispatch of 17th Oct., 1842 :—"I have maintained that
that we want only a fair pretext to coerce the Ameers."
Now, I aver that no man, with ordinary capacity and
common candour, who reads the dispatch, can regard
this as anything but an improper use of the word
" pretext " for just "ground," or some such equivalent
expression. Ido not believe that any one of the persons
who have harped upon this expression really thought Sir
Charles Napier used it in the sense they have tried to
affix to it. I cannot ask you to reprint the whole dis-
patch : I can only beg of you. nr any persons who may'
be willing to enter on the subject, to read the document
itself, in p. 361, No. 379, of the Parliamentara Blue
Book, and you will find the whole context oppdied to
the criminal sentiment Mr. Sullivan and others have
tried to establish from this incorrect expression. Sir
Charles had not maintained that he only wanted "a
pretext," for he does not use the word in any previous
part of the dispatch. This apparent inconsistency in
his own letter would suggest to any candid person a re-
ference to the previous passages and the general context
for the true interpretation of the word "pretext." In
them he rests our right to enforce or alter the treaties,
on the ground of the breach of them by the Ameers ; he
further points out the benefits his proposed policy would
confer on them and their subjects, while he thought the
rigid observance, on our part, of the existing treaties
would be impossible, under the state of insecurity that
the hostile disposition and the vicious government of the
Ameers, together with their repeated breaches of treaty,
had produced. Throughout the dispatch he places the
right and the justice of coercive measures upon the re-
peated violations of the treaty by the Ameers ; and the
policy of such measures upon the benefits that would in
time accrue to all parties, and upon the moral certainty,
as he believed, that these measures would finally become
inevitable, after much intermediate evil. He repeatedly
calls Lord Ellenborough's attention to the question,
whether the measures proposed were "just," "honest,"
" humane," " dishonourable," " harsh." He speaks of a
"fair pretext," and, however inaccurate these terms may
be, a "fair pretext " certainly cannot be intended to
mean afoul one. Sir Charles Napier showed the dis-
patch to Colonel Outran; who " concurred in all he had
said in the foregoing paragraphs," and gave him fuller
local information, in consequence of which he goes more
fully into various points. Colonel Outram also made
written remarks (p. 368, Blue Book) on the dispatch,
and the whole were sent to Lord Ellenborough. Neither
by spoken nor written words does Colonel Outram ap-
pear to have objected to this ill-chosen term, or to have
suspected that it could be perverted as it has been. If
there were any shadow of foundation for that interpre-
tation, Colonel Outran is as guilty as Sir Charles
Napier. Further, Sir Charles's folly must have been as
daring as his immorality. He knew Lord Ellenborough
only as Governor-General (he has not to this day seen
him), yet he scrupled not, according to the interpreta-
tion of Mr. Sullivan and others, at once to declare to
him that he was only seeking for a pretext to commit
injustice. He broadly proclaims his own iniquitous de-
signs to all the authorities he was serving-under—to the
Governor-General, to the East India Directors, and the
Ministers of the Crown—and he confidently addresses
Lord Ellenborough, as if sure of his ready acquiescence
and participation in the iniquity. Such are the absurdi-
ties; into which the headlong malice of his traducers
have led them. Their interpretation is incompatible
with the whole context of the dispatch, with the suppo-
sition that Sir Charles Napier had common sense,
or caution, or regard for his character, or any belief that
Lord Ellenborough and Colonel Outram could possibly
possess sufficient integrity or self-respect, or even pru-
dence, to object to, becoming accomplices in his infamous
plans. In this instance (as in several others) Sir Charles
Napier made a mistake in composition, and it has been
caught
at, not for criticism or ridicule, but to be used as
a false witness against his humanity, justice, and honour.
If he erred in language, they have sinned in morals; but
according to the reports in The Sun and
it is better to break Priscian's head than the ninth com-
mandment.
• Herald, says that Sir Charles Napier "had
opposite to the orders received from
acted diametrically
the Governor-General, but prize-moneylo () to the amount
of 60,000/., go.vernorsthitiop of
theMr/ii
insignia of talayeeßara,ththe codlo-
oSrnuilnligvan,
nelcy of a regiment,
to monstrous i • and a
. catastrophe was
In the Times the words
opposition, g were in
to the Cs
many instances in directndoyernor-
laenary instructions. Prize-money
peerage,were fearful incentivesare,.
his
proceedings
iniquity."
brought
a governorship:of 10,000/ a year, to the extent of 50,000.,
ofßath,
insignia the the thanks of this
a regiment, the
t and a pe •
d of Parliament, peerage in prospect,
Company an
temptations to hold out to a man in
these were fearful
aGbeonuetr ably' s
hisins instructions, o
on
fs
such circumstances."
be no doubt that the above reports do,
Sulli-
van, there can
Whatever were the actual words used by Mr.
in substance, and unequivocally, impute most wicked
Napier. l
tr.
the 6th instant,
Sullivan, in the of.7'ims
says he did not attributereo
Captain Henry rapier, Napier. Now, I attach little
motives to Sir Charles
and detestable motives to Sir Charles N • 31

value to this denial, for the following reasons:—l find,
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 do not find that he
corrected these alleged erroneous reports, when they
sippeared, 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 Atucers, 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 director; 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 Sir C. Napier, by
Mr. Sullivan, who founds en 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
Outraw'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, saysf —‘ 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 these important 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's 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?
Di 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 Times, " 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. lie gave back their swords
which 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 Shere Mahomed, who
was a few miles off, at the head of an army of above
20,000 men, with which he fought the battle of Hyder-
abad 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 Bombay
Times. I believe the Morning Herald admitted ,this
libelous 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
extraets from the opinions of " this authority in
India":—
" For two years liaVe 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
serving 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
for 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,
ieeentietehaetyan of his book will retrivial inwi comparisonplaee hweiftehrethe
those which
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 front 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 Napier's many deliberate departures from
truth."

Ilow am I to reply to such accusations conveyed in
such language ? If I should say that the inventors,
writers, and propagators of them are some of the foulest,
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 satiety—must forbid such forms of contro-
versy, though just indignation might authorise them.
Bet 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 and their language from that
" pure well of English undefiled," the Bombay Times.
Under these denunciations I must leave leave Sir
Charles Napier to such consolation as he may find in
the support of the Horse Guards and the Duko of Wel-
lington, the protection of the Ministry, and the counte-
nance and society of the aristocracy of England. When
the troops under him, and his countrymen at home, re-
cognising the Bombay Times as the exposition of their
sentiments and opinions, shall declare their " contempt
and indignation" at this " great bad man," it will be time
enough to defend him from this " wide mouth"—
" That speaks plain cannon fire, and smoke, and bounce."
The confidence the troops under Sir Charles Napier
must have in the truth and opinions of that paper will
be apparent from the following statement. In the
Bombay Times of 6th May, 1843, an article appeared
headed " The Ladies of the Ameers' Zenanas ; ' and
concludes thus, " where are they now ? They, who
three months since were sharers of a palace, and in the
enjoyment of the honours of royalty, arc the degraded
Lemans of the Feringhee ! So it is, the harem has been
defiled ; the last drop of bitterness has been mingled
with the cup of misery we have given the Ameers to
drink, the heaviest of insults Mahomedans can endure
has been heaped upon their grey, discrowned heads."
And so it proceeds in the same strain, explicitly saying
" the most attractive of the ladies of the Zenana now
share the tents of British officers."
The officers appealed to Sir Charles Napier for pro-
tection to their characters, and for permission to answer
the charge. He not only consented to this, but addressed
the officers in writing, confirming every word of their
denial, while he indignantly exposed the utter falsehood
of this slanderous fabrication. The whole transaction is
fully stated in pp. 514-10 of General Wm. Napier's
" Conquest of Sincle." The appeal to Sir Charles Napier
was signed by above 100 English officers, of all ranks,
whose names are there given. The rottenness which Sir
Charles Napier then laid bare has since never ceased to
exhale its pestilential odour.
Sir Charles Napier's military conduct is declared by
Messrs. Sullivan and Thompson, on the authority of
Colonel Outrare, to have been in many instances insane.
I cannot pretend to give any opinion on such matters,

C
oenst.r not h
the priced Were the saamrlees,
him at an excessive, when they could get it at a moderate,
pride iii Ole open niii=,;
N-------rt-71Thi:piTerhecollulijdnibearetntinsakc the contractors buy grain froth
that what the contractors paid could not be excCZ2ve I nor,
further, if it were true that the contractors paid an excessive
price, and got it back from the commissariat, that there is
not a double payment, the gain to the Sinde revenue being
simply counterbalanced by the increased cost of the commis.
sariat. It must surely be the precipitancy of passion that
has betrayed into such absurd assertions the intellect that
Dr. Buist tells us himself superintended the magnetical,
meteorological, and astronomical establishments at Bombay!
-I. The Court of Directors published another Blue Book,
differently paged. I always refer to teat laid before Parlia-
meat.

Published by Ridgway.
t On 15th February, it was not a "camp," but Colonel
Outram's residence as agent. The error is of no moment, ex-
cept to showing Ur, sulliyan'§ ultwouracy.

but I learn from the Blue Book, that Colonel Outram
thought the Ameers' "mode of warfare"would be Ishould
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 Meeanee with 25,000 men.
I learn, too, from the same book, that while Sir Charles
Napier fought end won that perilous battle, Colonel
°ottani burned a wood,
I will now give another instance of the veracity of his
assailants. Last year some Indian newspaper stated
that lie 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 the following words:—" I
only yesterday read a whole column in three newspapers
say ing—' 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 forget),
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 put on a single tax in Slade, 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 alll and by Lord
Ellenboraugh's orders, who at once levelled that and the
slave trade.
The answer to my letter of inquiry whether there was
any ground N't hatever 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 from 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 use his own words) " a
warwhoop was raised against him, as a monster of folly."
Various predictions were made of the wrong he was
about 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 now 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
ins 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 i; still less practicable hero than in Mr. Sullivan's
case to enter upon the details of this three fears' 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
L for which Sir Charles Napier has never disguised his
i contempt." Here he proffers largely to enlist the reader's
f judgment in favour of himself, and against the presump-
; tion of one who scorns all other men's knowledge; yet
L 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. 434, is that " Major Outram is the moit—fif
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
Napier says—"lshall keep this memorandamj open till
the arrival of Major Outran; 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 he 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 will
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-
meat had been justified solely on the grounds of a trea-
cherous attaelt 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 Shadad 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 Outramleft Sinde on the sixth day after
this attack. Three of those days were spent in actual
warfare, and I take leave to doubt whether, between the
18th of February, the day on which the Ameers sur-
rendered, and the 21st of February, when Colonel Outram
left Sinde, he had many opportunities of investigating
this 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 evidatare (with the exception of that relating
to Meer Mahomed 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 Hoossam A entrustedli,end
is
to me by a dying father, and that
father a staunch friend
of the British nation," &c. Here another daring asser-
tion totally opposed to evidence in the Blue Book,
yass;nr. n
ri sufather
Pottinger'sws
N°°
and describedrtimMea,h by
onsed, the chief
Am
him throughout as our bitterest, most persevering, and
unprincipled enemy.
I give a few, and but a few, ex-
tracts from Sir Henry Pottinger's opinion of Noor. In
p. 32, Blue Book, he says, " Noor Mahomed has conti-
nued to evince the same suspicious, unfriendly, and dos-
picable conduct." P. 35, " The great difficulty I have
in arriving at any positive conclusion as to what Noor
Mahomed 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 Mahorned's object
and hope were to gain a declaration from me, that we
would support him against his relations, and then to hare
turned them against us." P. 39, " His perverseness, no
doubt, partl) proceads from his innate suspicious and
treacherous disposition.". "it is impossible to trust his

* Supplementary Blue Book, p. 26.
-I-This 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 conse-
quence of the opinion then giyen by Colonel Outran