The Sun.
London, England, 1857-04-20 00:00:00

i but to me, Oh, God ! how my heart rejects them.
That dreadful work of blood, sickening even to look
on : not one feeling of joy or exultation entered
my head at Meeanee or Dubba ; all was agony ; I
can use no better word. I was glad we won, be-
cause better it was to have Beloochees slain than
Englishmeei, and I well knew not one of us would
he spared if they succeeded ; to win was my work
for the day, and the least bloody thing to be done?
But with it came anxiety, pain of heart, disgust,
and a longing never to have quitted Colbridge, to
have passed my life in the round field and the devil's
acre, and under the dear yew trees on the terrace
amongst the sparrows : these were the feelings
which flushed in my head after the battles. Well,
we are born for war in this good world, and will
make it while men have teeth and women have
tongues. But away with these feelings I let me go
to work, let me sink in harness, if so God pleases ;
he who flinches from work, in battle or out of it, is
a coward." Not for him, however, the life of calm
and quietude, the dolce far niente under " the dear
yew trees on the terrace amongst the sparrows I"
Half a century and more of glorious action and
Chivalric deeds—this was the very different path-
way upon which Charles Napier adventured while
yet a stripling, when in 1798, as aide-de-camp to
Sir James Duff, he first took part in the service of
his country by participating in the terrible task of
the suppression of the Irish rebellion !
Sixteen ! lie was no more than sixteen at that
period when his public career may be said to have
really commenced. What he looked like then, we
may comprehend at a glance, from the contemporary
miniature by W. H. .Egleton, engraved as the
frontispiece to the first volume of these memorials.
A smooth, calm, gentle boyish faee, as unlike as
could well be to the keen, fiery, impulsive, impas-
sioned, eagle visage of the grand old warrior as he
was in later times, familiar to our recollection.
Speaking of his brother's personal aspect, Sir Wil-
liam has curiously enough remarked (vol. i. p. 117)
that an extraordinary change became observable in
it in the twenty-seventh year of his age, namely, in
1809. "Vp to this period," he says, "his counte-
nance bad been very comely, yet grave and sedate;
his dark luStrous eyes alone giving signs of the
fiery spirit within After Corunna dress was
disregarded, and his manner became eager and
restless, with sudden spasmodic movements,
springing partly from his wounds, partly from ill-
health. This change of manner was a mark of
awakened genius : he had warred with and against
men of mighty energies;and thus becoming conscious
of ability, his countenance acquired a peculiarly ve-
hement expression,. and his resemblance to a chained
Eagle was universally remarked." Observe—the ex-
traordinary change in his appearance, thus pictur-
esquely described and characterised, is attributed by
the biographer of Napier "partly to his wounds.
His wounds !—No wonder that they told upon him in
some way surprisingly, those terrible and not easily
numerable cicatrices For although be never lost
an eye, as Nelson, did at Calvi, nor an arm as the
same glorious Victim of Victory did at Teneriffe—
Charism Napier was hardly less frightfully or less
frequently hacked and hewed in battle thin even
the Conqueror of the Nile and Trafalgar. sub-
ject to accidents of all kinds in his youth,
he broke his leg, he nearly broke his
neck more than once, in the sports of boy-
hood. While, after his entrance into public life,
particularly, while serving in the Peninsular War,
the blows of the combatants seemed everywhere
as he went to concentrate upon his diminutive
frame as the radii of a wheel at the axletree. Had he
worn a magic girdle about his waist—like the scarf
supposed, by his cre d ulous followers, to have charmed
death from Ibrahim Riche, the son of the Egyptian
Viceroy Mahomot Ali—he might have unwound it
from his loins upon the evening of battle before enter-
;ng his tent, as Ibrahim was wont to do in the pre-
, eence of his troopere, and have shaken out of the folds
shower of bullets ! Look at the straight to which
Napier was reduced, for example, towards the
close of the bloody conflict of Corunna, where the
young Major had command of the 50th Regiment.
A musket ball struck him, bre iking the outer bone
of his leg—he was pierced in the back by a bayo-
net—ho bad a sabre stroke on the skull—and was
tbout to be despatched when he was magnani-
mously' saved by Guibert, a Drummer, and, almost
fainting, carried to the rear as a prisoner. That
final blow upon the skull was as the crash of Vul-
can's hammer on the head of Jupiter, whence issued,
folly armed, the Minerva of his wiss and warlike
Genius: crowned with the invincible helmet, and
bearing in band the resistless spear. From that
memorable day of Corunna, as we have already
seen, bis.very aspect and bearing betrayed a total
alteration—a change so apparent and startling as
almost to amount to a transformation. No longer
merely grave, sedate, and comely—his lineaments
thenceforth evidenced the flame and passion
of his impetuous spirit. From that time for-
ward be seemed, as it were, to bear in his
every feature the impress of his fiery genius—
he seemed to carry visibly upon his brow, in
his glance, in his movements, the sign manual of a
Hero and a Conqueror. Till—under the united
influence of Glory and Ingratitude, of Victory and
Vituperation—laden down with the laurels which
he reaped so lavishly, and with the calumnies with
which his enemies vainly endeavoured to over-
whelm his heroic capacity for endurance—he be-
came in appearance what we (all of us who knew
him) so well remember—the "Chained Eagle" to
the last 1 Reverting, however, from the man
himself to his memorable sufferings and renowned
achievements—How (we may ask) are those suf-
ferings and achievements to be the most effectively
and yet; at the same time, the most sententiously
epitomised ? Howl By the simplest record of
' names and. dates—a very bede-roll of glory ! A
prisoner among the French—Napier was treated
with chivalrous consideration by Soult, one of
Napoleon's Paladins, Marshal,of the Empire, and
'Duke of Dalmatia. As soon as he was sufficiently
restored from , his grievous bodily sufferings, the
young Major was allowed to return homewards on
parole. To return homewards as one born again
as by a miracle of resurrection ! For his name
had been returned among the list of the killed—
, his friends were in mourning—his will was at
Doctors' Commons ! He got it back, of course,
immediately : aed afterwards, when the period of
parole had expired, got back himself betimes—to
the Peninsula. He was on the Coa fighting as a
volunteer. Fighting as desperately as ever : for
here two horses - were • shot under him—
and at Busaco he was shot through the
face I Recovered agaiu from his wounds—he
was at the-siege of Fuentes d'Onore, and made one
also in the second and more memorable siege of
Badajoz. In 1812, when Napoleon the Great,
with the daring of Alexander, and the skill of Han-
nibal, and the forethought of Caesar, and the army
of Xerxes, was conquering Russia, and routing her
armies, and taking her capital—Charles Napier
was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.
In 1813—when the disaster of the Beresina was
forgotten in the double glory of Lutzen and Baut-
zen—the young Colonel was taking part in the ex-
pedition to the Chesapeake. Direct participation
in the crowning triumph of the Allied Arms
at Waterloo, he was denied by circumstances—ar-
riving upon the battle-field only upon the dawn of
the nineteenth 1 Accompanying the British forces
to Paris as a volunteer, he subsequently had his
share in the storming of Cambray.
It is worthy of remark at the termination of that
War of the Giants—it is wonderfully worthy of re-
mark now that we are in the midst of the Anglo-
French Affiance, when Queen Victoria has visited
the tomb of the Emperor Napoleon under the
dome of the Invalides—it is touchingly and impres-
sively worthy of remark What were the feelings of
the British Soldiers in 1815 as described by—
whom ? By Thiera ? By Thibaudeau ? By Mon-
tholon ? No : but by Sir William Napier—our
oen classic historian of the Peninsular War 1 And
described by him in his equally classic biography of
hisfamousbrother, Conqueror and Administrator of
Scinde. What are his words? Mark them—learn them
off by heart—note every syllable of them! He says—
'" The feelings of the British soldiers [then in 1815]
were unequivocally shown. Proud of their' long vie to-
rious course against the French, they yet respectedoun/
the latter as brave enemies, and had a profound
admiration, even LOVE, for NAPOLEON. T,h. ey
thought of him, not as a foe, but as a hero staThantg
alone ; a soldier to be hailed by all soldiers ; as a
man who had enabled them to gain the greatestpos-
sible glory.
,by fighting him : a master in war and
the fast friend of warriors." Magnificent
magnanimous, heroic, glorious words--the tribute
of a Preux Chevalier of the Pen as of the Sword
Mark the anecdote which follows : " When Louis
the Eighteenth entered Paris, the writer, his post
being at the head of the picquets guarding the
Berner of Saint Denis, was asked by the Captain
on duty. there if lie was to salute 7" [This is a his-
torical incident : and now, observe the sequel of
t, I have no orders on that head, and give
none was the reply." [Nobly spoken, brave Sol-
dier and truthful Historian And now as Marcel-
lus says in Hamlet, " Mark what followed it I"]
Quoth Sir William (1., 267.)—" The King came up,
crowds thronged forward, and the words vise and Roi
were heard on all sides • but the last was generally
preceded by the words l'Empereur et, pronounced in
la low tone. The, British soldiers being left to them-
a elves brought down their musket from the shoulder,
avid placing their bands on the muzzles fiercely re-
garded the approaching King. He seemed sur-
prised, but soon his countenance assumed a look
of such malignant ferocity, so fixed, so peculiar,
as never to be forgotten." Remember, English
men—all this is from an eye-witness, and such an
eye-wi ness ! Remember all this is from the hand
and heart and conscience of a Btitish soldier, 'and
of all British soldiers from the one who is unit 0:-
sally recognised as the annalist of British Tictories