The Sun.
London, England, 1845-10-03 00:00:00

GENERAL NAPIER and COLONEL

OUTRAM.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
[The following letter, with some alterations, was sent to
the Times about ten days back. I had some right to expect
its publication in that journal, or that I should have had an
intimation that it was refused. I have been disappointed in
both points ; why, I know not, the editor having hitherto
been very liberal in admitting my communications. It may
be a mistake, but the effect has been injurious to me, as
giving an appearance of delay in answering a production
which ought to have been promptly noticed or despised alto-
gether. I shall feel the insertion of it in your paper as an
obligation.]
Sir,—Colonel Outram is indignant at my work called the
" Conquest of Sinde." This is natural ; it proves his inca-
pacity as a public man, and wounded vanity easily merges
in anger. There is not, indeed, a single expression in that
work which conveys personal insult, or anything approaching
to it, and no fair occasion of giving him credit was omitted,
though he and his friends bad provoked the exposure
of his general ineptitude ; the irrefragable facts adduced
in proof are crushing, and no man bears such a
mortification without anger. Colonel Outram was
entitled if it so pleased him, to give vent to
that anger, and, as being a matter of taste, in
abusive language also, though addressed to me privately
from a distance of ten thousand miles! The usual course
with gentlemen in such cases is, however, to avoid bad lan-
guage, or to await, at least, the reply of the person so ad-
dressed, before recourse is had to the public press; but Co-
lonel Outram, while thus privately addressing me, sent a
copy of his letter to the Morning Chronicle, where it actually
appeared before the originul reached its destination! This
needs no comment; but it has created a feeling which leads
me to address you instead of Colonel Outram, and that only
because his assertions may otherwise mislead persons not
conversant with the subject. I offer, therefore, the following
simple corrective statement, and I shall leave the public to
judge whether it be at all necessary for me or any other per-
son to take the trouble of " trampling upon Colonel Outram."
From the moment that person's political functions in Sinde
were transferred to Sir C. Napier, the foulest abuse of the
latter, and the most fulsome praise of the former, were syste-
matically poured forth in the columns of the Bombay Times,
a newspaper said to be principally owned by a mercantile
house at Bombay, to which Colonel Outram was believed to
be indebted, and from which he received a loan of ten thou-
sand rupees to enable him to go to England after the battle
of Meanee, there, by his insinuations and secret charges, to
intercept for a time the thanks of Parliament to his General,
whom he oontinued to call his friend, and to do the same by
the brave troops whose dangers and glory he had not par-
ticipated in at the battles of lileanee and Dubla, though he
had laboured most assiduously in folly to cause their de-
struction. This has been placed beyond doubt in my work,
and hence Colonel Outram's anger; but that work has not,
as he asserts, revealed any official secrets, the disclosure of
which has been denounced by Sir R. Peel as injurious to the
public service. It is founded generally on the Parliamentary
papers relating to Sinde, which are at every person's com-
mand, and where the proofs of Colonel Outram's incapacity
and dangerous meddling are at least as strongly set forth
as in my work: those who desire to know the truth will find
it there.
After Colonel Outram's arrival in London the vituperation
of Sir C. Napier to raise the reputation of the Colonel was
renewed in the Bombay Times, and also pervaded the English
papers most opposed to Lord Ellenborough. The coincidence
was remarkable ; and as Colonel Outram, though professing
warm friendship in private for his General, suffered those
false notions to spread unchecked, and silently accepted the
credit of acts which he knew he was not entitled to, I pub-
licly taxed him, as may be seen in my letters to The Sun
newspaper (July or August, 1843), with his want of good
taste, and plainly told him that, far from having shown any
superior genius and ability, he had committed enormous
errors, and only missed causing the entire destruction of the
army because the General's vigour and capacity had over-
borne his folly.
Instead of meeting this remonstrance openly and boldly,
Colonel Outram sheltered himself under an official cloak ; he
intimated, indeed, that he would and could give a sufficient
answer when that cloak could be laid aside ; and he then re-
turned to India, having previously given as much effect as he
could to the secret charges he had preferred against Sir C.
Napier. That General's crushing reply to those charges, and
his exposition of Colonel Outram's incapable conduct in
Sinde, came back from India in due time, and were published
in the Sinde Parliamentary papers ; but meanwhile Colonel
Outram's whisperings had, as I have already said, caused the
Government to delay the thanks of Parliament to the General
and Army, and thus give a colour to the notion, industriously
inculcated by the press, that the great victories gained, and
the heroic courage displayed in Sinde, were crimes, and not
glories. I
When the Sinde Blue Book was published the official cloak
was torn from Colonel Outram's shoulders, but his hands
remained paralysed ;he could not hold a pen 1 He could not,
he dared not, answer Sir C. Napier's exposition of his folly;
he cowered under the public animadversion of the Governor-
General and Council on his conduct ; but the anonymous
vituperation of Sir C. Napier, and the laudatory incense to
Colonel Outram, continued in the Bombay Times with more
vehemence than before—it has never ceased; and Colonel
Outram now seeks to avenge the public, the signal defeat of
his secret machinations by scurrilous accusations against
Sir C. Napier, addressed, not to him who is at hand, but to
me who am ten thousand miles off! and this in language and
sentiment so exactly in unison with what has before appeared
in the Bombay Times, that the inference is inevitable.
It is not a little remarkable also, that Colonel Outram, in
his letter, defends everybody but himself, thereby, indeed,
showing prudence, and a desire to enlist others in his cause;
but his weakness is evident from this fact, that he has suf-
fered the Parliamentary papers to be published without a
remark, though they contain every accusation of incapacity
which I have made in my History, and the proofs of, their
truth; those proofs satisfied the Governments of India and
England, and both Houses of Parliament.
Now also, as in his former letter, while menacing me with
a book, he still holds up his official garment; he will refute
my work, but he will not " withdraw the veil of official
secresy." What is the meaning of all this? Is it to avoid
giving an account of his letter to the Khan of Khelat, which
cost him his situation as Political Agent in Sinde? He
knows what I mean ; 1 have alluded to it in my History. Or
does he mean to keep back amongst hi 4 official secrets the
protest he left with the Government when he returned to
India, after his secret efforts to destroy the reputation of his
General? The veil must be thick and wide that serves Col.
Outram's need.
With respect to his assertions. He who shrunk from con-
troversy with me when in London, now, being in India, says
I delayed the publication of my work until after the depar-
ture of the Indian mail, to evade his refutation for a time !
His refutation! Let my publisher, whose patience was so
tried by reiterated remonstrances about delay, answer that
assertion.
Colonel Outram says I have, on the authority of my
brother, traduced the whole Civil Service of India. I answer
that I have not done so en the authority of my brother, or
that of any other person—l have not done so at all.
He says that Lord Ellenborough's speech at a public dinner
shows 1 have no warrant from him for so traducing the whole
of the Civil servants of the Company. Certainly Lord Ellen-
borough's speech was not and could not have been my war •
rant for doing what I have not done. Nevertheless, in that
speech he is reported to have said " he never had to complain
of any Civil servant with whom he came into personal cons
munication." But, touching the army, he said he never had
to complain of any Military officer, a marked and most signi-
ficant difference of expression.
Colonel Outram asserts that land my brother have accused
the officers of the Royal and Company's Armies of habitual
intemperance, and that we have ascribed the mortality in the
78th Regiment to the same cause. This effort to enlist the