Charles Napier ( Royal Navy officer ) Admiral Sir Charles John Napier KCB GOTE RN ( 6 March 1786 – 6 November 1860 ) was a Scottish naval officer whose sixty years in the Royal Navy included service in the Napoleonic Wars , Syrian War and the Crimean War , and a period commanding the Portuguese navy in the Liberal Wars . An innovator concerned with the development of iron ships , and an advocate of humane reform in the Royal Navy , he was also active in politics as a Liberal Member of Parliament and was probably the naval officer most widely known to the public in the early Victorian Era . Napier was the second son of Captain Charles Napier , RN , and grandson of Francis , 6th Lord Napier ; he was thus a direct descendant of the great mathematician John Napier . He was born at Merchiston Hall , near Falkirk , on 6 March 1786 , and educated at the Royal High School , Edinburgh . French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars . He became a midshipman in 1799 aboard the 16 - gun sloop HMS Martin , but left her in May 1800 before she was lost with all hands . He next served aboard HMS Renown , flagship of Sir John Borlase Warren . After this , in November 1802 , he transferred to the frigate " Greyhound " under Captain William Hoste . The following year , he moved to HMS " Egyptienne " for a voyage to St Helena escorting a convoy of ships and then in the English Channel and off the coast of France . ( In later years , feeling he had been badly treated as a Midshipman by her captain , Charles Fleeming , Napier challenged that officer to a duel , though they were eventually reconciled by their seconds . ) In 1804 - 5 he served briefly in HMS " Mediator " before moving to HMS " Renommée " off Boulogne . He was promoted lieutenant on 30 November 1805 . He was appointed to HMS " Courageux " ( 74 ) , and was present in her in the West Indies at the action in which the squadron under Admiral Warren took the French " Marengo " ( 80 ) and " Belle Poule " ( 40 ) , on 13 March 1806 . After returning home with Warren , he returned to the West Indies in " St George " and having been promoted to Commander on 30 November 1807 , he was appointed acting commander of the brig " Pultusk " of 16 guns , formerly the French privateer " Austerlitz " . In August 1808 he became captain of the brig - sloop " Recruit " ( 18 ) , and in her fought a hot action off Antigua with the French sloop " Diligente " ( 18 ) , in which his thigh was smashed by a cannonball . In April 1809 Napier took part in the capture of Martinique , and subsequently distinguished himself in the pursuit of three escaping French ships of the line , handling the small " Recruit " so well that the British were able to capture the French flagship " Hautpoult " ( 74 ) . As a result he was promoted acting post captain and briefly given the command of the captured 74 . His rank was confirmed on 22 May 1809 , but he was put on half - pay , when he came home as temporary captain of HMS " Jason " ( 32 ) escorting a convoy . While on half - pay he spent some time at the University of Edinburgh . Napier , still on half - pay , then went to Portugal to visit his three cousins , ( all colonel s serving in Wellington ' s army , and one of whom was Charles James Napier , the future conqueror of Sindh ) . He took part in the Battle of Buçaco , during which he saved his cousin Charles ' s life and was himself wounded . In 1811 , he was appointed captain of the frigate HMS " Thames " ( 32 ) and served in the Mediterranean , disrupting enemy shipping . Among his principal exploits was the capture of the island of Ponza , which was a possible haven for corsairs . In 1813 he moved to command the frigate HMS Euryalus ( 36 ) , operating mainly off the French and Spanish Mediterranean coast . American War and the ' Hundred Days ' . After the surrender of Napoleon in 1814 Napier and his ship were transferred to the coast of America , where the War of 1812 was still in progress . He took part in the expedition up the Potomac to Alexandria , as second in command to Captain James Alexander Gordon . The British squadron took 10 days to travel upriver , with many strandings and damage from a tornado , but on 28 August 1814 after bombardment they captured Fort Washington ; the town of Alexandria capitulated and the shipping there was seized . The squadron successfully withdrew downriver with their prizes despite American attacks from the shore . During this withdrawal Napier was wounded in the neck . He next distinguished himself in the attack on the city of Baltimore by a British army and 16 warships , 12 – 14 September 1814 , under Admiral Cochrane . " Euryalus " was involved in the bombardment of Fort McHenry that began early in the morning of the 13th . The critical period of the attack developed shortly after midnight when a picked British force in longboats under Napier ’ s command penetrated the branch of the river to the west of the fort with the intention of storming it from the flank . Before they could land , however , they were detected and subjected to a withering fire from the guns of Fort McHenry and two smaller forts . The British fought back strongly with cannon and rockets . ( Watching the battle from a safe distance , Francis Scott Key was inspired to compose ' The Star - Spangled Banner ’ . ) Eventually American firepower prevailed ; Napier was compelled to retire to the warships , and Cochrane ’ s fleet withdrew on the morning of the 14th . " Euryalus " proceeded to Halifax , Nova Scotia for refit and then took part in the ongoing blockade of the eastern seaboard of the USA . Bored by such duties , Napier issued a challenge to the American frigate Constellation , which was lying at Norfolk , Virginia , to come out and fight a single - ship duel . The challenge was accepted and due arrangements were made ‘ in the most gentlemanly fashion ’ , but " Euryalus " was made part of the squadron that Admiral Cochrane took to Florida and Louisiana in December 1814 in the operations that climaxed in the Battle of New Orleans on 8 January 1815 , and before she could return to fulfil her engagement with " Constellation " news of the peace treaty of Ghent reached the USA . With Napoleon ' s escape from Elba and brief return to power , ( the ' Hundred Days ' ) , " Euryalus " returned to Britain . Napier ' s last mission of the Napoleonic wars was to land troops at the mouth of the River Scheldt to guard against the French advance into Belgium . Marriage and family . At the end of the war Napier was made a Companion of the Bath ( 4 June 1815 ) . He married Frances Elizabeth Elers , née Younghusband , generally referred to as Eliza , whom he had known and loved in Edinburgh while still a teenager . In the meantime Eliza had married a Lieutenant Edward Elers , RN and been widowed . She had four children whom Napier adopted as his own . Of these the second son , Charles Elers Napier , became a naval officer . The eldest , Edward Elers Napier , entered the army , rising to the rank of Major - General : he also wrote books of travel and reminiscence , as well as the authoritative biography of his stepfather . Frances also gave Napier two children of his own , a son born in Rome and a daughter born by Lake Geneva . The son , Charles , died as a result of an accident aged five . The first years of his leisure Napier spent in Italy , Switzerland ( where he briefly took up farming ) , and in Paris . He had inherited considerable wealth from his mother ' s side of the family and spent it freely . Steam and Iron . During these years Napier began a voluminous and indefatigable correspondence with the Admiralty on the urgency for naval reform , which lasted for the rest of his career . He sought to persuade successive civil administrations of the need for innovative ship - design and tactics , the development of steam ships and the use of iron in ship construction , the proper training of officers , and decent living conditions for ordinary seamen . He held that the use of the press gang and of flogging should be abolished , and that seamen should receive proper wages and pensions . In all this he was far ahead of his time . His advocacy had little effect : on the contrary , successive administrators considered him an eccentric nuisance . He had been interested in steam navigation since its beginnings , and began investing his considerable resources in a steam vessel service that would ply along the River Seine . In 1821 he financed and participated in the construction of one of the first iron - hulled vessels ever built , and the first designed to venture into open water . The " Aaron Manby " was named after the master of the Horseley Ironworks , Tipton , Staffordshire , where she was pre - fabricated to a design formulated by Napier , Manby and Manby ’ s son Charles and then assembled at Rotherhithe on the Thames . After trials in May 1822 , the " Aaron Manby " crossed the English Channel to Le Havre under Napier ’ s command on 10 June 1822 , and proceeded up the Seine to Paris , where she caused a great stir and where she was based for the next decade . This has been claimed as the first passage from France to Britain by steam ship , which it was not : but it was the first direct passage from London to Paris by steam ship and the first seagoing voyage by an iron ship anywhere . Napier ’ s company built five similar steamships but in 1827 he went bankrupt , leaving the family in severe financial difficulty . ( Sold off , the ships gave 30 years further service . ) Portugal . At the beginning of 1829 he was appointed to command the 42 - gun frigate " Galatea " . The Admiralty gave him permission to fit her with paddles of his own design , worked by winches on the main deck . He carried out trials that proved that ships could travel independently of the wind . The Admiralty , however , did not adopt this innovation . At the start of Portugal ' s Liberal Wars in 1832 Napier was at the Azores , which were the only part of Portuguese territory still held for Queen Maria II of Portugal against the usurpation of her uncle , the absolutist Dom Miguel . He so impressed the constitutional leaders , especially the Count de Vila Flor ( better known by his later title of Duke of Terceira ) , that they begged him to take command of their small fleet . Having unsuccessfully contested the parliamentary by - election for Portsmouth in June 1832 after " Galatea " was paid off , he accepted their proposals in February 1833 . Sailing to Portugal with his stepson Charles Elers Napier as aide - de - camp , bringing troop reinforcements and using the incognito of ' Carlos da Ponza ' , he arrived in Porto , where Queen Maria ' s father Dom Pedro , ex - Emperor of Brazil , and the Liberal forces were being besieged by Miguel ' s armies . He assumed command of the Liberal fleet , succeeding its previous British commander George Rose Sartorius . With the fleet Napier then transported the Liberal army to the Algarve to open a second front in the south of the country . On his return voyage he destroyed the much larger Miguelite fleet in the Battle of Cape St Vincent on 5 July 1833 . These two strokes enabled the Liberals to capture Lisbon , which the Miguelites abandoned , though Napier ' s squadron was now ravaged by cholera . On the demand of France Napier was struck off the British navy list . On the other hand Dom Pedro appointed him Admiral of the Portuguese Navy on 10 July . Napier ' s victory , with a fleet largely manned by British seamen , was viewed in Britain as a credit to the Royal Navy . The victory and consequent accolades greatly annoyed King William IV , who disliked both Napier and Dom Pedro . Continuing his Portuguese services , Napier commanded land forces in the successful defence of Lisbon , September 1833 . For these services he was made Grand Commander of the Tower and Sword , and Count of the Cape of Saint Vincent in the Peerage of Portugal . In 1834 , with a small army made up largely of British sailors , he reconquered the Minho region for the constitutional cause . After the final defeat of Miguel and the death of Dom Pedro shortly afterwards , Napier found himself frustrated in his attempts to reform the naval administration of Portugal and returned to England . His departure was followed by a vote of thanks to him in both houses of the restored Portuguese parliament . Napier unsuccessfully contested the Portsmouth parliamentary seat for a second time in the by - election of December 1834 . He then occupied himself until 1836 with writing a history of the Portuguese War and his own part in it . Syrian War . Though he published his " An Account of the War in Portugal " as ' Admiral Charles Napier ' , he was only an Admiral as far as Portugal was concerned . He was restored to his former rank of Captain in the British Navy List by an Order in Council on 9 March 1836 , and in July 1837 unsuccessfully contested the by - election for Greenwich in the Liberal cause . In 1838 received command of the ship of the line HMS " Powerful " ( 84 ) . When troubles broke out in Syria and Muhammad Ali , ruler of Egypt , invaded it and destroyed a Turkish army , Napier was ordered to the Mediterranean . On the evening of 29 May 1839 " Powerful " was anchored in the Cove of Cork , Ireland when urgent orders came from the Admiralty to proceed at once to Malta . He was also informed that the ships - of - the - line HMS " Ganges " and HMS " Implacable " had already started from England . Wishing to overtake them , Napier set sail at 2 a . m . on the 30th for Gibraltar . " Powerful " arrived at Gibraltar on 12 June to hear the other two ships were three days ahead of her , but by superior seamanship Napier overtook them in the Mediterranean and " Powerful " entered the harbour of La Valletta , Malta on the evening of 24 June , with band playing and under every stitch of canvas , twelve hours ahead of her rivals . There followed a lull of about a year . In the summer of 1840 the Maronite Christians of Lebanon rose in revolt against the occupying Egyptians and Muhammad Ali in retaliation sent Ibrahim Pasha with 15 , 000 troops to burn towns and villages along the Lebanese coast . By 1 July 1840 Napier , with a detached squadron and the rank of Commodore , was patrolling the coast to protect British interests . Though in August he appeared off Beirut and called upon Suleiman Pasha , Muhammad Ali ’ s governor , to abandon the town and leave Syria , there was little he could do until September , when he was joined by the allied fleet under Admiral Robert Stopford : mainly British , but also including Austrian , Ottoman and Russian warships . Open war broke out on 11 September . Due to the illness of the army commander , Brigadier - General Sir Charles Smith , Napier was instructed to lead the land force , and effected a landing at D ' jounie with 1 , 500 Turks and Marines to operate against Ibrahim , who was prevented by the revolt from doing more than trying to hold the coastal cities . Meanwhile Stopford , claiming his flag of truce had been fired on , bombarded Beirut , killing many civilians . Napier next distinguished himself by leading an attack by land and sea on Sidon , the Egyptian army ’ s southern base , which capitulated on 28 September . The Egyptians abandoned Beirut on 3 October . While preparing to attack them at Boharsef , Napier was ordered to relinquish command of the army to withdraw and hand over the land forces to the now recovered Brigadier - General Smith . To do so would have meant giving up the tactical initiative , and Napier accordingly disobeyed the order and continued with the attack against Ibrahim ’ s army . The ensuing Battle of Boharsef , on 10 October , was a hard - fought victory , one of the very few land battles won by a naval officer . By the end of the month the only coastal position still held by the Egyptians was Acre , which Stopford was instructed to recapture . On 3 November the Mediterranean Fleet , with its Turkish and Austrian allies , moved into position against the western and southern sides of the town . The fire of the ships ( 48 , 000 rounds in all ) was devastatingly accurate . A shell penetrated the main magazine in the south of the city , which exploded killing 1 , 100 men . That night Acre was occupied . British losses were only 18 men killed and 41 wounded . During the action , Napier had maneuvered independently against Stopford ’ s orders and his division , by accident and mutual misunderstandings , left a space in the fleet ’ s deployment , not that this affected the outcome . Some captains wanted Napier to be court - martialled for insubordination , but Stopford did not push the issue . The rapid collapse of Muhammad Ali ’ s power , with the prospect of bloody chaos in Egypt , was not part of the Allies ’ plan , so Stopford sent Napier to command the squadron at Alexandria and to observe the situation . Here , acting once again on his own initiative , Napier appeared before the city on 25 November and enforced a blockade . Napier , without reference to his Admiral or the British government , personally negotiated a peace with Muhammad Ali . The treaty guaranteed Muhammad Ali and his heirs the sovereignty of Egypt , and pledged to evacuate Ibrahim ’ s beleaguered army back to Alexandria , if Muhammad Ali in turn renounced all claims to Syria , submitted to the Sultan and returned the Ottoman fleet . ' I do not know if I have done right in settling the eastern question ' , Napier wrote on 26 November to Lord Minto , the First Lord of the Admiralty . Stopford repudiated the arrangement immediately when he had heard the news ; the Sultan and the British ambassador were furious , and several of the Allied powers declared it void . Nevertheless the formal treaty later concluded and confirmed on 27 November was essentially a ratification of Napier ’ s original , and his friend Lord Palmerston congratulate Napier . ( Muhammad ALi ’ s last heir , King Farouk , ruled Egypt until 23 July 1952 , when the Free Officers Movement under Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser staged a military coup that launched the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 and forced him to abdicate . ) Parliament and Channel Fleet . In acknowledgment of his distinguished services during the campaign Napier was knighted on 4 December 1840 , and was also included in the vote of thanks by the Houses of Parliament . He was also presented by the Emperors of Russia and Austria and the King of Prussia with the Order of St . George of Russia ; the Order of Maria Theresa of Austria ; and the Red Eagle of Prussia . In January 1841 , Napier he carried out a special mission to Alexandria and Cairo to see that the treaty was being adhered to before returning to Britain in March . He was invited to stand as Parliamentary candidate in two constituencies and so at his own request was placed on half pay . He was returned as Liberal Party MP for Marylebone at the 1841 general election . He spoke mainly on naval topics , especially conditions for seamen and increasing the strength of the navy . In November , 1841 , he was appointed Naval Aide - de - Camp to Queen Victoria . He subsequently wrote and published " War in Syria " , his personal account of the campaign . On 4 December 1845 he was invested with the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh . Napier continued to be interested in warship design and was responsible for the design of the paddle - frigate HMS Sidon launched in May 1846 . In the same year he lost his parliamentary seat but was promoted Rear - Admiral of the Blue on 9 November . In May 1847 he was appointed to the command of the Channel Fleet , hoisting his flag in HMS " St Vincent " ( 120 ) . By this time he was perhaps the naval personality most famous to the general public : his level of everyday name - recognition is shown by the passing allusion in William Makepeace Thackeray ' s famous humorous ballad " Little Billee " ( " the British fleet a - riding at anchor / with Admiral Napier , K . C . B . " ) . The Channel Fleet was sometimes a sinecure , but this was by no means the case during Napier ’ s period of command . The fleet ’ s area of operations was not just the English Channel but more or less throughout what in the 20th century would be called the Western Approaches . Portugal was in the closing stages of its ‘ little ’ civil war , the Patuleia , and British interests in that country needed protecting . Ireland , in the aftermath of the Potato Famine , was feared to be near insurrection . Moreover there were considerations of experiment and training with new ships , made necessary by the rapid technological advances such as screw propulsion . During 1848 , the fleet was mainly off the coast of Ireland , where the political situation dictated that Napier show the flag and train for the eventuality of transporting and landing soldiers on practically any part of the Irish coast . In December he took the Channel Fleet further than it had ever operated before , when it was sent to Gibraltar and then onto the Moroccan coast , with the purpose of curbing the activities of Riff pirates . He compelled the Emperor of Morocco , Muley Abderrahman , to grant compensation for the injuries he had inflicted on British commerce . Napier returned to Britain in April 1849 and was ordered to strike his flag . His disappointment that his expected three years term had been cut short led to bitter letters to " The Times " criticising the Admiralty ’ s policy . When he applied for the vacant Mediterranean command , the Government and Admiralty agreed that he could not be trusted and he was rejected , Rear - Admiral Sir James Dundas being appointed instead . This led Napier to write more angry letters to the newspapers and directly to Lord John Russell claiming that he had been defrauded of his just rights . He unsuccessfully contested the parliamentary seat for the Borough of Lambeth . On 28 May 1853 he was promoted to Vice - Admiral of the Blue . Baltic Campaign . On the outbreak of the Russian War , better known as the Crimean War , he received the command of the largest fleet which the Royal Navy had assembled since the Napoleonic Wars , destined to act in the Baltic Sea . This was not without misgivings on the part of the Admiralty , but he was the most senior and experienced officer available . Napier hoisted his flag in February 1854 in the steam ship of the line HMS Duke of Wellington ( 131 ) , his subordinate commanders being the Rear - Admirals Armar Lowry Corry , second in command , Henry Ducie Chads , third in command , and James Hanway Plumridge , commanding the scouting forces . They were all elderly men , at most a year or so younger than Napier himself . Napier ' s force , which was augmented in June by a French fleet sent by Napoleon III , though impressive on paper , was radically unsuited to operations in the Baltic , chronically short of men and especially of experienced seamen , while he was hampered by contradictory sets of orders from the Admiralty . Nevertheless he successfully blockaded all the Russian ports , sufficiently overawed the Russian Baltic Fleet that it never stirred from its moorings , and carried out many bombardment operations as far as the northernmost point of the Gulf of Finland . During the campaign the first ever Victoria Cross was won by a Midshipman of the gunboat " HMS Hecla " who threw a Russian explosive shell overboard before it could detonate . During the campaign Rear - Admiral Corry was invalided home because of poor health ; he was replaced by Commodore ( later Rear - Admiral ) Henry Byam Martin . The major success of the campaign was the capture and destruction , in a near - perfect combined operation by French and British soldiers and sailors , of the Russian fortress of Bomarsund on the Aland Islands , which were temporarily liberated from Russian rule and which Napier offered to Sweden ( they were declined ) . But he refused to attack the great naval bases at Sveaborg ( often quoted as the " Gibraltar of the north " ) and Kronstadt , which observation had established were probably impregnable without shallow - draught bomb vessels which he did not have ; and a great outcry ( led by " The Times " newspaper ) was raised against him for his apparent lack of determination . ( His inaction was thoroughly justified by the sequel : in 1855 a better - equipped Anglo - French fleet did bombard Sveaborg , but despite an enormous expenditure of ammunition caused the fortress only trifling structural damage . ) Napier felt he was continually being second - guessed by the Admiralty , and especially by the First Lord of the Admiralty , Sir James Graham . In fact the Naval Lords were reacting to adverse press coverage and unwilling to accept the assessment of the commander on the spot , and relations between them deteriorated as his ships maintained the blockade in atrocious weather , quite unable to storm or destroy impregnable Russian fortresses into the bargain . Never one to mince his words or submit to what he felt to be unmerited criticism , Napier ' s ' disrespectful ' tone in his despatches , which the Admiralty complained of , sealed his professional fate . Nevertheless , though lacking any dramatic action apart from the capture of Bomarsund , Napier had achieved a great deal . In one modern assessment , the campaign " had successfully bottled up the Russian Navy for the entire first summer of the war . The tsar had been denied an opportunity to reinforce his Black Sea fleet with additional ships . The 30 , 000 Russian troops posted in the Gulf had also been prevented from joining the army in the Crimea . " In addition , Napier ' s constant training had welded the fleet personnel into a much more competent force for the next year ' s campaign ; and not a single ship had been lost . Retirement . On his return in December 1854 he was ordered to haul down his flag and informed his command was terminated , the fleet being given for the campaign of 1855 to Admiral the Hon . Richard Saunders Dundas , the Second Sea Lord . ( None of the flag officers of the 1854 campaign was allowed to return to the Baltic in 1855 , but Sir Michael Seymour , Napier ' s Captain of the Fleet , was promoted to Rear - Admiral and was made second - in - command to Dundas . ) The Admiralty attempted to make Napier a scapegoat for the perceived failure of the campaign ( which , within the limits of the possible , had been rather successful ) and suborned several captains to testify to their lack of confidence in him , his timidity , his age , his lack of understanding of steam tactics , and his heavy drinking . Nevertheless some of the leading seamen in the fleet , such as Captain ( later Admiral ) Sir Bartholomew Sulivan , maintained along with him that Napier ' s strategy had been wise and the faults lay with the Admiralty themselves . After the war the Russians testified that , knowing Napier ' s reputation , their main hope had been of his making a foolhardy attack on their fleet under the guns of Kronstadt , where they were confident he would have come to grief . Napier was elected MP for Southwark in February 1855 , and carried his dispute with the Admiralty to the floor of the House of Commons . He was never given another command . He continued to campaign vigorously for the improvement of the way common seamen were treated during and after service , and maintained his parliamentary seat , though broken in health , until his death on 6 November 1860 . His tomb is in the churchyard of All Saints , Catherington in Hampshire . The ships of the Portuguese Navy went into eight days of mourning for their former commander . Just before his death he was hoping to persuade Giuseppe Garibaldi to acquire a fleet for the liberation of Italy , which he would command . Character . According to the Encyclopedia entry of 1911 , " Sir Charles Napier was a man of undoubted energy and courage , but of no less eccentricity and vanity . He caused great offence to many of his brother officers by his behaviour to his superior , Admiral Stopford , in the Syrian War , and was embroiled all his life in quarrels with the Admiralty . " Napier was a large , untidy man of about 14 stone " ( about 200lbs / 90kg ) " who walked with a limp and a stoop due to his leg and neck wounds . His common nickname in the Navy was ' Black Charlie ' because of his swarthy appearance and dark side - whiskers . He was also known as ' Mad Charlie ' because of his eccentric behaviour and enthusiasms , and ' Dirty Charlie ' from his habit of wearing the most unsuitable and ill - fitting clothes while insisting that his officers were correctly dressed at all times .