SIR CHARLES NAPIER.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 4, Issue 182, 16 March 1861, Page 4

SIR CHARLES NAPIE R.

[From the " Times."] The group of illustrious men who came into the world in the same decade with the French Revolution is fast dying out. The survivors of that epoch are now more than threescore and ten years of age, and very few of them left. To-day we have to chronicle the departure of one more of -the small group — Admiral Sir Charles Napier. It has often been our duty in the later years of his life to speak plainly of the gallant old Admiral ;~ but in anything that may have fallen from us, we hope that we have never forgotten his real merits. These were of no mean order, and fairly entitled him to the admiration and gratitude of his countrymen. In his name is summed up all that Le was. A Napier is a man possessed of high spirits, immense courage, great ingenuity, prodigious •egotism, and a critical or theoretical faculty which-' incites to deeds of astounding audacity. Atfd so another Napier, anotherrof tile "Ready, aye ready" school is gone. We shall never, more see his ruddy, jolly countenance twitching under his broad brim, as in his blue coat and white trousers he trudged down to the House heavily burdened with a speech on the sorrows of the navy. He has fired his lasfe gun ; he is gone to the haven of His rest. We will forget long speeches and wordy letters, to remember him only as he was in his prime, the daring and the brilliant captain. He was horn at Merchistoan hall^m the county of Stirling, on the 6th March, 1786. He entered the navy at the age of thirteen, as a volunteer,. and served on. board a great variety , of vessels, from sloopß to flagships, on many different stations,, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, and from the Mediterranean to the 'West Indies. These were the mighty Nelson days, but it ;was not Sir Chas. Napier's good fortune, to be engaged in any of the great naval "battles for. which the early part of this^Cfntejgi;. is ..Teno.wne^.^Q^*:' cruisera, however, were on every eea,. and -Napier had not a few opportunities i of distinction^ in; fighting single vessjßlp -brtHe-'TOemy^m^cdtlbmg out merchantmen, arid in attacking West Indian islands, such as St. Thomas and Martinique. , In an action witfc a Frendh dorvetfe ; ;pf twen^-tyro guns he had hifl thigh bVoken by a shot. Iv the

attack upon Martinique ho won great applause for his temerity in sealing the ramparts withibut five men, and in planting the Union Jafck on Fort St. Edward. ] He won promotion as wpII as applause for his conduct in a subsequent affair, when, he assisted Sir .Alexander Cochrane (now a well-known name) in chastising three French shipa of fche line, and Jn capturing one of them, a seventy-four. He pressed the enemy .so hard, and did them so much damage that his eorarnander made him captain at once, and the Admiralty were not; slow to confirm the appointment. The next thing that we hear of him is in the Peninsula, amusing himself in the campaign with his cousins George, Charles, and William Napier. Here " Black Charles," as he was called by his cousins, saw a good deal of land fighting ; was, indeed, talking to the other Charles when a bullet entered, the nose of the latter, lodged in the jaw, and shattered the bone. In November, 1810, Charles James Napier writes to his mother, "Black Charles is as queer a fellow as ever crossed me, and as honest a one," and then he gives the copy of a letter which the queer fellow, on quitting the army, addressed to the First Lord of the Admiralty : — Sir, — My leave of absence is just out. I don't think it worth remaining here, for I expect you will give me a ship, as I am almost tired of campaigning, which is a rum concern. C. N. The result of thiß appeal w^s an appointment to the Thames, 32. When the peace came again, Napier, like many another gallant spirit, found himself condemned to inactivity. After fourteen years' waiting he he found employment again in the Galatea, on the Portuguese coast, and it was in this period of his life that he first acquired a great position before the public. In performing his service for the British Government he became interested in the affairs of Portugal, and ventured both to express hia opinion as to the feasibility of certain operations, and to exert himself in the cau9e of Don Pedro. Considerable sympathy was felt in this country for Don Pedro, and an expedition under Captain Sartorious left the Thames in support of his claims. Eventually the command of this expedition devolved on Captain Napier, who succeeded in vanquishing the fleet of Don Miguel. He was, in 1&36, appointed second in command of the Mediterranean fleet, under Sir Robert Stopford, and he came in for some fighting on the Syrian coast. He is a very prominent figure in the Btorming of Sidonpin the defeat of Ibrahim Pasha among the mountains of"Beyroufc, and most glorions of all in the reduction of Acre. Sir Charles Napier among the mountains of Beyrout would -no doubt again be described by his cousin as " the queerest fellow he ever earaa across," and as he led the British tars, riding an ass, covered with a great straw hat, wielding a, huge stick, and followed by his dog Pow, he raised many a laugh. But if Napier on land cut a queer figure, he ■•appeared in a different light on his native element. The attadk on Acre was a very brilliant affair, in which he won golden opinions. lie wa3 made a Knight Commander of the Bath, and shortly afterwards, on hi 3 return to England, he was appointed to the command of the Channel fleet. Ie was now" that lie began to work his critical faculty. He exposed many naval abuses, and he suggested not a few reforms, some of which lie had the good fortune to see adopted before he died ; but he carried the3e attacks too far, and rendered his suggestions of a doubtful vulue through the personality of style which he exhibited in common with his cousins. When the Russian war broke out all the indiscretions of his pen and tongue were forgotten, aud, with much effervescence of champagne at the Reform Clnb, he was appointed to the command of the Baltic fleet. After the Baltic cruise he won the sweet voices of Southwark, in the representation of which borough his death creates a vacancy. The fatigues of the recent session proved too much for even his iron frame. About ten days since he was seized with dysentery, arid, though the'progress of the disease seemed checked at first, he suffered a relapse, and died yesterday morning, at his residence in Hampshire. In private life he, was revered and respected as a tender father and a faithful friend.