NAPIER, SIR CHARLES JAMES (1782-1853), British soldier and statesman, was born in London, the eldest son of Colonel George Napier (a son of the 5th Lord Napier) and Lady Sarah Lennox, on Aug. Io, 1782. He was lieutenant in 1800 and captain in the staff corps under Sir John Moore. He became major in 1806 and served in the Danish campaign (1807) and in Portu gal, but was badly wounded at Coa and Busaco. He took part in the pursuit of Massena and became lieutenant-colonel (181 1) of the 1 o2nd regiment, which he thoroughly reorganized. At Bermuda in 1813 he served against the United States; but re turned in 1815 and was made C.B. From 1822 to 1830 he was military resident of Cephalonia, where he met Lord Byron, and was recommended as commander-in-chief of the Greek forces. Napier declined, and, after trouble with Sir Frederick Adams, the high commissioner, he became commanding officer in the north of England during the Chartist riots (1839), although his sympa thies were on the popular side. He accepted an Indian commis sion in 1841, and in September 1842 was ordered to Sind.
His command in Sind lasted until August 1847. He at once determined to seek the first opportunity of conquering the amirs. He was to be accompanied by James Outram (q.v.) who had been British resident in Sind during the Afghan War. On Feb. 15, 1843, Outram was treacherously assailed at Hyderabad, and on the 17th Napier attacked the Baluch army 30,00o strong, with but 2,800 men. With these 2,80o men, including the 22nd regi ment, he won the brilliant and decisive victory of Miani, one of the most amazing in the history of the British army, in which generals had to fight like privates. In March he finally destroyed the army of the amirs at the battle of Hyderabad, and for this service received the K.C.B. Sind, when it came under British rule, was in a state of anarchy, for the Baluchis had formed a tyrannical military government. The native population was protected by Sir Charles Napier. The difficulties of administra tion were increased by the necessity of repressing the hill tribes, encouraged to lawless acts by the licence which followed the Afghan War; the later years were made very stormy by attacks in England on the policy of the conquest. Napier left Sind in August 1847 after quarreling with nearly every authority in India. His short stay in England was occupied with incessant struggles with the directors of the East India Company, but the panic in England which followed the news of the indecisive victory of Chillianwalla obliged the company to summon the greatest general of the day to command its armies.
Napier left for India at once, only to find that the victory of Gujrat had been won and the Sikh War was over. He was on good terms with the governor-general, Lord Dalhousie, until, in Dalhousie's absence at sea, Napier took upon himself, in face of a threat of mutiny, to alter the regulations regarding allow ances to native troops. On Dalhousie's return he reprimanded the
commander-in-chief, and reversed his decision. Napier immedi ately resigned, and, when Wellington repeated the reprimand, he returned to England.
He has been credited with foreseeing the Mutiny of 1857, and on the whole with justice. On one occasion he wrote that mutiny was "one of the greatest, if not the greatest, danger threatening India—a danger that may come unexpectedly, and if the first symptoms be not carefully treated, with a power to shake Leaden hall." On the mutiny of the 66th native regiment at Govindgarh he disbanded it, and handed its colours over to a Gurkha regi ment, thus showing that he distrusted the high-class Brahman, and recognized the necessity of relying upon a more warlike and more disciplined race. His constitution was undermined by the Indian climate, and he died at Portsmouth on Aug. 29, 1853. The bronze statue of him by G. G. Adams, which stands in Tra falgar Square, London, was erected by public subscription, by far the greater number of the subscribers being, as the inscription records, private soldiers.