The history of General Sir Charles Napier's conquest of Scinde

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Chapter I

To the British people this work is dedicated. The conquest which it records, and the character of the conqueror, belong to the nation, which will not fail to do justice to a man who displayed such bravery in war, and such beneficient administrative wisdom in peace. But it is necessary to place him under the people's protection, because faction has designated him as one of a brood always eager to spill blood. It is true that he, and another of his name, have toppled down thrones and changed the fate of kingdoms. Don Miguel of Portugal, and the Egyptian Ibrahim, attest Admiral Napier's vigour in war ; while the fallen tyrants of Scinde, clanking their chains in the ears of sympathizing faction, attest that of General Napier. But to benefit mankind by peaceable arts has ever been the object of the man who warred so sternly at Meeanee.

In Cephalonia, where he long governed, his true tendencies were developed. For there he furrowed the lofty mountains with roads, in skilful contrivance equal, in greatness scarcely inferior to that of Mount Cenis. There he improved and adorned the harbour with fine quays, and light-houses of beautiful construction, created fisheries, and advanced agriculture. There he quelled feudal oppression, reformed the law courts, upheld justice, and honestly gained the affection of the labouring people by unceasing exertions, always evincing that benignity of purpose which renders the labours of peace glorious.

His efforts were painfully clogged by the vulgar jealousy of a splenetic man in power the Lord High Commissioner Adam— with whom stupid pomp was a vital principle of government, and whose narrow intellect led him always to obstruct and finally to drive Sir C. Napier from his post with an accusation of tyranny ! To this absurd and false charge Lord Ripon, the distant authority, listened ; but the people, called victims 0/ his misrule, passed their comment, and it is a precious one for those who honestly strive to aid the lowly. Thus it runs. Sir 0. Napier, when iniquitously deprived of his command, possessed in Cephalonia, a piece of land so small that he took no heed of it on his departure ; but the grateful Greek peasants voluntarily cultivated it and transmitted the value of the produce yearly to him, wherever he resided, without his being cognizant of their names !

Sir F. Adam could only see in the future conqueror of Scinde a person to be crushed by the leaden weight of power without equity ; he could not comprehend qualities so far above his own ; but they were noted by another observer of greater authority— one whose youthful genius pervaded the world while he lived, and covered it with a pall when he died : for to him, mountain and plain, lake and torrent, the seas, the skies, the earth, light and darkness yielded their poetic secrets, to be told with such harmonious melody that listening nations marvelled at the sound, and when it ceased they sorrowed. Lord Byron, writing from Cephalonia in 1823, thus expressed himself. " Of Colonel Napier's military character it were superfluous to speak ; of his personal character I can say from my own knowledge, as well as from all public rumour, or private report, that it is excellent as his military ; in short, a better or a braver man is not easily to be found. He is our man to lead a regular force, or to organize a national one for the Greeks. Ask the army ; ask any one."

This eulogy, pronounced when Greece, struggling for freedom, like her own fabled Enceladus shook the world at every throe, had reference to a design formed by Sir C. Napier to deliver the bright land of ancient days. Largely conceived it was, and many brave enthusiastic men, habitu-

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ated to war, were ready with their valour, and wealth, which was not small, for thej were not mere adventurers, to throw themselves, under his guidance, into the Peloponnesus, where he was advantageously known by his wise and just government of Cephalonia, and by his benevolence towards the dispossessed Suliotes. The enterprise bad fair for success, but Byron's recommendation and Napier's proffered services were alike disregarded by the Anglo-Greek committee in London — a happy neglect, seeing that the acquisition of a great kingdom, and the restoration of the British military reputation in India, shaken by previous events, were the result.

This purposed descent on Greece was not the only project formed by him against the Turkish power, which he abhorred from witnessing the great cruelties exercised on the unhappy people of the Archipelago and Peloponnesus. He had been previously employed on a secret military mission to Ali, Pacha of Yoanina, to whom, when consulted as to operations against the Porte, he said, " Give me the selection of your troops, and one of the millions in your coffers, and in six weeks I will place you in the seraglio, Sultan of Constantinople, if you will declare the Christians free." The Pacha liked the project, but would not give the treasure ! One month afterwards he offered two millions ! The reply was : — " Too late, the Turks are in the Etolian mountains ! you are lost." And the miser, Ali, gave up his life and money together !

During his forced retirement from military life, Sir C. Napier added the following works to his country's literature, — The Roads of Cephalonia ; The Colonies ; Colonization, with Remarks upon small farms and overpopulation ; Military Law ; An Essay on the State of Ireland ; Notes upon De Vigny's Lights and Shadows of Military Life. Finally, a Historical Romance, called William the Conqueror, soon to be published, and evincing the Author's versatile powers.

Having become a Major-General, Lord Hill in 1839, at the recommendation of Lord Fitzroy Somerset, a man not to be swayed by calumny, which was not spared, placed him in command of the Northern District of England. It was a troubled period ; but acting as an officer entrusted with the preservation of social order, he gained the approbation of the Government, without ill-will from the people, who appreciated his honest desire for their welfare, while he controlled them by military force.

Passing through Egypt, he saw amidst the false glare given by interested persons, all the weakness and oppression of Mehemet Ali's government, which he thus exposed.

" A person staying but a short time in a country has no right to suppose he can trace causes with certainty : he can, however, judge of effects when they are strongly marked. Rich land, a variety of produce with a ready market for it in Europe, and a noble people, belong to this country. Mehemet Ali has ruled it for forty years, and the result is horrible ! I have not seen, nor can I hear of any deed of his, nor the result of his deeds, that has not the stamp of tyranny, of mischief, of villainy. His mind is capable of projecting clever things for his own supposed advantage, or pleasure, or renown ; incapable of great works for the regeneration of a people, or even for their temporary advantage : he does not even leave the means of subsistence in their possession ! His only really great work, the Canal of Mahmoudie, eighteen feet deep, ninety feet wide, and sixty miles long, cost, it is asserted here, the lives of twenty-nine thousand persons in one year, out of the hundred and fifty thousand employed : they were starved by him, and dug the canal with their hands I

" Take that as a sample of his infernal rule. A great man would have given them tools ; he would not, to save expense, have slain twenty-nine thousand poor men within the year. And when his canal was finished, the commerce on it would have proved its use and his greatness ; but no boat floats thereon which does not contain the Pacha's property, for no man but himself is a proprietor. This highway of two hundred miles through his dominions, for it is one with the Nile, exhibits no sign therefore that the barbarian's mind is either great or good. What encouragement has he given to his people ? None ! He has hired foreign men to make all things which he requires for war, and his

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establishments are of a size which render his government one of devilish oppression ; his monopolies no country could support ; he is living on his capital !

" To give an illustration of his system. In two districts, the rent being alike for each, some accident injures the crop on one and it becomes impossible for the people to pay more than half rent. The Pacha levies the deficiency on the other, and both are ruined ! An Abyssinian, or some merchant from the interior of Africa, arrives with merchandise, and is offered a large sum in cash. He cannot take it ! The Pacha seizes the goods and pays, when convenient, with articles from the Pacha's own stock of merchandise, to the amount of half the value ; and this robbery is so frequent as to be the rule, not the exception. - The Pacha then sells the goods to the original cash purchaser, and all trade is thus checked, except that which is in the hands of Englishmen. The result of all this is a ruined miserable people.

" The troops are ill equipped, but they are the best thing one sees, except the ships of war. The men, both soldiers and peasants, are fine strong Arabs with thin faces, intellectual to the greatest degree, good-humoured, honestlooking, and resolute. The Egyptian I have not been able yet to distinguish from the Arab, but all appear fine looking. In five days I have seen many beaten severely by men in authority, without any apparent cause ; they all seemed disposed to resist, but the consequences were too terrible, and smothered rage was very clearly depicted. Forty years' rule should have produced better fruit, if Mehemet Ali were, as we are told, a great man : of that I see no proof, no trace ! Ibrahim beat a man to death last week in this town (Cairo). The poor fellow did not bring eggs enough ? — e How many turkeys have you got ? How much corn do they eat ? Do they lay eggs to cover that amount ? ' 4 Yes ! ' t Then you must bring so many eggs daily.' The man failed for two or three days. Ibrahim sent for the wretched creature, and with his own hands, using a club, beat him to death ! I recollect his doing the like when I was in Cephalonia.

a Ali Pacha's '.vast improvements ,' have been to strengthen his forces, and he has done that, at ten times the cost necessary. My conviction is, that his reputation for greatness originates in the opinions and interests of silly English adventurers and speculating merchants, incapable of judging him, but whose fortunes he makes, and from no other source. The man lives upon his capital. How far this may be forced upon him I cannot tell."

Mehemet Ali's faults were not the only objects of animadversion. From a gentleman living in Egypt, and not unwilling to be quoted, Sir C. Napier heard, that the comptrollers of the British Museum bad directed the engineer employed to remove objects of ancient art from Egypt, to cut the statue of Sesostris into four pieces, that it might be sent to England more cheaply ! Obedience was refused.

Having reached Bombay in 1842, he took command at Poona, and in his letters from thence, forcibly depicted the vices of Lord Auckland's government, civil and military. His observations were laid before a minister of competent knowledge at home and were returned with this remark, " Too true a picture drawn by a master hand" But then Lord Ellenborough came to rebuke the nepotism of the directors, to curb the jobbing tribe, to reduce newspaper editors from a governing to a reporting class, and to raise the spirit of the army, sinking under insult and the domineering influence of a hireling press. India was thus saved.

At Poona, Sir C. Napier, desirous to exercise himself in the handling of troops, a practice necessary for the most experienced officer, if he would be a ready captain ; desirous also to restore neglected discipline, in what he truly called the " noble Indian army" broke the monotony of formal parades to work his troops over the neighbouring hills, arousing the latent military energies of the officers, and making all mindful that they were soldiers, not trainbands.

He disabused them also of a pernicious error, inculcated by the newspapers of India with a pertinacity of falsehood peculiarly characteristic. They said, and belief was given to them, though worthy only of unbelief, that the matchlock of the Afghan and other enemies was superior to the British musket in range and precision. Simply to reason against

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this fallacy, would, he knew, be fruitless. Promulgated with a bad motive, it had been accepted as a truth with dogged credulity, and could only be refuted practically. To draw attention he adopted this device : provoking a warm advocate for the matchlock to wage on a matchlock against a musket, he selected marksmen, practised with them until the best shooter was known, and then daily contended in person with that man. The^ were nearly equal : the camp became interested, bets were multiplied, and the subject occupied the soldiers' thoughts, which was the General's object. The stiffened neck of the prejudice was thus bent ; for at the end of two months the reputation of the matchlock was lost at Poona. Tfcis dexterous management indicated the great captain ere the red stamp of battle .made him patent; for previous to the trial a feeling was prevalent that to encounter the matchlock was to fall in useless strife. The sepoy's musket is however cumbrous for his, strength, because of that strange economy which spares a pound in the expense of a soldier's weapon at the cost of the soldier himself !

Observing many errors in the organization and discipline of the Indian army, Sir C. Napier digested in his own mind alterations with respect to the artillery and baggage, some of which he afterwards effected ; and always he was sanguine in these matters, because of the willingness to learn which he found in the Company's officers. But the follies of the time were great, and one for its supreme absurdity merits notice. Every soldier was ordered to have a large box, in addition to his usual baggage ; and the 22nd regiment, acting under this preposterous regulation, marched for Scinde with 1,300 boxes ! A camel could carry but four, and thus 300 camels, each occupying five yards in theory, in practice ten yards, were added to the other Indian impediments of a regiment. Truly the strong hand of Lord Ellenborough was wanting to lift the Indian Government from such a slough. He came in time, and no man watched his government with more anxiety than the General at Poona. Nor was this anxiety soon relieved, for, previous to the final burst of Nott and Pollock on Cabool, no positive principle of action to guide his judgment, was evinced in the operations, and he characterized the war by one expressive phrase. " A tragic harlequinade"

Meanwhile public opinion assigned him a capacity for great actions, and a vague prescience of coming glory which often foreruns victory, predisposing men to give all their energies for its attainment, prevailed in the military community. Yet he desired no active command beyond the Indus. He disliked the appearance of affairs, and dreaded the prevailing shameless system, which, having then no experience of Lord Ellenborough's energy, he could not hope to see overborne: — upheld as it was by faction and the influence of the Court of •Directors in England ; and in India by the most vehemently unscrupulous press that ever pandered for hire to bad men at the expense of the public interest. He had therefore no inclination to become responsible, according to his degree, for disasters he could not but anticipate from the policy of rulers, who were sure to charge their errors on the executive officers: for to make bricks without straw, and to be calumniated, is the task and fate of British generals.

An order from the Governor- General soon sent him to Scinde. Dated the 26th of August, it gave him the command of the troops in that country and in Beloochistan, with entire control over all the political agents and civil functionaries; and it peremptorily informed him that, "If the Ameers, or any one of them, should act hostilely, or evince hostile designs against the British forces, it was the Governor-General's fixed resolution never to forgive the breach of faith, and to exact a penalty which should be a warning to every chief in India."

The fierce tenure of this order, issued at a moment of great difficulty, after great disasters, bespoke in Lord Ellenborough a consciousness of danger, but magnanimous resolution ; it told the General that a crisis demanding all his energy and ability was at hand, that much was expected from him, but by a ruler who would neither shrink himself, nor fail towards others. Wherefore, with a frame slight and meagre, and, though of iron hardness, furrowed by

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wounds, he, in his sixty-first year hastened to take command as eagerly as a young warrior : bred in camps he had been fifty years awaiting this crowning trial. It is rare to see great prudence in war tempering the heroic valour and confidence of a youthful general; more rare to find the sanguine daring of early years untamed by age and its infirmities.

On the 3rd of September, Sir C. Napier embarked in the Zenohia steamer for Scinde, thus commencing his new career upon Oliver Cromwell's fortunate day, a coincidence which he noted with satisfaction. The augury was good, yet seemed at fault in the commencement ; for cholera broke out, and the hideous misery of the voyage he thus described :

" In six bitter days and nights we cast fifty-four dead into the sea, just one-fourth of our companions! One passenger, it happened, was a surgeon, and he was assisted by two native apprentices belonging to the hospitals: fortunately only two of the sailors died, or we should have been lost for want of hands. The engineer perished the third day, but happily there were amongst the passengers two. others going to the steamers on the Indus. Since landing ten more soldiers have died, and one captain : making sixty-four in all! This pulls down the spirits of men. It was the worst description of blue cholera. The agonies, the convulsions, the dreadful groans, were heartrending : and then the screams of the poor women who lost their husbands and children ! And amidst all this, in the darkness of the night, the necessity of throwing the dead overboard the instant life was extinct to make room for the living ! Then also, added to this scene of human wretchedness, the violent effects of the disease could not be cleaned, and extreme filth increased the misery. Well! God be praised ! it has ceased, but more troops are on this voyage and I dread to hear of similar sufferings, for most of it has been caused by neglect. I have made a formal complaint to Sir George Arthur, who, I am sure will stir about the matter. The Commander of the Zenohia, Mr. Newman, is a noble fellow. I believe all that were saved owe their lives to him ; and we, the officers, have given him a gold snuff-box in token of our gratitude. On making the land both mates got drunk, and such a night scene of confusion I never saw. We were nearly as possible on a reef of rocks ; we fired guns and rockets, but no help came ; had we struck, all must have perished; at least all the sick, eighty in number : at last we cast anchor, and luckily on good holding ground."

To provide for the survivors was his first care, and then further mishap befell himself. While attending some rocket practice, one of the fiery missiles tore the calf of his right leg to the bone ; but a life of temperance and a patient endurance, were repaid by a surprising cure ; the hurt healed by the first intention, and the fifth day saw him travelling up the Indus towards Hydrabad.

Some superstition the human intellect seems always to lean towards; many of the greatest minds have rested thereon, and those who deal in war seldom reject predestination. Sir C. Napier's life encourages this sentiment though reason should recoil. In infancy he was snatched at the last stage of starvation from a vile nurse ; when a young boy, attempting a dangerous leap, he tore the flesh from his leg in a frightful manner, and a few years later fractured the other leg. At the battle of Coruna, struggling with several French soldiers he received five terrible wounds, and but for the aid of a generous French drummer would there have been killed. At the battle of Busaco a bullet struck his face and lodged behind the ear, splintering the articulation of the jawbone, and with this dreadful hurt he made his way under a fierce sun to Lisbon, more than one hundred miles ! Returning from France, after the battle of Waterloo, the ship sunk off Flushing and he saved himself by swimming to a pile, to which he clung until a boat took him off, half drowned, for the beam was too large for climbing and he was overwhelmed by each recurring surge.

Now, escaping cholera, a second shipwreck, and the rocket stroke, he was hastening to conduct with matchless energy a dangerous war. But how the spare body,

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shattered in battle and worn by fifty years' service in every variety of climate, could suffice to place him amongst the famous captains of the world is a mystery. His star was in the East !

Scinde was politically disturbed. The British disasters at Cabool and Ghusni, the frequent checks given to detachments in the hills of Beloochistan, the recent repulse and consequent retreat of Colonel England before an Affghan force not more numerous than his own ; even the firm yet long isolated position of General Nott at Candahar, had abated the fear of British power in Scinde, and the Beloochees were, princes chiefs and followers, alike disposed for war. Colonel England was retiring from Shawl by the Bolan passes, through hostile tribes, having with him the main body of the troops destined to form the army in Scinde, and the Ameers were keenly watching his progress : had another disaster befallen him they would have commenced hostilities ; for only four thousand men were then in their country, at Sukkur and Kurrachee, four hundred miles apart, and without a secure communication.

This critical state of affairs was met with sagacity and energy. " Danger from their warfare I see none" wrote the General from Kurrachee. " I can beat all the princes of Scinde when England joins me, for I shall then have twelve thousand men. No cavalry however, and I should feel the want of it if the Ameers attack me ; but I shall have some soon. My difficulty will be to act -as chief political agent to the Governor-General. I believe his intentions to be just and honourable. I know my own are. But Hell is paved with good intentions, and both of us may have great difficulties to encounter. Yet I feel neither diffidence nor hesitation. My plan is formed, so is Lord Ellenborough's, and I believe they are alike. The hill tribes threaten to fall on England's column as it descends the Bolan pass. There are however reasons to doubt this, and I have sent to advise and authorize the Commander in Upper Scinde to make a forward movement towards the pass ; which I hope he will be able to do, and thus favour England's retreat by menacing the rear of his enemies. He has the mass of my troops with him ; I have only four thousand in Upper Scinde. I ought to have been here two months ago. I have now to travel two hundred miles up the Indus, with a guard of only fifty men, through a hostile country. "This appears foolish, but I ' must get to my troops. I set off to-morrow, and there will be no small interest in threading the windings of the noble river Indus.''

At Hydrabad he resolved to wait on the Ameers as a mark of respect, and to make personal observation of their characters. These Princes, barbaric of race and feelings, sensual and treacherous, were yet polite of manners, and subtile to sound those depths and shallows of the human mind formed by crime and passion — they had guides thereto in their own dispositions, but for virtues they had no tests and looked not for them. They knew, having made diligent inquiry, that the General came with all political as well as military power, which had not been before even when Lord Keane menaced their capital at the head of a great army, therefore they hastened to offer suitable respect. Their palanquin was sent for his use, and this the highest honour of their court was enhanced by the presence of their sons, who met him beyond the city gates, bringing camels for his retinue.

Around them clustered the great Sirdars and nobles on horseback, with thousands of retainers, chiefs and followers, having keen heavy swords girt to their sides and large shields thrown over their shoulders. The General was at the head of his own guard of the wild horsemen of India. Thus they met, the two masses commingling, and being surrounded by a multitude on foot, shouting and screaming, moved altogether with a rushing pace towards the palace. A gorgeous disarray ! All were clothed in bright colours, their splendid arms gleamed and glittered in the broad sunbeams ; and high above the crowd the giant camels swayed their huge bodies to and fro with an uneasy motion, while the fiery horses, bearing rich housings, neighed and bounded with violence from side to side, their swarthy riders writhing their bodies convulsively and tossing their sinewy hands aloft with frantic energy. And all this time the

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multitude on foot were no less vehement. Wearing fine embroidered caps, which set off their handsome eager faces, their piercing eyes, their teeth of snowy whiteness, they pressed forwards, fighting and crushing each other to see the « General Saib of the Feringees." He, reclining in the open, high arched palanquin of crimson and gold, a small darkvisaged old man with a falcon's glance, must have disappointed their expectations, for they knew not then the heroic force of mind which was to invalidate their wild strength and furious courage on the dreadful field of Meeanee. Now, ignorant, proud and fierce', with barbarian pomp they passed tumultously along, winding in the deep shadows of the ancient massive towers of Hydrabad, their numbers increasing at every step, until they reached the embattled gate of the fortress, through which the bearers of the palanquin could scarcely struggle to the palace, but when they did the hubbub ceased.

The Ameers, having, as they said, consideration for the General's recent hurt, held their Dhurbar in the Court below to spare him the ascent of their great staircase. Richly they were dressed, and their swords and shields resplendent with gold and jewels. None were handsome, but all were youthful save Nusseer and another, both being however younger than their visitor. Sweetmeats and provisions were presented, and compliments exchanged, while each party watched keenly for indications of character by which to guide their future intercourse. What impression the Englishman made cannot be known, but the studied respect, the oriental politeness, the princely pomp and display of wild military power, by which the Ameers sought to impose on him, failed to affect his judgment. Well knowing that with barbarians friendship is self-interest and wisdom deceit, he kept his mind immoveably intent upon his mission. He was in Scinde, not to bandy compliments with Princes but to maintain the power and influence and interests of England in all their integrity at a moment of danger, when a slight concession might prove fatal. With this object diplomatic cajolery had no proper connection. His orders were to maintain the cause of British India by a fair and just, though stern and unyielding policy, by force of arms if policy failed. Putting their flattering attentions aside, he gave them an austere warning that the unsteady weak policy of the political agents was ended, and international obligations would be henceforth •rigidly enforced : for at Kurrachee he had obtained proof of their malpractices, and now in writing told them that he would, if they did not cease, make the Governor-General cognizant of them with a view to a forcible remedy.

This letter being delivered, he passed on to Sukkur, where he arrived the 5th of October, and forthwith commenced a policy which reduced the Ameers to choose between an honest alliance or a terrible war. They chose dishonesty and battle ; but their deceit was baffled by a superior intellect, and their swords were broken by stronger arms. Why it so happened shall be shewn in another place : — clearly it shall be shewn that the war was of the Ameers' seeking, and their heavy misfortunes were a just punishment of their folly and wickedness — misery to them, to the world a benefit. With abilities and energy placing him amongst the greatest of those famed western captains who have forced the pride of the East to stoop on the battle field, Sir C. Napier sought not strife, it was thrust upon him ! But the peculiar position of Scinde in 1842, and its connection with British Indian policy when he assumed the command at Sukkur must be first considered by those who seek the truth, and are desirous to be assured that the dreadful sword of England was not drawn in an unjust quarrel. Wherefore the next chapter shall contain a retrospective examination — for the Scindian war was no isolated event. To use the conqueror's expression, it was " The tail of the Affghan storm"