Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 47887-h.htm or 47887-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47887/47887-h/47887-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47887/47887-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/sircharlesnapier00butluoft English Men of Action SIR CHARLES NAPIER [Illustration: Logo] [Illustration: SIR CHARLES NAPIER.] SIR CHARLES NAPIER by COLONEL SIR WILLIAM F. BUTLER London Macmillan and Co. And New York 1890 All rights reserved CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE THE HOME AT CELBRIDGE--FIRST COMMISSION 1 CHAPTER II EARLY SERVICE--THE PENINSULA 14 CHAPTER III CORUNNA 27 CHAPTER IV THE PENINSULA IN 1810-11--BERMUDA--AMERICA--ROYAL MILITARY COLLEGE 46 CHAPTER V CEPHALONIA 62 CHAPTER VI OUT OF HARNESS 75 CHAPTER VII COMMAND OF THE NORTHERN DISTRICT 86 CHAPTER VIII INDIA--THE WAR IN SCINDE 98 CHAPTER IX THE BATTLE OF MEANEE 117 CHAPTER X THE MORROW OF MEANEE--THE ACTION AT DUBBA 136 CHAPTER XI THE ADMINISTRATION OF SCINDE 152 CHAPTER XII ENGLAND--1848 TO 1849 175 CHAPTER XIII COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF IN INDIA 188 CHAPTER XIV HOME--LAST ILLNESS--DEATH 203 CHAPTER I THE HOME AT CELBRIDGE--FIRST COMMISSION Ten miles west of Dublin, on the north bank of the Liffey, stands a village of a single street, called Celbridge. In times so remote that their record only survives in a name, some Christian hermit built here himself a cell for house, church, and tomb; a human settlement took root around the spot; deer-tracks widened into pathways; pathways broadened into roads; and at last a bridge spanned the neighbouring stream. The church and the bridge, two prominent land-marks on the road of civilisation, jointly named the place, and Kildrohid or "the church by the bridge" became henceforth a local habitation and a name, twelve hundred years later to be anglicised into Celbridge. To this village of Celbridge in the year 1785 came a family which had already made some stir in the world, and was destined to make more.