Napier

“ By bearing inland, Napier would cross at its narrowest the neck of what he used to think looked like the wreckage of a pier. Quite suddenly he would come into a gentler region, a gradual acclivity that led through willow and heather and bracken up to the apex of the height which, midmost of the island, commanded all points of the compass. If there was an installation, it would be there masked from the mainland, among the rocks at the top of the gorge. And if the installation was there, Napier would find it, provided somebody did not first find him. ”

“ As the world translates the phrase, Napier was perhaps not a successful man. Yet he lived to see the principles he had struggled for through life, and suffered for in his struggles, everywhere triumphant. The great circle of human sympathy growing wider with every hour, and some new tribe among the toiling outcasts of men taken within its long-closed limits. ”

“ Between them stood Napier, determined upon using to the utmost the immense power which the Viceroy had placed in his hands, and seeing far beyond the present dispute a time when this valley of the Indus must all become British territory; seeing it in imagination, too, a happy valley waving with grain, peopled by a peaceful and contented population free from the exactions of semi barbarian chiefs, and enjoying the blessings of a government which would rule them with patriarchal justice—a picture the reality of which no human eye has ever looked on. ”

“ Napier went on with his sorting.
"It's too nerve-racking," she said with increasing agitation. "Each one thinks the other has got over that old madness. But the letters they write me...! Frantic!" She came closer still. She laid her hand on Napier's sleeve. "Do you know, sometimes I'm afraid...." She drew back, as a step sounded on the gravel.
"The Pforzheims!" Napier said to himself.
But a very different apparition stood there. The girl in the Mercury cap. Not so blithe as the day before—eager still, but wistful.
"Why, my dear Nan!" ”

“ Again, in 1821, Napier went to Greece and travelled extensively through the country. As he wanders by the battle-fields whose names will never die he is busy fighting them again with modern armies. On the plain of Chæronea he thinks the marsh in front impassable for guns, and sees how Pindus and Parnassus secure a flank; and at Thermopylæ he notes how the sea has receded from the mountain, but thinks three thousand men instead of three hundred might still hold the position against an army. ”

“ In the autumn of 1850 Charles Napier set out on the homeward journey. The last scenes in India were pleasant to the old soldier about to close his long and eventful career. He reviews once more his own favourite Twenty-Second Regiment and presents them with new colours. The soldiers of Meanee and Hyderabad received their chief with a frantic enthusiasm and delight that more than made amends for the neglect of the great and powerful; and the entire army too, whose deep heart the follies and the fashions of the moment cannot reach, bent its head as the old hero passed ”

“ Twice Napier had his fingers almost on the trigger, and twice his hand was wrenched away. The last time a thick voice whispered, "Drop it! Don't you know you're a dead man if you make a sound?" The voice of Bloom, Sir William's chauffeur! He had got Napier down again; the full weight of the assailant's body was on Napier's head; his left arm pinned under him. In that strangling darkness Napier told himself the end had come. He was dead already. ”

“ When Colonel Napier settled at Celbridge he was still in his prime, a man formed both in mind and body to conquer and direct in camp, court, or council; and yet, for all that, a failure as the world counts its prizes and blanks in the lottery of life. ”

“ Napier could not leave this desperate conflict. He saw the struggle could not last much longer, and, judging that the supreme moment had come, he sent orders to his cavalry on the left to charge on the enemy's right. He himself rode up and down his infantry line, holding, as it seemed, a charmed life, while urging his men to sustain the increasing fury of the enemy. The British cavalry swept down on the enemy's right, dashed through their guns, rode over the high bank of the river, crossed its bed, gained the plain beyond, and charged into the enemy's rear with irresistible fury. ”

“ Napier was knocked and jostled. The old gas-sickness was heavy on him. He took refuge on a sea-chest behind a pile of luggage, and sent Day to keep places in the train. When he lifted his swimming head, struggling still against that tide of nausea rising to choke him, Napier saw that the crowd had thinned now to a few groups of last, despairing lingerers. Even the cries for Jimmy O'Brian had sunk into the same stillness that wrapped the sailor at the bottom of the sea. A little old man in a threadbare coat closely buttoned round a meager body went up to the guard at the foot of the gangway. ”

“ Napier said aloud. The figure in front neither turned nor tarried. On and on.
Napier smiled. His friend was hurrying along under the stars toward a planet mightier for light and leading than any in the heavens—a candle set in the window of a girl.
Before Napier had finished sorting the next morning's letters, the Grants' chauffeur drove up to Kirklamont with a note.
Must see you before the others come. Car will wait and bring you to the landing.
J. G.
The slight figure was prancing up and down the strip of sand between encircling rocks. ”

“ NAPIER AND ETTRICK, FRANCIS NAPIER, Baron (1819–1898) , British diplomatist, was descended from the ancient Scottish family of Napier of Merchistoun, his ancestor Sir Alexander Napier (d. c. 1473) being the elder son of Alexander Napier (d. c. 1454) , provost of Edinburgh, who obtained lands at Merchistoun early in the 15th century. Sir Alexander was comptroller of the household of the king of Scotland, and was often sent to England and elsewhere on public business. Of his descendants one Napier of Merchistoun was killed at Sauchieburn, another fell at Flodden and a third at Pinkie. ”

“ Napier wondered drily that anybody should expect to get the stuff out of England.
"Personal wardrobe. Member of household of cabinet minister. Special privileges. And nobody knows better that avoidance of publicity is worth thousands of pounds to Sir William and, I daresay, to the Government. She's playing it for all she's worth. She's got this Mr. Julian Grant in her pocket, too. He's up with her now."
The lift came down with Nan. She made a little hurried bow, and was for escaping. Napier stood there in front of her. ”

“ Nan, with her white veil cloud-like round her face, looked at the track of light across the water. The moon wore a cloud round her face, too, but she looked in and out. The girl was very still.
"Oh, my dear! my dear!" Napier's heart cried so loud that in a kind of terror he fell upon audible speech. "It is the most wonderful night I ever—" and he stopped. His voice sounded strange. As she turned from the moon-path on the water to meet Napier's look fastened on her, he saw that her eyes had brought away some of the restlessness as well as some of the glitter of the sea. ”

“ The picture of his arrival at the scene of action has been given us by Charles Napier, and there are few more striking bits of battle-painting. Napier is standing in front of his line, his pickets are falling back from Elvina before the advancing French skirmishers; behind the enemy's light troops Mermet's heavy column of infantry is coming on rapidly to the attack, their shouts of En avant! rising above the crack of musketry or the boom of the battery whose shot is tearing fast through the line. ”

“ Is descended from John Napier, “to whom” says Hume, the historian, “the title of Great Man is more justly due, than to any other whom his country ever produced.” He was the inventor of the Logarithms and Robdologice, commonly called “Napier’s Bones;” and likewise author of a “Treatise on the Revelation of St. John.” These works will remain lasting monuments of his sublime judgment, knowledge, and penetration. His only son by his first wife was created a Scotch peer, by the title of Baron Napier, May 4, 1627. ”

“ I have also much gratification in stating, that Captain Napier, who did me the honor to accompany me on shore with a party of seamen and marines, contributed materially by his cool, judicious, and actively intrepid conduct, ably seconded by the gallantry of Lieutenant Travers, of H.M.S. Imperieuse, to surmount all difficulties in gaining the heights – in the face of an opposing and strongly posted numerous enemy, whom we had afterwards the satisfaction of dislodging and obliging to retreat, leaving us in full possession of the heights and telegraph tower. ”

“ Napier is described by Wishart as ‘a man of most innocent life and happy parts; a truly noble gentleman, and chief of an ancient family; one who equalled his father and grandfather, Napiers—philosophers and mathematicians famous through all the world—in other things, but far excelled them in his dexterity in civil business’ (Wishart, Memoirs of Montrose) . ”

“ Napier appears, in the fragmentary records that have survived, as a man both just in his dealings with his neighbours and firmly resolved to obtain like justice from them. In his disputes with his father, his step-brothers, the Grahams of Boquhopple, and the magistrates of Edinburgh, he seems invariably to have carried his point. He was a strict Calvinist, and a resolute opponent of papal aggression. His powerful intellect and determined will are best indicated in his prolonged and successful efforts to facilitate numerical calculation which resulted in his discovery of logarithms. ”

“ Rose expressed his warmest thanks to Napier for his skilful management. On the 18th Rose left for Gwalior, leaving Napier at Morar to guard the cantonment and pursue the enemy on receipt of orders. Gwalior was captured on the 19th, and orders sent to Napier to pursue the flying enemy as far and as closely as he could. Napier, with seven hundred men, came up with Tantia Topi, who had with him twelve thousand men and twenty-five guns, on the plains of Jaora Alipúr. ”

“ As the best chance of shaking off the deadly infection, Napier steered away to the westward, and the ship ‘had not proceeded many leagues ere the disease most suddenly disappeared.’ By the evening of the 24th the squadron was off the mouth of the Tagus, when Napier learned that Lisbon had surrendered to the Duke of Terceira the night before. He entered the river the next day, and paid a visit to Rear-admiral Parker, commanding the English fleet then lying there [see Parker, Sir William, (1781–1866) ] , when he was much gratified at being received according to his Portuguese rank. ”

“ Napier found a state of things bordering on war. For a short time he listened to his political adviser, then he acted for himself, and in the course of a few months Sind was conquered. The conquered country had now to be organised. Napier had a great talent for administration. His administrative staff was composed principally of military men, who were naturally unfavourably criticised by their civilian brethren; but Napier knew he had the support of the governor-general, and he energetically pushed forward the work of settlement. ”

“ During the latter years of his life Napier resided almost entirely in Scotland, acting as convener of his county, and interesting himself generally in local affairs. He was extremely popular with people of all classes on and in the neighbourhood of his estate, to whom he had endeared himself by his kindly and generous nature. ”

“ As Napier listened, obviously unmoved, there came into Nan's earnestness a note that gave him more uneasiness than her "opinions"—a note of anxiety, a note of something very like panic. "You can't send that! It—it might make such trouble, not only—not to people you call your enemies." She caught herself up. "As Julian says, 'The reactions from that kind of tyranny—'"
Napier said quietly he must accept the reactions.
"But you can't!" she repeated. "It's the greatest mercy you've showed it to me. Oh, Gavan, you don't want to make trouble between England and America? ”

“ Napier, in no measured language, laid the blame on the admiralty, for not having supplied him with gunboats, and on his fleet, as very badly manned and still worse disciplined (Earp, freq.; Times, 7 Feb. 1855; Codrington, p. 497) . The admiralty and public opinion, on the other hand, laid the blame on Napier himself, on his capricious humour or want of nerve, which—there were people who said—had been destroyed by too liberal and long continued potations of Scotch whisky; while others referred to his own published words: ‘Most men of sixty are too old for dash and enterprise. ... ”

“ Thus was Napier taken prisoner. From this narrative we get many side-lights upon many subjects. Firstly, the composite character of Napoleon's army in Spain, and the fact that the Frank fights with the chivalry of the true soldier; it is the Italian who is all for murder. Secondly, we find all through this narrative of Napier's that our own soldiers were almost wholly Irish. This Fiftieth Regiment which he commands is called the West Kent, but its soldiers are almost to a man Irish. [2] The Forty-Second man who appears on the scene, although nominally a Highlander, is in reality an Irishman. ”

“ Napier's columns, fed from their bases on the Indus, would advance cautiously into the labyrinth; the hill-men, forced together in masses, would eat out their supplies; the same walls of rock which kept out an enemy would now keep in the assembled tribes.
Before setting his columns in motion from the Indus, Napier adopted many devices to lull the clans into a fancied security. The fever still clung to his soldiers, and so deadly was its nature that nearly the whole of the Seventy-Eighth Highlanders perished at Sukkur. ”