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ing or passage of food, can tell what small but constant suffering is undergone. For thirty six years I have not known what it is to breathe freely." The barbarous practice of drawing additional blood from wounded men, which the surgeons of that day clung to, rendered him ever afterwards very susceptible to cold. He was sent to Lisbon after the battle, to recover from his wounds.

Before his wounds had healed news came that Massena was retreating, and that Lord Wellington had left the lines of Torres Vedras, and was in pursuit of him. With his face and head still bandaged, Charles Napier mounted his horse and rode ninety two miles in twenty two hours, and reached his regiment, which was now with the army, on the morning of the 13th of March. The horse he had ridden was his favorite, and he feared that the tremendous exertion would kill it, but he said he preferred losing it to missing the fight at Condeixa. The noble animal however, was not harmed by the ride. On the morning after he reached the army, and while hastening to the front where the Light Division was engaged, he met a litter covered with a blanket. "What officer is that?" he asked. "Captain Napier of the 52d, with a broken limb." In a few minutes he met another litter. "What officer is that?" he asked. "Captain Napier of the 43d, mortally wounded." He did not stop to speak to either of the brothers, whom he tenderly loved, but hastened into the action. Fortunately he passed through it unhurt. His brothers' injuries were not as severe as was thought at first, and they recovered in the course of a few months.

While lying in front of the lines of Torres Vedras, Massena had exhausted the country of its provisions, and during his retreat wasted it with fire and sword. Owing to this the English army suffered greatly in the pursuit from a scarcity of food. Major Napier in his weak condition was subjected to great privations. For nearly three days he did not taste a morsel of food. He bore his trials cheerfully, and made light of his sufferings. "The essence of war," he wrote many years afterwards, "is endurance, and not only that, but a pride and glory in privation, and a contempt for comfort as effeminate and disgraceful."

During the pursuit of Massena many instances of noble devotion and generosity occurred. William Light, a young cavalry officer, was fortunate enough to secure a loaf of bread, and although suffering greatly himself for want of food, rode twenty miles across the mountains to Condeixa at the risk of his life to carry the bread to the wounded Napiers. Throwing it to them, he mounted his horse without speaking a word, and returned to his regiment.

Sir William Napier thus relates another instance:

"A temporary bridge near the Murcella had to be destroyed by powder during Massena's advance; but the match failed, the enemy poured on, and the passage seemed lost! then a man of Charles Napier's old corps-would to God his name had been preserved to posterity-exclaimed, 'It shall not fail,-they shall not pass.' So saying, he deliberately walked along the structure, a floating one, to the mine, relighting the match, and bending his noble head over the spark, continued to watch its deadly progress until the explosion sent him from a world he was too heroic to live in."

over.

In July, 1811, Charles Napierwas made Lieutenant Colonel. It was a very tardy act of justice. All those who had been Majors holding separate commands at Corunna had received their promotions, and Charles Napier had alone been passed General Bentinck had declared that the immediate cause of the victory was the timely advance of the 50th regiment under Major Napier, and that had he been spared, Sir John Moore would have asked for his promotion for his gallant services, in the previous retreat. Had Moore's orders for the 50th to be supported been obeyed, Soult's army would have been destroyed. Unfortunately for young Napier, General Moore was killed, and his own name, in spite of his great service was not even mentioned in the official reports of the action. His subsequent conduct was, however, too marked to be overlooked, and the long delayed promotion came at last. He was subjected to a great mortification even in his advance

ment.

The regiment to which he was assigned, was the 102d, which had just returned from New South Wales completely disorganized, and he was ordered to leave the Peninsula, and take charge of it at once. He joined it in January, 1812, having

been detained for some time in Lisbon by sickness. Before he had recovered his health, he was ordered to Bermuda. Nothing but his stern sense of duty enabled him to meet the disappointment of not being sent into active service.

His life in Bermuda was not pleasant. He wrote to his mother:

"My broken jaw did not give me half the pain the life we lead here does. A wet climate, nothing to eat, no fruit, no vegetables, no wine, no good company; for the people after cheating you in their shops all day have the impudence to think they are to be your companions in the evening."

While in Bermuda he devoted himself to study and to disciplining his regiment. He never at any time in his life asked anything of his soldiers that he was not willing to perform himself. The yellow fever broke out, and raged with violence, Many of the troops were swept off, and the greatest terror reigned among the garrison. One evening they buried an Ensign. This event increased the depression of the officers and All who attended the funeral hastened to a party to drive away their painful feelings. Colonel Napier remained in his chamber, resolved to conquer the terror which was striving to obtain the mastery over him. "I put out one candle," he says, "and let the snuff of the other grow as long as my own nose, and at midnight my lowness was overcome; then quoth I, So! I am master: let me sleep."

men.

In June, 1813, he was sent with Sir Sidney Beckwith and Sir John Warren to ravage the coasts of the United States. He was second to Beckwith, and had under him a brigade of marines, and some volunteers from the French prisoners taken in the war, besides his own regiment. He was shocked at the outrages committed by the British land and naval forces along the Chesapeake and its tributaries, and did all in his power to prevent them. General Beckwith was also a humane man, but was powerless to control Admirals Warren and Cockburn. Referring to the outrages committed by the French volunteers, he wrote as follows:

"They really murdered without an object, but for the pleasure of murdering. One robbed a poor Yankee and pretended all sorts of

anxiety for him. It was the custom of war, he said, to rob a prisoner, but he was sorry for him. When he had thus coaxed the man into confidence, he told him to walk on before, as he must go to the General; the poor wretch obeyed, and when his back was turned the musket was fired into his brain. I would rather see ten of them shot than one American. It is quite shocking to see men who speak our own language brought in wounded; one feels as if they were English peasants, and that we are killing our own people."

In September, 1813, he left America for Europe, having exchanged into his old regiment, the 50th, that he might once more be with it in battle. He was disappointed, however, for when he reached England, the war was over. He did not re

main idle. He had been a close observer of men and measures during the time he had borne arms, and also a rigid student of military science. He had laid surely and securely the foundation upon which he afterwards built his greatness. At the close of the war, he entered the Military College at Farnham with his brother William. He was now thirty two, but he did not consider himself too old to learn. Upon the return of Napoleon from Elba, he hastened to the Continent, intending to join the army as a volunteer. The Emperor moved too quickly for him. Before he reached the army Waterloo had been fought, and he had to content himself with assisting at the storming of Cambray, and a share in the fight at Paris. After the overthrow of Napoleon be returned to the college at Farnham, where he remained till the close of 1817. He studied hard, and even after he had become the chief of an army carried with him constantly the instructions of Frederick the Great, and consulted them daily. Thirty years after he left the college he wrote to a young friend:

"By reading you will be distinguished; without it abilities are of little use. A man may talk and write, but he can not learn his profession without constant study to prepare, especially for the higher rank, because he then wants knowledge and experience of others improved by his own. But when in a post of responsibility he has no time to read, and if he comes to such a post with an empty skull, it is then too late to fill it, and he makes no figure. Thus, many people fail to distinguish themselves, and say they are unfortunate, which is untrue; their own previous idleness unfitted them to profit by fortune."

In 1819 Colonel Napier was appointed inspecting field officer in the Ionian Islands. This position was not pleasant to him, as he had scarcely anything to do, and with him life was action. Several times he was sent on secret missions to Ali Pacha at Joannina, and in 1821 obtained permission to travel in Greece. He has left us in his journal a most interesting account of his travels through that ancient land. Every page is full of instruction. He paid particular attention to the topographical features of the country, and his journal contains numerous plans for its defence.

In 1821 he visited England, but was back at his post in January, 1822. Upon his return he was appointed Military Resident of Cephalonia, or Lieutenant to the Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands. In this position his power was absolute, and his capacity for civic government fully and successfully tested. Referring to his duties, he says:

"Besides being king, I am bishop also, and all the convents and churches are under me; the priests can not kill a fowl without my written order. My predecessor is going home half dead from labor; but to me it is health, spirit, everything. I live for some use now. I take no rest myself, and give nobody else any."

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He did not exaggerate. He labored incessantly. Fourteen hours a day he always passed in attending to public business. He constructed splendid roads over rocky steeps where only wretched mule paths had existed previously; he built moles and market places, widened the streets, and so entirely changed the prisons that they were fit for the use of human beings. Indeed, we may say he re-created the country over which he ruled, and under him even-handed justice was rigidly and impartially dispensed. He thus declares the secret of his success :

"How entirely all things depend on the mode of executing them, and how ridiculous mere theories are! My successor thought, as half the world always thinks, that a man in cominand has only to order, and obedience will follow. Hence they are baffled, not from want of talent, but from inactivity. Vainly thinking that while they spare themselves, every one under them will work like horses."

In the midst of his usefulness, he was removed from his office. In 1830, Sir F. Adams, the then Lord High Commissioner,

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