seize this portal. They obeyed his order, and although their captain was killed in the gate, yet this company of eighty men cooped up six thousand in their own snare, and virtually gained the battle. The resistance in front was tremendous. The Belooches were brave and desperate men. They charged the 22nd with vehemence, although the superior practice of the Irish muskets thinned their ranks rapidly, or laid them down_regularly where they had stood. The English artillery men swept the flank of the opposing army with continuous showers of grape; but they had to be protected from the fury of their wild opponents, who absolutely tore at the guns, and endeavoured to overturn them, while they were being blown from the cannon's mouth in companies. The carnage was appalling-the courage that sustained it unbending-but the Belooches were crowded in struggling masses, among whom a musket never missed, and the artillery tore up bloody lanes at every discharge. The physical endurance of men is, however, limited, and after his little army had been engaged for more | than three hours in this dreadful butchery, Sir Charles Napier saw that a decisive effort was necessary. He ordered his cavalry to charge. The fatal artillery played upon the thick masses of flesh and blood opposed to them within a few yards. The bayonets and the bullets of the 22nd pressed desperately on the compact ranks around them. It was the last struggle for victory, and the alternative was death. Victory was obtained. The army of the Ameers fled, and six of these chieftains surrendered after the battle. The slaughter of the Belooches had been dreadful. An equal number of men had never been slain in a modern battle by an army so few as that commanded by Sir Charles Napier. Six thousand men were left by the Ameers on the field, and nearly all of them perished. The battle continued for four hours, and in that time less than two thousand men had slain more than three times their own number. The loss of the British forces was comparatively small, but it was great to them. Sixty officers and two hundred and fifty serjeants and privates were disabled—nearly one-fifth of their army; and of these, six officers and sixty men were dead upon the field. One-sixth of both armies were down. Their relative proportions stood as at the commencement at the close. The victory was, therefore, narrowly won; and if the battle had lasted longer, it would have ended in the defeat and extirpation of this small band. The odds were fifteen to one against them in the morning, and a limit exists even in the contests of disciplined and fully armed soldiers with masses of brave men; and the Belooches were brave. This battle of Meanee, fought on the 17th of February, 1843, was not surpassed by any former contest in India, full as the history of British India is with the romance of war, either in the vast results produced by slender means, the courage of the general and his men, the intensity of the struggle, or its decisive termination. Wellington gained Assaye with nine men to one hundred of his enemies; and he lost one-third of his force in killed and wounded, amounting to nearly two thousand, in inflicting a loss on the Mahrattas not greater in numbers than the Belooches suffered at Meanee. The succeeding victory of Wellington at Argaum was decisive, but not greater in reference to the proportionate means by which the end was achieved than Assaye, and not equal to Meanee. These facts should not be forgotten now by those who value military services and reward them; for we feel, and all men feel, that they were rather overlooked during Sir Charles Napier's life. The conqueror of Scinde was a brave, daring, skilful soldier, but he was not a reckless officer. He felt the embarrassing nature of his position when Hydrabad was opened to his little army. He applied to Lord Ellenborough for reinforcements, and the governor-general ordered all the men whom he could spare from other emergencies to join the army of Seinde. Shere Mahommed, the greatest of the Ameers, known in his own country as "the Lion,” had another army ready, or the remains of the old army re-organised, in little more than a month after Meanee. He refused to surrender, and Sir Charles Napier met him at Dubba, near Hydrabad, on the 24th of March. The British army was now 5,000 strong, and the Belooches numbered nearly 25,000 men. disparity was great, but not so hopeless as at Meanee. Still three hours' hard fighting and a terrible slaughter were needed before Shere Mahommed was driven from his strong position at N The Dubba, and Scinde was finally won. The battle was brilliantly fought and victory bravely achieved; yet the result proved the necessity for those re-inforcements which Sir Charles Napier prudently demanded and Lord Ellenborough promptly supplied. General Lake a place in the peerage. No student of Indian history says that honours were ill-bestowed on that brave man. Few remember without regret that he who should have borne, and could have well sustained them, died early in the olive grove, and sleeps among the crags and rocks of Rolica. But without referring to the deeds performed by living men, and the honours awarded to them, it is scarcely possible to recal the names of great Indian sion has occurred in this case-one also that cannot now be fully rectified. The defeat of regular armies in the field was an easier matter probably than the effectual discomfiture of the desert chiefs on the borders, who had lived and prospered by plunder, and knew no better means of replenishing their larders. This object was, notwithstanding its difficulty, not only completed by Sir Charles Napier, but effected in a spirit that won the hearts of the vanquished Sirdars, who first named their conqueror the brother of the Evil One, for his success in war; and then gave him their allegiance, for the lessons he taught them in the arts of peace. Two swords were carried upon his coffin at Portsmouth. One of them was That governor-general at once made the conqueror of Scinde its governor; and the resolution was amply vindicated by the result. Sir Charles Napier applied his administrative talents incessantly to the organisation of the re-leaders, without feeling that a sad omissources of Scinde. He planned bridges, canals, and roads. He provided means for the protection of life and property. He promoted agriculture and commerce. Within a few months he had repressed disorder, secured industry in its rights, suppressed the banditti formed from the broken ranks of a desperate army, and turned the lawless and wild borderers into peaceable men of work. Covered with wounds, constitutionally weak, somewhat bent by years and fatigue, but mentally active, energetic, and strong, he moved incessantly over the vast land which he had added to the empire, corrected abuses, repaired injuries, and supplied incentives to industry. He was a strict disciplinarian, and much sentimental writing was employed to depict and denounce his con-notched and worn, for it was his father's; duct to the Ameers; but he never had promised to respect the claims, further than they were well founded, of the idle, the weak, and worthless. He had never offered encouragement to a feudal system of life. His practice always vindicated the maxim, that those who live by, should also live for, mankind. The Ameers, therefore, had no reason to anticipate any exaggerated regard from a man who lived for the people rather than their rulers. In Scinde he was a despot, but one of a beneficent character; illustrating the opinion of some, that in certain stages of society a despotic government would be suitable if any security could be afforded for its quality. A good and wise despot, however, is of very rare occurrence. We recur to the battle of Dubba only to contrast it with the brilliant victories of Lord Lake at Delhi, Agra, and Laswaree. The achievements of General Lake were most decisive, and they were accomplished with limited means; but neither of them excelled the victory of Dubba, or approached the tremendous fight of Meanee; yet they gained for and the blade had suffered no disgrace in the keeping of the son. The second was the "Sword of Peace," presented to Sir Charles Napier when he left Scinde, by those robber-chieftains whom he had turned into honest men. The great Sikh war broke out when the hostilities in Scinde were quelled. The activity of the governor of Scinde was shown by the magnitude of the army which he collected and held ready to march upwards to the Sutlej. Lord Ellenborough had then resigned the governor-generalship, and an old soldier occupied that high position. His plans did not include the employment of the Scinde army in the Sutlej, although a movement up the Indus was, we think, proposed by Sir Charles Napier, and would have been effective. Following the instructions of Sir Henry Hardinge, he occupied Bewalpore, and thus missed the great battles of Ferozepore, Aliwal, and Sobraon; but some persons believed that if Sir Charles Napier's corps, then numbering 12,000 to 15,000 effective men, had been drawn up the Indus, in sufficient time, under their gallant chief, He Ferozepore, or its substitute, would have ment to them or their friends. been more decisive, and no Sobraon established public works, planned canals, would have been required. The first embankments and roads; proposed irriSikh campaign was more near a defeat gation on an extensive scale, and sought than those who fought at Sobraon wil- to restore in Scinde the palmy days lingly admit; and the assistance offered of Egyptian agriculture. These views from Scinde would have greatly reduced, were not shared by men who searched if it had not entirely removed, any doubt for pleasure and riches in the East; and of its issue ever entertained. who longed for the hunting parties of the expelled Ameers; who were great in game-preserving, at any cost to their subjects a science of which their practical successor could not comprehend the profit. We admit that the brave soldier was not also a patient ex ponent of his own policy. He met censure by rebuke; but if his answers were sharp, like his sword, the attacks in which they originated were often dastardly and vindictive. Sir Charles Napier resigned the governorship of Scinde and returned to England in 1847. He found his country suffering under great calamities, and meditating grand political changes; but the ardour with which he was welcomed by the army extended also to the citizenship of the land; and his countrymen instinctively recognised in him a great hero and a great man-a man who was never idle, and whose engagements were invariably directed against abuses and corruption. The discussion of the Indian bill in the present year has furnished conThe conquest and annexation of vincing evidence that his plans for the Scinde present Sir Charles Napier's cha- government of Scinde comprised all racter in three distinct departments: that is deemed essential for an enlightas a soldier, performing prodigies of ened administration of Indian resources, valour, unrivalled in the disproportion and also superabundant proof that the between his means and the results, by civil service of the older presidencies any preceding achievements in India: has been grievously neglected. A very as an administrator, who, succeeding to short time has passed since his death, the guidance of a kingdom in a state of but during that interval accounts have anarchy, repelled with an equitable, been received of the business transacted although a strong hand, the crimes of at the fair of Kurrachee. Those statean armed banditti; created confidence ments of “Manchester men," from the in his government; established peace, spot, develop a new explanation of the law, and order; elicited the forgotten jealousy of Bombay interests at the resources of the land, and increased the annexation and settlement of Scinde. means of the population, and the re- Sir Charles Napier expected that the venue of the state, with almost incon- Indus would be turned to commercial ceivable and incredible rapidity: and as advantage when he completed the cona writer, defending his proceedings, on quest of the country forming in some all points, against corrupted and un-measure its delta. This great river principled adversaries. The military, almost meets the Ganges at its springs; when contrasted with the civil service has the Sutlej, comprising the five rivers of India, is poor and pure. Charges of the Punjaub, for its tributary; exoriginating in the disappointment of tends in its course from the frozen those camp followers who expect an en-regions high on the Himalaya mounlargement of pay and place from each tains, to the tropical verdure of the extension of the Indian empire, were directed at Sir Charles Napier's conduct in India. They made no gain, and therefore they asserted that the country suffered loss. The native Ameers were not dethroned to make room for English agents; and therefore, in the opinion of Bombay writers, the former chiefs of Scinde should not have been displaced. Their conqueror organised a cheap and just, which, according to his critics, could not be a good and profitable, government, for it secured no advance Indian plains; and must command ultimately the goods traffic of central Asia and the north-western provinces of the Anglo-Indian empire. The experience of past years, and especially that of the present season, vindicates the accuracy of the opinion entertained by Sir Charles Napier. His opinion has been shared by all parties who have studied the subject; but that circumstance could not disarm the local enmity, or enlarge the narrow views of Bombay merchants, who infused their fears into the Bombay press, not candidly and openly, but in strictures on the war in Scinde, which they could not or would not understand; and homilies on economy, to which, in the management of public affairs, they were entirely unaccustomed. The governor of Scinde never possessed the gift of patience under wrong, in an eminent degree. An ardent disposition was so ingrained into a generous nature, that the conqueror of Hydrabad could not so far conquer himself as to remain quietly under injustice, until time should redress the wrong. He thus involved himself in anxieties and cares which calmer, if less valuable, men would have escaped. But that fact forms no apology for the unjust criticisms to which he was exposed, or the erroneous statements employed to support them. acquiring independence; and no man could lecture better on that subject than the officer of whom it has been said, that when the messenger from the India House, bearing the despatch which announced his appointment to the chief command of the Indian army, called at his residence in Berkeley-street, he was admitted by a female servant, and found the general at dinner, who quietly expressed his regret that he should trouble him to call again-but added, that he had no second apartment in which he could invite him to wait. A warm welcome to India was followed soon by a final farewell; and Sir Charles Napier left its shores to return no more; yet his heart was in that land. More than many British statesmen, he felt its importance; more than many Anglo-Indians, who had acquired fame and fortune on its plains, he planned and studied for its people's advantage. Death found him still in harness and at work. His last pamphlet on Indian affairs is, and now will ever be, an unfinished essay - a fragment, suspended and stopped by disease. He left London as the end of his days approached, by his physicians' orders, in the hope that the peace of Oaklands might tend to restore his broken health; but all the battles of that courageous spirit, except one, were passed; and he went home, only to die. After the return of Sir Charles Napier from India, his time was occupied in promoting changes in the system of government pursued there, in correspondence and pamphlets on Indian affairs, and in his military reforms. Reference has been already made in this sketch to the second Sikh war. Disasters seemed again impending over north-western India. Lord Gough had not been successful, and confidence was not felt in his policy. The ideas entertained regarding his military skill were perhaps unjust; but the stake was great, and the risk imminent. The goThe character of this man is not easily vernment of the day required the late drawn. He has done much in various Duke of Wellington to supply a list of departments and always well. He three names from whom a successor finished whatever he commenced, and could be appointed. It is said that he no enterprise appeared too great for his wrote Sir Charles Napier's name thrice mind. We must remember that his upon a sheet of paper, and enclosed it. active life began early. Sixty years of The precaution was not unnecessary. military service out of seventy-one years The Duke of Wellington had a practical of life left little time for the systematic end in view; and in the discharge of a acquisition of knowledge; yet he knew great trust he determined that no mis-much, and was not often caught in error. take should occur. A second time, and He held enlarged views on our colonial when approaching his seventieth year, empire at an early period of life. He Sir Charles Napier crossed to India. had studied social politics carefully, and Before his arrival the exigency had could expound them advantageously. passed, and Lord Gough had defeated He loved his country well, and never, the Sikhs; but his successor was thus even when neglected, did his patriotism enabled to carry out reforms which he suffer any diminution. He was warmly had planned, in the Indian army. These attached to his profession, and the conchanges were all favourable to the ma- mon soldiers followed and regarded him terial efficiency and the moral improve- as a friend. He was severe and simple ment of the forces Extravagance and in his habits of life; and yet the natives gambling were suppressed. Economy of India, fond of display and ostentation, and simplicity were recommended in were soon and strongly attached to his the service. Young men were taught, character. He was eminently brave, by example and precept, the means of and a great military commander; but it -- may be doubted whether he was not a reformer in peace and a leader in equally great as an administrator and war whose name was strength to her organiser of civil government. His life friends and terror to her foes. The lionwas remarkably active, his labours pecu- hearted chief, of whom it might be truly liarly abundant; and he escaped the said, he never feared the face of man, snares and temptations of idleness. His sleeps where in danger's hour he would frame was never robust; and instead of have lived or died- not in the centre of his death now causing astonishment, it his country- not in the midst of her is surprising that he lived so long. He millions, but in the outpost, the foreconquered and pacified Scinde, while ground, the vanguard of all the land. labouring under disease that would have His friends have buried him where he confined ordinary men to a bedcham- would have stood, if England ever had ber, and enriched their physicians. His been threatened by foreign foes; and ardent and energetic mind might long while men long and look, and pray for before 1853 have worn out the frail and peace on earth, they need not forget that shattered body, in which, lacerated as it often peace is threatened by evil paswas by steel, torn by lead, and broken sions; and if soon again this nation has and bruised by all kinds of weapons, he to encounter the shock of battle for exwas nevertheless, consistent with the istence, or for great principles, the eye family motto, Ready, aye ready!" to is closed that would have directed her think and to act, to bleed and suffer, to armies; the hand is cold and crumbling, do or die for his country's honour, peace, that would have grasped a stainless but and welfare. a well-worn sword in her defence; and that chivalrous spirit has passed from us for ever, who in prosperity was often neglected by courtiers and politicians, because he was too honest to be diplomatic; but on whom, in adverse days, all trusted once; and all again, in darker hours and greater dangers, would have followed eagerly and trusted well. 66 He was buried at Portsmouth, and it little matters where that sadly cut and torn body was laid; but Britain has no dust stored in grand and national edifices, that in life laboured more, or laboured better in her defence, or for her prosperity. He was carried to his grave by soldiers; and strong-minded men wept as they lowered his coffin to its place; as well they might, for in all that pomp of death and funereal splendour, England was poorer by a brave spirit— a noble heart lost to the land When it was said that Sir Charles J. Napier was dead, all men felt that England could not often mourn for an equal loss. JOHN MILTON. IN securing for JOHN MILTON a niche | lifetime-one for his own country and among the Lives of the Illustrious," his own age, and the other for all counour purpose is not to present to our tries and all ages. The latter, more readers, either a minute narrative of the glorious and more congenial work, he events of his life, or a critical analysis had proposed to himself from his very of his character; but merely to seize childhood, as the thing to which his upon the most prominent feature of his whole life was to be consecrated; but, character, and bring it out into bold as we shall presently see, at the urgent relief. Few know anything about the call of what he considered present duty, MAN MILTON. Most persons think of he gave up for a time the nobler callhim only as the Artist. Our wish is to ing of the Artist, and set himself to place the MAN before our readers. There work practically as a Citizen for the are, indeed, two aspects in which he immediate welfare of his fatherland. may be regarded, even as a worker. He was a Citizen as well as an Artist. He accomplished two great works in his It is difficult to speak of Milton without thinking of his writings. He him self lives in them; his character peeps |