Charles James Napier (10 August 1782 – 29 August 1853) was a British Army General who served as Governor of Sindh from 1843 to 1847, preceding Richard Keith Pringle.
Biography[]
Charles James Napier was born in Whitehall Palace, London, England on 10 August 1782, the great-great-grandson of King Charles II through his mother. He was raised in Celbridge, County Kildare, Ireland during his father's military deployment there, and he joined the British Army in 1794 at the age of 12 and took up active service in 1799 at the age of 17. He commanded the 50th (Queen's Own) Regiment of Foot during the Peninsular War, and he was wounded and left for dead at the Battle of Corunna and briefly captured before returning to British hands. In 1810, he volunteered to return to the Iberian Peninsula and fought at several major battles such as the Battle of Fuentes de Onoro and the Battle of Badajoz. He later served as Governor of Cephalonia in the Ionian Islands, and he served on a diplomatic mission to Greece during the Greek War of Independence, during which he sympathized with the rebels. In 1839, he was given command of 6,000 troops in northern England with orders to suppress the Chartists, but Napier - a leftist who agreed with the Chartists' demands - decided to calm tensions and keep violence to a minimum.
Conquest of Sindh[]
The statue of Napier at Trafalgar Square
In 1842, Napier was promoted to Major-General and dispatched to India to command the British Indian Army in the Bombay Presidency. He was sent to Sindh to quell unrest among the Muslim rulers who had remained hostile to Britain following the First Anglo-Afghan War, subjugating the Sindhi Talpur dynasty by force at Miani and Hyderabad. While he had only been order to put down the rebels, he instead conquered Sindh and sent a double message of both apology and humor to his superiors, declaring, "I have sinned" (acknowledging his exceeding of his mandate while also stating that he had Sindh under his control). He then became Governor of the Bombay Presidency, but he was removed as Governor of Sindh in 1847 after clashing with the British East India Company. From 1849 to 1851, he served as commander-in-chief in India, succeeding Hugh Gough and preceding William Gomm, and he died of his Peninsular War wounds back in England in 1853 at the age of 71.