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 clined them all. Nevertheless, he took great interest in politics. He was extremely democratic in his views, and spoke with great effect at public meetings. Owing to the wide influence exerted by his speeches, the younger and more determined reformers thought in 1831 that Napier was well fitted to assume the leadership of a movement to establish a national guard whereby to secure the success of the political changes then advocated by the radicals, and to save the country from the dangers of insurrection. Burdett was the president of the movement, and both Erskine Perry and Charles Buller wrote to Napier pressing him to undertake the military leadership. Napier refused. ‘A military leader in civil commotions,’ he said, ‘should be in good health, and free from personalties. I am in bad health, and I have a family of eight children.’

An insatiable controversialist, Napier, in letters to the daily papers or in pamphlets, waged incessant warfare with those who dissented from his views, besides writing many critical articles on historical or military topics. In 1832 Napier had published a pamphlet, ‘Observations illustrating Sir John Moore's Campaign,’ in answer to remarks on Moore which appeared in Major Moyle Sherer's ‘Recollections in the Peninsula.’ Napier offered to insert, as an appendix to his ‘History,’ any reply Major Sherer might desire to make. The offer was declined. Napier entered the lists on every occasion against the real or supposed enemies of Sir John Moore; and when a biography, written by Moore's brother, appeared, Napier expressed his dissatisfaction with it in a severe article on it in the ‘Edinburgh Review’ for April 1834.

In the summer of 1838 Marshal Soult visited England as the representative of Louis-Philippe at the coronation of Queen Victoria. Napier wrote a very warm letter to the ‘Morning Chronicle’ in defence of the marshal, who had been attacked in the ‘Quarterly Review,’ and he accompanied Soult on a tour to Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, and other places. In December Napier defended, in a letter to the ‘Times,’ the character and intellect of Lady Hester Stanhope. Lady Hester appreciated his intervention, and a long and kindly correspondence ensued. During 1839 the Chartist agitation reached its climax in the deplorable Bull-ring riots at Birmingham. Napier regarded these proceedings with abhorrence; but in a letter to the Duke of Wellington he expressed the belief that the rioters were treated with a severity unjustifiable in a whig government, which, as he thought, had been ready to avail itself of the excesses of the people for its own advantage in 1832.

On 29 May 1841 Napier was given a special grant of 150l. per annum for his distinguished services. On 23 Nov. he was promoted major-general, and in February 1842 was appointed lieutenant-governor of Guernsey and major-general commanding the troops in Guernsey and Alderney. He landed at Guernsey on 6 April, and threw himself into his new duties heart and soul; but he found much to discourage him. The defences were wretched, the militia wanted complete reorganisation, and the administration of justice was scandalous. In the five years of his government, despite local obstruction, he devised a scheme of defence which was generally accepted by a special committee from London of artillery and engineer officers, and was partially executed. He reorganised and rearmed the militia. He powerfully influenced the states of the island to adopt a new constitution, by which feuds between the country and town parties, which had lasted eighty years and impeded improvement, were set at rest. Finally, he procured the appointment of a royal commission of inquiry into the civil and criminal laws of the island, whose recommendations tended to remove the evils in the administration of justice.

At Guernsey he devoted his spare time to writing a history of the ‘Conquest of Scinde,’ the achievement in which his brother Charles had recently been engaged. On the return of Lord Ellenborough from India he wrote, offering to publish the political part of the history first, and after some correspondence which established a lifelong friendship between him and Ellenborough, this was done. In November 1844 the first part was published, and was read by the public with avidity; but, as with the ‘History of the Peninsular War,’ it involved Napier in endless controversy. There was this difference, however: the ‘History of the Conquest of Scinde’ was written with a purpose. It was not only the history of Sind, but the defence of a brother who had been cruelly misrepresented. The descriptions of the battles are not surpassed by any in the Peninsular war, but the calmness and impartiality of the historian are too often wanting. The publication of the second part of the ‘Conquest of Scinde’ in 1846 drew upon him further attacks, and the strength of his language in reply often exceeded conventional usage.

At the end of 1847 Napier resigned his appointment as lieutenant-governor of Guernsey. In February 1848 he was given the colonelcy of the 27th regiment of foot, and in