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convoy, and in the face of three times their number
effected the rescue of their friends, and carried them
off in safety.
On the I4th of May, 1812, Napier, accompanied
by the brig Pilot', of 18 guns, attacked the port of
Sapri. After a two hours' cannonade within pistol
shot, a fort and battery were silenced, and twenty-
eight merchant-vessels were carried off or destroyed;
also some of them which were high and dry upon the
shore nearly a quarter of a mile from the sea.
But the exploit at this time which gave him the
greatest satisfaction was the capture of Ponza, the
largest of a group of islands to the north of the Bay
of Naples. To obtain possession of it was for various
reasons important, but at the same time its garrison
was strong, while the mole and harbour were de-
fended by four batteries favourably situated for re-
sistance. On being commissioned to effect the capture
of the island, Napier waited for a few days until the
weather should be propitious, and then stood towards
the harbour, as if only in the act of cruising. But
all at once he anchored unexpectedly in the mole,
and opened such a sudden well-directed fire that not
a man of the garrison could show his head, and the
bewildered governor struck his colours. Thus a
strong island, having a garrison of 180 soldiers besides
its militia, was captured in a few minutes by the
paralyzing suddenness of his attack, without the loss
of a man to the assailants. Napier was justly proud
of this achievement, the memory of which he cherished
to his dying day; and many years afterwards, when
he assumed the command of the Constitutional fleet
of Portugal, he took from the island, as his nom de
guerre, the title of Don Carlos de Ponza.
Soon after the taking of Ponza, Napier was trans-
ferred from the command of the Thames to that of
the greatly-superior frigate Euryalus, of thirty-six
i8-pounders; and in this new vessel he continued
those deeds of activity and daring which made
his name one of terror along the whole French
coast. This continued until 1814, when the de-
thronement of Napoleon and peace with France
removed the Euryalus and its commander to the
American station. The resources of Britain being
set free, her war with America was prosecuted with
renewed vigour, and Napier, although in a sub-
ordinate command, distinguished himself in a haz-
ardous expedition up the Potomac, and in the opera-
tions against Baltimore. The peace with America
occasioned the recall of the Euryalus to England,
where it was paid off, while the services of Napier
were recognized with a companionship of the Bath.
Years of peace followed, during which he had no
prospect of active service, and was placed upon half-
pay; but in the same year that he returned home he
endeavoured to settle himself into the quiet of domes-
tic life by marrying Eliza, the widow of Lieutenant
Elers, R.N., and only daughter of Lieutenant Young-
husband, R.N., to whom he had been attached from
early boyhood. By her former marriage she had
four young children, whom he treated with paternal
care and affection, and on being married he fixed his
residence in a pleasant country-residence in South
Hants. But this sort of life was too peaceful for
his restless temperament, and on the occupation of
France by the allies he started off with Mrs. Napier
on what was intended to be a short visit to Paris,
but which ultimately became a tour over the greater
part of the Continent. In such a flying land ex-
pedition it was not wonderful that the eccentricities
of "Mad Charlie" should occasionally break out.
On arriving at Pisa, and wishing to procure lodgings,
two facchini offered themselves for the purpose; but
Napier, thinking that one was enough, selected his
man, by whom alone the commission was to be exe-
cuted, and to whom a stipulated sum was to be paid.
When the residence was found, and the luggage
housed, Napier proceeded to pay his facchino, but
his companion, a strong powerful fellow, burst into
the room, and insisted on being paid also. On a
flat refusal being given, the two facchini made com-
mon cause, and thought to bully the stranger into
compliance; but on their advancing against him,
Napier felled the foremost with a log of wood which
he snatched from the fire-place, and put the other to
flight, A mob soon assembled in the street with
such clamours and threats that Napier saw it neces-
sary to appeal to the Tribunal of Justice, and having
inquired where the building was, he set out for the
place, leading his young step-son in his hand. His
appearance in the street made the mob more clamor-
ous; and they pressed after him as if only waiting for
an apology to tear him to pieces, or throw him into
the river Arno, across the bridge of which he had to
walk. Napier kept a calm countenance, and walked
on with a deliberate step until he had neared the
building he was in quest of, when he said to the boy,
"Now, hold by me, and run for your life!" Off the
pair started at their utmost, with the mob in full
pursuit, but Napier's lame leg and his step-son's
short legs were no match for the pursuers, who soon
gained upon them, and would have overtaken them
had the race continued a little further. But the
captain had so calculated his distance that he reached
the Tribunal in the nick of time; and, finding a sentry
standing at the door under the portico, he wrenched
the musket from his hands, wheeled about, and ad-
vanced against the mob at the bayonet charge, who
were so confounded that they pulled up, and gazed
in stupid terror. This ridiculous affair detained him
several months at Pisa, for the facchino's head and
arm were broken, and an action of assault and bat-
tery with heavy damages was entered against him,
the result of which he was obliged to await. But at
the trial he was acquitted, and a handsome present
which he bestowed upon the wounded man satisfied
all parties alike.
Napier, however, turned his tour to better account
than the breaking of impertinent heads and paying
visits to picture-galleries. He studied the harbours
and shipping of every maritime station, and the forts
by which they were defended, with such an observant
eye that nothing escaped his notice; and the pro-
fitable account to which these studies were turned
was shown by his work on the State of the Navy,
which was published in 1851. He finally settled in
Paris, where he remained several years, and here he
directed his attention to steam navigation, and estab-
lished the first steamers on the Seine. But finding
that wooden steamers did not suit that river, owing
to their large draught of water, his love of surmount-
ing difficulties induced him to try iron steamers, by
which, although he solved the problem, he spent
nearly all his fortune in the solution. He even
started from the Thames in 1821 in one of these iron
vessels, which, after crossing the Channel, sailed up
the Seine to Paris—a feat which was then regarded
as a miracle in sea navigation by a vessel which was
thought only fit for rivers. '' On his arrival at Paris,"
we are told by his biographer, "thousands flocked
to see this eighth wonder of the world in the 'bateau
á  vapeur en fer,' though it puzzled many of the
spectators to conceive how such a material could
possibly be made to float; and a greater number were
more incredulous, and declared it was an imposture,
as such a thing could never be!"
In 1826 Captain Napier returned to England,
and after repeated applications for employment was