men are frequently employed. Mr. Napier does not attribute his success to merit on his part as an inventor, but to his invariable practice of striving to the utmost in every order committed to his execution to do the best for his employers without regard to cost—money never having been his idol. Notwithstanding the many heavy contracts he has undertaken and executed since he commenced business, there has not an accident of any importance taken place to the machinery or vessels executed by him, or by Robert Napier & Sons. It was in 1823 that Mr. Napier made his first marine engine; and that engine is still at work. Mr. Napier was happy in the selection of a manager, having at the outset engaged in that capacity Mr. David Elder, whose ability, as well as his great care and attention, contributed materially to the success of his employer's undertakings. In 1827 a steam-boat race was got up, in which prizes were given to the two fastest river boats. Both were awarded to two vessels made by Mr. Napier for a company in Glasgow. This was the first and only steam-boat race on the Clyde. In 1830 Mr. Napier joined the City of Glasgow Steam-Packet Company in running first-class steamers between Glasgow and Liverpool, and succeeded in establishing a line of steamers which were many years unequalled. The character of that trade has of late been materially changed by the railways. In 1834 Mr. Napier supplied the Dundee and London Shipping Company with steam-ships, which were long known on the Thames as first-class vessels. In 1836 he supplied the East India Company with the Berenice, one of their vessels which successfully made the voyage between Bombay and Suez. In 1839 he put the machinery into the British Queen, and subscribed £100 to assist in defraying the expense of the trial voyage of the Sirius from Liverpool to New York. In the same year Mr. Napier built the Fire King for Mr. Assheton Smith, according to his model of fine hollow lines, and that vessel proved the fastest steamer then afloat. In 1840 Mr. Napier supplied the well-known Cunard Company with their first four Atlantic steamers, and since then he has supplied the machinery for other nine Atlantic steamers. In 1856 Mr. Napier built for the same company, and supplied with machinery, the steam-ship Persia, of 3600 tons, and 1100 horse power; and in 1861 the steam-ship Scotia, of 4050 tons, and 1200 horse power. These were the first iron vessels belonging to that company, and are believed to be at the present time the fastest and strongest ocean-steamers afloat. These vessels have since 1840 carried on the service between Liverpool and New York, both in summer and winter without interruption, and without any serious accident. In 1853 Robert Napier & Sons fitted up the machinery on board the Duke of Wellington, at that time the largest ship of war afloat. In 1859 the government intrusted them with the construction of the Black Prince, of 6109 tons, which was, with the Warrior, the pioneer of the iron-cased fleet of Great Britain; and in 1860 the government again intrusted them with the construction of the iron-cased frigate Hector, of 4062 tons, and 800 horse power. In river steamers also Robert Napier & Sons have built the fastest vessels afloat, the latest examples of which are the Neptune, plying on the Clyde, which attained an average speed at the measured mile of twenty miles per hour in still water; and the Queen of the Orwell, at present the fastest steamer on the Thames. Mr. Napier is a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. At the Paris Exhibition in 1855 the international jury awarded him the great gold medal of honour, and the Emperor Napoleon III. conferred on him the decoration of the legion of honour for the success which had attended the vessels fitted out by him for the Atlantic navigation; and at the London International Exhibition in 1862 he was elected chairman of the jury on naval architecture.—R.
NAPIER, Sir William Francis Patrick, a famous soldier and historian, was the third son of Colonel the Hon. George Napier and Lady Sarah Lennox, and was born in 1785 at Castletown, near Celbridge, in the county of Kildare. He entered the army as an ensign in 1800, when he was scarcely fifteen years of age. In the following year he was promoted to a lieutenancy, and in 1804 he attained the rank of captain. His rapid progress was the result, not of family influence, but of the young soldier's devotedness to his profession and his remarkable military talents. He served with marked approbation at the siege of Copenhagen and at the battle of Kioge in 1807. In 1808-9 he took part in Sir John Moore's campaign, and fought at the battle of Corunna, in which his brother was wounded. He was actively engaged in the whole Peninsular war from 1809 to 1814, in which he commanded the 43rd for three years, was four times severely wounded, and received seven decorations for the battles of Busaco, Salamanca, Fuentes d'Onore, the Nivelle, the Nive, and Orthes. He was conspicuous for his activity, judgment, and courage, also, during the pursuit of Massena on the retreat of the French from Portugal in 1811, and at the passage of the Huelva and of the Bidassoa. He served with distinction in the campaign of 1815, though he was not present at Waterloo. He became major in 1811; lieutenant-colonel in November, 1813; colonel in July, 1830; and attained the rank of major-general in November, 1841. In the following year he was appointed lieutenant-governor of the island of Guernsey, an office which he held for nearly six years. In 1848 he was created a knight commander of the order of the bath. Sir William retired on half-pay in 1819, but his greatest service to his country remained yet to be performed. In 1828 he commenced his "History of the War in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814." He spent no less than eighteen years in collecting the materials for this great work, and preparing them for the press. His wife, a niece of Charles James Fox, was his main assistant. It was she who performed the task of arranging and deciphering the immense mass of documents and letters in several languages, which Joseph Bonaparte left behind him at Vittoria. Many of these were in cipher and baffled the penetration of everybody else, and some of them were nearly illegible. She also acted as her husband's amanuensis; and so frequent and important were the changes made on the original MSS., that she copied it three several times before it was sent to the press. The work appeared in six volumes, and is justly regarded not only as the most accurate history of that great struggle which exercised such a disastrous influence on the fortunes of the French emperor, but as one of the most spirited and picturesque narratives in the English language. "It is by no means easy reading, and though not a purely military history, is technical in its details and severe in its style. But besides the genuine nationality of its object and its tone, there was a dignity in the treatment and a living reality in the descriptions which led the mind unresistingly captive. Never before had such scenes been portrayed, nor with such wonderful colouring. As event after event was unfolded in the panorama, not only the divisions and the brigades, but the very regiments and regimental officers of the Peninsular army, became familiarized to the public eye. Marches, battles, and combats came out upon the canvas with the fidelity of photographs; while the touches by which the effect was produced bespoke not the ingenuities of historic art, but the involuntary suggestions of actual memory." It is a favourite work of our soldiers of every grade. Some of its most memorable passages are said to have been rehearsed round the watch-fires, and in the trenches before Sebastopol, and to have fired the courage and nerved the arm of the combatants in that desperate contest. Sir William is also the author of the "Conquest of Scinde," and "Life and Opinions of Sir Charles Napier;" besides treatises on the poor law and on the corn laws, and some reviews and works of fiction, and a volume entitled "English Battles and Sieges in the Peninsula," mainly composed of extracts from his great work. Sir William died in 1860.—J T.
NAPIER, William John, Lord, was born at Kinsale in 1787. He served as a midshipman on board the Defiance at the battle of Trafalgar, and attained the rank of captain in 1810. At the peace of 1815 he quitted the naval service, and after spending some time at the university of Edinburgh, betook himself to agricultural pursuits. But in 1824 he was appointed to the command of the Diamond on the South American station, and in 1833 he became superintendent of British trade in Canton. Under his command, at the breaking out of the war, the fleet sailed up the Canton river, but returned to Macao on the 7th September. The Imogene and Andromache ascended the Boyne river; but Lord Napier was taken ill on the 14th, and in order to avoid the complications which might arise the vessels were ordered to move out of the river. He died on the 11th October following.—F. M. W.
NAPOLEON I. (Napoleone Buonaparte or Bonaparte), Emperor of the French, was born on the 15th August, 1769, at Ajaccio, the capital of Corsica, just after the annexation of that island to France. Several families of the name of Bonaparte had migrated at various times to Corsica from the adjacent
