Sir Robert Napier, to whom the unexampled success of this
expedition is mainly due, will, it is said, be offered a peerage,— which he will probably be obliged to decline, having many children and slender fortune,—will receive from Parliament the usual pension for three lives, and will succeed Sir W. Mansfield as Com- mander-in-Chief in India. He is the first Engineer, indeed the first scientifically trained officer, ever appointed to independent command, and his success is considered at the Horse Guards almost a calamity. Imagine a man who has studied mathe- matics, and is unconnected with any great family, being acknow- ledged in the British Army as a great General ! We shall have commands distributed according to capacity next, and then where will the British Constitution be? The Horse Guards, however, does not venture to resist the nation openly, and accordingly Sir R. Napier, who has conquered a kingdom, has been with marvel- lous promptitude gazetted to the G.C.B.-ship which he ought to have had, and would have had, if he had been uneducated, after his China campaign.
