Edward Beasley - The Chartist General: Charles James Napier, The Conquest of Sind, and Imperial Liberalism

First published 2017

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2017 Edward Beasley

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Names: Beasley, Edward, 1964 author.

Title: The Chartist general : Charles James Napier, the conquest of Sind,

and imperial liberalism / Edward Beasley, San Diego State University.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2016. | Series:

Routledge studies in modern British history ; 12 | Includes bibliographical

references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016025010 | ISBN 9781138699267 (hardback : alk. paper) |

ISBN 9781315517292 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Napier, Charles James, 17821853. | GeneralsGreat

BritainBiography. | Great BritainHistory, Military19th century. |

Sindh (Pakistan)History, Military19th century. | IndiaHistory

British occupation, 17651947. | Chartism.

Classification: LCC DA68.12.N2 B43 2016 | DDC 359.0092 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016025010

ISBN: 9781138699267 (hbk)

ISBN: 9781315517292 (ebk)

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by Apex CoVantage, LLC

For her encouragement and her editing I thank my best friend, Rebecca Hartmann.

For their support, assistance, and suggestions, my thanks to my goddaughter Sarah Wyer; her husband Joseph Wyer; my housemate Ronald Zavala; Pablo Ben, Norma Bouchard, Bruce Castleman, Elizabeth Cobbs, Joanne Ferraro, Annika Frieberg, David McClintock, Walter Penrose, and Maria Rybakova; at Routledge, Rob Langham, Tom Gray, Michael Bourne, Jennifer Morrow, and the anonymous reviewers; at Apex CoVantage, Sheri Sipka and her team; Geoffrey Foaud for drawing the maps; at Bridgeman Images, Melissa Goldstein; at the San Diego State University Library, Edward DiBella, Joan Goodwin, Laurel Bliss, and the Interlibrary Loan staff; the librarians and library staffs at the British Library, the Bodleian Library, the National Archives (Kew), the National Army Museum (Chelsea), Senate House Library, the San Diego Public Library, and the libraries of University College, London, the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Oregon; the staff and owners of the Adams Avenue Bookstore, Fifth Avenue Books, and Bluestocking Books in San Diego, Maxwells House of Books in La Mesa, Powells Books in Portland, Oregon, the Smith Family Bookstore (both locations) in Eugene, Oregon; and in London, Skoob Books and the booksellers of Charing Cross Road. For their peacefulness, civility, and bustle, I owe a great deal to the locations where most of this book was written, namely about sixty-four coffeehouses and cafes in San Diego, London, Oxford, Paris, Portland, Eugene, Seattle, Mexico City, and San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, not to mention the airports, train stations, and public parks. My thanks (once again) to my department chair, Joanne Ferraro, and the San Diego State University History Department for the travel monies which allowed me to carry out archival research over the last six years. And for making possible my longest visit to the archives for this project, I thank San Diego State University for my Spring 2013 Sabbatical and an associated University Research Grant. I dedicate this book to my late father.

There is a saying that one writes the book one wants to read. In preparing a chapter for an academic book a few years ago, I read the classic works old and new on Chartism and the Chartists. I kept running into references to General Charles Napier. The consensus in what I read was that he did a surprisingly humane job as the commander of the army that faced the Chartist protesters in the north of England at the beginning of the 1840s. He may have saved England from revolution, and at the very least he saved some of the members of the working class from massacre. The key to his success in the north of England seemed to be that he agreed with the Chartists about most things. When he was waiting to take over his command he wrote a book accusing the factory owners of the systematic murder of children the very factory owners he was about to defend from the Chartists.