Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Napier's Pun.

 Sir Charles James Napier  was a British general and Commander-in-Chief in India. The city of Napier in New Zealand was named after him. In 1842, he was appointed as Major-General to the command of the Indian army within the Bombay Presidency. Here Lord Ellenborough's policy led Napier to X, for the purpose of quelling the Muslim rulers of the region, who had made various hostile demonstrations against the British government after the termination of the First Anglo-Afghan War. His campaign against these chieftains resulted, after the victories of Meanee (Miani) and ________, in the complete subjugation of the province of X, and its annexation to eastern dominions. In doing so, he contrravened direct orders; he was sent only to put down the rebels, not conquer. Napier is supposed to have despatched to headquarters a short, famous message, "Peccavi" – Latin for "I have Y" (a pun for "I have X"). The pun later appeared in a cartoon in Punch magazine in 1844 under a caricature of Sir Charles. Later proponents of British rule over the East Indians justified the conquest thus: "If this was a piece of rascality, it was a noble piece of rascality!"

X is a province, Y is a word.

X??   Y??

3 comments:

Skythe said...

Lol
When you're lifting stuff from wiki, remove the links man..

kicha said...

Sind, Sinned

R Sridhar Rao said...

this was from our festember india quiz...
which went great...