SIR COLIN CAMPBELL. (Frim the London Examiner.)

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XV, Issue 1137, 21 May 1858, Page 3

SIR COLIN CAMPBELL. (Frim the London Examiner.)

For three long years the people of England have been looking out for a general, and they h*ve found one at last, not among the aristocracy, but in the ranks of the middle classes, or among themselves. We propose to give our readers a brief account of Sir Colin Campbell, who ha» aheady acquired so much reputation, and is likely, if his life is spared, to gain many an additional laurel. This soldier o t fortune, who has raised himself to the head of his profession, by pur« merit, possessing many friends, but no patrons, is properly a native of one of the remote Hebrides, the Island of Islay, in the county of Ai gyle, his birth in the City of Glasgow being purely accidental. At eight years of age he came to England for his education, so that he is more indebted to England than to Scotland lor the eminence he has since attained. One of his uncles died a colonel of the English arms ; another, a gallmt youth, after whom he is named, lost his life in our piteous contest with America, scalped by tl c Red Indians, a foe less savage than tha Sepoys, for they kill only in battle. Of Sir Colin's pedigree, though with such a man the matter is one of the smallest consequence, we shall say a few words, chiefly because it is in itself Tather curious. At the period of the Revolution, the Highland clans were still troublesome, and two of them, the Macdonalds and Macleans, fought a pitched battle for the possession of Islay, the fairest of the Hebrides, as well as for the adjacent island ot Jura. The Government of the Revolution made short work with the combinations by confiscating the two islet in dispute, and handing them over to James CampieH of C«lder, a neai relation of Argyle. This poweiful chief-

tain, like a feudal conquerer, tcrok possessionof the islands, planting in them * colony of Campbells, his kiivmen and clansmen, and partitioning amongst them the best lauds on a tenure, at that time nearly equal to the fee simple. Among the foremost of the families so planted were the forefathers of Sir Colin Campbell, and thus, as far «ts such a pedigree can confer the 'distinction, he is of " gentle blood." Let U 9, if only for mere curiosity's sake, follow up trie history of the place of Sir Colin's nativity. Sir J*me« Campball of Calder, the ancestor of the present Earls of Cawdor, unable to get from 'he two islands suffiVenl revenue to pay his quit-rent o f £5000 a year to me Ciowi., sold them to a prosperous trader of Glasgow, also a Campbell, for the sum of £12,000, which is about one-half tha amount of their present rental. In the family of this individual, a very distinguished one, the principal island continued for five generations, but a few years ago it was again, purchased by a London merchant, the late highly intelligent Ma. James Morrison, like Colin Campbell, sprung from the people, and the foundei of his own great fortune. The sum paid for it was £450,000, which is about seven and thirty fold wh3t it fetched about 140 years ago. The Compbells, ye may add, were always a very loyal, very Presbyterian, very difFusive even very intrusive brooo. They were originally, or at least their chiefs were, French or Norman invaders, who, coming through Englaud, seized all they could lay hold of in Perth, and nearly possessed themselves of all Argyle. In both counties they became quasi Highlanders, speaking good vernacular, and by way of accomplishment, now aud then bad Scotch, and. worse English. No country comes amiss to the Campbells. One of their chiefs, the decendctnt of the afroesaid Campbell of Calder, is now a WeLshman. A good many of them are at present English, even to the height of being Peer* and Chief Justices, while many are Yankees, Canadians, Australians, and Anglo-Indians. But to return fiom this digression to the man who it now engaged in suppressing the mutiny and rebellion of 100,000 trained soldiers, and in putting down insurrection overan area of a million and a half of square miles, Sir Colin is now 61, with the constitution and sctivity of 40. He entered the army in 1808, and his Mist feat of arms was at San Sebas ian ; he led the forlorn hope in the assault of that place, on the 25th of July, 1813. " I beg, 1 ' says Lord Lynedoch, in his despatch to the Duke of Wellington, "to recommend to|yourlordship Lieut. Colin Compbell, of the 9th. He led the forlorn hope, and was seveiely wounied on the breach • Lieut. Campbells section consisted of twenty-five, and, with one excepti >n, every man of it was either killed or wounded. In the long period of five-and-forty years which hare since elapsed. Sir Colin Campbell has served his country in almost every quarter of the globe, - during fourteen of them in India and China. How he led his column at the Alma, spared his men, and defeated the enemy opposed to him, is fresh in the recollection of the public, as is also his conduct at Balaclava. These aeh evements, however, have been far surpassed by his relief of the garrison of Lucknow, tis retreat from that placs in the face of an organised force of fifty thousand men posted exactly in the position most favourable to native tactics. The&e masterly movements are instantly followed up by his forced marches that enabled him to repair 'he errors of a lieutenant by defeating an enemy flushed by a moment's success, numbering double his own force. Military men will, we think, be prepared to admit th.it in the conduct of these enterprises Sir Colin Compbell h«n displayed an amount of strategic skill perhaps never before ex'iib'ted in our Indian warfare, from the sublime of Clive and Coota down to the opposite profound of Gough and Ellenborough. We except only the'two battles of Sir Charles Napier, but not the one battle of the Great Captain, who wanted whsn he fought it, for it was his first, the quarter of a century's longer experience of Napier and Campbell. Our Indian battles, indeed, have too often consisted in the mere hurling of British battalions against artillery in position, the reliance being on the heart and arm o. the soldier, and not on the head of the general. The pluck of our forefatheis, before the invention of gunpowder, would have enabled them to winsuch fights as these with Asiatics, even with the cross-bow, the pike, or the broad-sword. Sir Colin has done already a great deal, but he has much more to accomplish ; he has not only to conquer a kingdom more populous and incomparably more full of resources than his native country, swarming with a warlike population, and bristling with fortresses. He has, moreover, to raise, organize, and discipline, a loyal and effective army in the room of one that was formidable only to its employers The country prays for the preservation of a life so valuable, and perhaps rather too freely exposed to danger. The popular vows are the moie earnest, as if Sir Colin Campbell should unhappily fall, it is impossible to see, far or near, a commander worthy to succeed him.