DEATH OF FIELD MARSHAL LORD CLYDE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume I, Issue 52, 28 October 1863, Page 3

DEATH OF FIELD MARSHAL LORD CLYDE.

After a lingering illness Lord Clyde expired on the morning of August 14 at the house of his friend, General Eyre, at Chatham. For more than half a century he had served his country in every quarter of the globe. But his honors came perhaps too late, for he was near 70 when he received them, and three or four years was too brief a period to enjoy the repose which he had so nobly earned. Born on the 20th of October, 1792, of humble parents —for his father was a cabinet-maker in Glasgow—he entered the army in 1808, and became a lieutenant in the following year. How great must have been the perseverance, the courage, and the discretion of such a friendless and pennyless boy to have raised himself to a peerage and to the colonelcy of the Coldstream Guards can be known only to those who understand the aristocratic traditions of the British army. It is needless here to recount in detail his numerous services. But it may be interesting to recall the account which Lord Clyde once gave a committee of the House of Commons of his own life when he appeared to give evidence against the purchase system—" lam now," he said "in my 63rd year; I entered the army at 15. I was present at the battles of Vimiera and Corunna, and in the expedition to Walcheren; and I came home before I was 16. I served in America in 1814, and 1815. I passed seven years in the West Indies, where I was constantly ill of fever, but I stayed there seven years, thinking it would be considered a merit by sticking to my regiment. In the West Indies I was brigade major a part of the time, but sharing in the duties of captain of my regiment. I was afterwards upwards of thirteen years in China and India, and the greater part of the time in command of considerable bodies of troops in the field. I was borne on the roll of my regiment, the 98th, from 1835 to 1853. I was in actual command of the regiment for nearly ten years, and present with it; bat it was only after 25 years that I obtained my lieutenant-colonelcy, even by purchase, and the money for that purpose was only obtained with the greatest difficulty. Whilst still on the roll of my regiment, I served as a brigadier in China, and subsequently as brigadier commanding in the garrison of Lahore, before the overthrow of the Sikh government. Subsequently I commanded a division in the Punjaub campaign, and afterwards a field force on the Peshawur frontier, where we were constantly engaged in war with the tribes inhabiting the mountains which intervene between the valley of the Indus and the open country of Afghanistan." Such were the services of Colin Campbell before the Crimean war, and yet in that war—having been some five-and-forty years in the British armyhe was appointed only a brigadier, being still a colonel, and had the honor of serving under those who had but half his years and no service to recommend them. Though he contributed much to the victory of the Alma—though he had watched day and night the lines of Balaklava —though he had met the ouset of the Russian horse with the famous " thin red line," disdaining to throw his men into a square—though he had proved himself the ablest officer who was left with the British army after the death of Lord Raglan, he was destined to be passed over by two men, who, however excellent as men of business, or as copious letter writers, were immeasurably his inferiors. Fortunately Sebastopol was taken, and the British army returned to England ; and it was not long before the services of Sir Colin Campbell were urgently required. In 1857 the great Indian mutiny broke out, and the Peninsula was in a conflagration. The system of appointing worn-out officers and men about town who had once been ensigns to command the great armies in India had broke down. A man was required to save India, and within 24 hours after receiving his appointment Sir Colin Campbell was on his way to the East; nor did he go alone. He took with him as his chief of the staff that able and accomplished officer Sir William Mansfield, to mature his plans and to issue the orders by which those plans were to be executed. From the time that Sir Colin Campbell took the field and set his columns in motion, rebellion, the offspring of mutiny, withered and died. It is beyond our limits to describe his work

Looking back upon the career of this sturdy and gallant soldier it is impossible to suppress a feeling of honest pride that this country should have owned him as her son. Few men laboring under such difficulties as must have beset the career of young M'Liver—for that was his original name—would have had the courage to persevere for nearly half a century, or would have had the ability to take advantage of the opportunity when it presented itself. The case of Lord Clyde will of course be quoted by tie advocates of the present system of promotion by purchase as a proof that, even under the most adverse circumstances, such men must rise to the top of their profession. But those who know the real story will blush to think that it needed more than 40 years of arduous service, a Russian war, and a tottering empire, before such a man could obtain promotion or reasonable reward.

As a military officer it cannot be said that Lord Clyde was a great strategist. The operaions which ho undertook were not such as entitle him to be placed in the same category with Napoleon or Wellington. It may even be doubted whether his military genius would bear comparison with the best officers now engaged in America. But he was thoroughly efficient in every situation in which he was tried. Others might be more daring and ingenious in devising combinations and in planning a campaign. But in the face of the enemy Lord Clyde was in his element. His coolness, prudence and fertility of resource

seemed to be quickened by the presence of the enemy. That roughness of deportment which characterised him on ordinary occasions disappeared with the sound of the first gun ; his irritable temperament was soothed, and he became abnormally polite. Amidst the smoke and din of battle his senses acquired a supernatural acutencss—he could interpret the changing signs of the battle and anticipate the movements of the enemy with a faultless precision which was almost miraculous. This strong and cool judgment exercised in the most trying circumstances amounted almost to genius. In person Lord Clyde was well knit, symmetrical, and graceful; but of late years his shoulders became somewhat bowed, though he lost little of the activity which was remarkable in so old a man. To the last his teeth remained full and firm in the great square jaws, and his eye pierced the distance with all the force of his youthful vision. His crisp, grey locks still stood close and thick, curling over the head and above the wrinkled brow, and there were few external signs of the decay of nature which was, no doubt going on within, accelerated by so many wounds, such fevers, such relentless, exacting service. When he so willed it, he could throw into his manner and conversation such a wondrous charm of simplicity and vivacity as fascinated those over whom it was exerted, and women admired and men were delighted with the courteous, gallant old soldier. In the other mood he could be quite as effective. Such was Colin, Lord Clyde. He is gone; but his name will rank with the great soldiers who fought under Marlborough and Wellington His lordship's funeral took place on August 22. The place where his honoured remains rest was changed almost at the last hour, Lorn Kensalgreen to Westminster Abbey. It is understood that this was done at the instance of the Government, acting upon the expressed wishes of the Sovereign herself. In other respects the privacy and absence of display which the departed hero recommended to be observed was scrupulously adhered to. But it was impossible that Lord Clyde should altogether go to the grave as an obscure man. The mourning carriages of the royal family followed the procession, and there was many a soldier who had followed the departed into the very jaws of death and was now present at the verge of the tomb. The streets through which the mournful procession passed were lined with crowds of respectable persons; and every nook and coign of vantage of the old Abbey was occupied with its knot of eager spectators. The service observed at the funeral was affectingly solemn, and the whole ceremony spoke less of the fiery warrior than of the humble modest Christian.