considering all things, he had attained better advancement than many
of his old Peninsular comrades. Take, for example, George Bell of
the Royals, a fellow subaltern with Campbell in Hay's brigade of
Graham's corps in the Vittoria campaign. Bell was a younger soldier
than Campbell by three years, but he had seen infinitely more
service than his senior. Bell "was engaged in the action of Arroyo
de Molino, the final siege of Badajos, capture of Fort Napoleon and
bridge at Almaraz, in the retreat from Burgos and Madrid, the battles
of Vittoria, the Pyrenees, Pass of Maya and Roncevalles, the Nive,
Bayonne, St. Pierre, Orthes, Tarbes, and Toulouse, with many other
affairs and skirmishes; and he possessed the Peninsular War medal
with seven clasps for as many pitched battles." Since the Peninsular
War he had fought in India and the Burmese War and had served in the
West Indies. And whereas Colin Campbell was a lieutenant-colonel
in 1832 George Bell was still a captain in 1839. To complete the
contrast, while Campbell was a peer and a full general in the middle
of 1858 Bell was still a colonel, after having fought throughout the
Crimean War in the command of a battalion. If the former despaired
of fortune when a lieutenant-colonel after twenty-seven years of
service, how bitterly must the latter have known the hope deferred
that maketh the heart sick when still a colonel after forty-eight
years of continuous service!
In the early part of 1835 Colin Campbell, still despondent, was
in London "living in very scanty hopes of employment." But in
May of that year he was offered and accepted the command of the
Ninety-Eighth regiment. Its service companies were at the Cape, but
as the regiment had nearly completed its period of foreign service
it was finally determined that it was not necessary that he should
join it there. How poor he was when he had the good fortune to revert
to full-pay, may be gathered from his hesitation to become a member
of the United Service Club. "My debts and embarrassments" he records
"indisposed me to entering it;" but a wise friend insisted upon his
taking up his election and backed his insistence by advancing the
entrance fees. The depôt of the Ninety-Eighth was at Devonport,
commanded by Captain Henry Eyre, afterwards General, and Colonel of
the Fifty-Ninth regiment; an officer between whom and Colin Campbell
there soon began a friendship which ripened into a most affectionate
and enduring intimacy. By dint of questioning this officer regarding
the minutest details of the regiment, its new chief was already
familiar with its interior economy before its arrival at Portsmouth
in the summer of 1837. He then assumed command, and at once set about
putting in practice the sound principles on which he himself had been
trained in the Ninth regiment,--principles which were the legacy of
Sir John Moore to the British army. In the camp at Shorncliffe that
great soldier had introduced a system of instruction and interior
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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