His earliest schooling he received at the Glasgow High School, whence at the age of ten he was removed by his mother's brother, Colonel John Campbell, and placed by him in the Royal Military and Naval Academy at Gosport. Scarcely anything is on record regarding young Colin's school-days there. The first Lord Chelmsford was one of his schoolfellows; and there is a tradition that he spent his holidays with the worthy couple by whom the Academy was established, and by a descendant of whom it is still carried on. When barely fifteen and a half his uncle presented him to the Duke of York, then Commander-in-Chief, who promised him a commission; and supposing him to be, as he said, "another of the clan," put down his name as Colin Campbell, the name which he thenceforth bore. General Shadwell states that on leaving the Duke's presence with his uncle, young Colin made some comment on what he took to be a mistake on the Duke's part in regard to his surname, to which the shrewd uncle replied by telling him that "Campbell was a name which it would suit him, for professional reasons, to adopt." The youngster was wise in his generation, and does not appear to have had any compunction in dropping the not particularly euphonious surname of Macliver. On the 26th of May 1808 young Campbell received the commission of ensign in the Ninth Foot, now known as the Norfolk regiment; and within five weeks from the date of his first commission he was promoted to a lieutenancy in the same regiment. He entered the service at an eventful moment. Napoleon had attained the zenith of his marvellous career. He was the virtual master of the whole of continental Europe. The royal family of Spain were in effect his prisoners, and his brother Joseph had been proclaimed King of Spain. The royal family of Portugal had departed to the New World lest worse things should befall it, and Junot was ruling in Lisbon in the name of his imperial master. But the Spaniards rose _en masse_ in a national insurrection; and no sooner had they raised the standard of independence than they felt the necessity of applying to England for aid. Almost simultaneously the Portuguese rose, and no severity on Junot's part availed to crush the universal revolt. Almost on the very day on which young Campbell joined his regiment in the Isle of Wight, the British force of nine thousand men to the command of which Sir Arthur Wellesley was appointed, sailed from Cork for the Peninsula. Spencer's division joined Wellesley in Mondego Bay, and on the night of the 8th of August 1808 thirteen thousand British soldiers bivouacked on the beach--the advanced guard of an army which, after six years of many vicissitudes and much hard fighting, was to expel from the Peninsula the last French soldier and to contribute materially to the ruin of Napoleon.