Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Skinner, the eldest son of Lieut.-General John Skinner, while at Eton College, was on the 25th of January 1816, appointed to an ensigncy in the sixteenth regiment of foot, to which regiment his father had been attached for thirty-nine years, before he attained the rank of Major-General; Ensign Skinner joined the sixteenth regiment in Ireland in the year 1817, then commanded by the late Major-General (then Colonel) Tolley. Major-General Tolley, the best Greek scholar of his day at Westminster, amused his leisure with classical literature, and invited the young Etonian to share his studies; and thus making complete his education, fortunately imbued him with that taste for letters which secured to him through life a most agreeable resource. In 1819, the regiment being ordered to Ceylon, he obtained, by purchase, a lieutenancy on the 6th of August, and proceeded to that colony. While there he was employed to make the roads constructed by the late Lieut.-General Sir Edward Barnes, afterwards Colonel of the THIRTY-FIRST regiment. Lieutenant Skinner was appointed adjutant to the sixteenth regiment on the 20th of April 1820, and did duty in that capacity until 1822, when his Commanding Officer returned to England, and obtaining leave of absence for his young friend, they travelled home together through India and Egypt, visiting Malta and Sicily, and thence through Italy and France to England. Lieutenant Skinner was promoted to an unattached company on the 9th of October 1823, and on the 20th of March, 1824, was appointed Captain in the THIRTY-FIRST regiment. In February 1825, he sailed with the left wing of the THIRTY-FIRST in the _Scaleby Castle_ for Calcutta, the regiment being ordered to reinforce the army at that time acting in Burmah; but owing to the burning of her consort, the _Kent_ East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay, with the right wing, the regiment was inefficient, and remained in garrison at Calcutta. In 1829, Captain Skinner returned home on leave of absence in the _Cartha_, and nearly suffered shipwreck on the coast of Wales. The vessel being driven by storm when off Liverpool, was unable to weather Bardsea Island, and fortunately passed safely through the narrow channel between that rock, and the coast of Carnarvon into Pwelli Bay. He did not lose his time in India; for with his brother, Captain James Skinner, of the sixty-first regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, he travelled to the sources of the Ganges and the Jumna, an account of which was published in 1833, from letters written at the time, in two volumes, entitled “_Excursions in India_,” and the work passed through two editions. During his leave of absence he travelled over England and Scotland, and made himself as well acquainted with those parts of his native land, as, in the course of his professional duties, he had previously become with Ireland. In December 1833, by permission of General Lord Hill, Commanding in