Colin Campbell. Forbes Archibald
in December, Colin Campbell had the following sad tale to tell: – "The regiment has lost by death up to this date two hundred and eighty-three men, and there are still two hundred and thirty-one sick, of whom some fifty or sixty will die; and generally, of those who may survive, there will be some seventy or eighty men to be discharged in consequence of their constitutions having been so completely broken down as to unfit them for the duties of soldiers. This is the history of the Ninety-Eighth regiment, which sailed from Plymouth in so effective a state in all respects on the 20th of December of last year – and all this destruction without having lost a man by the fire of the enemy!" His estimate of the losses, grave as it was, did not reach the grim actual total. From its landing at Chin-Kiang on July 21st, 1842, up to February, 1844, a period of nineteen months, the unfortunate regiment lost by death alone four hundred and thirty-two out of a strength of seven hundred and sixty-six non-commissioned officers and men; and there remained of it alive no more than three hundred and thirty-four, an awful contrast to the full numbers with which it had embarked at Plymouth twenty-six months earlier.
When the expeditionary force was broken up at the end of 1842 Colin Campbell became commandant of the island of Hong-Kong, and he devoted himself to the care of the survivors of his regiment. The worst cases were sent to a hospital ship, those less serious to a temporary hospital on shore. The remainder of the corps, some three hundred and thirty men, at last, in February, 1843, quitted the Belleisle and occupied quarters at Stanley. While at Hong-Kong he learned that he had been made a Companion of the Bath and aide-de-camp to the Queen, the latter appointment conferring promotion to the rank of colonel. In January, 1844, he left Hong-Kong to succeed General Schoedde in command of the garrison quartered on the Island of Chusan, a transfer which gave him the position of brigadier of the second class. In the more bracing and salubrious climate of Chusan Campbell materially regained his health; and he had not been many months in his new command when he began his efforts to have the Ninety-Eighth removed from its unhealthy quarters in Hong-Kong to the reinvigorating atmosphere of Chusan. This he was able to accomplish in the earlier months of 1845, and he immediately set about the restoration of the regiment to its former efficiency. He was a rigorous task-master, but if he did not spare others he never spared himself. He seldom missed a parade, and except in the hot season there were three parades a day. Leave of absence except on medical certificate was refused to officers who had come from England with the regiment, on the ground that their experience was needed to instruct the comparatively raw material from the depôt. The officers of the Ninety-Eighth who belonged to the garrison staff were also required to perform their regimental duty. The painstaking and laborious chief thus notes in his journal the progress of the regiment in the midsummer of 1845: "Parade as usual morning and evening; men improving, but still in great want of individual correctness in carriage, facings, motions of the firelock, etc.; but they move in line and open column very fairly, and I confidently expect before the end of the year to have them more perfect than any battalion in this part of the world." When toward the close of the year the health of the regiment was fully re-established, its colonel conceived that it should undergo higher tests than the ordinary movements of the drill-ground afforded. He accordingly took it out into the open country and divided it into an attacking and a defending force, in order to train the men in the art of taking cover and skill in skirmishes over broken ground. By the beginning of 1846 he was "quite at ease as to the appearance the regiment would make on landing in India."
The time fixed by the treaty of Nanking for the evacuation of the island of Chusan by the British troops was now approaching, and on May 10th the Chinese authorities resumed jurisdiction over the island. Until then Campbell's duties had not been purely military, the entire civil charge of Chusan having been vested in his hands. The most friendly relations existed between the British Brigadier and the Chinese Commissioners. Arrangements were made without a trace of friction for the preservation of the European burial-grounds and in regard to other matters. Campbell was the recipient of an interesting letter from the Commissioners, passages in which deserve to be quoted: – "While observing and maintaining the treaty, you have behaved with the utmost kindness and the greatest liberality towards our own people, and have restrained by strict regulations the military of your honourable country… The very cottagers have enjoyed tranquillity and protection, and have not been exposed to the calamity of wandering about without a home. All this is owing to the excellent and vigorous administration of you, the Honourable Brigadier… Now that you are about to return to your own country crowned with honour, we wish you every happiness."
Notwithstanding occasional attacks of ague which rendered him liable to depression and irritation, Campbell appears to have been fairly happy during his stay in Chusan. He writes on the eve of his departure of "'my last walk' in Chusan, where I have passed many days in quiet and peace, and where I have been enabled to save a little money, with which I hope to render my last days somewhat comfortable. My health upon the whole is pretty good; and altogether I have every reason to be thankful to God for sending me to a situation wherein I have been enabled to accomplish so much for my own benefit and the comfort of others, whilst my duty kept me absent from them." The latter allusion was to his father and sister, for both of whom he had been able to make provision in the event of his predeceasing them. Having left England heavily embarrassed, the increase of his emoluments during his stay in China had enabled him to relieve himself of liabilities, and this without being at all niggardly in the hospitalities which he dispensed.
Sailing from Chusan on July 5th in the transport Lord Hungerford, the colonel and headquarters of the Ninety-Eighth landed at Calcutta on October 24th, 1846; the last of the detachments carried by other transports arrived at the end of November, when the regiment was complete. Colin Campbell meanwhile had been in charge of Fort-William, but when the regiment began its march to Dinapore in December he resumed its command. He really seemed to live for the Ninety-Eighth. Lord Hardinge had expressed his intention of appointing him a brigadier of the second class. "This," writes Campbell, "is very flattering; but I would prefer to remain with my regiment." He writes with soldierly pride of its conduct on the route-march: "The march of the regiment has been conducted to my entire satisfaction, no men falling out, and the distance of sections so correctly preserved that their wheeling into line is like the operation of a field-day. Those who follow me will benefit by this order and regularity in conducting the line of march." On arrival at Dinapore in the end of January, 1846, he found his appointment in general orders as brigadier of the second class to command at Lahore. Before starting for his new sphere he held what proved to be his last inspection of the Ninety-Eighth. "Men steady as rocks," he writes, "moving by bugle-sound as correctly as by word of command – equally steady, accurate, and with the same precision." In the evening he spoke to the regiment some simple manly, soldierly words, to which the men must have listened with no little emotion. He dined with the mess the same night, when the president rose and proposed his health in connection with the day's inspection of the regiment and the exertions he had made as commanding officer to produce such results. "The toast," he wrote, "was received with great warmth and cordiality… I could not speak without emotion, and my manner could not conceal my deep anxiety respecting a corps in which I had served so long. I begged that, if their old colonel had been sometimes anxious and impatient with them, they would forget the manner and impatience of one who had no other thought or object in life but to add to their honour and reputation collectively and individually."
Next day he started for Lahore, "feeling," as he records in his restrained yet sincere manner, "more than I expected when taking leave of the officers who happened to be at my quarters at the moment of my departure." He had a pleasant meeting at Cawnpore with his old West Indian comrades of the Twenty-First Fusiliers; and on the road between Kurnal and Meerut he had an interview with the Governor-General. Lord Hardinge received him with the frank kindness of an old Peninsular man to a comrade, described Henry Lawrence, the British Resident in the Punjaub, as "the King of the country, clever and good-natured, but hot-tempered," and gave Campbell to understand that if any part of the force in the Punjaub should be called upon to take the field, he should have a command. A few days later he reached Saharunpore, the headquarters for the time of Lord Gough, the Commander-in-Chief, also an old Peninsular man, whom he found most cordial and friendly. The old Chief asked him whether he could be of any service to him. Colin Campbell, sedulous as ever for the welfare of the Ninety-Eighth, replied that he had no favour to ask for himself, but that his lordship would give him pleasure by removing his regiment nearer to the frontier as early as