The Sun.
London, England, 1855-11-13 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1855.

The unjust and unwarrantable attack on Sir
CoLnr CAMPBELL, contained in the Times of Friday
last, and which called forth the severe and well-
merited censure of "An Er-Cavalry Officer," was
by no means the first onslaught of the Leviathan
against the well-earned reputation of a gallant
veteran whom it now admits—the injury having
been already perpetrated—to be' " one of the
most distinguished and deserving officers in her
MAJETY's army." Ho had long before been
selected as an object for the virulent calumnies
in which our contemporary too frequently in-
dulges, with what object it is difficult to conceive.
It is, however, passing strange that it should
simultaneously have been writing against General
SIMPSON, with the view of obtaining his voluntary
~
resignation or compulsory dismissal, aryl sneerin
at the officer whom the general opinion at horn°
and . abroad, - of military men and civilians,
pointed out as his legitimate successor. The
unblushing charges of incapacity against the
English Commander-in-Chief, for conduct which
elicited the highest eulogfiums from do EMPEROR,
the Army, and the People of France,, as well as
from every Englishman who did not derive his in-
spiration directly from Printing-house-square, and
the depreciation of his probable successor assumes
A very significant aspect, wh
total alteration in its view en we consider the
resignation s, perceptible after the
of
General SatesoN, and the pro-
motion of another officer over the head of Sir
COLIN CAMPBELL. It can no, affJrd to chance
its opinions on the subject of the failure against
the Redan, while praising Sir WILLIAM
CODRING-
ICN, who was entrusted with the reanageinent of
the entire affair, and was therefore Chiefly, if not

altogether responsible therefor—and it can also,
now that he has been virtually superseded, render

Ardy justice to " the good services and well-won

claims of one of the mcst distinguished and de-
serving officers in her MAJESTY'S service 1"

The confession of wrong cannot, however, *repair
the serious injury inflicted, or place Sir CoLIN
CAMPBELL in the position which he might have
occupied with honour to himself, and advantage
to the country, but for the defamatory statements
of the Times.

We would earnestly commend to the attentive
consideration of our readers the letter of Lieut.-
Colonel STERLING, Assistant Adjutant-General of
the Highland Division, which will las found in
another part of this day's impression, and which
has compelled the Times to withdraw the vile in-
sinuations put forward in the early part of last
month—and also its assumption that the return
of Sir CoLIN from the Crimea was solely ascrib-
able to his indignation at the appointment of a
junior officer over his head. The statement of
the ex-cavalry officer on this point has been so
fully confirmed by Lieutenant-Colonel STERLING
that the Times has been compelled formally to
eat its own words, and to confess that the return
of the gallant general was " in no way connected
with the promotion of Sir WILLIAM CODRINGTON."

Colonel STERLNG disposes in a masterly manner
of the charges that have been so deliberately put
forward against his heroic leader. It is true that
they have been insinuated rather than distinctly
preferred. But the Times is skilful in the ma-
nagement of such weapons, and. well knows the•
pernicious effects of
" The whispered hint, the shrug, the hum or ha,
The petty brands that calumny doth use."

In order that the matter may be thoroughly
understood, we reprint the obnoxious paragraph of
which Colonel STERLING so justly complains, and
in which it will be seen that, as in another re-
markable instance, it was not satisfied with calum-
niating the General, without also pouring forth
its venom on the brave fellows under his com-
mand. It is as follows :

" A single year of warfare has disposed of the
whole of those veterans, with the exception of
Sir Colin Campbell, who has been laid up in laven-
der all the winter with his Highlanders, and whose
military talents, if we may judge of them by his
exploits in the Punjaub, do not entitle him to
aspire to a great command. We have seen the
result of sending a young army into the field
almost entirely led by old chiefs, who owed their
rank to seniority and brevet promotion ; the best
of them have either fallen in battle or sunk under
disease, and those who remain are mere obstruc-
tions to the real strength of the army."

The Colonel now clearly points out the nature
of " the lavender" in which officers and men of
the Highland division have been laid up dur-
ing the winter. We had already explained
how, after the unwavering resistance of " the
thin red line," on the fiercely-contested field of
Balaklava, the Highlanders had been retained
in a position requiring the utmost vigilance and
steadiness, where, in fact, the honour and security
of the entire Allied Armies ware confided to their
charge. " The lavender" of the General was the
unceasing watchfulness which induced him not to

lay aside his clothes for eight months, and
to be "always on parade with his men
and officers, in rain and mud, before daylight,
undergoing fatigues that would have killed half a
dozen Carpet Knights, who had merely mounted
guard at home, and whose courtly services were
confined to London or 'Windsor." Nor does the
reproach to the soldiers rest on a better founda-
tion. The sketch of the toils they had freely
undertaken and completed have for ever silenced
the voice of calumny.
It is unnecessary to speak on the other points
respecting the services in the Punjaub, so clearly
detailed by Colonel STERLING, or the vigour,
activity, and physical qualifications of the in-
sulted General. The narrative has caused the
Times to recant its libels ; but that tardy confes-
sion will not repair the injustice inflicted on the
distinguished officer, or avert the serious conse-
quences to the country arising from the loss of
his invaluable services.

Have the great errors of the campaign been
unavoidable or not ? The question is no captious
one. The duty of the nation depends upon it.

If there had been but a reasonable amount of mis-
calculation we might bear with what all mortals
are liable to. If there was error through incom-
petency we should still have to consider whether
it was teachable or hopeless incompetency. In the
latter case it would be essential to demand the
dismissal of the unteachable ; in the former we
might expect that experience, though bought
by a PANMIIRE or a Wool), at a nation's
cost, would insure a different result next
year. But if the nation has reason to
fear that members of the Cabinet, or any
one more influential secretly than half the Cabi-
net, had marred the policy of the campaign, then
it had better listen to Mr. COBDEN and sue for
peace, or demand to be appealed to, that it might
tell Courts, and Cabinets, and cotton lords, and
factions what that august party in the affair, the
nation itself, thinks on the question of the con-
duct and objects of the War. A dissolution
would silence, we suspect, some plausible, nay
eloquent, but time-wasting and mischievous
tongues, and would forward the War by one whole
campaign at least. A House of Commons which
would properly back Lord PALMERSTON, in-
timidate Austria and the Coburgs, and en-
courage Sweden and Poland, would possibly
bring the CZAR to his knees this winter, and
would certainly make the campaign of next sum-
mer totally different to any preceding one.

We must own that the past vouches but poorly
quite
for the sagacity or the heartiness of theo really
b e
controlling powers. The difficulty is, to
sure who those powers are. Early last spring we
ventured, civilians as we are, to state our views
of what the plan of the campaign should be. w,
argued that if Sir CHARLES WOOD could not ram_
ter sufficient gun-boats and war vessels
of light
draught to make sure of a successful attack
on the Baltic fortresses it would be better merely
to blockade in that sea, and to throw our whole
naval as well as military strength into completely
clearing the coasts of the Euxine of the least har-
bour for a Russian soldier. For honest or dis-
honest reasons such a plan was not originated,
or the advice wholly unheeded ; we now
onlypeat tthhaets see the
consequences. In the Baltic the mischief done is
moreswamhiechopwerilaltimonaskenietxt
than was wanted,mor-
tar-boats,tioe as well as difficult to re-
peat
have a much
almost ayregae r;
wasted navalth Ourei r force
in the North. But suppose every vessel that was
not necessary to keep the Russian ships skulking
had been sent straight to the Black Sea in the
spring, our fleet would then have swept everything.
Now each operation is but half concluded. With
our mortar-boats we might have ruined the dock-
yards and arsenals of Nicolaieff, instead of leav-
ing TODLEBEN to make it impregnable next spring.
We might have destroyed Kherson as well, we
might have cleared the mouth of the Danube, and
brought to France and England the corn which
Austria bought for a song in the Principalities ;

►
and our spare vessels might have destroyed or
taken Odessa. The whole north and west seaboard
of Russia in the Euxine might thus have been de-
prived of its power to support Russian reserves,
and to forward troops and provisions to the
Crimea ; indeed it seems hardly possible that
GORTSCHAKOFF could have ventured to remain in
the Crimea at all after the fall of Sebastopol. If
we had directed our attention to active operations
in the East alone we might also have forced the
Strait of Genitchi, and destroyed the Tchongar
Bridge, the grand road, as it would now seem,
for the Russian communications.

We must confess the half-finished operations
everywhere, and, not least ofall, the infatuated relin-
quishment of our right to form Polish legions, or
Wallachian legions, or any legions whatever, of
natural and brave enemies of Russia compel us to
fear that it was not wished to make the campaign
a more complete one. It does not appear to us
that our Ministers could have overlooked the im-
mense advantage of throwing irresistible strength
into the Eastern attack, and settling that part of
the business. Had no one suggested it, the plain
eat dictates of common sense point too obviously
to such a policy to make it possible it could
have been unthought of. It is hard to
believe that it was wished to make clean
work in the East in one campaign, or
we might have done it, and have given a very
different account of the Baltic next campaign to
what we shall now do. Even there, however, the
insufficient number of mortar-boats, although
Government had been warned by Sir C. NAPIER
on that point, together with the sparing of *Bel-
singfors, necessitate the belief that it was in-
tended to achieve but little—enough only, in
short, to just pass muster with the nation.
• It may be difficult, or rather undesirable, to
say whom we think chiefly to blame for all this.
We do not think Lord PALMERSTON is ; nor do
we think, if supported by those by whom he
ought to be, he would not have done his part.
We think, however, the inference from the gene-
ral conduct of the War, of the naval department
especially, and of the military too particularly
when promotion is concerned, point to the con-
clusion that his Lordship needs a new Parliament
if he is successfully to carry out the policy desired
by the great body of the nation. He is threat-
ened with fetters, if indeed his hands are not al-
ready tied by Court and Aristocracy. The people
alone—the BRIAREUS of the occasion—can pro-
tect him. Let him invoke their aid and the con-
spirators will tremble and leave him alone ; a new
Parliament is the most important preparation for
the next campaign.