The Sun.
London, England, 1856-07-02 00:00:00

LON DON. WEDNESDAY EVENING, JULY 2, 1856.

SIR COLIN CAMPBELL IN GLASGOW.

PRESENTATION OF THE FREEDOM OF THE
CITY AND THE SWORE) OF HONOUR.
(Front the Glasgow Bulletin.)
At twelve o'clock, this day, one of the most brilliant
companies which ever met in Glasgow assembled in the
City Hall to do honour to the distingu;shed hero of a
hundred fights, Major-General Sir Colin Campbell. As
early as eleven o'clock, carriages and foot passengers
began to move towards the Hall, and long before the
hour announce] for the commencement of the proceed-
ings the spacious hall was densely crowded in every
corner.
The patriotic feeling of our population was thus again
proved to be as strong a d fervent as ever. Almost
every one of our citizens was desirous of seeing the re-
newned veteran. Sir Colin Campbell is a native of
Glasgow, and it well becomes our.citizens to be the first
to acknowledge publicly the high estimation in which
they hold his services. Since ever he entered on his
carrier a 3 a warrior, he has sustained the ancient glory
and renown of the British arms. In the Peninsula, in
America, in Demerara, in China, in India, and latterly
in the Crimea, at the heights of the Alma, and on the
field of Balaklava, he has fought and conquered, and his
name, now a " household word" among us, is likely to
co down to posterity, associated with those of Sir John
Moore, Sir Ralph Abercromby, Lord Raglan, Wolfe,
and the Iron Duke. It was well, therefore, that he should
be wade a Burgess of the City of Glasgow, and it was
fitting that be should receive a Sword of Honour as a
feeble recowpence for his arduous services in hie coun-
try's calve. The assembly to day will not soon be for-
gotten as one of the grandest demonstrations to worth
and bravery ever made in Scotland. The excitement in
the city was most intense at the time Sir Colin was ex-
aß&whea the cortege reached the Royal Ex-
lenge in Queen street, the carriage containing the illus-
trious warrior was surrounded by thousands of his en-
thusiaitic admirers, who applauded him most vocifer-
ously at every stage. Sir Colin's appearance in the
hail was the signal for a tremendous outhur- t td warm
and prolonged applause and vociferous cheering, during
which Mr. Lambeth played, " See the Conquering Hero
Co rni- s."

FRtct9,4,
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The chair was taken at twelve o'clock by the Right
Hon. the Lord Provost.
• The LORD PROVOST rose, and having made a very
' eloquent speech, handed the burgess ticket to Sir Colin,
enclosed in a handsome box of solid gold, amid great
applause.
Sir COLIN CAIIPBELL, on receiving the diploma, said
—.lTy Lord Provost, ladies, and gentlemen, on arriving
to-day in my native city, after an absence of upwards of
• half a century, it has become my lot to receive this civic
honour, and it is also intended to confer another honour
of a military kind. (Cheers.) These both coming from
my townsmen, it is hard to say which I value most
highly; I can say that I shall always be ready to draw
the sword, about to be presented to me, in defence of
my freedom. (Great applause.) I shall always value as
I ought to do, highly and gratefully, the manner of my
reception to day, and the great honour conferred, and
about to be conferred on me. The recemper ce which I
e• desire to give you is, in every possible way to do my
duty to my country. Sir Colin sat down amid tre-
mendous cheering.
Sir A. ALTSON, amid much applause, rose and said—
} Sir Colin Campbell. you have just received from the
Lord Provost and Magistrates of this city the highest
i honour which they have it in their 'sewer to bestow. It
l is now my honoured privilege to present to you a testi-
monial of another description—a sword, the et of six
1 thousand of your grateful countrymen, in token of admi-
ration of your distinguished services and respect for your
manly character. (Applause.) Were 6. testimonial of
this description to be pries(' chiefly for it-s intrinsic value,
• one of far greater cost would, on this cccasion, have
been subscribed for in an hour in the Royal Exchange
in this city ; but the contributions were purposely made
almost nominal, in order to indicate, by their amount,
the extent of the circle which those feelings pervaded ;
and never, I feel assured, were these feelings more
universal than in Scotland on the present occasion,
and never were they more richly deserved. (Great
applause.) Such and so varied, General, have been
your exploits, that the victories of Wellington, many
and splendid as they were, form but an episode in
your glorious career. (Cheers.) From the time when
the British armies landed in Spain in 1808, under their
renowned leader, to that when the combined standards
of France and England waved over the ruins of Sebes-
topel, you have borne a part in nearly all the tsinmphs
which have immortalised their arms. (Renewed cheers.)
You shared as a young officer in the glorious charge
which, at Vimiera, first taught the legions of Napoleon
the prowess of the British arms ; you underwent the
hardships of the Corunna retreat, and partook of the
mournful triumph which, at its close, redeemed their
c'iaracter. To enumerate the many fields of fame in
which your courage and prowess have been subsequently
proved, would be to recount the long series of Welling-
ton's victories. Fortune gave you an opportunity, in
your changeful career, of evincing all the virtues of a
soldier ; for if, in the defence of Tariffs, you proved
how the fiercest attack c.n be shattered by the steadiness
of British grenseliers, in leading the forlorn hope at St.
Sebastian you showed that even the strongest ramparts
can 1 e carried by their impetuous assault. The battb s of
Barrossa and Vittoria, and the passage of the Belassoa
have subsequently called forth your military virtues in the
field ; and you there learned, under your immortal leader,
the arts of strategy and war in its highest department,
which you subsequently applied with such decisive effect
in the fields of Asia. When' Wellington sheathed his
victorious sword, and applied to peace those talents which
hail gained for his country such renown in war, you
did not close your military career. You sought in the
West and East those fields which were no longer to be
found in Europe, and then the soldier of Wellington
proved himself worthy of his immortal master. The
brief but bloody campaign in America in 1814 witnessed
your military talent, as if to leave no part of the world
which could not bear testimony to it ; but the wars in
the East presented a field more worthy of your talents
and experience. At the head of the 98th Regiment you
did good service in the struggle in China, and bore a
part in those decisive operations near Nankin, which at
once
resou pr
resources
tor
of
tedthe
350
millionsr enogfth of an e
m e n .
(Cheers.)m pire wielding You
h sharedt e
in the severest battles in the Punjaub in 1849 —stemmed
the tide of disaster at Ramnuger and Chillianwelliah,
and swelled the flood of victory in the decisive triumph
at G wjerat. To recount your many and varied exploits
since that time in India, terminating with the rouge ef
Iskakote, when with 3,000 men you defeated 8,000,
would exceed the limits prescribed for this occasion.
I hasten to the last and most glorious part of your mili
tary career, when at the head of the Highland Brigade
you were despatched to sustain the ancient military ho-
nour ofyour country in the arduous conflict in the Crimea.
You there found a field worthy of your renown. You
were there to confr ,nt the best troops of continental
Europe, to fight side by side with the victors of Aus-
terlitz, and to measure swords with the conquerors
of Leipsic. (Hear.) Bet if the crisis was perilous, you
proved yourself equal to it. If the danger was great,
great also was the glory won, great the triumph
achieved. It was your moral resolution which, at the
decisive moment, breught forward the Highland Brigade,
along with the Guards, to the attack of the key of the
enemies' position in the Alma ; it was your undaunted
personal courage which led you at their bead into the
midst of the enemies' tirailleure, and, though your horse
was shot dead under you, enabled you to plant the Brit-
ish standard on the blood-stained Russian entrench-
ments. (Great applause.) Military historians of all
countries concur in ascribing to that splendid attack the
glorious victory which eventually followed it, fraught,
as the event proved, after an arduous struggle, with the
ultimate fate of the war. At Balaklava you performed
the feat, so rare in war, of defeating the charge of a
powerful body of Russian horse by the 93d Regiment in
line. Nor was your confidence in the brave men you
commanded misplaced on that occasion ; for I have it
from the best authority, that such was the precision of
their fire that scarcely a Muscovite horse was un-
wounded after their discharge. The fame now ac-
quired for yourself and the Highlanders whom you com-
manded, and whom Pelissier Ism described as " the
finest and most splendid troops in the world," led to
their being intrusted during the winter and spring which
followed with the post of honour, that of defending the
heights around Balaklava—the vital quarter most ex-
posed to attack from the immensely superior force of
the enemy, which covered the armies' communications
—the point where the thunder-cloud which had so long
hung over the Tchernaya at last broke, and where de-
feat would have been ruin to the whole army. It was
to the skill with which you fortified, and the vigilance
with which you guarded, that important point, as well
as the heroic valour of the English troops' that the
failure of the well-conceived combined attack, of which
the battle of Inkerman was a part, is to be ascribed.
(Cheers.) During the terrible winter which followed,
when the strife with man bad ceased but that with the
elements began, your administrative powers shone forth
with the highest lustre, and there is not a soldier in
your division who will not recount how their beloved
commander was to be seen, regardless alike of the floods
of autumn and the snows of winter, early and late, in-
defatigably engaged in providing for the soldiers' comfort,
and assuaging the soldiers' sufferings. We have heard
much of administrative neglect in other services and other
departments, but no one has heard a whisper of such com-
plaints in the Highland Division. The result was, that
that division was so preserved that it obtained also the
post of honour in the decisive events which followed, fir
they were brought up to the trenches during the latter
months of the siege, when the danger had become greatest,
and hundreds perished every night in the deadly strife in
the trenches, and to them was entrusted in both as-
saults of the 18th of June and Bth September the peril
ous duty of maintaining the work when carried—the
duty, it is well known, in all Oriental wars, of most
difficulty and danger, as was proved too dearly in the
storming both of the Malakhoff and the Redan. And
when the decisive moment arrived—when the fate of
the war quivered in the balance—when 700 noble Eng
lishmen lay dead in the bloody ditches of that formid
able fortress, it was to the Highland division that all
eyes were turned to renew the assault, and with
Highland bayonets that the front trenches were lined,
to run up the ensanguined slope with the first dawn
,of day. (Cheers.) What the result of that assault would a