The Sun.
London, England, 1858-01-26 00:00:00

who is fully fit and able to discharge the arduous
duties of a post requiring in the highest degree
unsleeping vigilance, cool-headed energy, and
strategic skill.
It is indeed fortunate that in so momentous a
crisis the supreme military command has devolved
upon such a man as Sir COLIN CAMPBELL. A
faithful and hard-working servant of his country
for many a long year, he has carved his way to
renown by his own good sword. A man from
among the people, and of whom the people may
be justly proud, he owes nothing of his fortune to
aristocratic patronage, which has so often, and
with such disastrous effects, pitchforked incompe•
tency into high places. It cannot be gainsayed—
and it is with humiliation that the admission must
be made—that the stuff of which generals ought
to be made is very far from plentiful in the upper
ranks of the British army. Blunderers of the
first water are to be found there in abundance,
but a really efficient leader, thoroughly up to
his work, with both the head to contrive
and the hand to execute is a perfect godsend. If
it should so please Providence that Sir COLIN
CAMPBELL were to fall a victim in this fatal war-
fare, which has already cost the lives of the illus-
trious HAVELOCK and so many of his heroic
brotherhood, who is there to take his place with
the full confidence of the country ? The great
point of the war is the reconquest of Oude,
swarming as it is with armed desperadoes, and
what Horse-Guards' pet could safely be entrusted
with the conduct of a campaign fraught with such
grave importance and results ? It is the know-
ledge of the vastness of the interests at stake, and
of the capacity of the man to whom such great
responsibilities are entrusted, that cause all eyes
to be directed, both in England and in India, with
such affectionate confidence and hope towards the
Highland Hero. We cannot better illustrate the
prevalent feeling with regard to Sir Comf's worth,
and the deiperiti of such incapables as peculiar
interest can prefer to posts where their inadequacy
involves not merely disgrace to themselves, but
grievous loss and suffering to their country, than
by giving an extract from a letter by an Indian
officer of experience, which appeared this morn-
ing in the columns of a contemporary. " Our
great hope," says the writer, "is Sir COLIN
CAMPBELL. Should anything happen to this fine
old soldier and real general, where are we to look
for his successar t WINDHAM has already made
an ass of himself, but we cannot yet come at the
truth. Probably we never shall, for he is a guards-
man, a Times hero, and a M.P. CODRINGTON is ditto
(I mean ass, M.P., and guardsman), so he may come
out, or poor old Simpson. I shall never forget the
faces of the latter two on the day of the Redan. I
laughed, when I should not laugh, at the thought
of the two old women in the fifth parallel. ' On,
men,' said CODDY, but he never came on himself.
WINDHAM certainly showed good pluck for a while.
He went away, however, for supports, but some-
how he or the supports never came back. How
we looked around for a commander, riddled and
falling as we wore. Imagine CODRINGTON and
SIMPSON afterwards made a committee to decide
on claimants for the Victoria Cross ! Oh,
chivalry Such men I By all means send them
to India, if the people at home like a long and
systematic war."

The flagrant system of military jobbing has
been marked of late by examples of such signal
public detriment, that we are fain to hope a new
leaf may be turned over for the future. Cer-
tainly Lord GEORGE PAGET'S appointment last
week is not emblematical of a total rejection of
the old leaven, but it may turn out pretty well,
and under the eye of Sir Comw no frightful
blunders can well be permitted to take place.
Doubtless, he has still much to achieve ; but
there is no fear of the work being clumsily or
negligently done, should he be spared to execute
it. The vows of the people are as earnest for
his safety and success as their grief was deep and
genuine for the loss of HAVELOCK, " The darling
hero of England." The national gratitude
is about to ereot an appropriate re-
cord to that intrepid soldier, corresponding
with the statue of another truly great man—the
conqueror of Scinde ; and the images of HAVE-
LOCK and NAPIER will occupy the most prominent
position in the metropolis, by the side of the
glorious NELSON, adorning a site which should be
further furnished with the equestrian effigies of
CCEITR DE LION and of MARLBOROUGH, an exist-
ing impropriety being removed to some more con-
venient locality, and no longer disfiguring a spot
which should be sacred to the enduring represen-
tations of five of the most nobly foremost in the
roll of British chivalry. But long may it be
before we have to mourn the extinction of one so
universally trusted and beloved, as the stalwart
chief who has ever trod upright and undaunted in
the path of duty and of glory, and whom, under
the good favour of Heaven, we trust yet to hail
on his triumphant return to his native soil, as
the Regenerator of our endangered supremacy in
India.