The Sun.
London, England, 1858-01-25 00:00:00

CHINA.

The French A,ltuiral has dechrel the blockade
of the Canton river on the part of France.
The Wand of Hunan, opposite Canton, was on
the 15th of December oceupi.d by the English.
end French forces. After 10 days, unless Yeh
t-) the ultimatum, Cant nn was to be
attacked ; it was said that he has already refused,
The Adelaide has reached Hong Kong with
507 rank and file.

The Assistance, from Calcutta, has also arrived
with 300 Marines and 100 men of the 59th.

The Hong Kong import market has generally
improved.

Exchange, 4s. 11d.

SHANGHAI, DEC. 8.
Exchange, Gs. 4id. to Gs. 6d.
Very little business doing in silks.
Tea-market generally quiet, and buyers holding
off.

The Primess Royal, vr;'l3 the remainder of the
718 t for India, reached Alexandria on the 16th
of January.

No intelligence from Suez of the Feroze, ex-
pected from Bombay.
The outward mails have not yet arrived.

THE PENINSULAR MAILS.

SOUTHAMPTON, JAN. 23.
The Peninsular and Oriental Company's steam-
ship Tagus, Capt. Christian, arrived this avtning,
at eight o'clock, with the usual Peninsular mail, 23
passengers, 20,1081. in specie, and a general cargo,
comprising 167 boxes of eggs, 110 half-chests of
oranges, 226 boxes of dates, and J 53 packages of
sundries.

The dates of sailing were :—Gibraltar, Jan. 16 ;
Cadiz, 17th ; Lisbon, 19th ; Oporto and Vigo, 20th.
Her Majesty's ship Curlew was at Gibraltar ;
the usual Portuguese squadron at Lisbon.
The Tagus passed the American ship Caroline,
steering t• the westward.

Gibraltar exchange on London, at 90 days, 50f.

SIR COLIN CAMPBELL.

(From the Examiner.)
For three long years the people of England have been
ooking out for a general, and they have found one at
. .

net among the aristocracy, but in the ranks of the
middle classes, or among themselves, We propose to
give our readers a brief account of Sir Colin Campbell,
who has already acquired so much reputation, and is
likely, if his life is spared, to gain many an additional-
laurel.

' This soldier of fortune, who has raised himself to the
head of his profession by pure merit, possessing many
friends, but no patrons, is properly a native of one of
the remote Hebrides, the island of Islay, in the county
of Argyle, his birth in the city of Glasgow having been
purely acei lental. At eight years of age he came to
England for his education, so that he is more indebted
to England than to Scotland for the eminence he has
since attained. One of his uncles died a o,lonel in the
English army ; another, a gallant youth, after whom he
is named, lost his life in our piteous contest with
America, scalped by the Red Indians, a foe less savage
than the sepoys, for they kill only in battle.
Of Sir Cilin's pedigree, although with such a man the
' matter is one of the smallest consequence, we shall say
a few words, chiefly because it is in itself rather curious.
At the period ,f the Revolution the Highland clans were
still troublesome, and two of them, the Macdonalds
and Maclean., fought a pitched batVe for the possession
of Islay, the fairest of the Hebrides, as well as for the
adjacent island of Jura The Government of the
Revolution made short work with the combatants by
confiscating tne two isles in dispute, and handing them
over to James Campbell of Calder, a near relation of the
fArgyle. This powerful chieftain, like a feudal hoo-
queror, took possession of the islands, planting in them a
colony of Campbells, big kinsmen and clansmen, and
partitioning; among these the beat lands on a tenure, at
that time nearly equal in value to the fee simple.
Among the foremost of the families so planted were the
forefathers of Sir Colin Campbell, and thus, as far as
such a pedigree can confer the distinction, he is of
" gentle blood."

Let us, if only for mere curiosity's sake, follow up the
history of the place of Sir Colin's nativity. Sir J. Camp.
bell of Calder, the ancestor of the present Earls of Cawdor
unable to get from the two islands sufficient revenue to
pay his quit-tent of 5001. a year to the Crown, sold them to
a pr'sperous trader of Glasgow, also a Campbell for the
sum of 12,0001., which is about one-half the amount of their
present rentall In the family of this individual, a very
distinguished one, the principal island continued for five
generations, but a few years ago it was again purchased
by a London merchant., the late highly intelligent Mr.
James Morrison, like Cohn Campbell, sprung from the
people, and t'ie founder of his own great fortune. The
sum paid for it was 450,0001., which is about seven and
thirty-fold what it fetched about 140 years ago.
The Campbells, we may add, were always a very
loyal, very Presbyterian, very diffusive, even very intru-
sive brood. They were originally, or at least their
chiefs were, French or Norman invaders, who, coming
throsgh England, seized all they could lay hold of in
Perth, and nearly 'possessed themselves of all
Argyle. In both counties they became quasi High-
landers, speaking good vernacular, and by way of
accomplishment, now and then bad Scotch, and worse
English. No country comes amiss to the Campbells.
One of their chiefs, the descendent of the aforesaid
Campbell of Calder, is now a Weshman. A good
many of them are at present English, even to the height
of being Peers and Chief Justices, while many are
Yankees, Canadians, Australians, and Anglo-Indians.
But to return from this digression to the man who is
now, engaged in suppressing the mutiny and rebellion of
100,000 trained soldiers, and in putting down insurrec-
tion over an area of a million and a half of square miles,
Sir Colin is now sixty-four, with the constitution and
activity of forty. He entered the army in 1808, and
his first feat of arms was at. San Seb oitian ; he led the
foilorn hope io the assault of that place on the 25th of
July, 1813.

". I beg (says Lord Lynedoch, in his despatch to the
Duke of Wellingtoe), to recommend to your Lordship
Lieut. Colin Campbell, of the 9th, who led tte forlorn
hope, and who was severely wounded on the breac."
Li;,nt. Campbell's section consisted of twenty-five, and,
-with one e:.ception, every man of it was either killed or
wounded.
In the long period of five-and-forty years which have
since el ipsed, Sir Colin Campbell has served his country
in almost every quarter of the globe,—during fourteen
of them in India and China. How he led his column at
the Alma, spared hie men, and defeated the enemy op.
thouasareedinn:
posed to him, is fresh in the recolleotion of the public, as
is also his conduct at Balaclava. These achievements,
:anti
instantly
posted
however, have been far surpassed by his relief of the
position most favourable to nativ
• nof Lucknow, his retreat from that place io
garrison the
in
nhetshee masterly movements
face of an organised force of fifty
lowed up by his forced marches that enabled him to repair
tactic'. These
the errors of a lieutenant by defeating an enemy flushed
ern-1
by a moment's success, numb •
g double his own force.
Military men will, we think,
be prepared to
. admit that
in the conduct of these enter •
has displayed
an
amount
of ses Sir C lie Campbell
strategic sle,ll perhaps never
before exhibited in our Indian warfare, from the sublime
of Clive and Coote down to the opposite profound of
Gough and Ellenborough. We o
battles of Sir Charles Napier, buetx cneoptt
trill yonteh the
art,:
of the Great Captain, who wanted when he fought it,
for it was his first, the quarter of a century's longer
experience of Napier and Campbell. Our Indian battles,
',deal, have too often consisted in the mere hurling of
British batt '• &ions against artillery in position, the re-
liance being on the heart and arm of the soldier, and not
in the head of the general. The pluck of our forefathers,
before the invention of gunpowder, would have enabled
them to win such fights as these with Asiatics, even
with the cross-bow, the pike, or the broadsword.
Sir Colin has done already a great deal, but be has
much more to accomplish ; be has not only to conquer a
kingdom more populous and incomparably more full of
resources than his own native country, swarming with
a catlike population and bristling with !fortresses
He has, moreover, to raise, organise, and dis-
cipline a loyal and effective army in the room of one that
was formidable only to its employers. The country
prays for the preservation of a life so valuable, and
perhaps rather too freely exposed to danger. The
popular vows are the more earnest, as if Sir Colin
Campbell should unhappily fall, it is impossible to see,
far or near, a commander worthy to succeed him.

LIVERPOOL, Jan. 23.—The Canard Snail steamship
Arabia took her departure hence for New York to-day.
She had on board a large mail, a small cargo,fuld 45
pas-angers.
DESPERATS ATTEMPT TO litralns.--.11101011 Jones
was on Wednesday last fully committed to take his trill
at the next spring assizes at Carmarthen, for attempting,
on Saturday, the 9th instant, to murder Margaret Jones,
his sister-in-laver by beating her head with II stone.