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THE NORTHERN OPERATIONS
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men. ... Though I shall be gone, the thought of you will go with me wherever I may be, and cheer my old age with a glorious recollection of dangers confronted and hardships endured. A pipe will never sound near me without carrying me back to those bright days when I was at your head, and wore the bonnet which you gained for me, and the honourable decorations on my heart, many of which I owe to your conduct.'

Sir Colin Campbell was created a G.C.B. in 1855; and two years later, as already stated, he was offered the post of Commander-in-Chief in India. 'Never,' he said, 'did a man proceed on a mission of duty with a lighter heart and a feeling of greater humility; nor yet with a juster sense of the compliments that had been paid to a mere soldier of fortune like myself in being named to the highest command in the gift of the Crown.' We have seen how promptly he started. At Ceylon, he heard of the deaths of Sir Henry Lawrence and Sir Hugh Wheeler. Reaching Calcutta early in August, 1857, he assumed command of the army on the 17th of that month. But instead of proceeding at once up country, he conceived it to be his duty to remain for a time at the Presidency town, where he was joined by Major-General Mansfield (afterwards Lord Sandhurst) for whose services as Chief of the Staff he had made a special request. He learned from Sir Patrick Grant, who up to this time had been in temporary chief command of the army, that until a force could be collected at Allahábád of