LS - LT. GENERAL COLIN CAMPBELL, LT GOVERNOR OF GIBRALTAR

SCARCE SIGNED LETTER BY LT. GENERAL COLIN CAMPBELL AS LT GOVERNOR OF GIBRALTAR DURING THE PENINSULAR WAR AND SIGNED PAY WARRANT FOR THE MEDICAL AND GENERAL STAFF

WITH DISEASE THEN RAGING IN THE MEDITERRANEAN AND PEOPLE DYING IN GIBRALTAR, IT IS NOT SURPRISING EITHER: THAT THE GOVERNOR WAS ILL OR THAT THE CHEVALIER DE NAVARRO DID NOT STAY IN THE CITY TO MEET WITH HIM - NICE PLAGUE AND WAR DATE LETTER BY THE MILITARY GOVERNOR OF GIBRALTAR - TOGETHER WITH AN EQUALLY APPROPRIATE PAY WARRANT FOR THE "HOSPITAL OFFICERS"

IF YOU COLLECT GIBRALTAR OR SCARCE GENERAL OFFICERS OF THE PENINSULAR WAR - THIS IS A VERY NICE PAIR OF SIGNED REPRESENTATIVE DOCUMENTS

THIS DOCUMENT IS COVERED BY OUR WRITTEN, SIGNED AND SEALED
LIFETIME GUARANTEE OF AUTHENTICITY

PRINTED HEAD NOTE TO THE PAY WARRANT

Given under my Hand at Gibraltar this twenty fourth Day of February 1811

Colin Campbell / Lieutenant General

By Command

Guy Campbell / Military Secretary

Detail of Gibraltar showing Tarifa

Colin Campbell's son, Colonel Guy Campbell, bart, C.B., who was wounded at Echalar and commanded the 6th, his father's old regiment, at the battle of Waterloo, was created a baronet on 22 May 1815, with remainder to the heirs male of General Colin Campbell, in recognition of his father's eminent services.

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Transcription:

Gibraltar 27th August 1813

Sir,

     I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Letter introducing the Chevalier de Navarro, who, understanding that I was unwell, left it with the Portuguese Consul to be delivered after his departure.
     I regret much that an Intermittent Fever prevented my having the pleasure of seeing this Gentleman or paying him that attention due to your Excellency’s recommendation, and shall in all such occasions be happy to meet your Excellency’s wishes.

                        I have the honor to be Sir
                         Your Excellency’s most
                            obedient and most humble Servant
                                                Colin Campbell
                                                      Lt Gen’l
To His Excellency Charles Stuart

Sir Charles Stuart, KCB, KTS, GCB, Baron of Rothesay, was His Britannic Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Portugal during the greater part of the Peninsular War. Here Campbell was trying to meet the diplomatic perquisites offered the Chevalier de Navarro (Navarre being a region of northern Spain) by the British Ambassador, but was unable to do so because of illness.

From our Disinfected and Quarantined Letters Archive of the War we observe that a plague was sweeping the Mediterranean from East to West and while Governor Campbell's "Intermittent Fever" sounds more like a recurrence of his malaria, it is also possible it was the thin edge of the encroaching disease. In a letter dated the 19th of September, Joseph Barr Crispin, the British Deputy Consul at Faro (beautiful lighthouse on the south Portugal Coast in Algarve region) wrote to Sir Charles Stuart stating "Official accounts from the Portuguese Chargé at Cadiz dated 12 September 1813, state that five persons had died of the yellow fever at Gibraltar". But a month later, October 22nd, 1813, Colonel John Austin, Commanding Tavira (not to be confused with Tarifa), writes, "The Portuguese Consul in Seville writes me stating that the disease which exists in Gibraltar is termed by the faculty  the Gaol Fever, and that it is in decline". Yet other letters indicate the persistence of a "malignant fever" epidemic and Governor Campbell himself died on April 2, 1814. His cause of death is not listed but he is one of two Governors buried in the church in Gibraltar. We have not been able to identify the "Chevalier de Navarro".

From the mouth of the Guadalquivir in the West to Cadiz to the Cape of Trafalgar
 to Tarifa at the southernmost tip to Gibraltar to Fuengirola to Malaga in the East

Biographical Note

Lieutenant General Colin Campbell
(1754 - 1814)
Governor of Gibraltar - November 1809 to 2 April 1814
 

     CAMPBELL, COLIN (1754-1814), general, second son of John Campbell of the Citadel, deputy-keeper of the great seal of Scotland, was born in 1754. He entered the army as an ensign in the 71st regiment in March 1771, and was promoted lieutenant in 1774. He accompanied the 71st to America; was promoted captain in 1778 and major into the 6th on 19 March 1783. While stationed in New York he married Mary, eldest daughter of Colonel Guy Johnstone, who lost most of his property by remaining a sturdy loyalist. In 1786 his regiment was ordered to Nova Scotia, and remained there until the outbreak of the war with France, when it formed part of Sir Charles Grey's expedition to the West Indies, and distinguished itself both at Martinique and Guadeloupe. Campbell was promoted lieutenant-colonel of the 6th on 29 April 1795, and returned from the West Indies in July. In February 1796 he was ordered with his regiment to Ireland, where he was actively employed till 1803, and gained his reputation. Throughout 1798 he was employed in putting down the various attempts at rebellion in his neighbourhood, in which he was uniformly successful; he made it a rule never to separate his companies. He was present at the battle of Vinegar Hill and the defeat of the French at Ballynahinch. On 1 Jan. 1798 he was promoted colonel, and on 1 Jan. 1805 he was promoted major-general and given the command of the Limerick district. In January 1811 he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Gibraltar (the Duke of Kent being the nominal governor) at the most critical period of the Peninsular war. During Soult's occupation of Andalusia he insisted on keeping Gibraltar well garrisoned, even in spite of Wellington's repeated requisitions; he insisted on regarding Tarifa as an integral part of his Gibraltar command, and thus deprived Soult of a port to which he could import supplies from Morocco; he did all in his power to help the armies in Spain with supplies, in spite of perpetual hindrances from the Spanish junta and even of Wellington himself, who at last did him full justice. Napier speaks conclusively as to the importance of his work (NAPIER, Peninsular War, book X. chap. V. and XV. chap, v.) Campbell was promoted lieutenant-general on 4 June 1811, but he died at Gibraltar on 2 April 1814. His son, Colonel Guy Campbell, C.B., who was wounded at Echalar and commanded the 6th, his father's old regiment, at the battle of Waterloo, was created a baronet on 22 May 1815, with remainder to the heirs male of General Colin Campbell, in recognition of his father's eminent services. [Napier's History of the War in the Peninsula, for which he was allowed to consult General Campbell's manuscripts, and made great use of them; Wellington Despatches and Supplementary Despatches; Historical Record of the 6th Regiment.
     Care must be taken not to confuse this Lt. General Colin Campbell with another Lt General Colin Campbell who served with Wellington from his days in India through Waterloo and who also distinguished himself in the Peninsular War, and later served as the Lt. Governor of Nova Scotia and later Ceylon. Nor further to be confused with the Field Marshal Colin Campbell who, although he had his start in the Napoleonic War, made his name later in the Crimean and became Lord Clyde. To further complicate the issue: This last Colin Campbell (Lord Clyde) was posted to Gibraltar when our Colin Campbell (Governor of Gibraltar) was there as well, and it was this Governor Colin Campbell that attached then Lieutenant Colin Campbell to serve with Ballesteros of the Spanish Army where he conducted himself with great merit in the defense of Tarifa; which is where Napier finds Governor Colin Campbell's moment of greatness. He also fought at Barossa with Graham outside of Cadiz. Got all that?
     But back to our Lt. General Governor Colin Campbell. He was known for several things during his tenure at Gibraltar. He was instrumental in the defence of the city against the French, launched an abortive but spectacular counter attack at Malaga and was particularly instrumental in the garrisoning and defence of Tarifa, the southernmost point on the Iberian Peninsula being determined not to give Marshal Soult an easy port with which to re-supply across to North Africa. Although Colonel Skerrett received the initial accolades for the defense of Tarifa in December of 1811, it was largely because Campbell had withdrawn Skerrett's escape transports in order to strengthen his backbone. Although it created quite a stir at the time, as Napier notes in great detail in his review, it was Campbell who was ultimately vindicated and Skerrett put on the bench, which came to further justification during Skerrett's embarrassing performance in the campaign in the Pyrenees later in the war.
[excerpts from 1884 Dictionary of National Biography]

On another aspect of Campbell's administration: with Spain and Britain becoming allied against France, shortly after Campbell's arrival in November of 1809, he ordered the removal of the Spanish forts of San Felipe and Santa Barbara, located on the northern boundary of the neutral ground. Fearing that the forts might fall into French hands and be used against them, Lieutenant General Sir Colin Campbell instructed Royal Engineers to blow the forts up. Such a task was carried out on February 14, 1810 together with the demolition of the rest of fortifications of the Spanish Lines. According to historian George Hills, there are no primary sources that could explain whether such a demolition was requested or authorized by any Spanish or British authority. According to Hills, over time, three different theories has been presented: (a) Campbell ordered the demolition on his own responsibility (b) under instructions from the British Government (c) upon request of Spanish General Castaños, who was at the time in Cádiz. Spanish authors from 1840 have usually favoured theory (b) while British ones have supported (c). As long as there is no contemporary source or dispatch on the topic, Hills does not personally discard (a) considering it the most likely possibility. However the fact that there was no complaint from the Spanish Authorities suggests that it was indeed done at their request or at least with their acquiescence. And for a detailed and account of Campbell's Malaga Expedition, or the Battle of Fuengirola, designed to rouse the Spanish peasantry into resistance, see Reg Reynolds very entertaining account in the Gibraltar Magazine. This battle rarely appears in British histories while French sources claim it as a victory, however, it was putatively a group of Polish irregulars who trotted back to Krakow with Lord Blayney's sword where it lies today in their military museum.

Document Specifications:  An extremely fine handwritten letter signed by Lt. General Colin Campbell as Governor of Gibraltar and dated August 27th 1813. Folded letter measures 12½" tall x 7⅞" wide (317mm x 200mm). On one sheets of gilt-edged, cream stock, batonne laid paper, watermarked with a large seated Britannia in triple line oval crested by British Crown. Writing on two sides as shown. This is a beautiful letter by the Governor of Gibraltar during the Peninsular War as he was in the midst of a plague outbreak. The body text of the letter is in another's hand.

The second piece is a fine partially printed Pay Warrant authorizing the payment of £1655.8.0 in Spanish Dollars @ 54 pence the dollar (roughly $4.40 the pound) to the General Staff and Hospital Officers. Document Signed (DS) by Lt. General Colin Campbell as Governor of Gibraltar and dated February 24th 1811 as well as signed by Colonel Guy Campbell, his son and Military Secretary. Folded sheet partially printed document measures 11¾" tall x 8" wide (295mm x 204mm). On one sheet of heavy stock, batonne laid paper, (folded to make four pages) watermarked with a large seated Britannia in double lined oval crested by British Crown and "T SIMMONS - 1804". Main Document on one page and a Docketing ascription on another as shown. Script notation "Duplicate" on upper left corner. Some age toning and spotting along edges, small red wafer seal remnant between folded pages.

This is a scarce opportunity to acquire both a letter and official document signed by the British Governor of Gibraltar. A signature missing in most collections of British General Officers of the period. From the Stuart Correspondence.

  Offered by Berryhill & Sturgeon, Ltd

End of Item - BSL - 1813 COLIN CAMPBELL

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