Note 20 — HISTORICAL RECORD

In December of this year the regiment lost a valuable officer, Lieut.-Colonel Ronald Campbell, extracts from whose Journal have been given in the preceding pages. He performed duty in India with the 36th regiment; and was appointed Ensign in the SEVENTY-SECOND, by commission dated the 20th of November, 1788. He was attached to the grenadier company during the war with Tippoo Sultan, and signalized himself on several occasions, particularly at the storming of Bangalore, and at the capture of Savendroog; he also distinguished himself at both the engagements near Seringapatam. His Journal, with the plans and drawings, contains a detailed account of the leading events of the war with a description of the country; they show the interest he took in his profession, with a laudable desire to become well informed on military subjects, and they prove him to have been an intelligent, brave, and zealous officer. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in May 1792; and served at the capture of Pondicherry in 1793; also at the reduction of the Dutch settlements in Ceylon in 1795; in October, 1797, he obtained the command of a company. In 1805 he was brigade-major to Brigadier-General Mc Farlane, who commanded a portion of the Western district in Ireland, and was afterwards appointed brigade-major in Jamaica, but resigned his situation on the staff of that island, to command his company (the grenadiers) in the expedition to the Cape of Good Hope, where he had additional opportunities of distinguishing himself, and was appointed Commissary of Prisoners. On the 22nd of November, 1807, he was promoted major in his regiment, which he accompanied, in 1810, with the expedition against the Mauritius, where many valuable stores were captured, and he was nominated prize-agent to the brigade from the Cape of Good Hope. In 1812 he was promoted to the rank of Lieut.-colonel in the army, and appointed deputy adjutant-general to the forces serving on the island of Jamaica. He performed the duties of that situation two years, and fell a victim to the climate, his decease taking place on the first night after his arrival at Portsmouth, on the 14th of December, 1814. He had the reputation of a virtuous, brave, intelligent, humane officer, endowed with a strict sense of honor and distinguished as a polite gentleman and scholar.