I think your own quarters will produce some one sufficiently expert. I received your letter by Captain (Peter) Grant, before I left Sandgate: he seems a very gentlemanly young man. I do not think I can recommend a proper adjutant to you at present. Remember me kindly to my friends of the 92nd, and believe me, my dear Napier, sincerely, &c.,
"John Moore.[4]
"Lieut.-Col. Napier, of Blackstone."
After the convention at Alkmaar, and the cessation of hostilities, the regiment embarked near the Helder, and landed at Yarmouth on the 29th October. Though still suffering from his wound, Cameron obtained the temporary command of a light infantry corps under Lord Hopeton. This provisional battalion was exercised on Barham Downs, where he won the reputation of a zealous and able officer. He came home on leave to his native glen, kindly bringing with him Ewen M'Millan, who had a craving to visit his old mother by the shore of Locharkaig.
They rejoined the Highlanders soon after, and the next scene of Cameron's service was in Egypt. Before embarking, his regiment was supplied with yellow knapsacks, having a red thistle painted on the backs of them.
Fassifern accompanied his regiment on General Maitland's futile expedition to the Isle de Houat, from whence, with other regiments destined for the Mediterranean, they embarked under Lord Dalhousie's orders; and after touching at Port-Mahon in Minorca, passed on to the attack of Cadiz, which was abandoned, in consequence of a pestilence that infected the coast. The expedition then sailed for Malta; and from thence to the Bay of Marmora, on the coast of Asiatic Turkey, where Abercrombie had concentrated 15,000 men to expel the French from Egypt. He had six regiments of dragoons, and forty battalions of infantry, seven of which were foreign.
Fassifern served with distinction in all the operations of the Egyptian campaign, including the landing effected under a desperate cannonade on the shore of Aboukir; the bloody contest round the Tower of Mandora, where his company occupied a conspicuous position in front of the line, as skirmishers, and where his colonel, Erskine of Cardross, received a mortal wound, and of his comrades there were 109 officers and men killed and wounded. The intrepid conduct of his regiment was particularly mentioned in the dispatches of Abercrombie, whose guard of honour was daily furnished from its ranks. Cameron was at the battle of Alexandria, where, on the 21st March, 1801, he received a wound under the left eye, and saw the brave Abercrombie receive his death shot.
The troops then advanced to Rosetta; and by the time when the Gordon Highlanders entered Grand Cairo—"the Queen of Cities"—the capital of Moaz El Kehira, their shoes were completely worn away. Quarter-master Wallace was ordered to procure an immediate supply; but there was one gigantic grenadier from Speyside, for whom a suitable pair of brogues could not be found in all Grand Cairo.
For his services in Egypt, Cameron received a gold medal from the Grand Seignior; and on the promotion of Major Napier to the lieutenant-colonelcy, he obtained the majority on the 5th April, 1801; and seven months afterwards, on the conclusion of that convention, by which Grand Cairo was surrendered, the Highlanders were ordered home to Scotland, and were quartered in Glasgow.
About this time a dispute occurred among the officers. Some of them, who were Lowlanders, insisted that the Gaelic, which was generally spoken at the mess, should be abolished there. It was put to the vote, and by an overwhelming majority, the Celts secured its retention; but in those days, there were in the regiment twelve gentlemen of the clan Donald, all kinsmen, who invariably voted together in everything, and could carry any point they pleased. These factions were known as the national and anti-national parties.
After the short peace of Amiens, war was declared again; and when the army was increased, the Gordon Highlanders were strengthened by the addition of a second battalion, and Major Cameron marched with it to Weely in England, to join the force mustered to oppose the expected invasion by Napoleon. The invasion ended in smoke; but the battalion remained cantoned in England until 1807, and in the preceding year lined the streets of London during the funeral of Nelson. Fassifern embarked with them at Harwich on the Danish expedition, under Lord Cathcart; and, for the first time, served under Wellington—then Sir Arthur Wellesley—at the attack on Kioge, where Lieutenant-Colonel Napier, at the head of the Highlanders, charged the Danes, who were routed with the loss of their artillery.
After the bombardment of Copenhagen, and the return of the troops to Britain, Major Cameron, in consideration, of his services, received a brevet lieutenant-colonelcy on the 25th April, 1808; a full lieutenant-colonelcy on the 23rd June following; and was shortly afterwards ordered on the Swedish expedition under Sir John Moore, who led 10,000 men to assist Gustavus Adolphus IV., a gallant but fiery and intractable prince, against whom Russia and France had united their arms. The violent temper of the Swedish monarch rendered this undertaking completely futile, and, without achieving anything, the expedition returned to Britain.
As junior lieutenant-colonel, Cameron now remained with the second battalion at home; while the first, under Lieutenant-Colonel Napier, accompanied Sir John Moore a third time on that fatal service, from which he never returned. In 1809, the gallant Napier fell with his leader at Corunna, and then Fassifern obtained the command of the first battalion, committing the second, in February, to the care of Lieutenant-Colonel Lamond, of Lamond. Thus, at the early age of thirty-seven, and after only fifteen years' service, he found himself at the head of one of the finest Scottish regiments in the service of his country.
In July, with the right wing of the first battalion, he embarked on board H.M.S. Superb, 74, at Harwich, on the great expedition under the Earl of Chatham, in Sir William Erskine's brigade. He was at the landing on Breesand in Walcheren, and the occupation of Ter Goes on South Beveland. He landed with 998 Highlanders; but so fatal was the Dutch pestilence, that in October only 250 of them were on parade; and the grenadier company, which was entirely recruited from Aberdeenshire, was reduced to two sergeants and three privates. Cameron deeply regretted the loss of his men. The first who died was a fine young clansman, whom he had brought with him from Lochaber, and he attended his funeral in the churchyard of a neighbouring village. After addressing the soldiers on the merits of the deceased, "Cover him up with the greenest sods," said he, "for he was a brave lad, a good soldier, and true Highlander!"
On its return from this disastrous service, his battalion occupied Woodbridge Barracks in England. At this time an Englishman obtained an ensigncy in the corps, which Cameron considered an innovation; for while, on one hand, he disliked the French, from old associations, on the other, he was not, for the same reason, over partial to Englishmen, and was wont to affirm, "that a Southern in the kilt reminded him of a hog in armour." Unfortunately for himself, Ensign Mudge (for such was the name of the new acquisition) had no particular love for the kilt, at which he railed on all occasions, in very coarse terms, and once particularly at an Artillery hall in Woolwich, which so roused Cameron's Highland ire, that he vowed, "if such remarks were ever made again by Ensign Mudge, he would bring him to a general court-martial!" At this time, the officers of the 42nd wore the kilt constantly by their own desire.
Undeterred by Cameron's threat, Mudge wrote to the Commander-in-Chief, stating that his health would not permit him to wear a dress so unchristian and uncivilized. Sir David Dundas addressed an answer, not to him, but to Fassifern, stating that his Majesty had no further use for the services of poor Mr. Mudge, on whom this result, which Cameron and his Highlanders hailed with satisfaction, fell like a thunderclap.
While at Woodbridge, he invited to the mess Dr. Moore (the venerable father of the hero of Corunna), who afterwards addressed to him a letter, expressing his high sense "of the kind and social reception" he had met with from him and his officers. After this, in July, 1810, the battalion marched to Canterbury, previous to embarkation for Spain; Cameron obtained a short leave of absence, and so much had he become attached to the corps, that he wept when he left it even temporarily. On revisiting his native glen, his aged father, then in his seventieth year (the old laird was born in 1740), expressed great reluctance to part with him again, for, like a true Highlander, he had some dark forebodings of the future.
His three sisters were married: Mary, to M'Donald of Glencoe; Jean, to Roderick M'Neill of Barra; and Catherine, to Cluny M'Pherson; his eldest brother Duncan was practising as a