COLONEL LINDSAYsaid, that, before putting the question of which he had given notice, he wished to remind the House that, pursuant to the recommendation of a Royal Commission appointed in the year 1854, to inquire into the existing system of promotion, a Royal Warrant was issued, whereby it was directed that lieutenant-colonels, who had served three years in that capacity in command of regiments, should be promoted to the rank of colonel. On the 28th of November, 1854, all lieutenant-colonels who had then completed three years in command, or on certain staffs, were promoted to the rank of colonel, and subsequently as each lieutenant-colonel completed three years in those capacities, he became a colonel, passing over the heads of those lieutenant-colonels who had not thus qualifi- 247 ed. In June, July, and November, 1855, twenty-three officers serving as lieutenant-colonels in the Crimea were promoted to the rank of full colonel for distinguished conduct before the enemy, and so intersected the lieutenant-colonels promoted under the new rule. In consequence, however, of the retrospective action of the Royal warrant in question upon those officers who had obtained the rank of lieutenant-colonel before June, 1854, and who had thus, by a rule passed after they had obtained the rank, been superseded by their juniors—some of them by as many as 200—another Commission was appointed in 1858 by General Peel, which recommended, for the purpose of remedying this injustice, that the whole of the lieutenant-colonels, who held that rank before June, 1854, should be ante-dated on the 28th of November, 1854, and that they should all be replaced in the relative positions they held as lieutenant-colonels, before the new rule was issued. But in doing this they unfortunately overlooked the claims of gallant officers who had done good service in the Crimea, inasmuch as there were several who, not having the rank of lieutenant-colonel at that time, had junior officers placed over their heads. He would call attention to some of the gallant officers who were thus affected by the warrant of 1858. Their names were familiar to them all. Gordon's battery and Chapman's battery before Sebastopol were well known to every Englishman. These were two of the officers who were affected by the warrant of 1858. There was also his gallant Friend the Member for Ludlow (Colonel P. Herbert); the result being that those officers gained no advantage by the rewards which Her Majesty had been pleased to bestow on them. By the warrant of 1858, 136 officers of the army and ordnance were placed over the head of Colonel Gordon, and 122 officers were placed over the head of Colonel Chapman. That in effect amounted to a deprivation of five or six years' service in their approximation to the rank of general officer; and if the old system of brevet continued those officers would have been in a higher position than they occupy at present. In conclusion, he would beg-to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, if it is his intention to recommend Her Majesty to reinstate the officers who were promoted to the rank of colonel for distinguished service in the Crimea, in an approximate numerical po- 248 sition to that which they attained when they were first promoted to that rank, and of which they had been deprived by their claims being overlooked when a revision of the lists took place, on the recommendation of the Royal Commission of 1858?