army, was called upon by the Regent to form a Cabinet, and it was ultimately composed of the following members:

President of the Conseil d'Etat. -The Prince of HohenzollernSigmaringen (without a portfolio). Minister of Foreign Affairs. Baron von Schleinitz.

Minister of War.-General von

Bonin.

Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs and Education.-BethmannHollweg.

Minister of Finance.-Patow. Minister of the Interior.Flottwell.

Minister of the Household.Von Massow.

In the Cabinet, but without office or official position.-Von Auerswald.

tober, 1857, as such false traitor aforesaid, treasonably conspire, consult, and agree with Mirza Mogul, his son, and with Mahomed Bukht Khan, subahdar of the regiment of artillery, and divers other false traitors unknown, to raise, levy, and make insurrection, rebellion, and war against the State, and, further to fulfil and perfect his treasonable design of overthrowing and destroying the British Government in India, did assemble armed forces at Delhi, and send them forth to fight and wage war against the said British Government.

4. For that he, at Delhi, on the 16th of May, 1857, or thereabouts, did, within the precincts of the Palace at Delhi, feloniously cause and become accessory to the murder of forty-nine persons, chiefly women and children, of European and mixed European descent, and did, moreover, between the 10th of May and the 1st of October, 1857, encourage and abet divers soldiers and others in murdering European officers and other English subjects, including women and children, both by giving and promising such murderers service, advancement, and distinction; and, further, that he issued orders to different native rulers, having local authority in India, to slay and murder Christians and English people whenever and wherever found in their territories; the whole or any part of such conduct being a heinous offence under the provisions of Act 16, of 1857, of the Legislative Council of India.

The trial took place in the Dewan Khas of the Delhi Palace, and the court was composed of five British officers, presided

over by Colonel Dawes, of the Horse Artillery, Major Harriott, the Deputy Judge-Advocate-General, acting as prosecutor for the Government. The trial lasted several days, during which the old man presented the appearance of helpless imbecility; and in the result he was found guilty, and he was ultimately sent to Rangoon, in Burmah, to finish there the miserable remnant of his existence.

We now resume our narrative of the campaign; and we will first turn our attention to the events that happened south of the line of the Ganges and the Jumna.

In Central India, the force under Sir Hugh Rose, called the Malwa or Nerbudda Field Force, consisted of about 6000 men, of whom 2500 were British; and throughout the whole of the campaign against the rebels, no part of the army acquitted itself with more uniform success than the body of troops led by this able and gallant officer. The first brigade was commanded by Brigadier Stuart; and in a series of engagements with the rebels in the vicinity of Mundisore, not far from Neemuch, from the 21st to the 24th of November last year, he completely defeated them, raised the siege of Neemuch, which had been blockaded by the enemy, 5000 strong, since the events related in our last volume, * and compelled them to evacuate Mundisore, where they had established their head-quarters. The column then marched to Mhow, where it was met by Sir Robert Hamilton, the former Resident

See Vol. XCIX. p. 272.

at Indore; and, accompanied by him, it occupied Indore, where some of the disaffected regiments of Holkar were disarmed, and Sir Robert Hamilton was reinstated in the Residency.

At the end of January, Sir Hugh Rose effected the capture of Ratghur, one of the strongest forts in Central India, well supplied with munitions of war and provisions, and crowning the top of a pear-shaped hill, with a precipice on every side, except at the narrowest part, where, however, the side is steep. Up this narrow side the General advanced with the 3rd Bombay European Regiment, while the other part of his force made a feint of an attack upon the fort. During the whole of two days, the 26th and 27th of January, the British guns played upon the walls, and at last effected a practicable breach, when, on the morning of the 28th, the rebels attempted to abandon their position and escape down the rocks, using ropes to assist them in their descent. Part of them succeeded in this, while others tried to force their way out of the main gate, but they were driven back by the fire of our field pieces. In the meantime, the enemy outside made an attempt to relieve the fort by attacking the rear of our camp; but they were soon put to flight, and the fort was taken without further difficulty. It was afterwards given up to the Ranee of Bhopal, who had remained steadfast to our cause in the midst of the general mutiny. Sir Hugh Rose then advanced upon Saugor, where a number of Europeans, including about a hundred women and children, had been closely besieged since

the month of July in the preceding year.* He reached the fort on the 3rd of February, and immediately relieved it. In the meantime, General Whitlock, at the head of the Madras column, had been marching towards Saugor with the same object, and reached Jubbulpore on the 7th of February. Both the Bombay and Madras troops were thus gradually sweeping the country before them, disconcerting the plans of the rebels, and driving them in disorganized bands towards the line of the Jumna, where at two points the enemy still mustered in strong force. These points were Calpee and Gwalior.

Sir Hugh Rose soon afterwards captured and demolished the fort of Garakota, situated between two rivers, the Giddaree and the Sonar, and so strong, that in 1818 a British force of 11,000 men was unable to make a breach in the defences. The enemy on this occasion abandoned the fort almost without an attempt at defence, and Sir H. Rose then fell back upon Saugor to repair his siege guns. His first brigade, under General Stuart, had previously been detached to march from Mhow and Indore to Goonah, for the purpose of clearing the Grand Trunk Road, leading from Bombay to Agra; and he sent instructions to that officer to move from Goonah westward, and take the fort of Chundeyree, and afterwards join him on his march upon Jhansi, in order that the attack on that important place might be made with the united force of both the brigades. He himself was detained at Saugor until the 27th of February, when

* See Vol. XCIX. p. 271.

he commenced his march upon Jhansi, the road to which was occupied by the rebels at several points in considerable force. Between Saugor and Jhansi there is a mountain ridge, across which run three passes, those of Narut, Mudinpore, and Dhamooney. Of these the most difficult is Narut; and the rebels, thinking that Sir H. Rose's column would take that route, had increased its natural difficulties by barricading the road with abattis, and parapet, made of large boulders of rock, fifteen feet thick; all passage by the sides of the road being made impracticable by the almost precipitous hills, covered with jungle, which came down to the edge of the road. The Rajah of Banpore defended this pass with 8000 or 10,000 men. Sir Hugh Rose first marched to Rijwan, a central point, from which he would be able to move upon any one of the three passes; and in order to deceive the Rajah of Banpore into the belief that Narut was the object of attack, and prevent him from coming from Narut to Mudinpore, which was defended by the Rajah of Shagur, he sent a detachment to make a feigned attempt to force the pass of Narut, while he made the real attack on the pass of Mudinpore, which he had reason to believe was the most practicable of the three. He advanced against it on the 3rd of March; and as the British column approached, the enemy were seen in force on the left of the pass, and the skirmishers fired on our advanced guard from a ridge of hills on the right.

Sir H. Rose says in his despatch The pass was formed by a sudden descent of the road

into a deep glen, thickly wooded. To the right, farther on, the road ran along the side of a lake. The left of the road was lined by rocky and precipitous hills.

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The ardour of an excellent officer induced him, at this time, to make an incautions movement with his guns to his right front, with the view to pour an enfilading fire into the enemy. But he had not taken into consideration that this movement brought him to within fifty or sixty yards of the edge of the glen, in which lay concealed some hundred sepoys, who, before he could unlimber, opened a very heavy fire on his guns, which he was unable to depress on them. The sepoys fortunately fired too quick, and too high, and the officer retired his guns out of the range of their musketry, with only a few casualties. The sepoys hailed this little reverse with shouts. But their success had only brought on their more rapid defeat. For knowing now their exact position, and seeing the necessity of showing them that a calm retreat was only the prelude of a rapid offensive, I advanced 100 of the Hydrabad Contingent infantry, under Captain Sinclair, at double time, and made them charge into the glen, bring their right shoulders forward, and sweep it down towards the road, following this up by a movement of a company of the 3rd Europeans against the front of the sepoys, and of the salt customs, from the extreme right, against their rear. To still further discomfit them, I sent a troop of Her Majesty's 14th Light Dragoons to a knoll quite in rear of the glen, and commanding a view of the lake and the other end of