The Press. — London, England, 1858-03-27 00:00:00

Wr74 salpetre and sulphur, and four cartloads of ammunition, have been found in the fort.-o.oicial Despatch. From Garrakotta, the detachments reassembled shortly afterwards ate believed to have left Saugor for Jhansi, in which direction Orr's and Stewart's brigades had already proceeded, and effected a junc tion with Osborne's Rewah force at Bijrajoogltur— a fort recently captured by Captain Osborne. Ninety four prisoners were taken and shot:— They had been ninety-five, but one of them committed suicide on the way. In the evening they were all executed, two by hanging and ninety-two by musketry. The latter all fell at the first volley, but a go )d deal of indiscriminate shooting was necessary before life was extinct. One min was found alive this morning, and hung. Amongst the prisoners was the Killadar of Bijrajoogbur. The rajah managed to escape before the fort was invested. Jhansi will be remembered as having been in June last year the theatre of a scene scarcely paralleled elsewhere. The 12th Native Infantry and 14th Irregular Cavalry were quartered there. They massacred several officers in can tonments, and the fort only yielded a temporary refuge to the remainder, who sought to protect the trembling women and children. The Ranee joined the rebels, and gave them guns, which are said to have been buried for three years. A secret door was treacherously given up, and the Euro peans were forced to surrender. They were promised their lives, but, as in the case of Cawnpore, the promise was not kept, and the wretched prisoners all perished in a general massacre. One European, Lieutenant Ryvea, of the I:2th Native Infantry, escaped out of seventy-two souls.—Pricalc Letter. Jhanst, which was built by the Mahrattas, is sur rounded by a wall. The fort occupies a rock over looking the town, and is a lofty mass of stone build ing, surmounted by a huge round tower, in which the Europeans at last took refuge, without a chance of successfully resisting. From Jhansi to Calpee is only seventy miles. In Rajpootana our movements have been from west to east as in Central India. Colonel Blood's little force from Hydrahad, in Scinde, has reached Jessulmeer, and the Deesa division, now reinforced by the 72nd Highlanders, is moving on Kota. Major Raines has moved from Nusseerabad, and was on the 11th at Lheeru. Some unmistakeable symp toms of disaffection in the 10th Regiment had been promptly suppressed. When the force will come before Kotah cannot at present be ascertained. There is every reason to believe that our force will meet with no opposition in the passes leading from the north-west towards Kotah, and that no obstacles will be found to an advance along the left bank the Chumbul; but there will be some considerable difficulty experienced in crossing the Chumbul to attack these Kotah rebels : At Kotah it is a large and deep stream which must be crossed by swimming, even elephants making the passage in that way. Six miles lower down, however, there is a ford, of which Mr. Thornton says, " Hunter crossed it in the end of March," finding it " stony, uneven, and slip pery." Above Kotah there is no passage nearer than the Gnjrat Ghent on the road from Neemuch to the Mokun darra pass, where the stream is fordable ; but from thence to Kotah an army would be forced to march through Mo kundarra, the most dangerous defile in all Rajpootana, celebrated in our Indian annals by the retreat of Cohnel Manson before the army of Jeawunt Rao Holkar. Kotah in itself is not a very strong place, bat still might offer considerable resistance, being inclosed by a strong ram part with bastions and a dry ditch. The rampart on the water-face runs parallel to the bank. Within its southern face is the fortress, inclosing the Maha Rao's palace, which is embellished by numerous cupolas and slender minarets. The Mahrsttas once spent three months in the siege of this place, and were forced to retreat (1744) without taking it ; but from the experience we have had of feeble resistance from strong forts such as Awah, Ratghur, and Garrakotta, our troops need not anticipate much difficulty here. Our attack on Kotah may, however, be looked for ward to as en interesting episode in the reduction of Raj pootana.—D. News cur. In the Bombay Presidency nothing has occurred of much importance. Since the occupation of Sho rapore, and the capture of its chief at Hyderabad, the Southern Mahratta country has not been dis turbed. A successful attack had been made upon Bheels in Candeish by Major Pottinger, where thirty three of these troublesome hill-men were killed, though their leader, Bagojee, escaped. The Sena puttee at Sattara has been arrested for holding treasonable correspondence with the Nana Sahib. He seems to have been one of his chief agents in the Deccan. A letter from the Nana to his address was found after a very rigorous and protracted search concealed in the house of the prisoner, in which a plot for the massacre of all the Europeans at Sat tars and Poonah is fully developed. The complicity of the Senaputtee and several other influential persons in the plot is, we understand, capable of the fullest judicial proof, and there can be no doubt of the awful fate that awaits them should this be the case. The Nana has been sustaining the hopes of his deluded agents in this part of the country by assuring them that he is now on his way to the Deccan at the bead of a large army, and that he will positively cross the Nerbudda on the 10th of March All is quiet in the Punjaub, with Sikh regiments marching down into Hindostan and English ones to take their place. Sir sailing up from Ku THE PRESS, MARCH 27, 1858. John Lawrence arrived with the 17th Punjaub In fantry at Loodiana on the 4th, on his way to Delhi and Agra, the districts lately handed over to his management. From Mooltan the 7th Fusiliers had arrived at Lahore, setting free the 81st, who go up to reinforce the somewhat crippled garrison of Peshawur. TRIAL OF THE EX-KING OF DELHI. The trial of the ex-King of Delhi commenced on Wednesday the 27th of January, in the Dewan Khas of the Palace. The court was composed of Colonel Dawes, Horse Artillery, president (in the room of Brigadier Showers, about to leave the station).; Members—Major Palmer, H.M.'s 60th Rifles Major Redmond, 1131.'s 61st Regiment; Major Sawyers, H.M.'a 6th Carabineers ; and Captain Rothney, 4th Sikh Infantry. Major Harriott, Deputy Judge Advccate General, Government prosecutor, and Mr. James Murphy, interpreter to the court. The details of the trial come down to the twelfth day, but a telegraphic despatch states that the court on the fourteenth day tound the royal prisoner guilty of treason against the Stag, and sentenced him to be transported for life to the Andamans. The conduct of the prisoner during the trial was stolid or jocose. Some days he would sleep through the proceedings ; at others he would watch the proceed ings with drowsy indifference ; at others he would amuse himself by sipping brandy, and twisting and untwisting a turban round his head, or playing with a scarf. He was brought in each day sitting in a palanqnin under a guard of Rifles, at the appointed hour. He appeared very infirm, and he tottered into court supported on one side by the " interesting youth " Jumma Bukht, and on the other by a confidential servant, and coiled himself into a small bundle upon the cushion as signed to him. To the question "Guilty or not guilty," he first professed himself profoundly igno rant of the charges brought against him, and finally pleaded " Not Guilty." In the evidence given little was educed to implicate the prisoner directly in the murder of the victims of the 11th of May, or of the more general slaughter five days later. But ample details of the massacre—which, be it remembered, took place in the palace —were given, and, while there was an evident shrinking on the part of the witnesses from asserting that they were directed by the prisonee, there was not a particle of evidence to show that he was dissuading or even passive in the matter. That he had traitorous correspondence with Persia during our war with that power had been asserted in a letter, efferently anonymous, addressed, as far back as March last, to the late Mr. Colvin, and the alleged agent in that correspondence—a Mussulman fakeer said to be greatly in the King's confidence—was examined before the court. But the fakeer was too wary to disclose anything of im portance, contenting himself with denying all claims to, and all reputation for, supernatural powers or the successful practice of intrigue. That the Persian war was at leas to subject of conversation among the Mussulreans of Delhi appeared from other evidence, as from that of Sir Theophilus Metcalfe. Sir T. Metcalfe was of opinion (as most European resi dents of Delhi are) that the war with Persia created much excitement in Delhi, and was the subject of much conversation during the time it lasted; while other native witnesses expressed their firm convic tion that the Mahomedans of India were " very much excited" about the Persian war. Choonee, one witness, the editor of a native Delhi paper, stated in reply to questions by the Government prosecutor that the Mahomedans of the city were in the habit of boasting that the Persians, aided by the Russians, were coming to drive the English out of the country, and gave it as his firm belief that the Mahomedans were highly excited about the Persian war. The chuppaities, which were circulated, were, he said, for the purpose of bringing together a large body of men for some business to be explained to them here after, and he said they originated at or near Kurnaul. The witness, in reply to a question by the prosecu tor, said that abuut five or six days after the city had been in possession of the mutineers, ho heard that there was a great disturbance in the palace, and on going to see the cause, found a number of sepoys and some of the prisoner's armed servants, killing Europeans, men, women, and children : There was a great crowd collected, and he could not see distinctly through it, but after the slaughter was com pleted, he inquired of the sweepers, who were removing the bodies, and heard that in all fifty-two persons had been killed; of these only five or six were males, the rest all females and children! The bodies were being removed in carts, and were thrown into the river ; when lie saw them lying dead they were in a circle. A number of Ma homedans were on the top of Mirza Mogul's house, spectators of the sce ne , an d t h e w i tness heard that Mirza Mogul himself' was one of those looking on. These un fortunate people were confined, previous to their massacre, from the 11th to the 16th of May, in a sort of receptacle for rubbish, where the prisoner's lowest culprits were confined, in which it would have been an insult to cDnfine a person with any pretensions to respectability. There were many better and more suitable buildings, but they were not allotted to the Europeans. Replying to a question put by the progecittor, t 3 who gave the order for the massacre of the Euro peans, Choonee sail, " The King himself ; who else could give the order ?" Golan), another native witness, gave some particulars of the massacre of the Europeans of which he was an eye-witness. He said that it was known two days prior to the fearful deed that the European prisoners were to be slaughtered on that dey ; and a great crowd had, in consequence, collected : They, the prisoners, were all ranged in a line on the edge of a tank, or watercourse, and at a given signal (un. seen however by the witness), the mutineers and palace servants, by whom they were completely surrounded, ushed in and hacked them to pieces with swords. Shots were fired at them at the commencement (according to another witness), but one of the bullets happening tostrike a sepoy, the sword was resorted to, and the bloody work was soon completed. The confusion was too great for the witness to frame an accurate idea of the number murdered, but it was large, and the majority of them were womeu and children. Their brutal murderers must have num bered one hundred and fifty to two hundred. When the bloody work was over, the spectators were turned out of the palace, and the bodies carried away. No one attempted to interfere to prevent this frightful slaughter, no meh senger from the King came to stop it, and the witness said he heard nothing which could lead him to believe that the deed was not gloried in by the Mahomedans. He then, in reply to a question by the prosecutor, said he was present at the murder of the Beresfor d family : Mr. Beresford was, it seems, badly wounded at the onset, one arm being broken by a shot, but armed with a sword, and his brave wife with a spear, they contrived to keep the ruffians at bay for some time, Mrs. Beresford killing one and wounding another. They were at length overpowered, and the whole party murdered. With theta were, it is supposed, the Rev. Mr. Hubbard, and another missionary, who had gone to the Rank for safety. The house where they were all slaughtered still bears the marks of the struggle, and the closing scene of horror. Several other witnesses were examined, but so far as our intelligence of the proceedings of the court ex tends, no evidence favourable to the humanity of the King had been given. The following letter concerning the actual position of affairs in Delhi, from a lady (one of the Indian sufferers whose husband was killed in the mutiny at Gwalior), dated December 21st, 1837, and descriptive of the present appearance of Delhi, is eAtremely interesting •—" Friday afternoon from Meerut, having left Agra on the 12th of December, and entered by the Calcutta Gate across the bridge of boats. The principal street, the Chandney Chowk, is vet) , curious; it is the bazaar, full of native shops and houses ; many of the latter are painted in a very strange way ; one or two I will describe. On the walls flowers, old signs, stars, and crescents, &c., and pictures of lions and tigers; one is an absurd picture of an English officer—a little man, with a very red face and beard, on a horse suspended in the air, fighting with a lion, and several other figures of ladies and gentlemen. flta Chandney Chowk did not look any the worse for the siege ; none of the houses are destroyed, and the streets are far too crowded with gaily dressed natives, seated before their shops very busy buying and selling, and all looking much too impudent. This street is the only one that does not show signs of the siege. It was very amusing to see English soldiers in their bright uniforms, Sikhs on their wild horses prancing about, the funny little Ghoorkas ; ladies and children riding on immense elephants; gentlemen on camels, horses, and ponies ; and a prize agent in a very pretty carriage, with servants in handsome livery, and his children after him mounted on an elephant. To see all this was so exciting alter my long, wearying six months'im prisonment in the fort at Agra. The contrast of the different shops, houses, and costumes, and gay pieces of calico hung across the streets, the blue sky, and green trees made a very pretty picture ; and one might have forgotten for the time the fearful things that had happened there but for two large gallows in the middle of the street, on which some wretches almost daily pay the just penalty of their crimes : It is the back streets tend bye lanes, of which Delhi is full, that show you a siege has taken place ; num bers of houses are riddled with shot, the trees torn up, walls and houses entirely destroyed by shells, heaps of rubbish lying about, and the place has a horrid deathly feeling; it was these streets in which so many of the fights took place, and which were found full of dead sepoys ; in the Chandney Chowk only a skeleton or two were seen when our army entered. It seemed, if the streets had been well defended, the city never could have been taken ; the houses are all made as if for that purpose, with flat roofs, and little passages and corners where the enemy could hide and fire on our troops. This they did, and killed numbers ; but if they had defended the place well it never could have been taken. In the evening we went out by the Lahore Gate, ronud