The Sun.
London, England, 1858-09-16 00:00:00

av our of liberty of instruction, whilst his political
friends are opposed to it. It is however hoped
that he would eventually accept the offer made
him.

A letter from Naples. says :—There is a ru-
mour here at the present moment of a con-
templated change of ministry, in consequence
of the conditions laid down by the Cabinets
of Paris and of London for the re-establishment of
diplomatic relations with the kingdom of the Two
Sicilies. These conditions are said to be-1. The
dismissal of the present Cabinet, and the appoint-
ment in their place of ministers able and devoted
to the country. 2. Considerable modifications in
the administrative system. 3. The reorganisation
of the State Consulta, according to the spirit which
presided at its institution, so as to make it a coun-
terpoise to ministerial despotism. The names of
the future ministers begin to circulate in political
salons, and the Neapolitan people look with enthu-
siasm for these talked-of changes. Nothing, how-
ever, is official, and it is more probable that the
King will reject the conditions of the Western
Powers as an attack on his dignity."

DINNER TO SIR HUGH ROSE, K.C.B.

(From the Bombay Standard.)

The dinner given to Sir Hugh Rose, K.C.8., at
By-culla Club, on Tuesday night, the 3d August,
came off with great eclat: the Hon. A. Malet,
member of council, occupied the chair. About 100
gentlemen sat down to dinner. The dinner con-
sisted of a rich and varied assortment of delicacies,
after the despatch of which
The President, Mr. MALET, rose, and, in a highly
eulogistic speech, proposed the health of the gallant
general.

Sir HUGH ROSE rose amidst loud and continued
cheering. He said—Gentlemen, lam most grateful
to our hon. president for the very handsome terms
in which he has proposed my health. His good
feeling towards myself induces him to rate too highly
services which were simply the execution of my
duy and of my orders. I thank you, gentlemen,
with all my heart, for the kind and generous wel-
come with which you have honoured me on my
return—a welcome' which tells me that I have the
good fortune to possess a home and many valued
friends in Bombay. (Cheers.) British soldiers and
sailors are fortunate. We have countrymen whose
sympathies accompany us wherever we go, who
rejoice in our successes, who feel for our hardships
as if they were their own, and on our return home
give as the:best of all rewards—the welcome and
approval of civilised and independent Englishmen.
On these occasions, on these welcomes home, we
are expected, without telling too long a story, to
give our countrymen some account of our doings
and the incidents of the field which will interest
them. (Cheers.) Well, then, gentlemen, I have
a most grateful duty to perform. I have to tell
you how the soldiers of your army, the Bombay
army, to which I have the honour to belong., have
won my esteem by their bravery, their fidelity, and
their discipline; how they conquered rebellion by
their loyalty, and mutiny by their subordination.
Their patience and devotion triumped over every
obsiraele, over distance, sickness, and the rays of
even an Indian sun, in all its blaze of summer heat.
Your president has done the Central India field
force the honour to state the details of their opera-
tions. But few know that while fighting thus
strenuously and successfully the health and strength
of these troops—young Bombay soldiers, the greater
majority of whom had never seen a shot fired—
were impaired by months of broken rest,' by night
marches to avoid the sun, and night watches to
guard the camp against surprise. The governor
and the commander-in-chief had been most liberal,
and had drained Borilbay of troops for the pur-
pose of completing the field forces ; but the
demands for troops had been so immense and so
pressing that my force entered on an extensive"
field of operations, for which in former days of
Indian warfare treble the amount of troops was
considered necessary. I should have been justified
in curtailing my sphere of exertions, but if I had
done so it must have been at the sacrifice of that
prestige of superiority which wiser heads than my
own think, and truly think, indispensable for the
success of British rule in India. And another
thing, my orders were to relieve Saugor and take
Calpee. If I had not met and attacked the enemy,
who was on my road or near my road—if I had
avoided him—he, emboldened by my apprehensions,
would have followed me, and fallen on my rear,
whilst I advanced against another enemy in my
front. I should then have been 'between two fires,
which in war is a dangerous predicament. (Cheers.)
To use, therefore, the expressive but homely phrase-
ology of our American allies, I determined for the
sake of prestige and strategy, to go the whole hog
against the enemy. (Cheers and laughter.) But the
doing so was too much, too great an effort for my
small force ; it was one continued marching, watch-
ing, or fighting. (Cheers.) A great part of the men
who had marched all night were on camp guayd—
that is, inlying pickets, outlying pickets, and quar-
ter guards, all day; marched the next night and
the following day; were engaged, perhaps, Vll sun-
set with the enemy. With constitution thus
shaken by too much work and too little r st my
force met on its march to Calpee a new and rmid-
able enemy—a midsummer sun. One could turn
the flank of the rebels, but it was impossible to out-
manoeuvre the sun. At Koonch the thermometer
stood at 115 degrees, at Calpee 118 degrees, and
119 degrees in the shade ; and on the march to
Gwalior the thermometer burst in an officer's
tent at 130 degrees. The troops suffered fear-
fully from sunstroke. When it did not kill it pro-
duced delirium, fits, and total prostration of
strength. But my men never desponded; in every
fight they always had the best of it. They fell in
their ranks, but they never murmured. (Loud
cheers.) They were often too weak to march, but
their spirit always enabled them to fight. The
fatal effects of exposure to the sun were latterly so
certain and rapid that the prostration of the whole
force by it was merely a question of time, and
became a matter of calculation. Dr. Arnott,
superintending surgeon of the Central India Field
Force, as devoted as he is talented, wrote me an
official letter, when we were before Calpee, stating
that it was his duty to tell me that the Central
India Field Force had suffered so much from over-
fatigue, want of rest, and sunstroke, that if the
operations were protracted he had reason to fear
the whole 'fore* would be prostrated. I had then
still before me Calpee,. protected by its labyrinth
of ravines, five lines of defences, and a force greatly
superior to my own in numbers, consisting of the
best organised troops of the mutineers, the Gwalior
Contingent, and other, sepoy regiments, besides
1,400 mutineer cavalry, with their English arms
and equipment, their English uniforms, their Eng-
lish drill ; but I am happy to say, without a par-
ticle of their English discipline and pluck. The
spirit of my troops, developed and aided by that
evils, discipline, which
talisman for all military
makes the soldier die in his ranks, but not leave
them, prevailed against sun, the rebel host, and
Calpee. It did more, it carried them on a tide of
success into Gwalior. (Loud cheers.) I hope
that I have not wearied you, gentlemen, with
these details. But gratitude, which is after all
nothing but justice, is one of the first duties, and
certainly if ever General had cause to be grateful
to his troops it is myself. My wish is, that they,
more than myself, should have the credit for the
successes of our last campaign. When discharging
the obligations of gratitude, I certainly ought not
to forget those I owe to the Hyderabad Contingent,
wider Major Orr, a true and gallant commander,
who from first to last stood by us in every danger;
and shared with us every hardship. And my
thanks are also due to our gallant comrades of the
Bengal army; the flying column under Col. Max-
well ; the brigade of the Rajpootana Field Force
under Brigadier Smith ; and Capt. Meade's Horse,
who gave us their hands and aid, as generous as it
was efficient, on the banks of the Jumna and in the
plains of Gwalior. I have one more debt to pay—
to express my sincere gratitude 'to Lord Elphin-
stone, the Bombay Government, and the Comman-
der-in-Chief, who never ceased to do their utmost
to supply all my wants. With admirable energy
the Bombay Government, in a very short time,
established the bullock train to Mhow and Goona,
a distance of some hundred miles. Reinforcements,
comprising a wing of her Majesty's gallant 71st
Highland Light Infantry and supplies, were brought,
in a comparatively short time, by this means, from
Bombay to me, in the heart of Central India, and
by the same conveyance my sick and wounded
men were sent back to regular hospitals in the
Presidency: The Government had the discrimi-
nation to appoint as director of the train from
Bombay to Mhow, Major Kane, who, by his ac-
tivity and intelligence, has solved one of the most
difficult problems—the establishment of an efficient
war transport. Lastly, gentlemen, the Central
India field force is sincerely grateful to Lord
Elphinstone, the Governor, and the commander-in-
chief, for what they value more than prize money
or promotion, a true and generous approval of their
services in the field. I cannot conclude without
telling you of the noble comradeship which existed
between the British and native soldiers of .my force
—how side by side they stormed the difficult passes
into Bundereund—how they stood by each other in
the streets of Jhansi, or the treacherous ravines of
the Jumna. This was the more gratifying because
there were forebodings, which cannot be called un-
natural, that. the-mutiny had for ever separated the
tie w4ieh existed between the Bevy and the British
-,.