The Sun.
London, England, 1850-12-19 00:00:00

OVERLAND MAIL

INDIA AND CHINA.

We have received our letters and papers from India
and China. The dates are—Calcutta, Nov. 8 ; Born.
bay, Nov. 16; and China, Oct. 29.
The following is the postscript of the letter of a
Calcutta correspondent :
CALCU TTA, Nov. 8, 1850.
The day has brought forth nothing to give interest
to my postscript. No news, local or up country,
since yesterday.
It now seems doubtful whether the Bishop of
Calcutta is going to visit Sir James Brooks at Sara-
wak; one of the papers this morning says that the
vessel in which his Lordship proceeds to sea a few
days hence has no orders to go beyond Singapore.
Many good people in England will be glad to hear
that the old man seems to have taken a fresh lease of
life. I happened to hear him preach lately, and was
quite surprised at his vigour and animation.
No change in commercial matters to report to-day,
and no shipping arrivals beyond those which appear
in the newspapers.

(From the Overland Bombay Times of Saturday,

Nov. 16.)
SUMMARY.—The cold weather has now fairly set in
at Bombay. The Commander• in-Chief returned yes-
terday to the Presidency ; the Governor is expected
next week. Sir C. Napier has by this time left Simla
on his way from India; he comes down by the Indus
through Slade, and will in all likelihood embark as
formerly at Kurrachee. He thus closes a promising,
and on the whole in many respects a highly merito-
rious career, unpopularly. The promotion of the
sepoys of the Bengal army to the rank of officers, and
their advancement afterwards on the principle of seni-
ority—a thing unknown in the other Presidencies,
has long been by almost unanimous consent regarded
as the great stumbling-block European officers had
to deal with; this Sir C. Napier has continued—he
was universally expected to have extinguished it.
The Governor-General is now on his way to Lahore
and Peshawur. Sir George Berkeley, it is said, will
tender his resignation of the Madras command on the
arrival of Sir W. Gomm—declining to be under
the orders of an officer so much his junior. Sir
George Anderson is supposed to have about this time
arrived at Ceylon—the appointment seems eminently
acceptable to those over whom he has been placed.
His retirement seems to have occasioned deep and
universal regret at the Mauritius. The Nepaulese
Ambassador arrived here on the 61h by the Feroze
from Suez. He was entertained in state by Sir W.
Yardley on the evening of the Bth, and by Sir E.
Perry on the 9th; he left on the 14th for the holy
city of D warka, in Kattiawar, on a pilgrimage, in the
steamer Atalanta. On his return thence he will pro-
ceed direct to Calcutta. Tidings of the death of his
kinswoman the Queen of Nepaul have thrown him
and his suite into deep mourning. The small iron
steamer Nimrod, belonging to Government, having
been lengthened and enlarged at Bombay for service
on the Indus, left on the 22d August for Kurrachee ;
she was overtaken by severe weather, and wrecked
on the coast of Kattiawar on the 26th. A large fire-
ball was seen from Bombay to burst on the evening
of the 6th ; it left a tail and nucleus behind it, which
were visible for twenty minutes, and were mistaken
for a comet.

The report of the proceedings which occurred at
the trial of Major Bartleman, of the 44th Bengal Na-
tive Infantry, have been published ; the imputations
preferred against him were given in our last. The
gallant officer, it may be remembered, was charged
with scandalous and infamous conduct, in having,
under the cloak of an almost paternal authority, with
which he had been entrusted by her father, endea-
voured to seduce the affections sf the wife of Lieute-
nant Shelton, of the 33d Native Infantry. The
matter appears to have stood thus :—Mrs. Shelton
was the daughter of Dr. Laughton, formerly a
teacher at Sitnla, and who in this capacity laid Major
Bartleman under obligations to him by the care he
nad taken of a sickly boy. She had been for some
years married to Lieutenant Shelton, of the 33d Na-
tive Infantry. The union, of which several
children bad been the fruit, appears of late to
have been an unhappy one. The husband
seems to have fallen into intemperate habits, and
'he quarrels in the family were frequent and noto-
rious. In January last the unhappy couple were the
guests of Major Birtirman, to whom before this they
had been but slightly known, and while such, the con-
duct of the husband to his wife and host was occa-
sionally such as to induce him to volunteer a full
written apology to the latter for what had occurred.
In February he proceeded to Singapore on sick leave
for the benefit of his health, leaving his wife behind
him at Calcutta, where she appeared to prefer resid-
ing alone, although she had friends at no great dis.
tance. About this time she wrote to her father com-
plaining of her husband's ill-usage, and appeared
desirous of' a separation. Dr. Laughton wrote in
reply, under cover to Major Bartleman, exhorting
his daughter to a reconciliation, and entreating her
to use her best endeavours to soothe the mind and
regain the affections of her husband. He reminded
her that her lot had now been cast with his, and
that nothing but extreme necessity should ever in-
duce her to think of leaving him. To Major Bartle-
man, who was his senior, and had been twice a
widower, and might therefore have been supposed
capable of being entrusted with such a charge, he
wrote thanking him for the kindness he had shown
his daughter, and committing her in case of extre-
inity to his protection. Lieutenant Shelton was re-
peatedly
written to by Major Bartleman during his
Absence, and the circumstances mentioned that he
had taken Mrs. Shelton to a ball, and was in the habit
of driving out with her in the morning, adding that
he had recommended her to joie her friends at Kish-
naghur, but that she preferred apparently sojourning
at Calcutta. Mr. Shelton returned from Singapore
early in July, but does not appear to have expressed
any dissatisfaction with the conduct of his wife. On
the 16th of August Major Bartleman wrote him a
note declining the continuance of his acquaintance;
on what grounds does not appear, and Mr. Shelton
expressed his regret at the loss of his friendship.
Friendly relations between the parties seem soon after-
wards to have been renewed ; on the 221, and again
on the 23d of August, Major Bartleman drove Mrs.
Shelton in his buggy from Barrackpore to Cal-
cutta, by invitation of her husband. On the latter
of these days Mr. Shelton found on his wife's pillow
a letter addressed to her by Major Bartleman, such
as a devoted husband might have written to his wife
—such as none but an accepted lover would have
written to his mistress. The unhappy couple imme-
diately proceeded to Calcutta, to consult a lawyer as
to what was to be done. On their return they met
with Major Bartleman; high words pawed between
them, when the Major preceded them on horseback
to their home, and there awaited their arrival. The
husband forbade his entrance—the wife accepted his
arm. When inside he was repeatedly ordered to the
door; he persisted in remaining, as he wished to
have some explanations with Mrs. Shelton. Driven
to fury at thus being defied and insulted in his own
house, Mr. Shelton rushed to his bed-room and
brought out a pistol, which he snapped at Major Bar-
tleman. That officer seized him, wrested the pistol
. _

from his hand, pushed him down, and beat him with
a whip ; the table was upset in the scuffle, aid was
called for in vain, and a fearful scene, apparently ie
the presence of the lady, ensued. The pistol
turned out to have been loaded—it was fired

off by Major Bart'man, whose life just before had
been so nearly jeopardised. Having quitted
the house at length, he soon after returned
and placed Mr. Shelton under arrest. Some
hours after this he induced Colonel Pettiogal, corn-

tnanding the 33d, to permit the arrest to be removed,
a fresh arrest having been imposed by this officer
immediately afterwards. 1 circumstance very ma-
terial to the character of the intercourse between the

parties came out on the examination ; that on the 223
ef August, the day before the letter was written, the
discovery cf which first awakened suspicion i❑ the
mind of the husband, and led to the explosion, Major
Bartleman had put himself in the hands of his law
adviser, who had engaged counsel to defend the
action he expected to be brought against him in the
civil court. Mrs. Shelton appears, in defiance of the
known wish of her husband, to have encouraged the
visits both of Major Bartleman and a Mr. Downing,
and to have taken legal advice as to whether she might
be deprived of her children. Here the matter for the
present stands, the decision of the court-martial is in
the hands of the Commander•in-Chief; from the

evidence and the defence it appears that nothing has
been adduced sufficiently strong to bear out the
charges in the very strong form in which they are
worded, or that the prisoner will be convicted of the
"infamous" conduct imputed to him.