was then known to be absent, could have returned to make preparations for the defence of the province, and even, if possible, before the various detachments occupying that line of frontier could have thrown themselves into the fort of Sheesha. It was of the utmost importance that the Persian army should arrive before this fortress previous to its being effective ly garrisoned, for some discontented Karabaughees, who composed a majority of the troops stationed there, had opened a communication with their hereditary chief, Mehdee Koolee Khan, then a refugee at the court of Abbas Meerza, and had promised to procure its surrender if his Royal Highness would appear before it.

But the Prince's army had not yet crossed the Arras (Araxes), when the war broke out in another quarter. Meer Hassan Khan, the hereditary chief of Talish, desirous to emancipate himself from the control of Russia, had for some time been in correspondence with Persia, and the Russian commander in Lankeran, finding cause to suspect his fidelity, seized his wife, and ordered her to be detained in the island of Saree as a hostage for the conduct of her husband. This outrage of Mahommedan custom and feeling enabled the Khan to engage his dependents, already disposed to revolt, in an attempt to rescue his wife from the party of soldiers who escorted her. He collected a small body of followers, and attacked the Russian detachment on its march to Lankeran, and though he did not succeed in releasing their prisoner, this act of hostility, which was the first blow struck in the war, irretrievably committed him with the Russian government. He accordingly lost no time in rousing the people of Talish, and immediately solicited support and assistance from the Shah, declaring that he restored the province to his Majesty, and that he only desired to be invest ed with the government by his lawful sovereign. On the receipt of this intelligence Mahommed Khan Kajar, with a corps consisting of 7000 horse, 3000 foot, and four light field-pieces, hastened to the assistance of the insurgents, who had assembled in considerable force; and the royal camp was shortly after moved in advance from Sooltanceah to Ardebil, a Persian

town and fortress on the frontiers of Talish.

Several members of the hereditary family of this province still, however, adhered to the Russian interests, and Mahommed Hoossein Khan, a young man of some influence, and head of a division of the tribe, who had been on unfriendly terms with Meer Hassan, sought the protection of the Russian commander at Lankeran, and obtained from him a party of a hundred men and two guns, to assist in protecting his country and his followers from the threatened violence of his cousin. Finding, however, that Meer Hassan had been joined by so large a Persian force, and perceiving that he had nothing further to hope from the assistance of Russia, Mahommed Hoossein made overtures to Mahommed Khan, and, as a proof of the sincerity of his professions, offered to deliver up the detachment which had been sent to his assistance. This perfidious proposal was agreed to-the Russian party was surprised and surrounded, and, after a feeble attempt to resist, surrendered to the Persians. Mahommed Khan and Meer Hassan, uniting their forces, now marched upon Lankeran, and blockaded the place on the land-side; but the Russian troops evacuated it on the third or fourth day, and contrived to carry with them, to the island of Saree, their families and property, as well as some members of the Talish family, who, either from fear of Meer Hassan, or hope of future advantage, still took part with Russia. The evacuation of Lankeran liberated the whole province, which was thus abandoned without an attempt to maintain it, and the enemy was scarcely out of sight when Mahommed Khan, acceding to the wishes of Meer Hassan, actuated by a desire to gratify his troops, and, no doubt, hoping to share the spoil, permitted the army to plunder the followers and adherents of Mahommed Hoossein Khan. This atrocious proceeding had the good effect of uniting the whole province under Meer Hassan, and his cousin repaired to the Shah's camp to seek redress, which was readily promised. However barbarous the treatment experienced by Mahommed Hoossein may have been, few sympathized with him in his distress, and even those who had most largely benefited

by his treachery to Russia, looked on the calamity with which he had been visited, as an appropriate punishment for his former perfidy.

In the meantime, Abbas Meerza had crossed the Arras; but instead of pushing rapidly on to Sheesha, which would probably have enabled him to get possession of the fortress, he allowed several days to pass in useless communications with the discontented inhabitants, and detached his eldest son, Mahommed Meerza, with Mehdee Koolee Khan, and a considerable body of troops, to enter Karabaugh by the circuitous route of Nukhshivan and Gerrooss, and thus gave Colonel Riot, who commanded in the absence of General Madatoff, time to call in several detachments, to garrison the fort with Russian troops, and to put himself in a posture of defence.

The corps which had taken the route of Nukhshivan found at Gerrooss a Russian battalion, with two guns, and a few Cossaks, who were preparing to fall back on Sheesha; and, with the assistance of a body of insurgents of the province, succeeded in cutting off its retreat, and in delaying its march till a part of the Prince's army had come up. The Russians defended themselves for some time, but one of their guns having been dismounted, and a tumbril blown up by the fire of the Persian artillery, and being exhausted by the heat of the day, and distressed for want of water, they laid down their arms.

. The conduct of this corps was not calculated to impress the Persians with a high sense of the courage or discipline of the Russian army. About a thousand men, with their Lieut. Colonel, Major, and several inferior officers, had surrendered, while one of their field-pieces remained effective, and the soldiers had from thirty to forty rounds of ammunition in their pouches. It is true that they were surrounded and opposed to a force several times their number; but they were not above ten miles from their cantonments under Sheesha; and though they were no doubt exposed to a heavy fire, they had not been so closely pressed, nor had they yet suffered so severely, as to justify, in well-disciplined troops, the course they adopted.

After this success, Abbas Meerza advanced to Sheesha, and invested it,

The intention which had been entertained by the discontented Karabaughees to deliver up the fort to his Royal Highness was frustrated by the precautions of Colonel Riot, and there remained little chance of getting possession of the place unless by a regular siege, which was immediately undertaken.

The advance of Abbas Meerza into Karabaugh was the signal for the occupation of Gokcheh by the troops of Erivan. A Russian detachment, of about two hundred men, which was posted in this district, was attacked by Hoossein Khan, Sirdar, and after a determined resistance, in which one half of its number was killed, and a large proportion of the remainder disabled, its commanding officer wounded, and its ammunition expended, the remnant of that gallant little band laid down their arms. The Sirdar immediately ordered his brother, Hassan Khan, to advance with a considerable force towards Loree, a strong position covering the road to Tiflis, on which General Sewardzameedzoff, who commanded in Pambek, had retired, after abandoning Kara, Kliseah, and Hummumloo, burning the magazines and cantonments, and carrying away the inhabitants. Hassan Khan laid waste the country to the confines of the Russian camp, burnt the standing corn, made prisoners some Armenians who had not taken shelter at Loree; and in a predatory excursion into the Russian territory, carried off from the vicinity of Tiflis an unfortunate German colony which had recently been settled there. On his return from this expedition, he continued to hover about the enemy, and to engage them in occasional skirmishes. He endeavoured to cut off their supplies and interrupt their communications, and though he could make no impression on their position, he succeeded in keeping up a continual alarm.

The Russian officer commanding at Ganja was induced, on the advance of the Persian army to Sheesha, to admit a considerable number of the inhabitants of the town into the fort, and, not suspecting their disaffection, marched with the greater part of the garrison to the assistance of the brigade at Loree, which, as it consisted of only 3000 infantry, with a small body of cavalry and some artillery, was not considered competent to maintain itself, and pro

tect the Armenians who were collected with it, should Hassan Khan be largely reinforced. But the garrison had no sooner been weakened by the march of this detachment, than the Mahommedans rose upon the remaining Russians, and having mastered them, solicited assistance from Abbas Meerza, who was still before Sheesha. His Royal Highness immediately sent five thousand men, under the command of his son, Mahommed Meerza, with Ameer Khan, Sirdar, and Oogoorloo Khan, hereditary chief of Ganja, to garrison the place, while, with the main body of his army, he continued the siege.

Towards the end of August, the Prince Sheikh Allee Meerza, with a body of horse, joined Mahommed Khan on the frontiers of Talish, and having crossed the river Koor (Cyrus) by a floating bridge, took the Island of Salian, in which there were largé magazines of flour, and advanced into Sheerwan, to co-operate with Mustopha Khan, hereditary chief of the province, who had been a refugee in Per sia, and on the breaking out of the war had returned to his tribe, and collected a considerable body of men, with whom he was acting against the Russians. The sons of Seleem Khan, too, had returned from their asylum in Turkey, to their hereditary possessions in the adjoining province of Shekkee, and were now in a position to aid the Persian and Sheerwan forces; and the discontented mountaineers of the eastern extremity of the Caucasus, had made a descent into the low countries, driving the Russian detachments that occupied it into the fortified towns of Derbend and Badkoo, in which places they were blockaded by a body of insurgents under Soorkhaec Khan, Lezgee, and Ibrahim Khan, of Badkao, who had emerged from their seclusion in Persia, where they had sought refuge, to take a part against the common enemy. A Russian force which occupied the district of Koobba, had been defeated by the Persian and Sheerwan troops, and obliged to retire upon Tiflis. A direct communication was opened between the Persian armies of Erivan, Karabaugh, and Sheerwan; and this latter province, as well as Shekkee, Talish, Moghan, and Ganja, had been entire ly evacuated by the Russians, while in Karabaugh they held only the fort

of Sheesha. This fortress Abbas Meerza still continued to besiege, and proposals for its surrender, on certain conditions, were made by the commander. An engagement was even entered into to deliver up the place, if it was not relieved in ten days, and hostages were given by the garrison for the fulfilment of this agreement; but it soon became obvious that Colonel Riot only sought to gain time, and that he had no intention of surrendering the place as long as he could by any means hold it. Much time had been lost by the Persians in fruitless negotiations, without any prospect of their being brought to a favourable result, the more important duties of the siege had been neglected, and circumstances shortly after occurred which changed the aspect of affairs.

On the first intelligence of the advance of the Persians into the Russian territory, General Yermoloff (Governor-general and Commander-in-chief in Georgia) called in all his more advanced posts, abandoned all his frontier stations, and ordered the several corps which were cantoned in the invaded provinces, to fall back upon Tiflis, where, in the end of August, he had thus collected about fifteen thou sand men. It is not for us to question the skill and judgment displayed in adopting such a system of defence, nor do we know the exact nature of the advantages which were balanced against the evils of abandoning the frontier provinces to the enemy, with out making an attempt to defend any of them, (for we understand that the defence of Sheesha was contrary to or ders,) or to confirm the well-disposed and intimidate the wavering part of the population; nor do we pretend to set up our opinion of the greater benefits likely to have resulted from concentrating on some point in advance, rather than falling back upon the road to Russia, and thus inducing a belief that preparations were making to evacuate Georgia altogether. We have our own theory upon these matters, which we may develop on a more fitting occasion; but this we may safely pronounce, that in Persia the moral effect of these movements was great, and that thousands, who had thought the war a hopeless and a ruinous undertaking, now began to hesitate, and to doubt whether they had not been deceived in estimating so highly as

they had done the military power and talent of Russia. But the delay of the Prince before Sheesha had not only given time for the retreat of the advanced corps, the organisation of a field force at Tiflis, and the arrival of reinforcements, as well as of several officers of distinction, who hurried from St Petersburgh to take a part in the war; but it had also permitted the inhabitants of the country to recover from the consternation into which they had been thrown, to balance the advantages of resistance against those of submission, which in their first panic they had considered inevitable; and, finally, when re-assured by the presence of a considerable force, to come forward in support of the government, and contribute everything in their power to the defence of the country.

Encouraged by this injudicious delay on the part of the Prince, and by the reviving spirits of their Georgian subjects, the Russians prepared to assume the offensive, and a corps, consisting of four thousand infantry, with a proportion of cavalry and artillery, was pushed on to the vicinity of Shamkoor, a village not far from Ganja, on the road to Tiflis, while another corps of three thousand men followed up to support the preceding.

Mahommed Meerza, who commanded in Ganja, having heard of the advance of the first of these forces, moved out to attack it; and an action was fought early in September at Shamkoor, in which the Persians were totally defeated, with the loss of their artillery and baggage, and the greater part of their infantry. Almeer Khan, Sirdar, was killed, and the young Prince narrowly escaped being taken prisoner. The fugitives from the field of battle, flying to Ganja, created a panic in the garrison; and the Persian officer who had been left to defend the place evacuated it the same evening, without even attempting to carry off or destroy his stores or ammunition, of which last there was a considerable quantity.

The Shah had, in the meantime, moved from Ardebil to Aher, in Kara baugh, and on receiving intelligence of the advance of the Russians, detached a considerable body of men under the command of the Ausef ud Dowleh, (prime minister,) to rein force his Royal Highness, Abbas Meer VOL. XXIII.

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za, who was still before Sheesha. The Persian army, thus reinforced, amounted to about twenty thousand infantry, and ten thousand cavalry, with twenty pieces of artillery; but the Prince was nevertheless desirous not to hazard a general action. The Russians had occupied Ganja, from whence he could not hope to drive them; and the garrison of Sheesha, now closely pressed, might probably be reduced before the Russians could force him to raise the siege. Were he to advance and bring the enemy to an action near Ganja, they could at all times retire upon the fort, even if defeated. The country afforded no provisions, as all it could supply had been consumed by the Persian army; and if the Russians should advance, they would, in consequence of this deficiency, soon be forced to retire, when they might be advantageously attacked in their retreat. These considerations were, however, over-ruled by the minister, whose confidence was greater than his judgment. The siege of Sheesha was hastily raised-sufficient time was not even allowed to collect and call in the foraging parties which had gone out the day before. A mine, which had been carried under one of the towers of the fort, and had now been completed, was not sprung, and the advance was effected with all the tumultuous confusion of a retreat.

The two Russian corps had, in the meantime, formed a junction, and some reinforcements had come up from the rear. After leaving a sufficient garrison in Ganja, and throwing into it their heavy baggage and stores, the army, under the command of General Paskevitch, advanced to the distance. of five miles from Ganja, and having there taken up a position, waited the approach of Abbas Meerza. The force here collected might amount to about seven thousand infantry, three thousand cavalry, and twenty guns.

On the evening of the Septem ber, the Persians came in sight of the enemy, and it was determined to attack him next morning; but fearing lest the Russians should make a night attack, the Persian commanders kept their men in motion almost the whole night, and in the morning drew them up in order of battle, fatigued with the continued exertion, and exhausted by want of sleep and of food; for the confusion had been so great during

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the night march, that the men were separated from their baggage, and had not been able to procure provisions.

It was intended that the Prince with his own troops should attack the Russians in front, while the Ausef ud Dowleh should make a detour to the left, and follow their right flank; at the same time a body of cavalry was to get into their rear, and cut off their communication with the fort of Ganja. The Persian army was, however, by some misunderstanding, drawn up in one line, extending several miles, by which arrangement, nearly one-half of the troops never came into action. The battle commenced with a cannonade on both sides. The Persian line of infantry marched steadily up to within musket range, and kept up a smart fire for a considerable time. The Russian artillery was rapidly but bad ly served, and did little execution, while the fire from the Persian guns was much more destructive. The Russian troops were becoming unsteady, and had even abandoned some of their guns, when a disorderly and unauthorized charge made by some of the Persian infantry was repelled, and the whole of the Prince's troops gave way. The division commanded by the Ausef ud Dowleh, seeing the right of the line in confusion, and the men dispersing, fled in disorder. Five hundred of them, whose retreat was cut off, after making a gallant resistance, surrendered to the enemy. The main body of the Persian army retreated to a fortified camp, some miles in the rear, in which its baggage was deposited, and the troops which first reach ed it, plundered everything they could find, even to the Prince's baggage, and again fled with their booty. The Russian cavalry followed the fugitives for some miles, but was kept in check by two guns of the Prince's artillery, and some men of his regiment of guards, who covered the flight of the army. The panic was, however, so great, that all attempts to arrest the retreat of the troops before they crossed the Arras, were ineffectual, and it was not until the Prince arrived at Oslandooz, that he was able to collect together any considerable number of the fugitives. In this action the Persians lost about 1200 men, most of whom were made prisoners; and the Russians 700, all of whom were either killed or wounded. Of the Persians,

however, a great number dispersed on the retreat, and returned to their houses, and by the loss of its baggage, ammunition, and stores, and by the feeling which had been excited, the army was completely disorganized.

A few days after this defeat, the Prince Royal joined the Shah's camp at Aher, and arrangements were made to form a corps of observation on the banks of the Arras, which should also serve to protect the Mahommedan tribes of Karabaugh, who had taken a part against Russia in the war, and now sought refuge in the Persian territory.

The Russians showed no disposi-: tion to follow up this victory by any decided movement, and as the season was too far advanced to admit of the formation of a fresh army, the Shah moved before the end of September to Tabreez, preparatory to his return to Tehran for the winter, and Abbas Meerza proceeded, in command of the corps of observation, to the banks of the. Arras. About the middle of October a body of Russians crossed the river, and succeeded in carrying off some. families of the Karabaugh tribes, who had expressed a desire to return to their own country. The troops under Abbas Meerza made an unsuccessful attempt to recover the families which were thus carried off, and some ineffective skirmishing took place. This> may be considered the close of the first campaign. In the beginning of November, the Prince, finding the season too far advanced for active operations, and having learnt that the Russian army was preparing to go into winter cantonments at Akoglan, near the banks of the Arras, made arrangements for the defence of the frontier during the winter, and then returned to Tabreez.

The army, which had till now occupied Sheerwan, retired for the winter, and while recrossing the Koor, was attacked by a small party of Rus sians, which had followed its move ments; the Erivan force fell back from Loree, within the Persian frontier; and thus, at the close of the campaign, Russia had recovered all her provinces except Talish and Moghan.

The approach of winter having produced a suspension of active operations, it was hoped that before the return of spring should enable either party to open another campaign, soma