This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
740
ROSS, SIR J. C.—ROSS, R.

took part in the pursuit of the French. Ross received, besides the Peninsular and Waterloo medals, the K.C.B., the Portuguese order of the Tower and Sword and the Russian St Anne. He had commanded the troop for nineteen years when he at last received a regimental lieutenant-colonelcy. As officer commanding Royal Artillery in the Northern District, with delegated command over all the forces of the four northern counties, Sir Hew Ross had for nearly sixteen years to deal with continually threatened civil disorder, and bore himself as well as on the field of battle. From 1840 to 1858, when he retired, he practically directed, in one post or another, all the artillery services of the British army, and when in 1854 the test of war came, the artillery took the field in a far better condition than the rest of Lord Raglan’s army. Much of the present efficiency of the "Royal Regiment" is directly traceable to the influence of Sir Hew Ross, to whom it owes the institution of the School of Gunnery at Shoeburyness and the establishment of the Royal Artillery Institution at Woolwich. Major-general in 1841 and lieut.-general in 1851, he became general in 1854, and died, a field marshal and G.C.B., in 1868.

See Memoir of the R.A. Institution, 1871; and Duncan, History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery.


ROSS, SIR JAMES CLARK (1800–1862), British rear-admiral and Polar explorer, was born in London on the 15th of April 1800. He entered the navy in 1812 under his uncle, Captain (afterwards Sir) John Ross, whom he accompanied on his first Arctic voyage in search of a North-West passage (1818). Between 1819 and 1827 he returned four times to the same seas in the Arctic expeditions under Parry, and in 1829–33 again served on the same mission under his uncle, and while thus employed determined (1831) the position of the North Magnetic Pole. In 1834 he was promoted captain, and from 1835–38 was employed on the magnetic survey of Great Britain. In 1839–43 he commanded the Antarctic expedition of the "Erebus" and "Terror" (see Polar Regions), and for this service he received a knighthood (1844) and was nominated to the French order of the Legion of Honour. He published a narrative of this expedition under the title of A Voyage of Discovery and Research to Southern and Antarctic Regions (1847), and was the author also of various reports on Zoological and other matters relating to his earlier voyages. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1848, and in that year made his last expedition, as captain of the "Enterprise," in the first Franklin search expedition. He died at Aylesbury on the 3rd of April 1862.


ROSS, JOHN, or Kooeskoowe (1790–1866), chief of the Cherokee Indian Nation, was of Scotch-Indian descent, and was born among the Cherokees in Georgia in 1790. In 1819–1827 he was president of the Cherokee national committee, in July 1827 he presided over the Cherokee constituent assembly, and under the constitution which it drafted he was principal chief from 1828 until his death. In 1830–31 he applied to the Supreme Court of the United States for an injunction restraining the state of Georgia from executing its laws within the Cherokee territory, but the court dismissed his suit on the ground that it had no jurisdiction. There was a small party among the Cherokees under the leadership of John Ridge, a subchief, who were early disposed to treat with the United States for the removal of their nation west of the Mississippi, and in February 1835, while negotiations with Ridge were progressing at Washington, Ross proposed to cede the Cherokee lands to the United States for $20,000,000. The United States Senate resolved that $5,000,000 was sufficient. The treaty negotiated by the Ridge party and the proposal to treat on the basis of a $5,000,000-payment were both rejected in a full council of the Cherokees held in October 1835. The council authorized Ross to renew negotiations, but before leaving for Washington he was arrested by the Georgia authorities on the ground that he was a white man residing in the Indian country contrary to law. Ross was soon released, but in December of this year a few hundred Cherokees met the United States Indian commissioner at New Echota and concluded with him a treaty of removal. When Ross learned this he called a council to meet in February 1836, and at this meeting the treaty was declared null and void and a protest against the proceedings at New Echota was signed by more than 12,000 Cherokees. Notwithstanding Ross’s opposition, the Senate in the following May ratified the treaty by a vote exceeding by one the necessary two-thirds majority, and in December 1838, Ross, with the last party of Cherokees, left for the West (see Georgia). During the Civil War, Ross first urged upon the Cherokee Nation a policy of friendly inactivity; in May 1861, proclaimed a strict neutrality; in October 1861, signed a treaty with the Confederate States; in the summer of 1862 was forced (by Union sympathizers in the Nation) to proclaim neutrality again; soon afterwards went over to the Union lines; and was in Washington treating with the Federal government in February 1863 when the treaty with the Confederate States was abrogated by the Cherokees. He died at Washington on the 1st of August 1866.

See C. C. Royce, "The Cherokee Nation of Indians" in the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, 1887), and T. V. Parker, The Cherokee Indians (New York, 1907).


ROSS, SIR JOHN (1777–1856), British rear-admiral and Arctic explorer, son of the Rev. Andrew Ross, minister of Inch, Wigtonshire, entered the Royal Navy in 1786, serving in the Mediterranean till 1789, and afterwards in the Channel. In 1808 he acted as captain of the Swedish Fleet, and in 1812 was promoted commander. Six years later he was given the command of an Arctic expedition fitted out by the Admiralty, the first of a new series of attempts to solve the question of a North-West passage. This expedition failed to discover much that was new, and somewhat prejudiced the Arctic reputation of its leader, who attained the rank of captain on his return. But in 1829, through the munificence of Mr (afterwards Sir) Felix Booth, he was able to undertake a second Arctic expedition, which, during an absence of four years, achieved important geographical and scientific results. On his return Captain Ross was the recipient of gold medals from the English and French geographical societies, and of various foreign orders, , including a knighthood of the Pole Star of Sweden, and in the following year (1834) received a knighthood and a C.B. at home. In 1850 he undertook a third voyage to the Arctic regions, this time in search of Sir John Franklin, and in the following year he attained flag-rank. His publications include—Voyage of Discovery for the Purpose of Exploring Baffin’s Bay (1819); Narrative of a Second Voyage in Search of a North-West Passage, including the Discovery of the North Magnetic Pole (1835); Memoirs and Correspondence of Lord De Saurnerez (1838).


ROSS, ROBERT (1766–1814), British major-general, entered the 25th Foot at the age of nineteen, and in 1795 became captain in the 7th Regiment, obtaining a half-pay majority a few months later. As a major of the 20th he served in Holland under the duke of York in 1799. At the action of Krabbendam the regiment greatly distinguished itself, though largely composed of raw militia recruits. Ross was here severely wounded. In 1801 the 20th went to Egypt and took part in the final operations which led to Menou’s surrender. In 1803, though lieutenant-colonel only by brevet, Ross succeeded to the command, and at once initiated a severe system of training, in barracks and in the field, in his regiment. The result of this was apparent when under Sir John Stuart’s command the regiment proceeded to Naples. The 20th played a decisive part in the brilliant action of Maida, and distinguished itself not less in the subsequent storm of the castle of Scylla. In 1808–9 Ross and the 20th formed part of Anstruther’s brigade of Sir John Moore’s army in Spain, and though the statement that the 20th, owing to its good discipline, suffered less loss than any other regiment in the retreat on Corunna is incorrect, the regiment was among the best disciplined in the army. Later in 1809 it was sent to Walcheren, where fever soon laid low two-thirds of the men. Ross and his regiment were then sent to Ireland to recover, and here the colonel repeated the course of drill and manoeuvre which had so markedly improved the 20th in Malta. He received a gold medal for Corunna and a sword of honour for Maida (which action had already won him a