The District of Ferozepur comprises an area of 4302 sq. m. The surface is level, with the exception of a few sand-hills in the south and south-east. The country consists of two distinct tracts, that liable to annual fertilizing inundations from the Sutlej, known as the bhet, and the rohi or upland tract. The only river is the Sutlej, which runs along the north-western boundary. The principal crops are wheat, barley, millet, gram, pulses, oil-seeds, cotton, tobacco, &c. The manufactures are of the humblest kind, consisting chiefly of cotton and wool-weaving, and are confined entirely to the supply of local wants. The Lahore and Ludhiāna road runs for 51 m. through the district, and forms an important trade route. The North-Western, the Southern Punjab, and a branch of the Rajputana-Malwa railways serve the district. The other important towns and seats of commerce are Fazilka (pop. 8505), Dharmkot (6731), Moga (6725), and Muktsar (6389). Owing principally to the dryness of its climate, Ferozepur has the reputation of being an exceptionally healthy district. In September and October, however, after the annual rains, the people suffer a good deal from remittent fever. In 1901 the population was 958,072. Distributaries of the Sirhind canal water the whole district.
FEROZESHAH, a village in the Punjab, India, notable as the
scene of one of the chief battles in the first Sikh War. The battle
immediately succeeded that of Mudki, and was fought on the
21st and 22nd of December 1845. During its course Sir Hugh
Gough, the British commander, was overruled by the governor-general,
Lord Hardinge, who was acting as his second in command
(see Sikh Wars). At the end of the first day’s fighting
the British had occupied the Sikh position, but had not gained
an undisputed victory. On the following morning the battle
was resumed, and the Sikhs were reinforced by a second army
under Tej Singh; but through cowardice or treachery Tej Singh
withdrew at the critical moment, leaving the field to the British.
In the course of the fight the British lost 694 killed and 1721
wounded, the vast majority being British troops, while the Sikhs
lost 100 guns and about 5000 killed and wounded.
FERRAND, ANTOINE FRANÇOIS CLAUDE, Comte (1751–1825),
French statesman and political writer, was born in Paris
on the 4th of July 1751, and became a member of the parlement
of Paris at eighteen. He left France with the first party of
emigrants, and attached himself to the prince of Condé; later
he was a member of the council of regency formed by the comte
de Provence after the death of Louis XVI. He lived at Regensburg
until 1801, when he returned to France, though he still
sought to serve the royalist cause. In 1814 Ferrand was made
minister of state and postmaster-general. He countersigned
the act of sequestration of Napoleon’s property, and introduced
a bill for the restoration of the property of the emigrants,
establishing a distinction, since become famous, between royalists
of la ligne droite and those of la ligne courbe. At the second
restoration Ferrand was again for a short time postmaster-general.
He was also made a peer of France, member of the
privy council, grand-officer and secretary of the orders of Saint
Michel and the Saint Esprit, and in 1816 member of the Academy,
He continued his active support of ultra-royalist views until his
death, which took place in Paris on the 17th of January 1825.
Besides a large number of political pamphlets, Ferrand is the author of L’Esprit de l’histoire, ou Lettres d’un père à son fils sur la manière d’étudier l’histoire (4 vols., 1802), which reached seven editions, the last number in 1826 having prefixed to it a biographical sketch of the author by his nephew Héricart de Thury; Éloge historique de Madame Élisabeth de France (1814); Œuvres dramatiques (1817); Théorie des révolutions rapprochée des événements qui en ont été l’origine, le développement, ou la suite (4 vols., 1817); and Histoire des trois démembrements de la Pologne, pour faire suite à l’Histoire de l’anarchie de Pologne par Rulhière (3 vols., 1820).
FERRAR, NICHOLAS (1592–1637), English theologian, was
born in London in 1592 and educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge,
graduating in 1610. He was obliged for some years to travel for
his health, but on returning to England in 1618 became actively
connected with the Virginia Company. When this company
was deprived of its patent in 1623 Ferrar turned his attention
to politics, and was elected to parliament. But he soon decided
to devote himself to a religious life; he purchased the manor
of Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire, where he organized a
small religious community. Here, in 1626, he was ordained a
deacon by Laud, and declining preferment, he lived an austere,
almost monastic life of study and good works. He died on the
4th of December 1637, and the house was despoiled and the
community broken up ten years later. There are extant a
number of “harmonies” of the Gospel, printed and bound by
the community, two of them by Ferrar himself. One of the
latter was made for Charles I. on his request, after a visit in
1633 to see the “Arminian Nunnery at Little Gidding,” which
had been the subject of some scandalous—and undeserved—criticism.
FERRAR, ROBERT (d. 1555), bishop of St David’s and
martyr, born about the end of the 15th century of a Yorkshire
family, is said to have been educated at Cambridge, whence he
proceeded to Oxford and became a canon regular of St Augustine.
He came under the influence of Thomas Gerrard and Lutheran
theology, and was compelled to bear a faggot with Anthony
Dalaber and others in 1528. He graduated B.D. in 1533, accompanied
Bishop Barlow on his embassy to Scotland in 1535, and
was made prior of St Oswald’s at Nostell near Pontefract. At
the dissolution he surrendered his priory without compunction
to the crown, and received a liberal pension. For the rest of
Henry’s reign his career is obscure; perhaps he fled abroad on
the enactment of the Six Articles. He certainly married, and
is said to have been made Cranmer’s chaplain, and bishop of
Sodor and Man; but he was never consecrated to that see.
After the accession of Edward VI., Ferrar was, probably through the influence of Bishop Barlow, appointed chaplain to Protector Somerset, a royal visitor, and bishop of St David’s on Barlow’s translation to Bath and Wells in 1548. He was the first bishop appointed by letters patent under the act passed in 1547 without the form of capitular election; and the service performed at his consecration was also novel, being in English; he also preached at St Paul’s on the 11th of November clad only as a priest and not as a bishop, and inveighed against vestments and altars. At St David’s he had trouble at once with his singularly turbulent chapter, who, finding that he was out of favour at court since Somerset’s fall in 1549, brought a long list of fantastic charges against him. He had taught his child to whistle, dined with his servants, talked of “worldly things such as baking, brewing, enclosing, ploughing and mining,” preferred walking to riding, and denounced the debasement of the coinage. He seems to have been a kindly, homely, somewhat feckless person like many an excellent parish priest, who did not conceal his indignation at some of Northumberland’s deeds. He had voted against the act of November 1549 for a reform of the canon law, and on a later occasion his nonconformity brought him into conflict with the Council; he was also the only bishop who satisfied Hooper’s test of sacramental orthodoxy. The Council accordingly listened to the accusations of Ferrar’s chapter, and in 1552 he was summoned to London and imprisoned on a charge of praemunire incurred by omitting the king’s authority in a commission which he issued for the visitation of his diocese.
Imprisonment on such a charge under Northumberland might have been expected to lead to liberation under Mary. But Ferrar had been a monk and was married. Even so, it is difficult to see on what legal ground he was kept in the queen’s bench prison after July 1553; for Mary herself was repudiating the royal authority in religion. Ferrar’s marriage accounts for the loss of his bishopric in March 1554, and his opinions for his further punishment. As soon as the heresy laws and ecclesiastical jurisdiction had been re-established, Ferrar was examined by Gardiner, and then with signal indecency sent down to be tried by Morgan, his successor in the bishopric of St David’s. He appealed from Morgan’s sentence to Pole as papal legate, but in vain, and was burnt at Caermarthen on the 30th of March 1555. It was perhaps the most wanton of all Mary’s acts of persecution; Ferrar had been no such protagonist of the Reformation as Cranmer, Ridley, Hooper and Latimer; he had had nothing to do with Northumberland’s or Wyatt’s conspiracy. He had
