the dominion of the French, by, in a very great 1799. degree, the persevering exertions of the officers and seamen of the british navy. We will now proceed to give an account of another set of Mediterranean coast-operations, by the final success of which the british navy did really (for many, with reason, have doubted it in the case of Naples) afford relief to a suffering people. The junction, in the latter end of October, 1798, Oct. of a few russian and turkish frigates, corvettes, and gun-boats, with the three or four ships with which the British cruised off the coast of Egypt, and the threatening posture which the combined squadron occasionally assumed, induced Buonaparte to strengthen Damietta, Rosetta, and particularly Alexandria; to the command of which latter city, on general Kléber's rejoining the army in Cairo, Buonaparte had appointed general Marmont. Having made these dispositions, the general in chief busied himself in forming schemes that had for their object the junction of the Red and Mediterranean seas, by means of a canal through the isthmus of Suez. In order to have ocular demonstration of the practicability of such a plan, Buonaparte resolved to go himself to Suez; first sending, however, a detachment of troops to take possession of the town and neighbourhood. On the 2d of November general Bon departed Nov. from Cairo with a suitable body of troops; and on the 8th the advanced division, commanded by Eugène Beauharnois, one of Buonaparte's aides-de-camp, entered the seaport of Suez, a small town, situated at the northern extremity of the western arm of the Red sea, and distant about 30 leagues from Cairo, and nearly the same from the Mediterranean. The inhabitants of Suez all fled on the approach of the French, and a few merchant vessels were all that were found in the port. Buonaparte would soon have followed general Bon to this interesting spot, but was retarded in his movements, by the breaking out of the plague among his troops, and by the 1799. knowledge which he had just acquired of the hostile intentions of Turkey. Dec. Believing he could remove these by diplomatizing, Buonaparte, on or about the 12th of December, despatched the consul of Mascata, citizen Beauchamp, on board a turkish caravella in Alexandria, to the french ambassador at Constantinople, Talleyrand-Périgord, as Buonaparte supposed, but who had not yet quitted Paris on his mission. Early in the month of January the turkish vessel sailed from Alexandria, and was detained by the british commanding officer off the coast, captain Troubridge; who took out M. Beauchamp, and, considering him to be a spy, sent him to Constantinople as a prisoner. Captain Troubridge, however, with characteristic generosity, restored to M. Beauchamp a sum nearly equal to 6007. sterling, found concealed among his clothes, and which, although ostensibly M. Beauchamp's private property, had no doubt been supplied to him by Buonaparte for purposes of bribery and corruption. Having, chiefly by the excellent regulations of the physicians in his army, checked the ravages of the plague; and having sent one messenger to Constantinople, and another (the nature of whose mission we shall presently unfold) to Achmet-Djezzar, pacha of Acre in Syria, Buonaparte, on the 25th of December, quitted Cairo, and in two days afterwards arrived at Suez, attended, among others, by_the members of the "institute of Egypt," Monge, Berthollet, Costaz, and Bourienne. Without losing a moment, Buonaparte proceeded to reconnoitre the town, the harbour, and the neighbouring coast. He afterwards crossed the arm of the Red sea, at the end of which Suez stands, by means of a ford only practicable at low water, in order to reach a spot which the Arabs still call the "fountain of Moses," and where, according to the traditions of the country, lie the rocks from the striking of one of which the water was produced. Here were seen the vestiges Dec. of a small modern aqueduct for conveying this water 1799. to some cisterns on the sea-shore, about three miles off, and by which vessels were, or rather had been supplied. In their way back to Suez, Buonaparte and his escort nearly suffered the fate of Pharaoh and his army. The ford, which the caravan had crossed with so much ease in the morning, being now covered with the tide, the travellers were obliged to descend to the bottom of the arm or gulf. Here, owing to some mistake about the depth of water, Buonaparte was obliged to be carried upon the shoulders of his guide, and both with difficulty escaped being drowned.* On the 31st of December Buonaparte again quitted Suez; and, while one part of his attendants took the rout to Adjaroud, he coasted the Red sea to the northward, and, at the distance of about two leagues and a half from Suez, discovered some traces of the ancient canal. These he followed during four hours, and until, indeed, the traces disappeared in some lakes named Ammers. On his return to Suez, Buonaparte received advices which called for his active exertions in another quarter; but, on arriving at his head-quarters at Cairo, he did not neglect to despatch to Suez his principal engineer, Lepère, with directions that he should take the geometrical level of the course of the supposed canal across the isthmus. Having made this digression, we now hasten to relate what it was that, while Buonaparte appeared so intent upon pursuing his geological researches, thus gave a new impulse to his active mind. About a month previous to his departure for Suez, Buonaparte had sent an officer of his staff to Achmet-Djezzar, for the purpose of engaging this vizier to preserve the relations of peace with him. The messenger was not permitted an audience, nor even to disembark from the vessel in which he had * Victoires et Conquêtes, tome ix. p. 246. Dec. 1799. arrived in the bay of Acre. The vessel, with colonel Beauvoisins on board, returned to Egypt, and Buonaparte's rage knew no bounds. He, however, mastered it so far as to send to Djezzar, by two Arabs, the following letter: "I do not wish to go to war with you, if you are not my enemy; but it is time that you explain yourself. If you continue to afford refuge to Ibrahim-Bey, and allow him to remain on the frontiers of Egypt, I shall consider that as an act of hostility, and march to Acre. If you are disposed to live in peace with me, you will remove Ibrahim-Bey 40 leagues from the frontiers of Egypt, and let there be a free commerce between Damietta and Syria. In that case, I promise to respect your sovereignty, and to allow a free commerce, by land or sea, between Egypt and Syria."* This letter met no better fate than the message sent by colonel Beauvoisins. Buonaparte now commenced preparations for fulfilling his promise to Djezzar. This he felt the more inclined to do, conceiving it would gain him favour with the grand signior, to whom the pacha of Acre, as was well known, had long been a rebellious subject. Djezzar had anticipated Buonaparte, by throwing a body of troops into the castle of El-Arich, situated just within the frontiers of Egypt. The news of this quickened the movements of Buonaparte; and early in January an army consisting, in effective strength, of 12995 men, with 27 field-pieces and 11 howitzers,† marched from the neighbourhood of Cairo to effect the conquest of Syria. The generals under Buonaparte in this army were Regnier, Kléber, Bon, Lannes, and Murat. The remainder of the army, which probably amounted to about 17000 men, was scattered over the different provinces of Lower and Upper Egypt. On the 18th of February the whole of the army destined to invade Syria had assembled before El-Arich; where we will leave it awhile, until we have given some * See Appendix, No. 19. Victoires et Conquêtes, tome x. p. 76. account of the proceedings of the british squadron 1799. cruising off the egyptian coast. بہت On the 2d of February captain Troubridge, in the Feb. Culloden 74, with the Theseus of the same force, captain Ralph Willett Miller, bomb-vessels Bull-dog and Perseus, captains Adam Drummond and James Oswald, and Alliance frigate armed en flûte, captain David Wilmot, arrived off Alexandria, to relieve captains Hood of the Zealous, and Hallowell of the Swiftsure 74s, from their long and unproductive cruise on that station. On the following day, the 3d, at 3 P. M., the Bull-dog and Perseus stood towards the town of Alexandria, throwing in their shells as they approached. At 6 P. M. they discontinued the bombardment; but resumed it, for three or four hours at a time, on the 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, 13th, and 22d. On the last-named day there were two bombardments, one at 4 h. 30 m. A. M., and the other at 8 P. M. The latter had not continued long, before the 13-inch mortar on board the Perseus burst, whereby one man was killed and three wounded, and the mainmast sprung. This, besides sinking two french transports in the harbour, and frightening the turkish ships of war out of it, (consisting of one or two frigates or corvettes,) appears to have been all the mischief which the seven bombardments had occasioned. On the 3d of March the british 74-gun ship Tigre, March. commodore sir William Sidney Smith, in company with the Marianne armed galliot, a french gun-vessel captured two days before, arrived off Alexandria, to supersede captain Troubridge in the command of the squadron on that station. Sir Sidney had been invested with the rank of minister plenipotentiary to the Sublime Porte, jointly with his brother, Mr. John Spencer Smith, and had since been at Constantinople and at the island of Rhodes, arranging a plan of active cooperation on the part of the Turks against the French in Egypt. Having obtained the concurrence of captain |