stances grew to such a height as to destroy the bonds of good comradeship. Many a poor fellow, as he lay writhing to death upon the ground, would cry out, piteously—'I am not a pestifère-I am only wounded;' and to convince his comrades of this, he would re-open his gashes, or even inflict upon himself fresh wounds. No one believed him. The men said-" He is done for" (son affaire est faite)-then passed on, felt to know if their own glands were free from the fatal swelling, and all was forgotten.' This abandonment of the sick and wounded must have been viewed with great scorn by the pursuing Turks.

not the only consolation of the retreating the retreat from Acre this anxiety of the General. Before the retrograde movement troops to avoid the touch of infected subcommenced, Buonaparte had imagined a new atrocity following up the now familiar line of policy adopted by the French, he determined that if he could not hurt his enemies, he would at all events hurt neutrals or friends. It does not appear that the people of the country along the coast from Acre to the Desert had ever seriously harassed or vexed the march of the French troops. The garrisons, indeed, manned by Osmanlis and Arnaouts, had held out, and the warlike and bigoted population in the neigborhood of Naplouse had given some trouble-but it was not on these that the vengeance was to fall. 'I'll destroy every thing,' said Buonaparte, 'home to the commencement of the Desert.' I'll make it impossible for an army to pass in this direction for the next two years. It (i. e. an army) does not live in the midst of ruins.' The season of the year (for it was May, the time of ripe grain immediately preceding the harvest) but too well favored this campaign against the fruits of the earth. Destroying parties were organized with as much regularity and system as if they had been formed for foraging: they were armed with torches. Every village-nay, every poor laborer's hut lying upon the condemned tract of country-was destroyed; and across the whole belt of fertile soil that runs parallel with the sea-shore the yellow fields blazed. And day by day this vast conflagration moved steadily on upon the left of the retreating columns; so that when Buonaparte once more set foot upon the verge of the Desert, he left the fair province that had fed his army for the last three months now smoking far and near with ruined homes, and black with the ashes of corn.

Buonaparte's biographers make much of their hero's resigning his horse to the sick and wounded, and marching on foot. It is almost provoking to see that even this small piece of self-sacrificing heroism was a mere coup de théâtre. It was during the halt at Tentoura, on the 20th of May, that the order requiring all beasts of burden to be given up for the sick and wounded was issued. When the General was about to move on, one of his grooms asked which horse he would ride: he answered by giving the poor servant a violent slash across the face with his whip, swore a fierce oath, and said that he should march on foot. He no doubt did so-perhaps for half an hour, perhaps for a day; but during the night-march of the 22nd (when the want of beasts of burthen must have been just as pressing as it had been on the 20th, and in all probability much more so) Buonaparte was fired at by a peasant. This event incidentally brings out the fact that the pretended magnanimity of marching on foot had not been persevered in, for we are expressly told that when the shot was fired the General was asleep on his horse.

But whilst Devastation thus flanked the march of the French troops, the Plague Another favorite story of Buonaparte's stole into their ranks. This calamity is one biographers was that of his touching the that always developes a new source of differ- swellings of the plague-stricken patients in ence between the Oriental and the Euro- the hospital of Jaffa. This is a fable. pean. The former meets the risk of infection The General, indeed, entered the hospital; with serene composure: the latter, believ- walked rapidly through the rooms, switching plague to be propagated by contact, is ing his boot-top with his riding-whip, and perpetually seeking to shun the peril, and is desiring that those who were strong enough therefore regarded by the Moslem as a poor would get up and march, as the place fugitive, miserably hoping to baffle the will would soon be occupied by the enemy. of God by human shifts and contrivances. The plague-stricken patients were all too The habitual materialism of the French-far gone to take the least notice of the man seems to render him even more alive speech addressed to them. There were than other Europeans to the importance of not, it seems, more than sixty of them. avoiding contact in time of plague. Upon An order was issued (it is hardly now mat

·

ter of doubt) for administering to these tidings in 1799, he knew not to whom bepatients a potion adapted to accelerate longed the ancient kingdoms of Europe. death.' A draught of this sort in the terse For ten months the French had lived withidiom of England would be called simply out certain news from their country; but 'poison.' We, however, will not undertake Sir Sydney Smith (the most courteous of to say that Buonaparte, in giving this di- foes) now presented to Buonaparte a file of rection, was not influenced by a motive the Frankfort Journal.' Italy lost! Les which he thought humane. Moreover, it misérables!' cries Buonaparte (alluding to seems highly probable that his order was the Directory); and instantly sees how never complied with, and that the patients welcome now to humbled France must be were left to their fate. There is much the return of her most fortunate General. weight in the suggestion of Savary, who He secretly prepares the requisite means observes that the sick were all too far gone-issues false announcements of his purto take the potion voluntarily, and that no pose in descending the Nile-makes a false Frenchman would have incurred the risk of appointment with Kleber-leaves behind infection by administering it.

him a false promise to return-and slips away for ever from the shores of Egypt.

The remains of the army passed the Desert, and returned in miserable plight to Kleber, disgusted at the cool escape of Cairo. Buonaparte heralded his arrival by Buonaparte, and angry to find himself sada bulletin so transcendent in its falseness dled with the duty of making the best of a that for a moment his very secretary refus- very bad matter, commenced his adminised the leap, and hesitated to write the dic-tration by signing the Convention of El tated words. I shall bring with me,' said Arish, and provided for the deportation of the discomfited General in this address-'I the French troops to the shores of France, shall bring with me a quantity of prisoners, in French or Turkish vessels. The cir and of flags. I have razed the palace of cumstances of this transaction so closely Djezzar, the ramparts of Acre; there no touch the subject with which we are deallonger remains one stone upon another; ing-namely, the good faith of nationsall the inhabitants have evacuated the and are, in our view, so clearly stated by town by sea. Djezzar is severely wound- Mr. Alison, that we will give them in his ed.' Now every man in Egypt would words:know in a week that Acre was safe and sound; and every Oriental, comparing the words with the fact, would infer that the father of the lie was Fear.

"This convention was not signed by the British Admiral, Sir Sydney Smith; nor was he vested either with express authority to conclude such a treaty, nor with such a comIn the following month the Osmanlis, mand as nesessarily implied such a power. encouraged by the failure of the French It was, however, entered into with his conbefore Acre, landed at Aboukir under currence and approbation; and, like a man cover of the English guns, to the number of honor, he felt himself as much bound to of 15,000 or 16,000 men. They threw up had been affixed to the instrument. But the see it carried into effect, as if his signature intrenchments, and prepared to make war British Government had, three months bein their old-fashioned way. Buonaparte fore, sent out orders to Lord Keith, comcame down and destroyed the whole force. manding the English fleet in the MeditHere was really a great and decisive vic-erranean, not to consent to any treaty in tory: but the moment for the great adventurer's departure was now at hand. Mr. Warburton, after a few weeks of sailing and tracking on the Nile, owns to the irresistible longing which he felt for the blessed face of a newspaper. Yet compare the meagre news of the present era with the events of the period we speak of. In these days the deprivation would keep us painfully doubting whether the Rev. Mr. Ward was, or was not, to be dressed as a freshman-would even condemn us to ignorance respecting the exact state of the great surplice controversy at Little Lower Churchington-but if a man were without recent

which it was not stipulated that the French army were to be prisoners of war; and Lord Keith, on the 8th January, a fortnight before the Convention of El Arish was signed, had sent a letter from Minorca to Kleber, warning him that any vessels having on board French troops, returning home in virtue of a capitulation other than an unconditional surrender, would be made prisoners of war. The continental historians of every description are loud in their abuse of the English Government for what they call their bad faith in refusing to ratify the Convention of El Arish. The smallest attention to dates must be sufficient to prove that these censures are totally destitute of foundation. The Convention was signed at El Arish on January

24th, 1800, and Lord Keith's letter, announc-fought, and been forgotten-nations have ing that the British Government would agree come and gone, and left no trace behind them to no capitulation, was dated Minorca, January-but the memory of that noble truthfulness 8th, 1800, or sixteen days before the signature remained, and expanded into a national charof the treaty. This letter was founded on in-acteristic; and our countrymen may, at this structions sent out by the English Cabinet to hour, in the streets of Cairo, hear the Arabs Lord Keith, dated December 17th, in conse- swear "by the honor of an Englishman."'quence of the intercepted letters of Kleber, vol. i. p. 55. which had fallen into their hands immediately after Napoleon's return. Kleber no sooner received Lord Keith's letter than he resumed hostilities, and fought the battle of Heliopolis with his wonted precipitance, without once reflecting on the fact that the letter on which he founded so much was written not only long before intelligence of the treaty had reached England, but from Minorca, sixteen days before the treaty itself was signed. "No sooner, however," said Mr. Pitt in his place in Parliament, was it known in England that the French general had the faith of a British offiguine as to suppose that facts manifesting cer pledged to him, and was disposed to act the honor and good faith of nations, are upon it, than instructions were sent out to specifically understood and treasured up by have the Convention executed, though the offi- the masses of the people in any country. cer in question had, in fact, no authority to Our steady hope of the reward properly besign it." Orders accordingly were sent out longing to national honesty is not founded to execute the treaty, and they arrived in

Mr. Warburton means that the Arabs still We do not distinctly understand whether remember and speak of this transaction, or whether he merely uses a form of speech indicating that an impression was produced upon their minds strongly favorable to the English character for honor. The latter view would probably be the correct one; for we confess we have not been so san

May, 1800, long after the battle of Heliopolis; upon a belief that any signal act of good and Kleber had consented to a renewal of the faith will be long or accurately remembertreaty, when it was interrupted by his assas-ed by the multitude, but rather upon this sination at Grand Cairo on June 14th, 1800. firm belief, namely, that a long series of Sir Sydney Smith had no authority to agree treaties performed and promises fulfilled, to the convention, nor was he the command-in spite of temptation to break them, will ing officer on the station, in whom that power always be vaguely summed up in the minds necessarily resided, but a mere commodore in command of a ship of the line and two fri- of the nations, until in the end a corregates, Lord Keith being the head of the squad-sponding amount of confidence is engenron in the Mediterranean. This conduct-dered. in agreeing, contrary to their obvious interests, to restore the French a powerful veteran army, irrecoverably separated from the Republic at the very time when it most stood in need of its assistance, in consequence of a convention acceded to without authority by a subordinate officer-is the strongest instance of the good faith of the English Cabinet; and affords a striking contrast to the conduct of Napoleon soon after, in refusing to ratify the armistice of Treviso, concluded with full powers by his general, Brune, a proceeding which the French historians mention, not only without disapprobation, but manifest satisfaction.' -Alison's History of Europe, 5th edit. vol. iv. p. 561.

Lord Keith's instructions not to act upon the Convention signed by the French and Turkish commanders were instantly communicated to Kleber by his high-minded foe, Sir Sydney Smith.

The spirit,' says Mr. Warburton, which dictated the British sailor's act was under

stood in the deserts—a voice went forth among the tents of the Bedouins and the palaces of the despot, that England preferred honor to advantage. Battles, since then, have been

And

It has been seen that Lord Keith's instructions forbade all capitulation, except upon the terms of the French surrendering said the heroic and fiery Kleber, 'we will as prisoners of war. To such insults,' answer with battles and victories.' he made good his speech. An army of 40,000 Ottomans had passed the Desert, and hung on the eastern frontier of Egypt. The French commander was obliged, therefore, to concentrate his troops; and as he did so, the futility of Buonaparte's attempts to influence the Egyptians was made manifest. Cairo rose, and forced its small garrison of Frenchmen to take refuge in the citadel. Other places followed the example; but meanwhile, on a fair moonlight night, the armies met near the ruins of Heliopolis, and Kleber gained by far the most brilliant victory that had been hitherto achieved by the French arms against the rude masses of the East. The victorious general followed up his military successes by an able civil administration; and a hard, yet steady and judicious pressure upon the resources of the country, soon enabled him

to retrieve the financial condition of his army. Now, however, arrived instructions from England, based upon that high sense of honor which induced Pitt to ratify the merely implied approval of an English officer, even although that officer was wholly unauthorized to act. Kleber again signed the convention; but before he could give effect to its stipulations he was assassinated by a fanatical Mussulman.

Menou, the new French commander, repudiated the convention, and prepared to measure his strength with a foe more troublesome than any whom the Republicans had hitherto encountered in the land of Egypt. The battle of Aboukir is vividly described by Mr. Warburton; but neither upon this nor upon the subsequent successes of the English arms can we now afford time to dwell. It is more within our purpose to remark that the prestige of French superiority, even over mere Orientals, was at length shaken; for a Turkish general was persuaded to act in the field with such an astonishing amount of common sense, that he absolutely gained a kind of victory over Belliard, and compelled a French general, with 6000 prime troops, to retreat before scimitars, shouts, and yataghans.

The Convention of Alexandria must have counteracted, in great measure, the effect produced by our victories upon the public opinion of the East. Orientals habitually distrust the existence of a power which is exerted with any thing like charitable, or even politic forbearance; and seeing that the Englishman had been induced to let his old foe escape so easily, they would hardly believe it possible that the latter could have been utterly beaten. If we had erected a handsome pyramid with the skulls of the French soldiers, and had sold all the savans as slaves, we should have conciliated more effectually the love and esteem of the Turks. Still, although our prowess had thus fallen short of perfection, we had done a good deal. The forced evacuation of Egypt by a French army, so lately holding it in military possession, was a fact for men's minds to dwell on. In time of profound peace and professed amity between the governments of the invading and invaded countries, a vast armament had landed on the shores of Egypt-the clear superiority of European discipline and European tactics had been displayed to the full-the invaders had shrunk from no sort or amount of expedient cruelty-they had spared no act of treachery-no form of At length a final capitulation was signed. falsehood, if only it seemed advantageousThe French (more tenderly used in treaty they had debased themselves by renouncthan in battle) were allowed to depart in ing their religion (cr, if not their own, at peace; troops, artists, savans, and all, tak-least the religion of their forefathers) for ing with them their arms and accoutre- the nonsensical fornis of mere Orientalsments, their collections of antiquities, and their famous drawings of Egyptian monuments. The guns which they were forced to abandon amounted in number to several hundreds; but in order that, on arriving at Toulon, they might have the air of bringing back their artillery with them, they stipulated for the right of carrying off ten field-pieces. Thus, in almost all the acts of the invaders, from the day when the expedition sailed from France under the name of The Left Wing of the Army of England,' up to the final capitulation of Alexandria, we detect the principle of deception.

* All these curiosities and objects of art were to have been delivered up to the English by the terms of the Convention. The savans, however, stoutly rebelled against this provision. They declared that, if it were insisted upon, they would destroy all the articles in question, and would throw upon Lord Hutchinson the infamy of becoming a 'second Amrou;' and the English commander was so much alarmed or mystified by this threat that he actually surrendered the claim. VOL. V.-No: I. 7

their savans, too, had tried their little arts. And now-with their numbers diminished by nearly one-half, their artillery reduced to ten pieces, their character for invincibility and good faith reduced to nothing at allthey passed away to the West like a plague, and, as though in compliance with the prayer of the Mussulmans, to 'infest the cities of Christians.'

The Ottoman empire now rested from French visitation; but before six years were over, the late General of the Republican army in Egypt had become the Emperor of the West; and when Sebastiani presented his credentials as ambassador at the Porte, he represented, to all seeming, the greatest of earthly potentates. His power, therefore, was great, and he knew how to make it tell. The diplomatist who represents a powerful European state at an Eastern court, must be something more than a mere rounder of periods and softener of phrases. Geographical distance is only one of the many causes which make it im

French expedition of 1798. We had this, however, to say for ourselves, as honorably contradistinguishing us from the Frenchnamely, that we were at war with the sovereign of the country which we chose to invade.

possible to set down in London or Paris proportionately attenuated the resources of minute instructions that can be treated as British negotiators throughout all Europe. strictly binding at the Sublime Gate of the Sir Robert Adair's highly interesting MeSeraglio, or the Heavenly Ark of Tehraun; moir of his Embassy shows how keenly the and where the Foreign Office is impotent check was felt by him at Vienna. to instruct, the ambassador must have Pretty closely upon this capital blunder power to choose. State events in the East, there followed our ill-advised descenttoo, are sudden in their coming-grand in (March 1807) upon the coast of Egypt. their consequences. By the test of a great The British force successfully established emergency Sebastiani was tried, and he itself in Damietta and Alexandria; but a showed himself sagacious, decisive, intrepid disaster sustained at Rosetta by a strong -ntrepid as though he were handling detachment of our troops so discouraged troops against some old-fashioned general, those in command that they were glad to who issued his orders, like Cuesta, from out sign an honorable convention providing for of a coach and six. The influence of Na- the restoration of prisoners and the evacuapoleon (we speak merely of his influence tion of the country. Now, considering that upon the court and councils of the Turks) at the time of planning the enterprise we was raised to a height that absolutely ex- were engaged in deadly struggle with an cluded the enemies of France from the European potentate then fully a match for friendship of the Sultan. The English our strength, we are bound to conclude ultimatum was therefore imperious, re- that, in the conception of this scheme for quiring the Porte to come to an immediate the invasion of Egypt, there was something rupture with France, and to join the Anglo- of the frivolity which had characterized the Russian alliance. The Divan replied by a declaration of war; and Admiral Duckworth, with seven ships of the line and two frigates, boldly forced the Dardanelles, sailed through the Marmora, and brought up within sight of the Seraglio point. The city was at this moment defenceless, and At this time the alliance between France the ships of the Sultan lay, tempting and and the Porte appeared to be firm as the easy of capture, in the Golden Horn. The hills. An ambassador was accredited by Divan, feeling itself, as it were, in a glass- the Sultan to Napoleon, and he found him house, was vastly anxious to avoid being where best an emperor' beseems the pursmashed, and fully disposed to give way. ple-he found him in arms on the Vistula, But Sebastiani, bold and sanguine, saw in all the pride and strength that is implied grounds of hope in the possible simplicity by a line of operations as safe as the Champs of the British commander. The full extent Elysées, yet more than a thousand miles of a brave sailor's innocence in diplomacy long. Napoleon, recurring to his favorite could never be known until it was fairly Oriental style, told the Ottoman, that soontested; and 'good Sir John' might perhaps er should his right arm quarrel with his be amused by pretended negotiations until left than he the Emperor of France with the preparations necessary for resisting an his brother the great Padishah. There is attack could be perfected. At all events every reason to believe that at this moment the Turks might be persuaded to try the Napoleon was sincere; but he thought no experiment. They tried it. In seven days more of breaking inconvenient engagethe defences of the city and the duping of ments with a Turkish ambassador than if the Devonshire admiral were complete. An he had spoken his promises to a mere turattack was no longer practicable. The ban and bundle of shawls, without a man in fleet, returning through the Dardanelles, the midst of them. This was soon proved; once more ran the gauntlet of the monster- and we shall presently see that, in a very guns; and before the British commander few months from the utterance of the vow anchored again off Tenedos, his losses were just quoted, the 'right arm' quietly agreed to 250 men killed or wounded; an opportu- the dismemberment and partition of the unnity of bursting the Franco-Ottoman alli- fortunate 'left.' ance thrown away; and his character for common sense missing. This brilliant achievement of course raised Sebastiani to the very zenith of diplomatic glory, and

In the character of a gifted, high-spirited parvenu (and our remark applies to the small social ambitions, no less than to the broad arena of public affairs), a readiness