upon 1801. 10th and 15th of June the two divisions set off their march across the desert, by the valley of Kuit- June. tah, and on the 30th arrived at Kéné, or Kenneh, on the banks of the Nile; but, owing to the difficulty of procuring boats to descend that river, major-general Baird did not effect his junction with lieutenant- Juncgeneral Hutchinson until several days after the sur- tion of render of Cairo. Lieutenant-colonel Lloyd had general joined since the 11th or 12th; but his journey had Baird. been a most painful and distressing one, 23 of his detachment, including three officers, having perished in the desert with thirst. major The last division of the french troops taken pri- Aug. soners at Cairo and at other places, the whole of which amounted to nearly 13500 men, having, by the 10th of August, sailed from the bay of Aboukir, and lieutenant-general Hutchinson having arrived from Cairo at his head-quarters before Alexandria, immediate measures were taken to reduce that remaining strong hold of the French in Egypt, and thus accomplish the ultimate object of the expedition. On the night of the 16th about 5000 troops under major-general Coote, embarked on Lake Mareotis, in the boats of the men of war and transports, and in a quantity of djerms which had been assembled for the purpose, and, escorted by the flotilla of gunvessels still under the orders of captain Stevenson, proceeded to a position to the westward of the town of Alexandria. Early on the morning of the 17th the detachment disembarked with a slight opposition; previous to which the French had set fire to their Desflotilla of 18 gun-boats, which had been stationed truction opposite to Pompey's pillar, under the protection of french a battery of three long 18-pounders. The slight tilla. opposition experienced by the British is acknow he was joined by sir Home Popham, and captain Surridge, thereupon "left the direction of the naval forces under the able management" of the latter. So far from this having been the case, the rear-admiral died on the 14th of July, when the Leopard and Romney, sailing in company, were about to cast anchor in Mocha road on their return to Bombay. of lake 1801. ledged by the French to have been mainly owing to Aug. the spirited demonstration which captain sir Sidney Smith, with some sloops of war and armed boats, made upon the town of Alexandria from the sea. On the night of the 18th a combined military and naval attack was made upon the small fortified island of Marabou, which protects the entrance to the western or great harbour of Alexandria. The naval force consisted of the armed launches of the squadron, under the command of captain Cochrane of the Cap- Ajax. Finding it in vain to hold out longer, the ture of commandant of Marabou, chef de brigade Etienne, bou. capitulated on the 21st; and on the same evening captain Cochrane, with the ship-sloops Cynthia and Bonne-Citoyenne, brig-sloops Port-Mahon and Victorieuse, and three turkish corvettes, entered the harbour: soon after which, to prevent the further progress of the British to the eastward, the French sank several merchant vessels, having previously moved their two 64s, frigates, and corvettes, from Cape Figuiers close up to the town at the extremity of the harbour. On the morning of the 26th four batteries on each side of the town were opened against the entrenched camp of the French; and on the 27th, in the evening, being thus pressed on all sides, general Menou sent an aide-de-camp to lieutenant-general Hutchinson to request a three days' armistice, in order to give time to prepare a capitulation. This was acceded to; Sept. and on the 2d of September Alexandria surrendered. Cap- By the terms of the treaty the garrison, consisting of Alex- upwards of 8000 soldiers and 1300 sailors, were to andria. he conveyed to France at british expense, as had already been the case with the garrison of Cairo. This concluding operation of the campaign was effected after a loss to the british army, in the four or five skirmishes which had immediately preceded it, of only 13 rank and file killed, and six officers, four sergeants, one drummer, and 113 rank and file wounded, and to the british navy, in the attack upon Marabou, of one midshipman (Mr. Hull, of the Ajax) 1801. and one seaman killed, and two seamen wounded; Sept. thus making the general loss on the part of the British in the egyptian campaign, as far as it has been officially reported, 330 killed, 1872 wounded, and 39 missing. That of the French, commencing at the disembarkation of the british troops in Aboukir bay, may be stated at from 3000 to 4000 men in killed alone; an amount, great as it may appear, considerably below what some of the english writers have declared it to have been. Egyp nérée, The french ships of war found in the old or western Capharbour were the Causse 64, the frigates Egyptienne, ture of Justice, and Régénérée, and two small ex-venetian tienne, frigates, of whose names we are uncertain. The Régé Dubois appears to have been broken up. The Hé- &c. liopolis was probably one of the ex-turkish corvettes restored to the captain pacha; and the Lodi, since the middle of May, had been despatched to France with general Reynier, sent home in a huff by general Menou. This remarkably fine brig, in spite of the numerous british cruisers at that time in the Mediterranean, accomplished her passage in safety, arriving on the 28th of June at the port of Nice. In the division of the ships between the british and turkish naval commanders in chief, the latter received the Causse, Justice, and one of the venetian frigates; and the former, the Egyptienne, Régénérée, and the other venetian frigate. What became of the latter frigate we are unable to say; but the Régénérée, a ship of 902 tons, and a very fast sailer, was added to the british navy as a 12-pounder 36-gun frigate, by the name of Alexandria. The Egyptienne was also added to the british navy, by her own name; and, from her size and qualifications, claims a more particular notice. Of the two new ships of the line which Buonaparte, in his letter to the directory of April, 1798,* contemplated to have ready by the ensuing September, * See vol. ii. p. 161. 1801. one, as already stated, was the Spartiate, just ready to be, if not actually launched. The other ship either had already been, or then was, so altered in her construction, that, instead of becoming a 74 of about count 1700 tons french, or 1900 english, she was launched Egyp- on the 18th of July, 1799, as a frigate of 1430 tons tienne. english. This had been done, by throwing in her stem Ac of and stern until they were perpendicular, and pro- Conformably to this arrangement of her guns, the Egyptienne, when, about six months after her capture, the british admiralty ordered her to be armed, was established with 28 long 24-pounders on the main deck, 12 carronades, 24-pounders, and two long 9-pounders on the quarterdeck, and four carronades and two long guns of the same two calibers on the forecastle, total 48 guns; with a complement, upon the prevalent economical scale of the british navy, of 330 men and boys. A contemporary, whose mistakes respecting the armaments of ships, english as well as foreign, we are almost tired of correcting, says thus of the frigate in question: "The Egyptienne, a frigate of sixteen hundred tons, taken at Alexandria, in Egypt, in 1800, carried on her maindeck sixteen long thirty-two pounders on each side and on her quarter deck and forecastle sixteen forty-two pound carronades, and four long twelve- 1801. pounders."* to the As we have done on most other occasions, so we Remust here, give some account of the honours and wards rewards bestowed upon the conquerors. The thanks conof parliament were voted to both commanders in querors. chief. Lieutenant-general Hutchinson was made, and no one can say undeservedly, first a knight of the bath, and then a peer of Great Britain; and lord Keith was raised from a peer of Ireland to a peer of Great Britain: not certainly for any active exertions in bringing the campaign to a close, nor, we presume, for doing what any clever agent for transports might have done as well, disembarking the troops; but as the head of the naval part of the expedition, without the aid of which, it is clear, the campaign itself could not have been undertaken. We are unable to state what officers of the navy gained steps in rank; but undoubtedly those serving on shore with the army, and on board the flotilla upon the Nile and the neighbouring lakes, well merited the promotion they may have obtained. The following is the handsome manner in which the commander in chief of the army speaks of their exertions. "The labour and fatigue of the navy have been continued and excessive; it has not been of one day or of one week, but for months together. In the bay of Aboukir, on the new inundation, and on the Nile, for 160 miles, they have been employed without intermission, and have submitted to many privations with a cheerfulness and patience, highly creditable to them and advantageous to the public service." We cannot dismiss the egyptian campaign without observing, that all the benefit derived from its successful termination, the removal of the french army from Egypt, might have been attained 18 months before, had lord Keith not refused to ratify the *Brenton, vol. i. p. 43. |