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admiral Linois, with three sail of the line and a frigate. This officer, after some refreshment at Toulon, was ordered to Cadiz; but on his way thither learning that the port was blockaded by Sir James Saumarez, he put into Algeziras, where that gallant officer attacked him. The persevering Gantheaume, still eluding the search of Sir John Warren, attempted, about the 8th of June, to land his troops four leagues to the westward of the Arabs' Tower; but being discovered by the cruisers of Lord Keith, he cut his cables and put to sea with great precipitation. Five of his transports were taken on the 7th of May they had no troops on board, but artists of all kinds. Rear-admiral Sir Richard Bickerton, with three English, and one Turkish, line-ofbattle ships, went in pursuit of him, but without

success.

Returning from his third and last attempt, he fell in, on the 24th of June, with the Swiftsure of seventy-four guns, commanded by Captain (now Sir Benjamin) Hallowell. They were between the coast of Africa and the island of Candia. The British ship was much out of repair, her copper worn off, and her sails and rigging, after long services, not in a state to render her effective. Captain Hallowell did his utmost to avoid the enemy on such unequal terms; but was very soon left without an alternative, and brought to close action, which he kept up for an hour; when, finding resistance vain, he surrendered. Gantheaume

received his prisoner with a nobleness creditable to both parties. Respecting Captain Hallowell for his brave defence, he gave him on his coming on board a guard of honour, with permission to distribute his men in the French ships, as he might judge most convenient, with authority also to regulate, and if necessary to punish them; and he was scrupulously exact as to the private property of the prisoners.

The conduct of Gantheaume is the more praiseworthy, as he had been thrice repulsed from his object by the persevering vigilance of our navy. In all instances like this, we shall not fail to do justice to virtue the most honourable to our nature, and the most cheering in the melancholy recital of human suffering.

After the surrender of Cairo the plague had broke out at Aboukir, and carried off some of our countrymen, and the ophthalmia began to make dreadful ravages among our troops.

On the 20th of June, the Iphigenia, a British frigate, of thirty-two guns, armed en flute, took fire and blew up in the bay; but no lives were lost. Reinforcements continued to arrive from England: the Leda and Active frigates, the Madras of fifty-four guns, and Agincourt of sixty-four, all came in succession with troops, money, and stores. On the 18th, the Monmouth of sixty-four guns, brought the 24th regiment, and a convoy from Minorca, with a considerable reinforcement; making the army under General Coote, before Alexandria, amount to nine thousand effective men.

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The nearer our army approached to Alexandria, the louder Menou proclaimed, as all French generals under similar circumstances do, that he meant to bury himself in the ruins of the city, which was now held in the most rigorous blockade by land and

sea.

Such a declaration is usually the prelude to

a surrender.

Nothing remained for our forces to complete their arduous labours, but the reduction of this place, which contained within its walls, and its harbour, all the French force in Egypt of men or ships, the wreck of that mighty host, which had landed from Toulon in 1798. Scarcely had our army with that of the French reached Rosetta, when the Nile had risen thirty feet; while Lord Keith, with his fleet in Aboukir-bay, was busily employed in arranging for the departure of General Belliard's army. The embarkation of this force being completed on the 7th of July, General Hutchinson detached Major-general Coote to occupy the isthmus on the west side of Alexandria, thus completing the circumvallation of the town. Coote's division consisted of four thousand men, and was embarked on the 16th, at seven in the evening, but the landing did not take place till the next morning at ten o'clock, between the town and the castle of Marabout; the siege of which instantly commenced.

It is worthy of remark, that the lake, on which Major-general Coote embarked in near four hundred boats of different descriptions, was pass

able at the period of the action of the 21st of March, for infantry, cavalry, and artillery; but by cutting through the canal of Alexandria, the waters of lake Aboukir soon restored Mareotis to its former extent. The waters of Mareotis, previously to this cut, by the English, having no supply from exterior sources, had nearly evaporated.*

The French set fire to their flotilla on the lake, attempting to destroy our vessels with them; but the project failed. Marabout stands on a small island at the western side of the harbour, commanding one of the channels of entrance. The principal one having been buoyed off by the officers of the ships of war, the French on the night of the 20th, removed these buoys. The tower of Marabout surrendered on the same day; and Captain the Honourable A. Cochrane of the Ajax, entered the harbour with four British and three Turkish corvettes. As General Coote advanced towards Alexandria, the gun-boats under the command of Captain Stevenson, of the Europa, constantly attended him, and rendered important services. The navy had now the possession of the harbour so far as to co-operate with the army, which had taken up a position within fourteen hundred yards of the town. The place was pressed and hemmed in on every side; the army of General Hutchinson east and west, the navy north and south, in the harbour, and on the lake.

* Walsh's Campaigns in Egypt, p. 212.

Menou began to feel that his power was at an end; as the probability of relief from France was too distant to afford a ray of hope. He demanded an armistice, which very soon led to a final capitulation; hastened no doubt by the welcome intelligence, which reached the British camp, that the forces from India, under the command of General Baird, were within two days' march of Rosetta. The capitulation was ratified on the 2nd of September, by Lord Keith and General Hutchinson; and the French General and his army were to embark for France, upon the same terms as had been granted to the garrison of Cairo.

The number of effective men, found in Alexandria, amounted to nine thousand, exclusively of sick and staff; there were also three hundred and twelve pieces of cannon, fourteen thousand filled cartridges, and one hundred and ninety-five thousand pounds of powder.

The

Thus terminated this unjust invasion. vast armament, which in June, 1798, had sailed from Toulon, to subvert the British empire in India, was first defeated by Nelson, checked in its advance to Syria by Sir Sidney Smith, routed on shore by the immortal Abercrombie, followed up by Lord Keith and General Hutchinson to Cairo, and finally compelled to surrender. Having thus vanquished the cruel invaders, the British General and Admiral beheld the glorious triumph of England achieved by their united endeavours;

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