The History of Napoleon Buonaparte. J. G. Lockhart

mind to want repose for that night."

      General Dessaix, meanwhile, had pursued Mourad Bey into Upper Egypt, where the Mamelukes hardly made a single stand against him, but contrived, by the excellence of their horses, and their familiarity with the deserts, to avoid any total disruption of their forces. Mourad returned to the neighbourhood of Cairo on hearing of the insurrection already mentioned; but departed when he learned its suppression. Those gallant horsemen were gradually losing numbers in their constant desert marches—they were losing heart rapidly: and everything seemed to promise, that the Upper Egypt, like the Lower, would soon settle into a peaceful province of the new French colony.

      The General, during this interval of repose, received no communication from the French government; but rumours now began to reach his quarters which might well give him new anxieties. The report of another rupture with Austria gradually met with more credence; and it was before long placed beyond a doubt, that the Ottoman Porte, instead of being tempted into any recognition of the French establishment in Egypt, had declared war against the Republic, and summoned all the strength of her empire to pour in overwhelming numbers on the isolated army of Buonaparte.

      As yet, however, there was no appearance of an enemy; and Napoleon seized the opportunity to explore the Isthmus of Suez, where a narrow neck of land divides the Red Sea from the Mediterranean, partly with the view of restoring the communication which in remote times existed between them, and partly of providing for the defence of Egypt, should the Ottomans attempt their invasion by the way of Syria.

      He visited the Maronite monks of Mount Sinai, and, as Mahomet had done before him, affixed his name to their charter of privileges; he examined also the fountain of Moses: and nearly lost his life in exploring, during low water, the sands of the Red Sea, where Pharaoh is supposed to have perished in the pursuit of the Hebrews. "The night overtook us," says Savary in his Memoirs, "the waters began to rise around us, the guard in advance exclaimed that their horses were swimming. Buonaparte saved us all by one of those simple expedients which occur to an imperturbable mind. Placing himself in the centre, he bade all the rest form a circle round him, and then ride out each man in a separate direction, and each to halt as soon as he found his horse swimming. The man whose horse continued to march the last, was sure, he said, to be in the right direction; him accordingly we all followed, and reached Suez at two in the morning in safety, though so rapidly had the tide advanced, that the water was at the poitrels of our horses ere we made the land."

      On his return to Cairo, the General despatched a trusty messenger into India, inviting Tippoo Saib to inform him exactly of the condition of the English army in that region, and signifying that Egypt was only the first post in a march destined to surpass that of Alexander! "He spent whole days," writes his secretary, "in lying flat on the ground stretched upon maps of Asia."

      At length the time for action came. Leaving 15,000 in and about Cairo, the division of Dessaix in Upper Egypt, and garrisons in the chief towns—Buonaparte on the 11th of February 1799 marched for Syria at the head of 10,000 picked men, with the intention of crushing the Turkish armament in that quarter, before their chief force (which he now knew was assembling at Rhodes) should have time to reach Egypt by sea. Traversing the desert which divides Africa from Asia, he took possession of the fortress El-Arish, (15 Feb.) whose garrison, after a vigorous assault, capitulated on condition that they should be permitted to retreat into Syria, pledging their parole not to serve again during the war. Pursuing his march, he took Gazah (that ancient city of the Philistines) without opposition; but at Jaffa (the Joppa of holy writ) the Moslem made a resolute defence. The walls were carried by storm, 3000 Turks died with arms in their hands, and the town was given up during three hours to the fury of the French soldiery—who never, as Napoleon confessed, availed themselves of the licence of war more savagely than on this occasion.

      A part of the garrison—amounting, according to Buonaparte, to 1200 men, but stated by others as nearly 3000 in number—held out for some hours longer in the mosques and citadel; but at length, seeing no chance of rescue, grounded their arms on the 7th of March. Eugene Beauharnois, who in person accepted their submission, was violently rebuked by Napoleon for having done so: the soldiery murmured, asking how these barbarians were to be fed, when they themselves were already suffering severe privations. The General summoned his chief officers to council and, after long discussion, it was resolved that, in this case, necessity left no room for mercy. On the 10th—three days after their surrender—the prisoners were marched out of Jaffa, in the centre of a battalion under General Bon. When they had reached the sand-hills, at some distance from the town, they were divided into small parties, and shot or bayoneted to a man. They, like true fatalists, submitted in silence; and their bodies were gathered together into a pyramid, where, after the lapse of thirty years, their bones are still visible whitening the sand.

      Such was the massacre of Jaffa, which will ever form one of the darkest stains on the name of Napoleon. He admitted the fact himself;—and justified it on the double plea, that he could not afford soldiers to guard so many prisoners, and that he could not grant them the benefit of their parole, because they were the very men who had already been set free on such terms at El-Arish. To this last defence the answer is, unfortunately for him, very obvious. He could not possibly have recognised in every one of these victims, an individual who had already given and broken his parole. If he did—still that would not avail him:—the men surrendered with arms in their hands. No general has a right to see men abandon the means of defence, and then—after the lapse of three days too!—inflict on them the worst fate that could have befallen them had they held out. The only remaining plea is that of expediency; and it is one upon which many a retail as well as wholesale murderer might justify his crime.

      Buonaparte had now ascertained that the Pacha of Syria, Achmet-Djezzar,[27] was at St. Jean d'Acre, (so renowned in the history of the crusades,) and determined to defend that place to extremity, with the forces which had already been assembled for the invasion of Egypt. He in vain endeavoured to seduce this ferocious chief from his allegiance to the Porte, by holding out the hope of a separate independent government, under the protection of France. The first of Napoleon's messengers returned without an answer; the second was put to death; and the army moved on Acre in all the zeal of revenge, while the necessary apparatus of a siege was ordered to be sent round by sea from Alexandria.

      Sir Sydney Smith was then cruising in the Levant with two British ships of the line, the Tigre and the Theseus; and, being informed by the Pacha of the approaching storm, hastened to support him in the defence of Acre. Napoleon's vessels, conveying guns and stores from Egypt, fell into his hands, and he appeared off the town two days before the French army came in view of it. He had on board his ship Colonel Philippeaux, a French royalist of great talents (formerly Buonaparte's school-fellow at Brienne);[28] and the Pacha willingly permitted the English commodore and this skilful ally, to regulate for him, as far as was possible, the plan of his defence.

      The loss of his own heavy artillery and the presence of two English ships, were inauspicious omens; yet Buonaparte doubted not that the Turkish garrison would shrink before his onset, and he instantly commenced the siege. He opened his trenches on the 18th of March. "On that little town," said he to one of his generals, as they were standing together on an eminence, which still bears the name of Richard Cœur-de-lion—"on yonder little town depends the fate of the East. Behold the key of Constantinople, or of India."—"The moment Acre falls," said he about the same time to De Bourienne, "all the Druses will join me; the Syrians, weary of Djezzar's oppressions, will crowd to my standard. I shall march upon Constantinople with an army to which the Turk can offer no effectual resistance—and it seems not unlikely that I may return to France by the route of Adrianople and Vienna—destroying the house of Austria on my way!"

      From the 18th to the 28th of March, the French laboured hard in their trenches, being exposed to the fire of extensive batteries, arranged by Philippeaux so as to command their approach, and formed chiefly of Buonaparte's own artillery, captured on the voyage from Alexandria. The Turks also were constantly sallying out, and their Pacha personally set the example of the most heroic resolution. Nevertheless, on the 28th, a breach was at last effected, and the French mounted with such fiery zeal that the garrison gave way, until Djezzar appeared on the battlements, and flinging his own pistols at the heads of the flying men, urged and compelled them to renew the