Mamelukes-men with no pretension to the qualities of regular cavalry, but agile and bold in their stirrups. With these he bore down on his foe. The French infantry, however, formed in squares, with the artillery at the angles, and the savans in the centre, were not to be broken and crushed by a throng of irregular horse: on the contrary, they mowed down the Mamelukes like grass, and the whole remaining crowd of Egyptians was easily dissipated. Bonaparte adroitly called this affair"The Battle of the Pyramids;" and a few days afterwards he crossed the Nile, established himself at Cairo, and wrote to Tippoo Sahib (then nearly succumbing under the Wellesleys) to say he was coming to help him with a countless host of warriors. A people continually subjected to oppression will generally accept a change of tyrants with a good deal of pleasure in the first instance. It appears certain that until the yoke of the invader began to be felt, the French were not unwelcome in Egypt. Their rapacity, however, soon forced the Egyptians to sigh for even a Mameluke government. All the old machinery of extortion employed by the Beys was seized and adopted by Bonaparte, and was worked with a severity more sure and methodical than that which characterizes the procedure of an Eastern oppressor. The people were vexed, and ground down. In that there was nothing new; but it seemed to them hard to lie under the heels of those oddlooking and seemingly frivolous infidels, instead of the stately and high-mettled tyrants to whom they had long been accustomed. The success of an Eastern conqueror must depend upon his power of influencing opinion beyond the sphere of his actual military occupation. The tracts over which he must carry his dominion are so vast in proportion to the space physically clutched by an army, that unless its commander can make great conquests by the mere weight of his character, he can make no conquest at all. Bonaparte felt this; and he tried very hard to gain a hold upon the Oriental mind. He failed; partly no doubt by reason of the naval and military reverses which his forces sustained, but partly, too, from a want of the requisite highmindedness, and from a defective knowledge of the Eastern character. First and chief amongst the reverses to which we allude was the destruction of the French fleet in the Bay of Aboukir: the force with which this event operated against the fortunes of the invader, both by cutting off his resources and destroying the idea of his complete ascendency, is too obvious to require illustration. But the event itself is told by Mr. Warburton with so much life and spirit, that we pause to extract his description: "Having landed Bonaparte and his army, Brueys lay moored in the form of a crescent, close along the shore. His vastly superior force and the strength of his position (protected towards the northward by dangerous shoals, and towards the westward by the castle and batteries) made him consider that position impregnable. He wrote, on the strength of this conviction, to Paris, to say that Nelson purposely avoided him. Was he undeceived when Hood, in the Zealous, making signal that the enemy was in sight, a cheer of anticipated triumph burst from every ship in the British fleet-that fleet which had swept the seas with bursting sails for six long weeks in search of its formidable foe, and now pressed to the battle as eagerly as if nothing but a rich and easy prize awaited them? 6 "Nelson had long been sailing in battle-order, and he now only lay-to in the offing till the rearward ships should come up. The soundings of that dangerous bay were unknown to him, but he knew that where there was room for a Frenchman to lie at anchor," [to swing,] "there must be room for an English ship to lie alongside" [on either side]" of him, and the closer the better. As his proud and fearless fleet came on, he hailed Hood, to ask his opinion as to whether he thought it would be advisable to commence the attack that night; and, receiving the answer that he longed for, the signal for close battle' flew from his mast-head. The delay thus caused to the Zealous gave Foley the lead, who showed the example of leading inside the enemy's line, and anchored by the stern alongside the second ship, thus leaving to Hood the first. The latter exclaimed to my informant, Thank God, he has generously left to his old friend still to lead the van.' Slowly and majestically, as the evening fell, the remainder of the fleet came on beneath a cloud of sail, receiving the fire of the castle and the batteries in portentous silence, only broken by the crash of spars and the boatswain's whistle, as each ship furled her sails calmly-as a sea-bird might fold its wings-and glided tranquilly onward till she found her destined foe. Then her anchor dropped astern, and her fire burst from her bloody decks with a vehemence that showed how sternly it had been repressed till then. "The leading ships passed between the enemy and the shore, but when the admiral came up he led the remainder of the fleet along the seaward side-thus doubling on the Frenchman's line, and placing it in a defile of fire. The sun went down after Nelson anchored; and his rearward ships were only guided through the darkness and the dangers of that formidable bay by the Frenchman's fire flashing fierce welcome as each enemy arrived, and hovered along the line, coolly scrutinizing where he could draw most of that fire on himself. The Bellerophon, with gallant recklessness, fastened on the gigantic Orient, and was soon crushed and scorched into a wreck by the terrible artillery of batteries more than double the number of her own. But, before she drifted helplessly to leeward, she had done her workthe French admiral's ship was on fire; and, through the roar of battle, a whisper went that for a moment paralyzed every eager heart and hand. During that dread pause the fight was suspended-the very wounded ceased to groanyet the burning ship continued to fire broadsides from her flaming decks, her gallant crew alone unawed by their approaching fate, and shouting their own brave requiem. At length-with the concentrated roar of a thousand battles-the explosion came; and the column of flame that shot upward into the very sky for a moment rendered visible the whole surrounding scene-from the red flags aloft to the reddened decks below-the wide shore, with all its swarthy crowds-and the far-off glittering sea, with the torn and dismantled fleets. Then darkness and silence came again, only broken by the shower of blazing fragments in which that brave ship fell upon the waters. Till that moment Nelson was ignorant how the battle went. He knew that every man was doing his duty, but he knew not how successfully; he had been wounded in the forehead, and found his way unnoticed to the deck in the suspense of the coming explosion. Its light was a fitting lamp for eye like his to read by. He saw his own proud flag still floating everywhere, and at the same moment his crew recognized their wounded chief. The wild cheer with which they welcomed him was drowned in the renewed roar of the artillery, and the fight continued until near the dawn. "Morning rose upon an altered scene. The sun had set upon as proud a fleet as ever sailed from the gay shores of France: torn and blackened hulls now only marked the position they had then occupied; and where their admiral's ship had been, the blank sea sparkled in the sunshine. Two ships of the line and two frigates escaped, to be captured soon afterwards; but within the bay the tri-color was flying on board the Tonnant alone. As the Theseus approached to attack her, attempting to capitulate, she hoisted a flag of truce. Your battle-flag or none' was the stern reply, as her enemy rounded-to, and the matches glimmered over her line of guns. Slowly and reluctantly-like an expiring hope-that pale flag fluttered down from her lofty spars, and the next that floated there was the banner of Old England." -vol. i., p. 45. After the battle, Nelson, heroically trustful in the honor of a valiant enemy, restored to the French prisoners all their property, and sent them ashore, to the number of some thousands, upon their word of honor not to bear arms until regularly exchanged: he thus gave to the French commander an opportunity of soiling his name, and lowering (among strangers) the character of the republic. The opportunity was not neglected, for Bonaparte at once set honor aside, and drafted into his regiments the men set free upon parole. warlike feints, and even some sorts of political stratagem are fairly admissible; but it was in far humbler kinds of deception that Bonaparte indulged; and it is our conviction that by thus debasing himself before the Orientals he forfeited the power to rule them. A sufficient acquaintance with the people of the East would have taught the Corsican Alexander that, in one who seeks to gain an influence over their minds, the most fatal of all possible mistakes would be that of exhibiting symptoms supposed to indicate fear, or doing any act of real or apparent self-humiliation. Now Bonaparte had scarcely set his foot upon the shore of Egypt when he committed both these errors. In his letters to the Grand Signor he contented himself with saying that the French had always been friends of the sultan, "even before they renounced the Messiah;" but immediately upon possessing himself of Alexandria, and even before he could get at the day of the month according to the Mahometan calendar, he dictated his famous proclamation under date of the blank day of the month Muharsem, in the year of the Hegira 1215. This precious appeal to the Oriental mind contained the following passages :-" People of Egypt! they will tell you that I come to destroy your religion. Believe it not! Answer that I come to restore your rights, to punish the usurpers, and that I respect more than the Mamelukes do, God, his prophet, and the Koran. Cadis, sheiks, imaums, schorbadgis tell the people that we are true Mussulmans." Is it not we who have destroyed the pope, who said it was necessary to make war with Mussulmans? Is it not we who have destroyed the Knights of Malta, because those madmen pretended it was the will of God that they should make war against Mussulmans?" And Admitting the vast effect necessarily produced again-" All the Egyptians shall be called on to upon the mind of the Orientals by the destruction fill all the offices of state. The wisest, the most of the French fleet, we still think that Bonaparte's instructed, the most virtuous shall govern—and the failure (we speak always of his failure to win | people shall be happy!" over public opinion) arose in great measure, The ill effect of this proclamation must have from his own errors of conduct. This is a salutary been greatly increased when Bonaparte submitted and pleasant deduction to make. It is delightful to the personal humiliation of joining in the Mato see failure resulting from crime-to see that the guilty being who has just been condemned by all good men on account of his delinquencies, must afterwards stand to be sneered at by the mere politician, because those very delinquencies were blunders in a temporal sense. If we try Bonaparte by the most worldly of all moral standards namely, by the canon which tests-not the virtue, but the mere personal dignity of a man-we shall find him wanting even there; for not to him belonged those qualities which spring from a high It would have been hardly possible to devise a self-respect. All his life long he boasted and lied. line of conduct better fitted to inspire the natives That he was callous to the sin of falsehood, we with a contempt for their invaders. Frenchmen have hardly a right to wonder that he never were understood in the East to be really Chrisshrank from the meanness of the vice is a fact fatal tians: the effect produced by the encyclopædists to the completeness of his character as a hero- and the revolutionary ferment upon the once refatal, even, as we believe, in the end to his tem-ligious mind of France was not of course underporal success. The biographers of Napoleon love stood or even heard of on the banks of the Nile; to tell how with the imperial diadem there came to him a taste for imperial pastimes-how he, who in his youth had spurned all sorts of recreation, could afterwards delight in the royal chasse, and listen to palatial music. But he never became too proud to soil his lips with falsehood. The General, the First Consul, the Emperor, and the "Exile Sublime," (as M. Thiers calls him,) were fair rivals the one to the other in the craft and mystery of lying. In all commanders, no doubt, hometan worship. He denied at St. Helena that he had ever gone so far, but upon this point he failed to win belief even from his apologists. Thiers says expressly, that "Bonaparte went to the great mosque, seated himself on cushions cross-legged, like the sheiks, and repeated with them the litanies of the Prophet, rocking the upper part of his body to and fro, and shaking his head. All the members of the holy college were edified by his piety." * Thus the words are given by Thiers and other historians. According to Bourrienne, however, the words "des vrais Mussulmans" were preceded by "amis-" "We are friends of the true Mussulmans." The interpolation of this word would of course totally alter the purport of the sentence. It seems probable either that Bourrienne (the private secretary of the General) relied on his rough draught of the proclamation, or else that Bonaparte introduced the word "amis" in the French copies merely, with the view of concealing from Europe this shameful profession of faith. and certainly the whole population of Egypt | both cases the common and every-day orders were, (especially the Mahometans, who so closely asso- not for the immolation of such and such victims, ciate apostasy and defeat) must have felt disdain- but for such and such a number of them; the head fully towards the invader when they saw him thus destroyer in both cases gave in his requisition fixfaltering in his reliance upon bayonets, seeking a ing the quantity of human sheep that he wanted base safety in the renouncement of his fathers' slain, and the task of selection was left to the creed, and pretending a humble respect for Ma- mere working butchers. Several chiefs were homet and his rigmarole volume. killed daily, but it was not only Hadgi This, or Mustapha That, whom Bonaparte condemned to death; for besides the leaders, "thirty head" Many women were thus coldly slaughtered. The exact number of the merely obscure victims (the trentaine) is expressly stated by Bonaparte in his letter written to General Reynier, six days after the reëstablishment of tranquillity. The executions are there spoken of as still continuing. It appears to us that Bonaparte's written account of the numbers thus put to death must be accepted as good proof; but it is fair to say that Bourrienne (deeming it almost impossible for his grandiloquent patron to make any unexaggerated statement) suspected that the general displayed some little ostentation in the account of his performances (qu'il y mettait du luxe.) Then the promise to commit the government of the country to "the most wise, most learned, and most virtuous of the Egyptians!" Why, the at-("une trentaine") were executed every night. tempt to fill one's game-bag by promising the partridges a representative government would be equally successful. As to Bonaparte's schemes for gaining an influence over the natives by interesting and amusing them, these were all of a kind so thoroughly and exclusively French that their failure would have appeared at once absolutely certain to any one conversant with the East. Sometimes a fête would be given, (as, for instance, on the 1st day of the Republican year VII.,) at which the Mussulman flag was made to float along with the tricolor; the Crescent figured by the side of the Cap of Liberty; the Koran served as a pendant to the Rights of Man." "The Turks," says Bourrienne, whom we are quoting, Now and then, of course, opportunities for and who really seems to havé had some insight smaller massacres would occur. On one occasion into the Oriental character, “were very insensible a Frenchman had been destroyed near a village at to these things." On another occasion Bonaparte some distance from Cairo. Bonaparte, still mimcalled the savans to his aid, and endeavored to im- icking Eastern conquerors, would have his revenge, press the people by a display of chemical experi- not simply on the guilty person, but on the unfortuments, which M. Berthollet was to perform in the nate village to which he belonged. Its men were presence of the assembled sheiks. The general to be all killed; its women and children to be driven waited to enjoy their astonishment; but the simple away like cattle. Of the women, some sank on instinct of the Egyptians disconcerted all his at- the road in the pains of childbirth; some dying by tempts upon their marvelling faculties. The mir- grief, by terror, by weariness. Many children, acles of the Institute-the transformation of liquids too, fell down and died. The extirpating force -electrical shocks-galvanic batteries-all failed returned; and at four o'clock in the sunny afterto produce the slightest symptom of surprise. noon a string of donkeys that formed part of its The sheiks looked on with imperturbable coolness train wound along into the principal square of and indifference. When M. Berthollet had con- Cairo. There the party stopped-the beasts were cluded, the sheik El Bekry said to him, through unladen-the sacks, when detached from the packthe interpreter-"All this is very well; but can saddles, were untied-and out were rolled whole you so order it as that I may be here and at scores of ghastly heads; some with beards thickly Morocco in the same instant?" Berthollet an-matted in gore-some youthfully smooth. swered (of course) with a shrug of the shoulders (en haussant les épaules.) "Ah! then," said the sheik, "you are not a complete magician." within the range of his guns. It is, we fear, but too true that the Oriental mind is deeply impressible by this kind of wholesale slaughter. Bonaparte then had fulfilled two So slight was Bonaparte's influence over the of the great conditions by which Eastern dominion minds of the Egyptians, that not many days after is attainable; he had achieved splendid and decithe Battle of the Pyramids, parties of Arab horse- sive military success-he had perpetrated the men were boldly careering and cutting down requisite amount of atrocities with unshrinking French soldiers under the very windows of the perseverance. Yet his fame was barren-his commander-in-chief. Some few weeks afterwards cruelty wasted. No masses of men declared for the imaums from the top of the minarets, instead | him—no fortified places surrendered to the magic of calling the people as usual to their prayers, of his name. His power stood always limited invited them to rise up and destroy the "infidel dogs." This call was heard; and the revolt of Now to all who understand the character of the Cairo soon showed that the military successes of Orientals-who know that strange facility with the Republican General had brought with them which they bend under successful violence-the none of that spirit-quelling respect by which they bare fact of a man's winning battles, and yet lackare usually followed in the Eastern world. Bona-ing influence, must seem a most rare phenomenon, parte (whose military genius never perhaps showed well deserving to be explained and accounted for. itself more decisively than in the perplexing trial Upon some of the causes to which this strange of a street battle) put down the insurrection most result is attributable we have already remarked; skilfully, and punished it with unrelenting feroc- but of all the general's errors (with the single ity. The wholesale massacre by grape and round exception of his apostasy) there was none perhaps shot, after continuing for two days and killing so fatal to his influence in the East as his practice 5000 persons, was succeeded by the work of the of vain-boasting. He was grossly deceived when executioner; and it is curious that in his mode of he supposed that he would find in the East a creconducting these in-door operations Bonaparte fol-dulity comparable to that of the French. The lowed the plan of his old patrons the Terrorists, Oriental possesses a quality easily confounded whom he afterwards abused so industriously. In with credulity, but totally distinct from it. The weakness to which we point is a liability to be extravagantly impressed by a fact, and to deduce from it a greater brood of corollaries and consequences than the cooler judgment of the European would admit. The Orientals, for instance, see (a trifling matter may serve to illustrate national character) they see an English traveller crossing the wilderness with his handful of ill-armed attendants; they see him maintaining his coolness, his wilful habits, and even perhaps enforcing compliance with many an odd silly whim-and all this in the midst of strange and armed tribes who are the terror of the peaceable natives; instantly they infer far more than the bare fact would warrant; they will not believe that a mere firman from a sultan, or a mere safe-conduct from a chief, could warrant all this assurance and they therefore impute to the self-protected stranger either some infernal aid, or else the possession of unknown temporal resources that guard him completely from danger. So, again, they see a man, sprung from small beginnings, become, they know not how, the commander of an army; they see him so wielding his force as to confound his enemies, and bring down to the dust some ancient dynasty of kings-dazzled and stupified, they bow their necks before all this exhibited strength, and acknowledge in the conqueror a being whom none can resist-a "Man of Destiny"- -a King of kings"-a "shadow of God upon earth." 66 But in neither of these instances is the effect produced by talking. In both it is the witnessed fact that lays hold of the Oriental mind. If either the traveller or the conqueror were to say of himself that which the natives would otherwise be ready enough to say of him-if the traveller were to bawl out that he is powerfully protected,* or the conqueror that he is an irresistible hero-the spell, so far from being thus worked effectually, would be utterly broken. Bonaparte's false nature, and his habit of lying to Frenchmen, carried him headlong into this error. He knew that the Orientals in all ages had been played upon, and he thought that false words (as in France) were the proper tools for deceiving. He accordingly maintained and enlarged his accustomed system of misrepresentation respecting military matters. He did more. He wanted to be thought an invincible hero; a man specially marked out by Providence and fate for the conquest of the East, and therefore-with a naïveté vastly amusing-he began to say of himself just that which he was so anxious for the wondering nations to say of him. Gravely, therefore, and pompously he announced himself to the assembled sheiks of Cairo as the "Man of Destiny," to whom was plainly committed the empire of the East. No one saw the sheiks smile: their beards and moustachios would veil any little play of countenance to which they may have yielded-but, in truth, the Oriental is little prone to the indulgence of humorous scorn. He looks upon weakness and folly as qualities to be freely taken advantage of rather than to be laughed at. So, then, with serious delight, rather than in a spirit of ridicule, the sheiks must have heard this announcement. From such vaporing they would rapidly infer that the commander thus pressing vain words into his service could not stand, serenely relying upon his military resources; and, moreover, that he was wanting in that pride and *Sagacious and experienced dragomen attending upon travellers in the Ottoman empire will never display the firman except in a case of extreme necessity. sense of personal dignity which they associate with the character of a predestined conqueror. Freely, therefore, and gladly enough they would now pretend to honor him with the flattering nickname of Sultan Kebeer, (Sultan Fire,) because they could presently go off to the baths, and there delight their friends with sly and quiet allusions to the weakness of "Sultan Smoke." No vain-boaster like this is the true Eastern conqueror: he hears his praises sung-not from his own proud lips, but by the voice of prostrate nations. His words are few, ambiguous, pregnant with fate, as the words of an oracle. Of his very frown he is so sparing that, when it comes, its import is death, the razing of a city, the devastation of a province. Not to save half his army, nor all his stores, would he endure to be an utterer of bootless threats, lest men begin to whisper, and say that there are bounds to his power. When this sort of hero advances in eastern lands, the terror of his name stalks darkly before him-the strong places fall as he comes-the armies of his foe break and crumble-Panic sweeps them away in its blast; and whole tribes of warfaring men desert their ancient chiefs that they may follow in the train of a conqueror. No wonder-working renown of this kind was achieved by Bonaparte. When he had passed the desert at the head of all his disposable forces, he found that he could no more procure undisputed occupation of the miserable fortresses lying on the southern frontier of Syria than if he had commanded a mere corporal's guard. He was absolutely forced to "besiege" that wretched El Arish, and gravely "sit down" before Jaffa. : The bare name of Jaffa recalls to every mind the fate of the prisoners there taken. The massacre of those men was at first believed—was afterwards treated as a mere squiresque story, incredible except to minds confounded by the din of war, and stupified by country air. Its truth is now beyond doubt, and the grounds suggested as excusing its perpetration have failed. For the crime there is no palliation for the chief criminal it is only to be said that his guilt was shared amongst the members of the council of war, who all joined with him in an unanimous vote for the massacre. We advert to this frightful act, not on account of its mere atrocity, but because it was perpetrated under circumstances which bring it within the scope of our observations on Bonaparte's want of faith in dealing with Orientals. The facts stand thus:-When the assault had succeeded, and the town was in the hands of the French soldiery, Bonaparte sent his own aides-de-camp, Eugène Beauharnois and Croisier, into the town, with orders to " appease the fury of the soldiery”—(or, as they stated in the presence of Bonaparte, and with his assent, to “ appease the carnage")" to see what was going on, and come back and give him an account. "" These officers found that a large portion of the garrison, consisting chiefly of Albanians, had taken refuge in a mass of buildings formerly used as caravanserais: they therefore went thither, each carrying on the arm his aide-de-camp's scarf. The Albanians cried out from the windows, and said that they would surrender if their lives were guaranteed them; if not, they would defend themselves to the utmost, and would shoot the two aides-de-camp. Beauharnois and Croisier, thus menaced, acceded to the terms offered, and brought back the Albanians, to the number of 4000, as prisoners of war. In two days these men felt in its bitterness the folly that they | Turkish reserves, as well as their front and one had committed in trusting to the word of Bona- of their flanks. Kleber deploying took the offenparte's aides-de-camp. They were brought out in sive, and a brilliant victory was gained a victory mass upon the beach, with their hands tied behind rendered decisive and bloody by Murat's seizure them and into this living and human heap the of the only bridge which opened a way for retreat French troops poured their volleys. All were to the eastern side of the Jordan. Now it is a slain except some few, who, in the agony of com- maxim in war that, when a besieging force ening death, contrived to burst the cords that bound counters a relieving army and defeats it, the them. These rushed down into the sea, and swam strong place, however great its resources, will out to the coral rocks which rose above the water almost certainly fall. But Bonaparte's vain boastat some distance from the beach. The French ing-his display of mean spirit in the application soldiers-hitherto the mere instruments of their to Djezzar, and other like indications of weakness leader's crime-now personally took upon them--had so entirely deprived him of the hero's presselves the guilt of fresh treachery and innocent tige, that not even victory, splendid though it blood. They called out to the prisoners on the were, could now carry power along with it. rocks, and made them a sign well known in the country implying peace and forgiveness. The wretches, thus enticed, returned to the shorethen were shot. I'll At this time the French commander, though displaying less than his usual vigor and ability in the conduct of the siege, was fertile enough of "gigantic projects" for taking advantage of the False men are strangely slow to learn that they expected capture when effected. "I shall find in have forfeited the privilege of creating belief by the town," said he, "the treasures of the pasha, word of mouth. Bonaparte still thought that he and arms for three hundred thousand men. might promise and vow with success. Some few raise and arm all Syria, so indignant at the fehours after committing the hateful treachery just rocity of Djezzar. I'll march on Damascus and related, he repeated his solicitations and promises Aleppo. I'll swell my army as I advance in the to Djezzar Pasha, then commanding at Acre. country with all the malcontents. I'll announce Bonaparte had written to this man before he to the people the abolition of slavery and the quitted Egypt, but the fierce old "butcher" (for tyrannical government of the pashas. I shall that is his interpreted name) had met his advances arrive at Constantinople with armed masses. I'll with insult and utter disdain. Yet the mock Al-upset the Turkish empire. I'll found in the East exander-thus scorned and defied-had so scanty a new and grand empire which shall fix my place a knowledge of the Oriental character, and had so in posterity; and perhaps I shall return to Paris little of the heroic pride and self-respect which by Adrianople and Vienna, after having annimight have served him instead of knowledge, that hilated en passant the House of Austria." Now now, at Jaffa, and on the 10th of March, he wrote we believe it would be difficult to assign any limit to the old Turk a sort of begging letter, pressing to the capabilities of a well-disciplined French him to become his "friend." It is, perhaps, army rapidly marched through countries without almost necessary to know the Oriental character any other defence than that which Asiatic hordes in order to appreciate the exultation with which can furnish; but the most superficial acquaintance this proof of weakness must have been received with the subject would enable any man to see that by the Pasha. Djezzar may, probably, have had Bonaparte's prospects of gaining a moral influsome difficulty in making his people believe that a ence over the people were completely illusory. letter, involving a political blunder so enormous, His notion, for instance, of advancing his cause was actually genuine; but, supposing that he by the abolition of slavery was ludicrous. The could succeed in getting the authenticity of the measure of course would have been viewed as document well credited, its influence in inspiring confiscation by the owners of the slaves; and the garrison with resolution must have been im- who would have been the people to profit by the mense. Bonaparte's application was treated, of proposed manumission?-Why, a number of black course, with towering disdain. The unfortunate domestics, more fat than pugnacious, and thorFrenchman who bore the letter was decapitated-oughly unused to arms as well as to freedom, his body given to the fishes-his head kept for besides a few women from Georgia and Circassia, amusement; and the fraternizing general now found that, in order to get a glimpse of his longsought "friend" Djezzar, he must condescend to sit down before Acre, and patiently open his trenches. already rooted to the harems of their owners by all the ties that can make home dear to wives and mothers. It is amusing, too, to see that at this period Bonaparte, having failed to win the respect of the Mahometans, showed some little hankering There was much slovenliness, ill management, after the before-despised Christians; but chiefly and want of vigor in the conduct of the siege. he seems to have relied upon the Druses, for he Just at first, too, Bonaparte had nothing but field fancied that their ambiguous religious position, as artillery; but such of the heavy guns as had men neither good Christians nor good Mahomeescaped the English cruisers at length arrived, tans, must dispose them to fraternize affectionately and a breach was effected. Meantime, however, with his armed philosophers. Fancy the sympaan event had occurred which, under ordinary cir- thy between a portly Druse of the Lebanon and a cumstances, would have ensured the fall of the grimacing member of the Institute! And here: place without an assault. The Turks, collecting we may remark (for the topic is not so trivial as it an army of some 15,000 cavalry, and a like num-sounds) that the manner and personal appearance. ber of foot, had crossed the Jordan. With a of the Frenchman must always obstruct him serisingle division Kleber encountered this force, and, ously in his attempts to gain an influence over the throwing his troops into squares, he found himself Orientals. All Europeans, no doubt, (we of course able to baffle and shatter the masses of cavalry treat Turkey as Asiatic,) labor to some extent that came down, pouring round him for six suc- under this inconvenience; their ugly prim dresses, cessive hours. At the end of that time Bonaparte their quick anxious movements, their comparacame up with fresh divisions, and attacked the tively awkward gait and humble bearing are fitted |