very considerable; though slight, when compared with that of the enemy, which, at a very moderate calculation, must have amounted to four thousand men ; for no less than one thousand one hundred and sixty were counted by the provost marshall, left dead upon the field of battle, exclusive of those within the French vedettes, which, of course, he could not reckon, and of which there were certainly many. Generals Lanusse, Roize, and Beaudot were killed, and generals Desten, Sylly, Eppler, and several other of ficers of rank, wounded. In the pocket-book of general Roize were found some interesting papers.

We took in this engagement two hundred and fifty prisoners, two pieces of cannon, and one standard.

On our side, the commander in chief was mortally wounded; major general Moore, brigadier-general Hope, adjutant-general to the army, and brigadiers-general Oakes and Lawson were likewise wounded*.

The gun-boats on the right, under the command of captain Maitland, of the royal navy, were of the most essential service, and did very great execution among the French troops posted behind the sand hills. At one time, during the engagement, we were in the greatest dis

tress imaginable, for want of ammu. nition; several guns were left with scarcely one round, and many regi ments were in a similar situation.— This circumstance was owing to the want of means of conveyance. Had it not been for this temporary defi ciency, the loss of the enemy would have been much more considerable.

As general Menou built his chief hopes of success upon the sudden overthrow of our right wing, and the consequent consternation of the army, he had preferred making his approach while favoured by the night, that he might arrive close to our position unperceived, and thus avoid the destructive fire of our entrenchments, and of the gun-boats. In fact, the attack was as sudden as it was unexpected; and had general Lanusse waited a little longer for the effect produced by the false alarm on our left, the consequence might have been very serious, as the Minorca regiment, and the rest of general Stuart's brigade, afterward of such very essential service on the right, were actually on their march to the threatened quarter.

The five hundred Turks remained in the rear during the whole action. When the danger was over, they pa raded on a small hill in our front, with their numerous flags flying.— About

Arabs, mounted on horseback, came in to us, across the ancient bed of Lake Mareotis, before the firing had entirely ceased, and expressed their joy at the defeat of the French.

The ground in our front, and even between our lines, was strewed with the bodies of the enemy's slain, which the Turks and Arabs were very desirous to strip and plunder, had they been allowed by us. Before night, almost all the dead within our vedettes had been buried; but within the French lines it was very different,-for numbers of men, horses, and camels, were there left to rot, and infect the air with their noisome exhalations.

When sir Ralph Abercrombie had seen the enemy retreat, he attempted to get on horseback; but his wound, which was probed and dressed in the field by an assistant surgeon of the guards, having become extremely stiff and painful, he could not mount, and reluctantly suffered himself to be placed upon a litter, from which he was removed into a boat, and carried on board the Foudroyant. Here lord Keith received him with all possible affection, and every care and attention which his state required were early paid him.

This misfortune befalling our ilJustrious commander, of whom it threatened to deprive us, combined, with the reflection on the many valuable lives that had been lost, to damp the joy and triumph we should otherwise have felt on obtaining such a brilliant vićtory.

There being some reason to apprehend that the enemy intended to repeat their attack during the night, our troops remained under arms, and at their alarm posts, till morning. Had the French again tried

1

have met even a warmer reception than they had received this morning. Two additional twenty-four-pounders had been brought up, and placed on a commanding ground in the rear of the third regiment of guards ; great abundance of ammunition of all kinds had been also conveyed from the depôt to the lines, which had been strengthened by trous de loup, trenches, &c."

The following passage does so much credit to the feelings and character of the author, that we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of its insertion.

"On the morning of the 29th of March, arrived the melancholy tidings of sir Ralph Abercrombie's decease. At eleven, the preceding night, death snatched from us this beloved commander. The wound which he received on the 21st, bringing on fever and mortification, occasioned this lamented event, and our valiant general was lost to us at the moment when we stood most in need of his assistance. The ball had entered the thigh very high up, 'and, taking a direction towards the groin, had lodged in the bone, whence it could not be extracted.

In the action of the 13th of March, he had suffered a contusion in the thigh, from a musket-ball, and had a horse killed under him. On the 21st, at the time when he received his death wound, he was in the very midst of the enemy, and personally engaged with an officer of dragoons, who was at that moment shot by a corporal of the forty-second. Sir Ralph retained the officer's sword, which had passed between his arm and his side the instant before the officer fell.

During the seven days which elapsed

elapsed from the period of his being wounded till his death, the anguish and torture he endured must have been extreme. Yet not a groan, not a complaint escaped his lips, and he continued to the last a bright example of patience and fortitude. He thought and talked of nothing else, to all around him, but of the bravery and heroic conduct of the army, which he said he could not sufficiently admire.

A man who had served his country in every quarter of the globe; who, as a commander, devotes to his troops an attention almost parental; as a soldier, shares in all their hardships and all their dangers; who, at an age when he might retire from the field crowned with glory, comes forth, at the call

of his country, a veteran in experi ence, youthful in ardour; whose life is a public blessing, his death an universal misfortune, is beyond the hackneyed phrase of panegyric.— Such a man was Sir Ralph Abercrombie. Dead to his country, his name will ever live in her recollec tion. Through his exertions, seconded by the co-operation of those he commanded, a nation, long oppressed by a sanguinary war, caught the first glimpse of an honourable peace; and while a grateful people bent over the grave of their departed hero, they beheld the yet timid olive, sheltering itself in the laurels which encircled his tomb.The command of the army now de volved upon major-general Hutchinson."

CONTENTS