precipitately ; and the French commanding officer, General Lannes, who was seen manfully encouraging his men to mount the breach, was carried off, wounded by a musket-shot. General Rambeaud was killed.

Much confusion had arisen in the town from the actual entry of the French; it having been impossible, nay impolitic, to make fully known the mode of defence intended to be adopted, lest the besiegers, by means of their numerous emissaries, should come to a knowledge of it. The English uniform, which had hitherto, wherever it appeared, served as a rallying-point for the old garrison, became, in the dusk, mistaken for French, the newly-arrived Turks not distinguishing, in the crowd, between one hat and another. In consequence of this, many a severe sabre-blow was parried by the British officers ; and Major Douglas, and Messieurs Ives and Jones, as they were forcing their way through a torrent of fugitives, nearly lost their lives. Calm was at length restored, chiefly by the pacha's exertions ; and, both parties being so fatigued as to be unable to move, an end was put to the 25 hours' contest. In this very splendid affair the British had one seaman killed, seven seamen wounded, and one midshipman (Thomas Lamb) and three seamen drowned.

Conceiving now that the ideas of the Syrians, as to the alleged irresistible prowess of their invaders, must be changed since they had witnessed the checks which the besieging army daily experienced in their operations before the town of Acre, Sir Sidney wrote a circular to the princes and chiefs of the Christians of Mount Lebanon, and also to the sheiks of the Druses, recalling them to a sense of duty, and exhorting them to cut off the supplies from the French camp. The Syrians immediately sent two ambassadors to Sir Sidney, and commenced active operations against Buonaparte's overland supplies. The latter's career further northward was thus effectually stopped by a warlike people inhabiting an impenetrable country. General Kléber's division, which had just been recalled from the fords of the Jordan, was intended to be the next to take its turn in the daily efforts to mount the breach at Acre. To frustrate this, if possible, another sortie was resolved on.

Accordingly, in the night of the 19th, the Turkish Chifflic regiment, led by its lieutenant-colonel Soliman Aga, rushed out of the gates, and gained the third parallel of the besiegers ; but the impetuosity of the men carried them to the second trench, where they lost some of their standards : previously to their retreat, however, they spiked four of the French guns. Kléber's division instead of mounting the breach, as had been General Buonaparte's intention, was thus obliged to spend its time and its strength in recovering these works ; in which it did not succeed until after a three hours' conflict and a heavy loss.

The loss of the British in the action is, in Sir Sidney's letter, mixed up with the heavy loss sustained on board the Theseus by

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