As soon as news reached him that this powerful British armament had assembled at the island of Malta, Buonaparte could no longer be in doubt respecting its destination. We have already shown what efforts were made to get a squadron to Egypt from Brest. The port of Toulon also lent its aid; but, as no seagoing line-of-battle ships were now there, it could only be by frigates. Two of these, the Egyptienne and Justice, each having on board a quantity of troops and munitions of war, anchored on the 3d of February in the old or western port of Alexandria. The number of French troops at this time in Upper and Lower Egypt, founded upon the returns published in the Moniteur, consisted of nearly 21,000 fighting men. Here were also about 900 sick, about 1000 sailors, 400 or 500 Greek auxiliaries, and perhaps 1000 or 1200 persons in civil employment ; and the commander-in-chief of the whole was, as already mentioned (see p. 25), General Abdallah-Jacques Menou, a man very unfit for the station, and not at all liked by the army.

After a considerable delay, arising from a twofold cause, the tardiness of the Turks and the badness of the weather, the British and Turkish men of war and transports, having on board, in the whole about 16,000 men, set sail from Marmorice, and on the 1st, with the exception of the Turkish division consisting of several gun-boats and kaicks, which in a westerly gale had bore up for Marcie, Cyprus, and other neighbouring ports, arrived in sight of the minarets of Alexandria.

Just as Lord Keith and his fleet gained a sight of Alexandria, the French frigate Régénérée, with 200 troops and a company of artillery on board, besides a quantity of military stores, slipped into the western port. This frigate, in company with the Africaine, had sailed from Rochefort on the 13th of February, and since parted from her consort, of whose fate we shall hereafter have to give some account. A contemporary states that the Régénérée kept company with the British fleet during a whole day, answering every signal that was made ; but we doubt the assertion, no mention being made of it in the French accounts. On the night of the 1st, or morning of the 2d, the brig-corvette Lodi also got into Alexandria from Toulon.

On the same day the British fleet brought up in Aboukir bay. Too much of that day elapsed, however, before all the ships could get to an anchorage, to accomplish the disembarkation previously to the approach of night; and a succession of strong northerly gales, attended by a heavy swell, then set in, and lasted

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