| Naval History of Great Britain - Vol III |
| 1801 |
British and French Fleets - Mediterranean |
104 |
memory will be recorded in the annals of his country, will be sacred to every British soldier, and embalmed in the recollection of a grateful posterity."
On the 26th a second Ottoman squadron arrived, having on board about 5000 Turks and Albanians. This made the Turkish force at anchor in the bay of Aboukir, including the Sultan-Selim three-decker, of 110 guns, amount to six sail of the line, and eight frigates and corvettes ; all tolerably fine vessels, but in bad hands. On or about the 3d of April the Turkish troops were landed, and shortly afterwards, with a division of 800 British troops and eight pieces of cannon under Colonel Spencer, were sent to attack the town and castle of Rosetta, which commands the western branch of the Nile. After a fatiguing march across the desert, the allied troops succeeded, with little or no opposition from the few French troops, apparently not more than 800, there stationed, in gaining possession of this important post; which, besides giving to the British the unmolested navigation of the Nile, enabled them to open a communication with the friendly inhabitants of the Delta, and thus obtain supplies of provisions for the numerous mouths they had to feed.
On the 16th, at 11 h. 30 m. a.m., the castle of Jullien, situated on the banks of the Nile, and defended by 15 pieces of cannon, four armed djerms moored under its walls, and a garrison of nearly 400 men, part of the troops which had retired from Rosetta, was attacked, on the side of the Nile, by a division of British and Turkish gun-boats, commanded by Captain Richard Curry of the bomb-vessel Fury, and on the land-side by the British division of Colonel Spencer's corps, including the principal part of the artillery. Two other divisions, it appears, were sent against the tower of Abou-Mandhour and the village of Gehdid. These were soon reduced ; but it took until the 19th, at 6 a.m., before the castle of Jullien surrendered. This the garrison, numbering 368 men, did upon honourable terms, after a brave defence, in which they lost about 40 men in killed and wounded.
In the pocket of General Roize, left dead on the field of battle at Canopus, was found a letter from General Menou at Cairo, expressing a fear that the British had, or would, cut the canal of Alexandria, and thus let the waters of the Mediterranean, or those more immediately of Lake Madieh, into the basin of the ancient Lake Mareotis, which for ages past had been dry, except that a considerable portion of it, at certain seasons especially, was impassable owing to the swampy nature of its bed. The hint was taken, and on the 15th of April the cut was made; but, although the first rush of water, from its volume and impetuosity, was awfully grand, some time elapsed before the whole area of the lake became covered. As soon as that was accomplished, the troops under General Menou, shut up in
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