With Abercrombie and
Moore in Egypt

A Turkish Governor

FROM Rhodes we stood direct for the mainland, Sir Sydney Smith in the Nigre, eighty gun-ship, leading the van, and entering a passage between two hills we wondered where we were going, for the inlet was very narrow and the ships ahead of us were going out of sight. When we got a little further we found a passage which turned round a very perpendicular hill as suddenly as if it had been the corner of a street. Into this passage we sailed and in a few minutes we were in one of the finest and largest bays, it is said, in the world. It is surrounded with hills except on the south-east side ; these hills are covered with wood from the summit to the water edge. There are great numbers of wild beasts in the woods.

On the east side of the bay stand the Turkish village and castle of Marmorice, in the province of Natolia, in Lesser Asia. Our Admiral saluted the castle with seventeen guns and the salute was returned. The war vessels anchored at the mouth of the bay. The Turkish Governor accompanied by Sir Sydney Smith, visited most of the ships. On coming on board the Srately, this long bearded Turk, who was between seventy and eighty years old, seeing some of our men on sentry on the gangway accosted them in Caelic, which surprised them much. It turned out that he was a Scotchman from Argyleshire, of the name of Campbell and had been obliged to leave his country twenty years before for some misdemeanour. Some said it was he who had shot Lord Eglinton. Others held that he had killed a schoolfellow in a quarrel and fled the country to escape punishment. He had lost his nose in the late war between Russia and Turkey and had a silver one painted flesh colour. He dined on board with our officers and claimed relationship with Paymaster Campbell.

We pitched our tents on 2nd February 1801 on a pleasant plain by a little brook and our volunteers were landed from the Resource frigate. All the sick were likewise landed. Some vessels were despatched to Macri bay for bullocks and others to Smyrna and Aleppo for bread which was furnished us by the Turks, a kind of hard dried husk. We were glad to get this as we were then put on full rations and our biscuits were bad and full of worms ; many of our men COULD ONLY EAT THEM IN THE DARK !

A company of bakers arrived from England, hired at five shillings a day when at work and three shillings at other times with rations; these were the best paid men on the expedition. They erected a field bakery and the sick men were supplied with fresh bread. A market was erected on shore which was well supplied by the creeks who came in boats from all parts of the Levant with the produce of their country.

On the 8th of February a storm came on from the southeast, with showers of hail or lumps of ice, the largest seen by ally of us. The tents on shore were beaten down and riddled as if by musket balls. Trees were broken down and rooted up. When night came on it was dismal to hear the wild beasts yelling alI howling in the woods; they came down to the plain so near that our sentries fired and killed some, though fires were kept bunting in the rear of the tents to keep them at a proper distance.

Some sailors strayed from their party, stole a bullock and abused and struck the owners. They were detected bringing it on board. A complaint was made to the Admiral who had them tried by court-martial when two were sentenced to be hanged and the others condemned to be flogged. A gallows was erected in the market-place, the yellow flag hoisted on their ship, and the culprits sent ashore with halters round their necks. But the Governor and other Turkish officers begged their lives from Lord Keith, which were granted. We thought much of the Turks for this.

The army was exercised by brigades in landing in flat bottomed boats, with regiments keeping in line and advancing or retreating on signals from the naval officers stationed in the boats. The men-of-war launches had field pieces fastened on the prow, with slides for the wheels; when the lashings were cut, the guns were run on to the beach ready to act with the troops: this was an excellent plan which we had felt the want of in Holland.

Parties were sent ashore from each ship to cut wood and many fine myrtle and box trees were felled for fuel, dragging the wood down the hillsides to the beach was fine exercise for us. Our regiment was employed for three days ill the engineer department making fascines and palisades. We were frequently landed for exercise and were brigaded with the Ist Royal Scots and the 54th, under command of Sir Eyre Coote, a good mall and brave soldier.

A French polacre from Marseilles on her way to Alexandria was captured and brought here; she was laden with brandy, hats, shoes, fails and trinkets for the French army.

An infectious slow fever broke out in our regiment. Few of us escaped it and those who were longest in catching the infection were the worst. Our condition on board the Stately contributed towards it for we had no hammocks or beds but only our camp blankets to sleep in. We lay on the under deck and when the weather was stormy so much water leaked in by the edges of the ports as made the lee side of the ship very wet. When she tacked, the water that was lying on the lee side would run across the whole deck and so we had to lie in the damp. This made us very uncomfortable and caused us to feel stiff and our bones sore. On this account our regiment was landed in Egypt very weak, when all its strength was needed.

Some vessels arrived from Britain with detachments for various regiments. Lord Keith was promoted from being Vice-Admiral of the Red to be Admiral of the Blue and Sir Richard Bickerton to be Vice-Admiral of the Red. A Turkish line of battleship, a frigate and some heavy gunboats arrived from Constantinople. One of their great men accompanied by Sir Sydney Smith was rowed round the fleet in a thirty oared barge, with a silk flag at the stern.

Arrangements being now complete, the troops were ordered on board, and the worst of the sick were sent to the General Hospital at Rhodes. The men of our regiment formerly on the Resource were put on board the Niger, 32, frigate, a clean vessel, the captain of which was a pious man and seldom was duty more pleasantly done than on board his ship. A number of Greek vessels were hired to carry horses and stores; and general orders were issued concerning our duty and our conduct towards the inhabitants of the country we were going to; we were especially cautioned not to interfere with them in the matter of their religion.

On Monday the 23rd of February the fleet weighed anchor and we were out of the bay before sunset. I took up my station with a few others on the foretop. As the fleet consisted of about 200 ships, many of which were large and elegant vessels, it had a grand and interesting appearance. The island of Rhodes lay on our right and the coast of Asia Minor on our left ; and to see the last golden beams of the sun glancing on the wide spreading white sails with the wind beginning to blow fresh, brought to my mind what has happened oil this very coast, of people being driven from their country going to found a new settlement under some adventurous chief. Little did. I think while reading of these countries when a boy, that I should one day see them or t.hat I should do the duty of a soldier on these coasts.

A MOTLEY CROWD

The nations on board our fleet were many, Turks, Greeks, Albanians, Scotch, English, Irish, Corsicans, Maltese and a brigade of soldiers in our service composed of men from various parts of Germany. The wind got rather high and the Turkish and Creek vessels left us and took shelter in the nearest ports, although the weather was not what ally British seaman would call bad, only squally. Their departure was a serious loss to the army for we were in want of the horses on board of them.

On the 26th we passed the island of Cyprus on the right ; what we saw of it lay low, with trees to the water's edge. On the 28th we fell in with our squadron that was blockading Alexandria and on the 1st of March saw the low sandy beach of Egypt between Damietta and Aboukir bay, which is formed by the main branch of the river Nile, that flows past the town of Kossetta and forms the main entrance to the lakes.

We anchored in Aboukir bay on the 2nd of March. The night before the wind freshened and there were some heavy showers of rain. This made us remark that if there was no rain in Egypt there was rain very near it, contrary to the account given by the Bible ; but this conversation was dropped on one observing that the Bible did trot say that there never was ally rain in Egypt but that when it spoke of there being no rain there, it meant that the land did not depend upon rain like other countries for raising the crops, but on the annual inundations of the Nile. We all agreed after we had marched through the country that the Scripture account of it was perfectly correct; and the universal remark was that a remnant of the plagues of Moses still existed in it.

Some of our men began to complain of the want of their ordinary sight. The wind continued high and the sea stormy and rough and any of our vessels getting near the shore were fired upon from the enemy's works ; the shore seemed to be well fortified from Alexandria to the entrance of the lakes. A boat set off to reconnoitre on 28th February with General Moore and an Engineer officer. The French allowed it to come close in, but the instant it began to return a well aimed shot from the castle killed Lieutenant-Colonel MacKerris of the Engineers and wounded some others. So the French drew the first blood. Some guns were fired from a low sandy island at the mouth of the bay, (where the Culloden, 74, ran ashore in Nelson's engagement) this forced some of our ships to change their position. The Foudroyant fished up an anchor of the L'Orient, the French Admiral's ship that blew up at the battle of the Nile.

On the 7th the wind moderated and our gunbrigs, cutters, and the Turkish gunboats, anchored as near the shore as they could, the water being very shallow; these with the armed launches were to clear the beach while the troops made good their landing in Egypt.

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