I04 ■ ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND EGYPT. 



On July 7th, Admiral Beauchamp-Seymour replied by a threat to 

 bombard Alexandria if his request for the evacuation of the Forts, 

 was not comphed with, and three days subsequently, he followed it 

 up by a demand for the surrender of Alexandria, the forts and forti- 

 fications. At nightfall, no answer being received, the British Fleet, 

 consisting of eight Ironclads and five gunboats, manned by 3,539 

 men, and carrying 102 guns, withdrew from the harbour to take up 

 a line of battle position, whilst the French Fleet, acting on orders 

 frotn Paris, sullenly and silently withdrew to Port Said. 



At 7 a.m. on the morning of July i ith, the first shot was fired, when 

 the Forts instantly replied, and the action at once rolled all along 

 the line. 



The first day's bombardment resulted in the destruction, or sur- 

 render of the principal forts, with but little injury to the British Fleet ; 

 and the following day the bombardment was re-opened, but a flag of 

 truce being early displayed, the bombardment ceased, and after some 

 hours delay, for the return of the English envoys, a truce was agreed 

 upon, but when it expired it was found that the entire line of fortifica- 

 tions had been abandoned by Arabi and his troops. 



Then followed the general outbreak of anarchy in the City of 

 Alexandria ; the prison doors were thrown open, and for two days the 

 work of devastation and massacre continued, during which it is 

 believed that upwards of 2,000 Europeans perished. 



This barbaric bombardnient of Alexandria, a city of 200,000 

 inhabitants, one of the ancient centres of civilisation; the city 

 wrapped in flames ; its European population ruthlessly massacred ; a 

 bombardment sanctioned, if not ordered by the Ministers of the 

 Crown, who, two years previously, had achieved a great Political 

 Victory, under the banner of Peace ! Retrenchment ! and Reform ! 

 surely such an act by the British Fleet was not only a great blunder, 

 but it was a tremendous crime, that will remain an indelible blot on 

 the pages of English history. 



The Navy of England had no more right to take up a line-of- 

 battle position in the harbour at Alexandria, with a hostile intent, 

 than the Navy of Russia, or of any other Maritime Power could claim 

 the right to take up a hostile position within the break-water at 

 Plymouth Sound, on some miserable pretext, of protecting the 

 interests of the Europeans in the town of Plymouth, or of dis- 

 mantling its fortifications, at any rate, without first having made a 

 formal Declaration of War. 



