156 



LETTERS FROM PROFESSOR CARLYLE 



day mentioned in the treaty,, which the French, not being allowed to 

 leave the country upon the terms they expected, refused to accede to, 

 we saw that hostilities must inevitably take place between the two 

 parties, and we were but too certain of the issue of the combat. Every 

 thing that we feared has happened. The French, with between 

 twelve and fifteen thousand men, attacked the Turks (who had at least 

 four times the number) upon the morning of the 20th of March. 

 The Turks fled in a moment without attempting to make a stand, and 

 were pursued by the French to the confines of the Desert. The pur- 

 suit continued for three days, in the course of which and in their 

 passage over the Desert the Turks have lost, it is said, upwards of 

 10,000 men : the rest of the army, except about five or six thousand 

 who are here with the Vizier, are totally, and I doubt irremediably 

 dispersed. I do not enter into any military particulars of this melan- 

 choly event, as your Lordship will be informed of them from other 

 quarters, where they will be sufficiently detailed, and with much more 

 precision than I can pretend to. But as I have since been at Alexan- 

 dria, and seen the French Generals and army there, I would wish to 

 give your Lordship as just an account as I could of the situation in 

 which I found them. I went on shore at Alexandria with a flag of 

 truce this day se'ennight, along with an officer from Sir Sidney 

 Smith. We were received by General la Nuet, and the other 

 great men there, Messrs. Julien, Tallien, Vial, &c. with the utmost 

 politeness. They gave us a very handsome dinner, in which every 

 thing was well served, and they seemed (but I believe this was rather 

 an exhibition to us) to have no want of wine or liquors. They ap- 

 peared little elevated with their victory over the Turks, as they 

 thought it might tend to fix them longer in the country, to leave 

 which they made no scruple of saying was their great wish. They 

 all, however, declared that they would never think of quitting it upon 

 dishonorable terms. After dinner I was shown the antiquities of the 

 place, &c. ; and I had an opportunity, by crossing the parade, of see- 

 ing the greatest number of their troops. These amounted, I was 

 told, to near 3000 : and, indeed, I never saw a finer set of men in my 



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