a great blow to Sir Sidney Smith. He appointed
Lieutenant Canes, who had been in charge of the _Tigre_ during his
absence on shore, to the command of the _Theseus_, and transferred
Lieutenant England to the place of first lieutenant of the _Tigre_.

It was generally felt that after the tremendous loss he suffered in the
last of the eleven assaults made by the French that Napoleon could no
longer continue the siege. Not only had the numerical loss been enormous
in proportion to the strength of the army, but it had fallen upon his
best troops. The artillery had suffered terribly, the grenadiers had
been almost annihilated, and as the assaults had always been headed by
picked regiments, the backbone of the army was gone. It was soon
ascertained indeed that Napoleon was sending great convoys of sick,
wounded, and stores down the coast, and on the 20th the siege was
raised, and the French marched away.

CHAPTER XIII.

AN INDEPENDENT COMMAND.

The departure of the French had been hastened by the rapidly-increasing
discontent and insubordination among the troops. During the later days
of the siege Sir Sidney Smith had issued great numbers of printed copies
of a letter from the Sultan authorizing him to offer a safe passage to
France to the French army if it would surrender. This offer was a
tempting one indeed to the soldiers. They had suffered hardships of all
kinds since they had disembarked at Alexandria. They had been parched
with thirst, half-choked with blinding dust, and had seen their comrades
fall in numbers smitten by sunstroke. They counted but little the losses
they had suffered in the battles in Egypt--that was in the ordinary way
of the business of a soldier; but the dread of assassination whenever
they ventured out from their lines, whether in camp or on the march, had
weighed heavily upon them. Then had come the plague that had more than
decimated them at Jaffa, and now they were reduced to well-nigh half
their strength by the manner in which they had been sent time after time
against the breach in the wall of an insignificant town, which would
have been of no use to them if taken, as they could have been shelled
out of it by the British men-of-war and gun-boats.

Sir Sidney Smith had passed through the terrible siege without a
scratch, although freely exposing himself, and two attempts at
assassination by the French emissaries in the town had also failed. The
_Tigre_ sailed at once to place herse