their ships, produced a profound effect. The report
that Alexandria had been almost cut off from the rest of Egypt by the
inundation of Lake Mareotis, and that to regain the city an army would
have to force its way along the narrow neck of land between the lakes
Mareotis and Aboukir, seemed to diminish still further their hope of
ever getting away.

The news, therefore, that a great force of British and Turks, supported
by gun-boats, and accompanied by an immense flotilla carrying stores,
was ascending the Nile, reduced them almost to despair, and so unwilling
were they to fight, that when, on the approach of the Vizier's army to
Cairo, it was met by four thousand French, these suffered themselves to
be repulsed by the rabble and fell back to Cairo.

They were well aware that if they surrendered they would be guaranteed a
passage back to France. Better terms than this they could not hope to
obtain after the most vigorous resistance, involving a great and useless
loss of life. Therefore as soon as the whole allied force approached
Cairo, negotiations were begun, and on the 28th of June (1801) these
were concluded, and one of the gates of the town occupied by the Capitan
Pasha's body-guards, and a fort by the 30th Regiment, and on the 10th
the French evacuated the city, and the next day the Turkish troops took
possession of it.

In the meantime fighting had been going on almost incessantly in front
of Alexandria. General Coote, who was in command of the besieging force,
gradually gained ground. The French lines were forced backward, and on
September 2nd, finding the contest altogether hopeless, and most of the
British troops from Cairo having returned, reinforced by a British
native Indian army, the garrison capitulated. The number of troops,
including the sick, who surrendered in Alexandria, were 10,528, while
the force that surrendered at Cairo, which, like the other, was embarked
in British ships and taken to France, was 13,672; included among them
were 1900 sailors who had for the most part been landed after the battle
of Aboukir, while some had been drawn from the French war-ships that had
succeeded in running the blockade.

The Indian force arrived in time to witness the surrender of Alexandria,
but the fact that the work was practically accomplished by the 12,000
men who landed under General Abercrombie, aided after their work was
half done by a Turkish force of no great value, renders the operation
one of the