cure those whom it might attack. It certainly was a special protection
from Heaven to be preserved from it; but to cover in some degree the
absurdity of such a story, it is added that they knew how to elude the
danger, and that any one else who braved it without using precautions met
with death for their temerity. This is, in fact; the whole point of the
question. Either those privileged persons took indispensable
precautions; and in that case their boasted heroism is a mere juggler's
trick; or they touched the infected without using precautions, and
inoculated themselves with the plague, thus voluntarily encountering
death, and then the story is really a good one.

The infected were confided, it has been stated, to the head apothecary of
the army, Royer, who, dying in Egypt three years after, carried the
secret with him to the grave. But on a moment's reflection it will be
evident that the leaving of Royer alone in Jaffa would have been to
devote to certain death; and that a prompt and, cruel one, a man who was
extremely useful to the army, and who was at the time in perfect health.
It must be remembered that no guard could be left with him, and that the
Turks were close at our heels. Bonaparte truly said, while walking
through the rooms of the hospital, that the Turks would be at Jaffa in a
few hours. With this conviction, would he have left the head apothecary
in that town?

Recourse has been had to suppositions to support the contrary belief to
what I say. For example, it is said that the infected patients were
embarked in ships of war. There were no such ships. Where had they
disembarked, who had received them; what had been done with them?
No one speaks of them. Others, not doubting that the infected men died
at Jaffa, say, that the rearguard under Kleber, by order of Bonaparte,
delayed its departure for three days, and only began its march when.
death had put an end to the sufferings of these unfortunate beings,
unshortened by any sacrifice. All this is incorrect. No rear-guard was
left--it could not be done. Pretence is made of forgetting that the
ramparts were destroyed, that the town--was as open and as defenceless as
any village, so this small rear-guard would have been left for certain
destruction. The dates themselves tell against these suppositions. It
is certain, as can be seen by the official account, that we arrived at
Jaffa on 24th May, and stayed there the 25th, 26th, and 27th. We left it
on the 28t