re grateful." His lordship
sincerely regrets the escape of Bonaparte; and remarks, that those ships
which he had destined for the two places where Bonaparte would certainly
have been intercepted, were--from the Admiralty's thinking, doubtless,
that the Russians would do something at sea--obliged to be at Malta and
on other services, in which he also thought the Russian admiral would
have assisted: "therefore," he adds, "no blame lays at my door." The
Vincejo sloop, however, his lordship says, had a few days before taken a
vessel from Egypt, with General Voix, and seventy-five officers; and
that Captain Long was happy enough to save the dispatches, which had
been thrown overboard with a weight insufficient to instantly sink them.
These dispatches represented the extreme distress of the French army in
Egypt; and he expresses his hope, that the Sublime Porte will never
permit a single Frenchman to quit Egypt. "I own myself," says his
lordship, in that severe spirit of Antigallicanism for which he was ever
so remarkable, "wicked enough, to wish them all to die in that country
they chose to invade. We have scoundrels of French enough in Europe,
without them." It is contrary to his opinion, he repeats, to allow a
single Frenchman, from Egypt, to return to France, during the war; nor
would he subscribe any paper giving such permission. "But," concludes
his lordship, "I submit to the better judgment of men."

To Spencer Smith, Esq. now secretary of the embassy, his lordship writes
in a similar strain--"I have read, with pleasure, all that has passed in
Egypt, between Bonaparte, Kleber, and the Grand Vizier; and I send Lord
Elgin some very important papers, which will shew their very deplorable
situation: but I cannot bring myself to believe they would entirely quit
Egypt; and, if they would, I never would consent to one of them
returning to the continent of Europe during the war. I wish them to
perish in Egypt; and give a great lesson to the world, of the justice of
the Almighty."

On the 23d of December, his lordship received information from Sir
Thomas Troubridge, that the Culloden, in going into the Bay of Marsa
Scirocco, in the Island of Malta, to land cannon, ammunition, &c. from
Messina, for the siege, had struck on a rock, and was greatly damaged.
The rudder, and great part of the false keel, were carried away; and the
rudder would have been lost, but for Sir Thomas's timely exertion in
getting a hawser reeved through i