he spoils of Malta on board: the rest, eleven in number, were
captured or burnt.

To Bonaparte this disaster came as a bolt from the blue. Only two days
before, he had written from Cairo to Brueys that all the conduct of
the English made him believe them to be inferior in numbers and fully
satisfied with blockading Malta. Yet, in order to restore the _morale_
of his army, utterly depressed by this disaster, he affected a
confidence which he could no longer feel, and said: "Well! here we
must remain or achieve a grandeur like that of the ancients."[106] He
had recently assured his intimates that after routing the Beys' forces
he would return to France and strike a blow direct at England.
Whatever he may have designed, he was now a prisoner in his conquest.
His men, even some of his highest officers, as Berthier, Bessieres,
Lannes, Murat, Dumas, and others, bitterly complained of their
miserable position. But the commander, whose spirits rose with
adversity, took effective means for repressing such discontent. To the
last-named, a powerful mulatto, he exclaimed: "You have held seditious
parleys: take care that I do not perform my duty: your six feet of
stature shall not save you from being shot": and he offered passports
for France to a few of the most discontented and useless officers,
well knowing that after Nelson's victory they could scarcely be used.
Others, again, out-Heroding Herod, suggested that the frigates and
transports at Alexandria should be taken to pieces and conveyed on
camels' backs to Suez, there to be used for the invasion of
India.[107]

The versatility of Bonaparte's genius was never more marked than at
this time of discouragement. While his enemies figured him and his
exhausted troops as vainly seeking to escape from those arid wastes;
while Nelson was landing the French prisoners in order to increase his
embarrassment about food, Bonaparte and his _savants_ were developing
constructive powers of the highest order, which made the army
independent of Europe. It was a vast undertaking. Deprived of most of
their treasure and many of their mechanical appliances by the loss of
the fleet, the _savants_ and engineers had, as it were, to start from
the beginning. Some strove to meet the difficulties of food-supply by
extending the cultivation of corn and rice, or by the construction of
large ovens and bakeries, or of windmills for grinding corn. Others
planted vineyards for the future, or sought to appeas