of the batteries, and also of the shipping that lay close by
the shore, and were checked. Their retreat might have ended in a rout,
but for the undisciplined eagerness with which the Turks engaged in the
task of spoiling and maiming those that fell before them--thus giving to
Murat the opportunity of charging their main body in flank with his
cavalry, at the moment when the French infantry, profiting by their
disordered and scattered condition, and rallying under the eye of
Napoleon, forced a passage to the entrenchments. From that moment the
battle was a massacre. The Turks, attacked on all sides, were
panic-struck; and the sea was covered with the turbans of men who flung
themselves headlong into the waves rather than await the fury of _Le
Beau Sabreur_,[29] or the steady rolling fire of the _Sultan Kebir_. Six
thousand surrendered at discretion: twelve thousand perished on the
field or in the sea. Mustapha Pacha, the general, being brought into the
presence of his victor, was saluted with these words:--"It has been your
fate to lose this day; but I will take care to inform the sultan of the
courage with which you have contested it." "Spare thyself that trouble,"
answered the proud pacha, "my master knows me better than thou."

Napoleon once more returned to Cairo on the 9th of August; but it was
only to make some parting arrangements as to the administration, civil
and military; for, from the moment of his victory at Aboukir, he had
resolved to entrust Egypt to other hands, and Admiral Gantheaume was
already preparing in secret the means of his removal to France.

Buonaparte always asserted, and the Buonapartist writers of his history
still maintain, that this resolution was adopted in consequence of a
mere accident;[30] namely, that Sir Sydney Smith, in the course of some
negotiations about prisoners which followed after the battle of Aboukir,
sent a file of English newspapers for the amusement of the General. Some
say the English Commodore did so out of mere civility: others, that he
designed to distract the movements of Napoleon, by showing him the
dangerous condition to which, during his absence, the affairs of France,
both at home and abroad, had been reduced. It seems, however, to be
generally believed (as without doubt it is the more probable case) that
Buonaparte had long ere now received intelligence of the great events in
which he was so deeply concerned. He had, assuredly, many friends in
Paris, who were