WHILE the French expedition to the east attracted the attention of all Europe, England appeared to be pre-eminently interested in its destination, Positive instructions were in consequence sent out to Earl St. Vincent, then stationed at Cadiz, to select a sufficient number of line of battle ships to defeat this armament, whatever might be its destination; and the first lord of the admiralty, in his dispatches to the earl, says, "I think it almost unnecessary to suggest to you the propriety of putting it under Sir Horatio Nelson." This appointment the gallant earl had already anticipated, and a detachment of ten sail of the line was dispatched under Captain Trowbridge, to join the rearadmiral, who had previously been dispatched to the Mediterranean with a flying squadron. Rear-admiral Nelson, being thus invested with the command of a fleet of fourteen ships, thirteen of which carried seventy-four, and one fifty guns, determined to proceed in quest of the enemy.

Steering his course towards Malta, with an intention of attacking the French fleet at Goza, he arrived off that island on the 22d of June, when, to his mortification, he found that the enemy had quitted that place five days before his arrival, taking an eastward direction. Conjecturing, with great plausibility, that Egypt must be the place of their destination, the British admiral sailed for the port of Alexandria, where he arrived on the 28th; but they had not been seen on the coast of Egypt, nor could any satisfactory information be obtained at that place. Still acting upon his favourite maxim, that "perseverance in the profession will meet its reward," the gallant admiral shaped his

course nothward for Caramania; thence he re- BOOK II. turned to Sicily, and after obtaining refreshments and assistance of every kind for his squad- CHAP. V. ron in the bay of Syracuse, sailed once more for Alexandria in quest of the enemy.

On approaching the coast of Egypt, on the first of August, he discovered thirteen sail of line of battle ships, moored in a strong and compact line, in the bay of Aboukir, the headmost vessel being close to the shoals on the N. W. and the rest of the fleet forming a kind. of curve along the line of deep water, so as not to be turned on the S. W. The British admiral, who, from the anxiety of his mind, had scarcely taken either sleep or food for many days, now ordered his dinner to be served, while preparations were making for battle; and when his officers rose from table, and went to their separate stations, he exclaimed-" Before this_time to-morrow I shall have gained a Peerage, or Westminster Abbey."*

The advantage of numbers, both in ships, guns, and men, was in favour of the French; they had thirteen ships of the line, and four frigates, carrying eleven hundred and ninety guns, and ten thousand eight hundred and ten men. The English had the same number of ships of the line, and one fifty-gun ship, carrying in all one thousand and twelve guns, and eight thousand and sixty-eight men. The English ships of the line were all seventy-fours; the French had three eighty-gun ships, and one three-decker of one hundred and twenty guns; and the enemy's squadron was, in the opinion of the French commissary of the fleet, moored in such a situation, as to bid defiance to a force more than double their own.

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BOOK II. The position occupied by the French had been already celebrated in history, as the scene CHAP. V. of a famous combat between Augustus Cæsar and Mark Antony, near nineteen hundred years ago, which decided the empire of the world. On the present conflict depended the naval superiority of two rival nations, the immediate renewal of the war on the continent of Europe, and the eventual possession of Egypt-perhaps of Hindostan.

The moment Admiral Nelson perceived the position of the French fleet, that intuitive genius with which he was endowed, displayed itself; and it instantly struck him that where there was room for an enemy's ship to swing, there was room for one of ours to anchor. Having explained to his captains his mode of attack, and given them the general instruction, first "to gain the victory-and then to make the best possible use of it;" the engagement commenced at six o'clock in the evening of the first of August. As soon as some of our van ships approached the small island of Bequieres, the Alert French ship began to execute the orders of Admiral Brueix, which were, to stand towards the British ships until nearly within gun shot, and then to manœuvre so as best to draw them towards the outer shoal lying off that island, but the British admiral escaped this decoy, and hauled well round all the danger. On this island of Bequieres the French had established two batteries, but their distance rendered them useless. As our squadron advanced, the enemy opened a steady fire from the starboard side of the whole line, full into the bows of our ships; and at twenty-eight minutes past six, p. m. the French hoisted their colours. Captain Foley, who led the British van in the Goliath, had long conceived, that if the enemy were moored in line of battle in with the land, the best plan of attack would be to lead between them and the shore, because the French guns on that side were not likely to be manned, nor were ready for action; acting upon this plan of attack, he darted a-head of the enemy's vanmost ship, Le Guerrier, doubled her larboard side, and having poured a destructive fire into the Frenchman, moved on to the Conquerant, which he charged with tremendous fury, and in ten minutes shot away her masts: next followed the Zealous, Capt. Hood, which attacked the Guerrier, on the side next the shore, and in twelve minutes, totally disabled her third proceeded the Orion, Sir James Saumarez, and took her station between the enemy's fifth and sixth ships: the Theseus, Captain Miller, following the same example, encountered the third ship of the enemy; the Audacious, Captain Gould, moved round to the fifth then advanced the Vanguard, carrying the heroic Nelson, and his no less heroic Cap

tain Berry, and anchored on the outside of the enemy's third ship, with six colours flying in his rigging, lest they should be shot away-that they should be struck, no British admiral considers as a possibility; having veered half a cable, he instantly opened a tremendous fire; under cover of which the other four ships of his division, the Minotaur, Bellerophon, Defence, and Majestic, sailed on a-head of the admiral. In a few minutes every man stationed at the first six guns, in the fore part of the Vanguard's deck, was killed or wounded; and three times in succession did the destructive fire of the enemy sweep away the seamen that served these guns. Captain Louis, in the Minotaur, nobly supported his friend and commander, and anchoring next a-head of the Vanguard, took off the fire of the Aquilon, the fourth in the French line. The Defence, Captain Peyton, took her station with great judgment a-head of the Minotaur, and engaged the Franklin, of 80 guns, the sixth ship of the enemy on the starboard bow, which ship bore the flag of Admiral Blanquet de Chelard, the second in command.

Thus, by the masterly seamanship of the British commanders, nine of our ships were so disposed as to bear their force upon six of the enemy. The seventh of the French line was the Orient, the admiral's ship, a vessel of immense size, bearing one hundred and twenty guns: this stupendous adversary was undertaken by the Bellerophon, Captain Darby; while the Majestic, Captain Westcott, who engaged the Heureux, the ninth ship on the starboard bow, received also at the same time the fire of the Tonnant, which was the eighth in the line. The other four ships of the British squadron having been detached previous to the discovery of the French, were at a considerable distance when the action began, and the shades of night began to close in upon them before they reached the scene of action. Captain Trowbridge, in the Culloden, took the lead of these ships. As he came on sounding, the increased darkness of the night had greatly increased the difficulties of the navigation; and suddenly, after having found eleven feet water, before the lead could be hove again, he was fast a-ground, on the tail of the shoal of Bequieres, nor could all his own exertions, united to those of Captain Thompson, in the Leander, and Captain Hardy, in the Mutine brig, both of which came to his assistance, get him off in time to share in the danger and glory of the action. It was however some satisfaction to the mortified spirit of Captain Trowbridge, that his ship served as a beacon to the Alexander and Swiftsure, which must else, from the course they were holding, have gone considerably further on the reef, and would inevitably have been lost.

These ships, after escaping the peril to which they had been exposed, entered the bay, and took their stations, eveloped in darkness, as was the whole fleet, in a manner that is remembered with general admiration. At this juncture the Bellerophon, overpowered by the huge Orient, her lights extinguished, nearly two hundred of her crew killed or wounded, and all her masts and cables shot away, was drifting out of the line, towards the lee side of the bay, when the Swiftsure, which at first mistook her for a ship of the enemy, but was soon undeceived, came up, and taking her station, opened a steady fire on the quarter of the Franklin, and the bows of the French admiral. At the same instant, Captain Ball, with the Alexander, passed under the stern of the Orient, and anchoring within side of his larboard quarter, raked him, and kept up a severe fire of musketry on his decks. The last ship which arrived to complete the destruction of the enemy was the Leander, Captain Thompson, and took her station in such a position as to rake both the Franklin and the Orient. The conflict was now carried on in the darkness of the night, and the only light to guide the operations of the fleets was derived from the flashes of their cannon. The two first ships of the French line had been dismasted within a quarter of an hour from the commencement of the action, and others had suffered so severely that victory was already certain -its extent was the only remaining question. The third, fourth, and fifth ships of the enemy were taken possession of at half-past eight.

While the battle raged with its utmost fury, the British admiral himself received a wound in the head, from a piece of langridge shot, which cut a large flap of the skin of the forehead from the bone, and which, falling over his only remaining eye, left him in total darkness. Captain Berry, on whom the command of the ship during the remainder of the action devolved, was standing near his admiral when he received this dreadful wound, and caught him in his arms as he was falling. The great effusion of blood occasioned an apprehension that the wound would be mortal : Nelson himself thought so; and on being taken down into the cock-pit, he called his chaplain to deliver his dying remembrances to Lady Nelson; but the surgeon, on examining the wound, pronounced it to be merely superficial, and the gloom which had taken possession of the whole crew, under the agonizing apprehension of the loss of their commander, was dissipated, and turned into expressions of joy.

The French Admiral Brueix, who sustained the honour of his flag with undiminished firmness, and had been three times wounded during the present engagement, without quitting his station, now received a shot, which almost cut him in two: still he remained upon the deek, and this hero, (No. 15.)

so well worthy of a better fate, survived his last BOOK II. wound only a quarter of an hour. Soon after nine o'clock the Orient struck her colours and CHAP. V. appeared in flames. The fire spread with aston1798 ishing rapidity. By the prodigious light of this conflagration, the situation of the two fleets could now be distinctly seen from the towers of Rosetta, a distance of thirty miles.Finding it impossible to extinguish the flames, those who had escaped death in battle, endeavoured to save themselves by plunging into the sea. About ten o'clock the ship blew up with a tremendous explosion, which was succeeded by a silence not less awful. The firing, as if by common consent, instantly ceased on both sides, and the first sound which broke the portentous stillness, was the dash of the shattered masts and yards falling into the water from the vast height to which they had been cast by the explosion. It is upon record, that a battle between two armies was once broken off by an earthquake; but no incident in war produced by human means, has ever equalled the awful sublimity of this simultaneous pause. About seventy of the crew of the Orient were saved by the English boats, and among the many hundreds who perished, were the Commodore Casa Bianca and his son, a brave and intelligent boy about ten years of age: they were for a time seen in the water, on the wreck of the Orient's mast, seeking each other, when the ship blew up, and put an end to their hopes and their fears. The Orient had on board money to the amount of six hundred thousand pounds sterling.

After a lapse of about ten minutes the fire re-commenced with the ships to the leeward of the centre, and continued without intermission till three o'clock the next morning. It then grew very faint till about five, when it was again resumed with redoubled fury; but it was, on the enemy's part, the resistance, not of hope, but of despair. At day break, the Guillaume Tell and the Généreux, the two rear ships of the enemy, were the only French ships of the line that had their colours flying, and in the forenoon they cut their cables and stood out to sea, taking along with them two frigates. The Zealous, worthy of her name, instantly commenced the pursuit, but as there was no other ship in a condition to support Captain Hood, he was recalled. The firing continued in the bay with some intermission till two o'clock in the afternoon, when it entirely ceased. As soon as the admiral thought the victory secure, he issued the following order :"Almighty God having blessed his majesty's arms with victory, the admiral intends returning public thanks for the same, at two o'clock this day, and he recommends every ship doing the same.' The vanquished, deprived of the consolations of religion by the wild theories of their 3 H