An Historical Review of the Royal Marine Corps, from its Original Institution down to the Present Era, 1803Gillespie, Alexander, Major
History
An Historical Review of the Royal Marine Corps, from its Original Institution down to the Present Era, 1803
Gillespie, Alexander, Major
Great Britain. Royal Marines -- History
Much to the credit of the Formidable, Captain Grindall, that ship
was totally exempt from the diabolical spirit, and it is proper to
be remarked that the thanks of the Board of Admiralty were withheld
from the parties of Marines in the Vengeance and Resolution,
entirely through mistake, as both were truly entitled to them, for
a similar zeal, with the rest of their brother Soldiers.
I now bid adieu to the domestic transactions of 1801, and hasten to
those quarters of the world, where the British character appears
in all its manly and native vigour, not palsied by murmurs, but
invincible by discipline.
After the desertion of Buonaparte from his Egyptian Army, and the
annulment of the Treaty of El Arisch, the genius of Kleber, his
successor, retrieved every thing. By the battle of Heliopolis he
eventually drove the Turks across the desert to seek refuge in
Gaza, recaptured Cairo, which had been formerly evacuated, and by
a train of good policy as well as a system of judicious defence,
rendered the French power in Egypt more firm than ever. But a dark
assassin deprived their Army of this distinguished leader, after
whose tragical death, the chief command devolved upon General
Menou, who following the footsteps of his predecessors, and by a
peculiar assimilation to the tenets and manners of the Mahometans,
seemed to have resolved upon fixing a permanent Empire in Lower
Egypt. He rejected, with disdain, every overture towards a renewal
of the Treaty of El Arisch, and, excepting a number of Greeks
embodied under the auspices of Kleber, who were trained in European
tactics, rested all his hopes of defence against native inroads, or
foreign invaders, in the remnants of his countrymen.
It was reserved for a branch of my corps, combined with a British
Army, to assist in rooting out this powerful force, to restore
those conquered dominions to their rightful Lord, and thus to close
a war by subduing those motives of ambition which had continued to
cherish it.
A very considerable armament, which had been employed on other
services during the last year, had entered the Mediterranean,
and the troops who formed a part of it, were landed at Malta and
Minorca. These were destined to expel the French from Egypt, in
co-operation with an Army, under General Baird, from the regions of
India, and an Ottoman force, under the Grand Vizier, which was to
cross the deserts of Syria.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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