Sir Sidney found the Sultaun willing to exert all the force of his dominions, but wretchedly provided with the means of exertion--a disorganised army, an infant navy, empty arsenals, and all the resources of the state in barbaric confusion. Two bomb-vessels and seven gun-boats were all that he could procure for the coast service. He ordered five more gun-boats to be laid down, waiting for guns from England. But he was soon called from Constantinople. Advice had been received by the governor of Acre, Achmet Pasha, that Buonaparte, at the head of an army of twelve or thirteen thousand men, was about to march on Acre. The position of this fortress renders it the key of the chief commerce in corn at the head of the Levant, and its possessor has always been powerful. Its possession by the French would have given them the command of all the cities on the coast, and probably made them masters of Syria, if not of Constantinople. Buonaparte, utterly reckless in his cruelties, provided they gained his object, had announced his approach by the following dashing epistle to the Pasha:--"The provinces of Gaza, Ramleh, and Jaffa are in my power. I have treated with generosity those of your troops who placed themselves at my discretion. I have been severe towards those who have violated the rights of war. I shall march in a few days against Acre." His severity had already been exhibited on an unexampled scale. Having taken Jaffa by assault, and put part of the garrison to the sword, he marched his prisoners, to the number of three thousand seven hundred, to an open space outside the town. As they were disarmed in the town, they could make no resistance; and, as Turks, they submitted to the will of Fate. There they were fired on, until they all fell! When this act of horrid cruelty was reported in Europe by Sir Robert Wilson, its very atrocity made the honourable feelings of England incredulous; but it has since been acknowledged in the memoir by Napoleon's commissary, M. Miot, and the massacre is denied no longer. The excuse which the French general subsequently offered was, that many of the Turks had been captured before, and liberated on parole; that having thus violated the laws of war, he could neither take them with him, nor leave them behind. But the hollowness of this excuse is evident. The Turks knew nothing of our European parole; they felt that it was their duty to fight for their Pasha; they might have been liberated with perfect impunity, for, once deprived of arms, and stript of all means of military movement, they must have lingered among the ruins of an open town, or dispersed about the country. The stronger probability is, that the massacre was meant for the purposes of intimidation, and that on the blood of Jaffa the French flag was to float above the gates of Acre.