O’Meara tells us Napoleon’s version of the causes which led to this.[48] ‘“The chief cause of the failure there was that Sir Sydney Smith took all my battering-train, which was on board of several small vessels. Had it not been for that, I would have taken Acre in spite of him. He behaved very bravely, and was well seconded by Phillipeaux, a Frenchman of talent, who had studied with me as an engineer.... The acquisition of five or six hundred seamen as cannoniers, was a great advantage to the Turks, whose spirits they revived, and whom they showed how to defend the fortress. ‘“But he committed a great fault in making sorties, which cost the lives of two or three hundred brave fellows, without the possibility of success. For it was impossible he could succeed against the number of the French who were before Acre. I would lay a wager, he lost half of his crew in them. He dispersed proclamations among my troops which certainly shook some of them, and I, in consequence, published an order, stating that he was _mad_, and forbidding all communication with him. Some days after, he sent, by means of a flag of truce, a lieutenant, or a midshipman, with a letter containing a challenge to me, to meet him at some place he pointed out, in order to fight a duel. I laughed at this, and sent him back an intimation that when he brought Marlborough to fight me I would meet him. Notwithstanding this, I like the character of the man.”’ The French reached Jaffa on May 24, and found the hospitals full of wounded and those sick of the plague. Compelled still to retreat, it was necessary to remove the sick; and, to encourage his soldiers in the task, and to show them how little was the risk, Napoleon is said to have handled several of the infected. CHAPTER XVI. RETREAT FROM JAFFA--POISONING OF FIVE HUNDRED SOLDIERS--DIFFERENT ENGLISH AUTHORITIES THEREON--NAPOLEON’S OWN STORY, ALSO THOSE OF LAS CASES AND O’MEARA--RETREAT TO CAIRO. But this retreat became the subject of a dreadful accusation against Napoleon, which must have hit him hard at the time of his projected invasion in 1803--aye, quite as hard as the massacre at Jaffa. It was nothing less than that he poisoned, with opium, 500 of his sick soldiers, before he left Jaffa. There was a solid foundation for this fearful charge, as will be shown hereafter. Combe speaks of it thus-- Another great thing Boney now did, With sick the hospitals were crowded, He therefore planned, nor planned in vain, To put the wretches out of pain; He an apothecary found-- For a physician, since renown’d, The butchering task with scorn declined, Th’ apothecary, tho’, was _kind_. It seems that Romeo met with such a one, This is a mournful theme to touch upon, Opium was put in pleasant food, The wretched victims thought it good; But, in a few hours, as they say, About six hundred, breathless lay.