We should fall into the same error which we censure, did we anticipate what might have been the result of such a meeting. Even while we claim the probability of advantage for the army most numerous, and best provided with guns and stores, we allow the strife must have been dreadful and dubious. But, if Napoleon really thought he had only to show himself in India, to ensure the destruction of the British empire there, he had not calculated the opposing strength with the caution to have been expected from so great a general. He has been represented, indeed, as boasting of the additions which he would have made to his army, by the co-operation of natives trained after the French discipline. But can it be supposed that these hasty levies could be brought into such complete order as to face the native troops of British India, so long and so justly distinguished for approaching Europeans in courage and discipline, and excelling them, perhaps, in temperance and subordination? In a word, the Egyptian expedition, unless considered with reference to the private views of the Directory, and of their General, must have been regarded from the beginning, as promising no results in the slightest degree worthy of the great risk incurred, by draining France of the flower of her army. Meanwhile, the moment of departure approached. The blockading squadron, commanded by Nelson, was blown off the coast by a gale of wind, and so much damaged that they were obliged to run down to Sardinia. The first and most obvious obstacle to the expedition was thus removed. The various squadrons from Genoa, Civita Vecchia, and Bastia, set sail and united with that which already lay at Toulon.