The want of proper means for forming a siege, and perhaps the contempt which he entertained for barbarians, occasioned a great deficiency in the works raised before Acre. Bonaparte was not ignorant of the disadvantages under which his men laboured from the cause now assigned; and was principally for this reason that he trusted more to the bayonet than to the mortar or cannon. He repeated his assaults day after day, till the ditch was filled with dead and wounded soldiers. His grenadiers at length felt greater horror at walking over the bodies of their comrades than at encountering the tremendous discharges of large and small shot to which the latter had fallen victims. On the 21st of May, after sixty days of ineffectual labor under a burning sun, Napoleon ordered a last assault on the obstinate garrison of Ptolemais, which had barred his path to the accomplishment of the most splendid conquests. This attempt was not less fruitless than those which had preceded it, and was attended with the loss of many brave warriors. A fleet was at hand to reinforce Djezzar with men and arms; the French, on the contrary, were perishing under the plague, which had already found its way into their ranks, and were, besides, constantly threatened by swarms of Arabs and Mamlouks, who had assembled in the neighbouring mountains. His failure in this effort, accordingly, dictated the necessity of a speedy retreat towards Egypt, where his affairs continued to enjoy some degree of prosperity, and in the magazines of which he might still find the means of restoring the health and vigour of his troops. The siege of Acre, says the biographer of Bonaparte, cost nearly three thousand men in killed, and of such as died of the plague and their wounds. Had there been less precipitation in the attack, and had the advances been conducted according to the rules of art, the town, says he, could not have held out three days; and one assault such as that of the 8th of May would have sufficed. But he admits that it would have been wiser in their situation, destitute as they were of heavy artillery and provisions, while the place was plentifully supplied and in active communication with the English and Ottoman fleets, not to have undertaken the siege at all. In the bulletins, he adds, always so veracious, the lose of the French is estimated at five hundred killed and a thousand wounded; while that of the enemy is augmented to fifteen thousand. These documents are doubtless curious pieces for history,--certainly not because they are true. Bonaparte, however, attached the greatest importance to these relations, which were always drawn up or corrected by himself.[181]