While Sir Sidney Smith had been eminently successful at the siege of Acre, which made Napoleon miss his “destiny” and precluded him from changing “the face of the world,” as he himself stated, the defeat of the Turks after their disembarkation at Aboukir in July considerably altered the condition of affairs. Smith and the Turkish Government were for allowing the French to return to their native country, an arrangement not at all in accord with Nelson’s wishes. “I own my hope yet is,” he confesses to the Earl of Elgin, “that the Sublime Porte will never permit a single Frenchman to quit Egypt; and I own myself wicked enough to wish them all to die in that Country they chose to invade. We have scoundrels of French enough in Europe without them.... I again take the liberty of repeating that it is contrary to my opinion, allowing a single Frenchman from Egypt to return during the war to France. It would [be a] paper I never would subscribe to; but I submit to the better judgment of men.” To Spencer Smith, Secretary of Embassy, Constantinople, he says much the same thing: “I cannot bring myself to believe they would entirely quit Egypt; and, if they would, I never would consent to one of them returning to the Continent of Europe during the war. I wish them to _perish_ in Egypt, and give a great lesson to the world of the justice of the ALMIGHTY.” “I would have kept up a more constant communication with Egypt;” he tells Keith on the 7th January 1800, “but I have never had the benefit of small Vessels.” When the Admiral heard of the Convention of El Arish, concluded by Smith and Kléber--Napoleon’s successor in Egypt--Nelson was furious. By its terms the army and its munitions were to be allowed to return to France. Had Nelson been Commander-in-chief, he would have refused “to ratify any consent or approbation of Sir Sidney Smith,” and would never “for a moment have forgot my text--that at all risks of giving offence, _not one Frenchman should be allowed to quit Egypt_.” Keith showed a firm hand when the intelligence reached him. He would consent to “no Capitulation with the French Army in Egypt, except as prisoners of war,” and he insisted on the abandoning of all ships and munitions. Moreover, no troops were to return until they were exchanged. In due course the British Government consented to the terms which had been made, although it disapproved of Sir Sidney Smith’s high-handed policy. On Kléber being informed of the conditions imposed on him by Keith, he refused to entertain them. Hostilities were renewed before the receipt of the Order from England confirming the capitulation, and the negotiations came to nothing. CHAPTER XIII Disobedience to Orders “Pray God we may get alongside of them, the event I leave to Providence” NELSON.