Nothing daunted by what would have broken a feebler spirit, the disillusioned conqueror turned to the conquest of another world. Africa had failed him, but Asia was near, and a revolution might be effected there. The maltreatment of French merchants in Syria had been one of the Directory's original grounds of complaint; it must serve another turn, and if the Sultan were sufficiently humbled, he might be compelled to an alliance against the menacing league of Russia and Austria. The need for carrying out this plan was further confirmed by the awful news which soon came from Alexandria. Nelson, having scoured in vain the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, had returned first to Sicily, then to Greece, and finally to Egypt. Bonaparte had left instructions for Admiral Brueys to work the fleet into the old port of the Ptolemies; but if the anchorage or water-draft should prove insufficient, he was to sail for Corfu. It was believed that with his splendid new eighty-gun ships, and unhampered by the transports, he was more than a match for the inferior squadron of Nelson, whose largest vessels had but seventy-four guns. But Brueys, finding it impossible to enter the harbor with his warships, and fearing to sail for Corfu without the provisions promised by the general, disobeyed his orders, and took up what he believed to be an impregnable position near by in the bay of Aboukir, his line being parallel with the shoaling beach, and his van protected by insufficient batteries on Aboukir island to the northwest. The strongest ships in the center and van were those stationed seaward.