The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Volume 1Harrison, James
History
The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Volume 1
Harrison, James
Admirals -- Great Britain -- Biography; Great Britain. Royal Navy -- Biography; Nelson, Horatio Nelson, Viscount, 1758-1805
By the intercepted letters from the army, for we took
the vessel with Bonaparte's courier, they are grievously
disappointed, the country between their posts being completely
hostile. I have little doubt but that army will be destroyed, by
plague, pestilence, and famine, and battle and murder; which, that
it may soon be, God grant. The Turks will soon send an army into
Syria; and as, for the present, we block them up by sea, they must
soon experience great distress. I hope to find, on my arrival at
Naples, that the emperor, and many other powers, are at war with
the French; for, till they are reduced, there can be no peace in
this world."
This letter appears to have remained unfinished, for want, probably, of
an opportunity of sending it away, about three weeks. It then received
the following conclusion.
"September 7th. I feel myself so much recovered, that it is
probable I shall not go home at present. The Turks have seized all
French ships in the Levant, in consequence of their taking a
Turkish sixty-gun ship at Alexandria, and seizing all Turkish
property. This was done on the 14th of August. I shall always
receive pleasure in hearing from you, both as a public and private
man; and believe me, dear Sir, with the greatest respect, your most
obedient servant,
"Horatio Nelson."
In the mean time, Admiral Nelson had written the following letter to
Francis J. Jackson, Esq. his Britannic majesty's minister to the Ottoman
Porte, dated on board the Vanguard, off the Isle of Rhodes, 27th August
1798.
"Sir,
"I have the honour to acquaint you, that I attacked the French
fleet off the Mouth of the Nile, on the 1st inst. the result of
which you will see by the inclosed paper; and that, on the 14th,
the French took possession of the Turkish admiral's ship at
Alexandria, hauled down her colours, and hoisted French colours,
and seized on all the Turkish property on shore. The French are in
possession of Alexandria, Aboukir, Rosetta, and Damietta, on the
coast, and of Grand Cairo: but all communication is cut off between
their army and their transports at Alexandria, by sea, by an
English squadron of three ships of the line and four frigates,
which I have left cruising there; and, by land, by the Bedouins. So
that, if the Grand Signior will but send a few ships of the line,
and some bombs, he may destroy all their transports in Alexandria;
and an army of ten thousand men may retake Alexandria immediately,
as the French have only four thousand men in it, and the whole
French army are very sickly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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