In November, 1831, Ibrahim Pacha anchored off Jaffa with an Egyptian squadron, and invested Acre in December; he must have been much favoured by the weather to have ventured on such a dangerous coast at that season of the year. Had a gale of wind set in, not a ship would have escaped; but fortune seems to have favoured all his undertakings up to the time the Allies landed in D’Jounie Bay. The Egyptian squadron attacked the south face of the works, and left their mark behind, which was still visible when the British squadron anchored; but little real damage was done to the fortress by their fire. The siege lasted six months; in that time 20,000 shells and 200,000 shots are said to have been thrown into the town, which ultimately surrendered for want of water. After Acre fell into the possession of Mehemet Ali, he considered it of so much importance that vast numbers of labourers were employed to make it a fortress of the first order towards the land side, but when the squadron arrived before it, there still remained much to be done. It has two fronts to the sea, one to the westward, the other to the south. The allied squadron anchored, on the afternoon of the 2nd of November, at some distance from the fortress towards Mount Carmel. The Revenge, Pique, and Talbot, had been off the port some time, and had made a tolerable accurate survey of the coast, and buoyed some shoals which were not known: and here I may remark that, though a British squadron had been there in 1799, the Admiralty had not been able to furnish us with anything like a correct plan of the fortifications and the soundings. The Consuls in the different parts of the world ought to be instructed to procure information, and if a little more attention were paid by the Foreign Office to these appointments no place where the British Consular flag waves would be unknown to the Government; these situations are generally filled up without the smallest regard to the capacity or fitness of the gentlemen who hold them, to which may be traced many of the disasters that have frequently befallen our expeditions, and more particularly our last to Egypt, from whence we were driven with great loss by Mehemet Ali.