Without at all putting my experience in comparison with Sir Charles Smith’s, I must differ in opinion from him about the propriety of attacking Ibrahim Pacha. When Sir Charles Smith took command of the troops, Ibrahim had lost Sidon, been beat on the heights of Ornagacuan and Boharsof, and been forced to evacuate Beyrout, Tripoli, and the passes of the Taurus, and retire on Zachle. My opinion at the time was for a forward movement. Ibrahim ought not to have been allowed to concentrate at Zachle and Malaka. He ought not to have been allowed breathing-time, and most probably the greater part of his army would have deserted or been captured. I cannot say the Turkish troops were well organized, but, nevertheless, they had done very well; their wants were few, and after getting possession of Beyrout, the means of transport was not wanting, and they were capital marchers. I do not say that we ought to have followed them across the plain of the Bekaa without cavalry, but we ought to have followed him up to Zachle and Malaka, and afterwards been guided by circumstances. It appears that he was enabled to collect 50,000 men at Damascus, of which 30,000 were effective. Such a force being collected, there was a very good reason for accepting a Convention, but a very bad one for rejecting it. Sir Charles Smith further writes, under date of the 29th of November[19], that the troops from Aleppo had commenced their retreat from Damascus on El Mezereib on the 26th instant, and that Ibrahim Pacha had ordered his secretaries to be ready to depart with him by the same route, and the whole of the force under his command had moved, or was in order of march. On comparing dates, it is impossible that Ibrahim’s army could have moved from Damascus on the 26th, as he only left Zachle on the 21st, the distance from thence to Damascus being three days’ march, and it surely would have required more than two days to put in motion an army of 50,000. I am disposed to think the intelligence was incorrect. It is not impossible that a division might have gone to El Mezereib, but I do not believe that Ibrahim began his final retreat till the 29th of December. Sir Charles further writes from Beyrout, under date of the 6th of December[20], that a courier from Alexandria had stopped the progress of the Egyptian army in retreat, and that Ibrahim Pacha, by intelligence of the 2nd from Damascus, “had returned to the city, with the intention of quartering his whole force within the walls, wisely preferring, to the hazard of a retreat through the Desert, the guarantee of the Convention for embarking all he possesses, (plunder as well as military stores,) at the points we hold on the coast; such stipulation having been made clear to his understanding, as being binding on the Allies. The contrary, however, being the fact, he will now find himself, (accidentally as it were,) master of a stronghold in the heart of Syria, of which he had been virtually, if not totally, bereaved.”