armies were irresistible, from the invariable success that had hitherto attended them, had so paralyzed their efforts of resistance, that but for the stimulating influence of British courage, none would have been made, and the advance of Buonaparte would, there is reason to believe, have been wholly unimpeded, wherever his plans of personal aggrandizement and political resentment might have directed it. Greatly indeed, therefore, must his irritable temper have been affected by the opposition excited by Sir W. Sidney Smith; and hi the fervor of vexation he imposed the most cruel sacrifices on his brave followers, and evinced a determination to extend them to the utmost limits of their endurance. The mind of his gallant antagonist was equally alive to the improvement of his advantage; and supposing the prejudice in some degree removed by the check he had given to the advance of the enemy, he wrote a circular letter to the Princes and Chiefs of Mount Lebanon, and to the Sheikhs of the Druses, in which he exhorted them to perform their duty, by intercepting the supplies of the enemy in their way to the French camp. This wise proceeding had its desired success; and two ambassadors were sent with information, that measures had been in consequence taken to cut off the supplies; and as a proof of it, eighty prisoners who had been captured in the execution of them, were placed at the disposal of the British.
On the part of the French, to mount the breach at Acre, was now become an object to which all others were to give way; and accordingly, General Kleber’s division was ordered from the fords of the river Jordan, where it had been successfully opposed to the army of Damascus, to take its turn in a task which had already occasioned the loss of the flower of the French troops, and above two-thirds of the officers. But on the arrival of this division, it found other employment.
In the sally made by the Turkish Chifflik regiment, it had shewn a want of firmness, and was in consequence censured. Soliman Aga, the commandant of that corps, having received orders from Sir W. Sidney Smith to obtain possession of the enemy’s third parallel, availed himself of this opportunity to retrieve the lost honor of his regiment; and the next night carried his orders into execution with such ardor and resolution, as completely effected his own purpose, and that of the;
