In the meantime Commander Hammill's party of 250 bluejackets and 150 marines had landed without opposition. They reached the Palace of Ras-el-Tin at 10 30 a.m., seized the western end of the Peninsula, occupied the Arsenal, and threw out a line of sentries north and south extending from shore to shore. At 12.30 p.m. a small party of marines and a Gatling's crew from the Monarch pushed on towards the town and guarded the streets in the immediate neighbourhood, making prisoners of natives who were seen looting inside the gates, and firing upon those more remote. In Frank Street they found every shop looted and burnt. The looters retreated before them, and dropped their plunder.[31]
The streets were strewn with the most miscellaneous articles—broken clock-cases, empty jewel-boxes, and fragments of all kinds. Every now and then the party had to run up a side street to avoid the fall of a house or wall. Bodies of Europeans, stripped and mutilated, were seen in the Place Mehemet Ali, in an advanced state of putrefaction.[32]
The work of incendiarism was still going on, and even the women were seen setting fire to houses with petroleum. The fires had occasioned enormous damage in the European quarter, where not a street was passable for any distance, all being more or less blocked by the smoking ruins of the fallen houses. Walls were still tumbling down, and the hot air was opaque with lime-dust and smoke.
The scenes on every side were appalling. The parts of Alexandria which were found to have been destroyed, or which were destroyed in the next two days, included not only the Grand Square, or Place Mehemet Ali, but all the streets leading from it to the sea, the Rue Cherif Pasha and the Rue Tewfik Pasha, with the adjoining streets. In the square itself the kiosques were destroyed; the statue of Mehemet Ali on horseback in the centre alone remained untouched. One side of the Place de l'Eglise, one side of the Rue de la Mosque d'Attarin, a portion of the Boulevards de Ramleh and de Rosette, and the whole of the northern portion of the Rue de la Bourse, were also consumed. In addition to these, most of the houses in the following thoroughfares were destroyed: Rue Osman Pasha, Rue de l'Attarin, Rue des Sœurs, Rue de l'Enchere, and Rue du Prophete Daniel. The French and Austrian post offices were burned, together with the Hôtel d'Europe and the Messageries Hôtel;[33] also the English, French, Greek, Portuguese, and Brazilian Consulates, the Mont de Piété, and one police-station.
Such of the European dwellings as were not burnt were looted from top to bottom; articles of furniture not easily removed were wantonly injured or destroyed. Several of the native houses and shops also suffered in the general looting carried on. Almost the only European dwellings untouched were the few in which Europeans were known to have remained.
The English Church was struck by a shell, but not otherwise injured; the German, the Coptic, the Catholic, and the Israelitish churches were also uninjured, except that the last-named received one shell. The theatres, the banks, and the tribunals escaped injury.[34]
It must be borne in mind that all this destruction was the work, not of the ships, but of the native population. The aim of the vessels, directed solely on the forts, had been so true that the damage done to the town by the half-dozen or so shells which struck it was insignificant, and, with the exception of the harem buildings at Ras-el-Tin, the British missiles did not create a single conflagration.
At the same time it is difficult to hold Admiral Seymour quite blameless in the matter. So great was the demoralization of the Egyptians that had the Admiral, on his own initiative, landed but a few hundred of the 5,880 men on board his ships on the morning of the 12th, they could easily have occupied the town and averted the catastrophe.
Curiously enough, after the mischief was done, the Admiralty on the 13th sent a telegram directly authorizing "a landing of seamen and marines for police purposes, to restore order."
During the afternoon and evening the marines of the Superb, Inflexible, Temeraire, Achilles, and Sultan were added to the forces on shore. Captain Fisher, of the Inflexible, took command of the whole force, and the patrolling of the city was begun. A company of Royal Marine artillerymen, armed as infantry, marched through the European and the Arab quarters of Alexandria. They shot some natives caught in the act of setting fire to houses, and also three of the native police, who were pillaging a house after having maltreated the Berberine door-keeper.