In consequence of the above very handsome communication from Admiral Cornwallis, Commander in Chief of the Channel Fleet, Sir Andrew Mitchell issued the following order:
"It is my directions to the Captains of the ships, named in the margin,[5] under my orders, to communicate to the Marines, serving on board the respective ships under their command, the above letter from the Commander in Chief, and I feel equally happy their good conduct has merited such a mark of approbation from him and the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.
"(Signed) A. Mitchell.
"29th December, 1801."
Much to the credit of the Formidable, Captain Grindall, that ship was totally exempt from the diabolical spirit, and it is proper to be remarked that the thanks of the Board of Admiralty were withheld from the parties of Marines in the Vengeance and Resolution, entirely through mistake, as both were truly entitled to them, for a similar zeal, with the rest of their brother Soldiers.
I now bid adieu to the domestic transactions of 1801, and hasten to those quarters of the world, where the British character appears in all its manly and native vigour, not palsied by murmurs, but invincible by discipline.
After the desertion of Buonaparte from his Egyptian Army, and the annulment of the Treaty of El Arisch, the genius of Kleber, his successor, retrieved every thing. By the battle of Heliopolis he eventually drove the Turks across the desert to seek refuge in Gaza, recaptured Cairo, which had been formerly evacuated, and by a train of good policy as well as a system of judicious defence, rendered the French power in Egypt more firm than ever. But a dark assassin deprived their Army of this distinguished leader, after whose tragical death, the chief command devolved upon General Menou, who following the footsteps of his predecessors, and by a peculiar assimilation to the tenets and manners of the Mahometans, seemed to have resolved upon fixing a permanent Empire in Lower Egypt. He rejected, with disdain, every overture towards a renewal of the Treaty of El Arisch, and, excepting a number of Greeks embodied under the auspices of Kleber, who were trained in European tactics, rested all his hopes of defence against native inroads, or foreign invaders, in the remnants of his countrymen.
It was reserved for a branch of my corps, combined with a British Army, to assist in rooting out this powerful force, to restore those conquered dominions to their rightful Lord, and thus to close a war by subduing those motives of ambition which had continued to cherish it.
A very considerable armament, which had been employed on other services during the last year, had entered the Mediterranean, and the troops who formed a part of it, were landed at Malta and Minorca. These were destined to expel the French from Egypt, in co-operation with an Army, under General Baird, from the regions of India, and an Ottoman force, under the Grand Vizier, which was to cross the deserts of Syria.
Lord Keith, with the English fleet, rendezvoused early in January 1801, in the Bay of Marmorice, on the coast of Caramania,[6] where preparations, necessary for the intended expedition, were carried on. Two days previous to their sailing for Egypt, his Lordship signified his directions to Lieutenant Colonel Smith, who commanded the Marines, to hold himself in readiness to disembark with the Officers and men from the different ships, and to place himself under the orders of General Sir Ralph Abercrombie; at the same time vesting him with a power of issuing such preparatory instructions as he might deem proper for the future regulations of his battalion.