An armament accordingly sailed from Melazzo, on the coast of Sicily, in February, 1807, under the command of Major-General Alexander Mackenzie Fraser, Colonel of the seventy-eighth regiment, and landed at Aboukir on the 18th of March. On the 21st of March, Alexandria was occupied by the British troops, and it is a singular coincidence that it was the anniversary of the battle fought near there in the year 1801, when the gallant General Sir Ralph Abercromby received the wound which terminated his honorable career.
On the 27th of March a force of fifteen hundred men, of which the THIRTY-FIRST regiment formed part, was detached under the command of Major-General Wauchope to Rosetta. The troops arrived before the city on the 31st of March, and not having been impeded in their progress to the environs, entered the place. The THIRTY-FIRST regiment marched into Rosetta, while the grenadier battalion occupied a high sandy mound without the city.
Rosetta is situated upon a slight eminence, commanding a view of the river Nile and the fertile lands of the Delta; the streets are somewhat wider than the generality of Egyptian towns, and planted here and there with trees. The houses are high, the lower half of each being a dead wall, with a small door, leading into a narrow passage, well secured with bolts and bars of iron. The chambers are above, with trelliced windows projecting over the streets. The Turks had garrisoned their houses, and remaining quiet, allowed the British to continue their march until some way into the town, when through the loop-holes they had constructed on purpose, and their trelliced windows, a destructive and unexpected fire was opened upon the column. The troops, although placed in a most trying and perilous situation, behaved extremely well, and after having suffered very materially in killed and wounded, retired to Aboukir, from whence they returned to Alexandria.
Major-General Wauchope, who commanded the force, was killed; the THIRTY-FIRST regiment had Captain John Robertson, three serjeants, three drummers, and sixty-nine rank and file killed; Captain Patrick Dowdall, Lieutenants Edward Knox, Peter Fearon, John Thornton, —— Sladden, and Francis Ryan, Ensign Richard Kirby, seven serjeants, one drummer, and one hundred and twenty-nine rank and file wounded. Lieutenant Sladden subsequently died of his wounds.
Brigadier-General the Honorable Robert Meade (Lieutenant-Colonel of the THIRTY-FIRST), the second in command, was also severely wounded.
Major-General Fraser finding that a famine would be the consequence of the British remaining at Alexandria, without the occupation of Rosetta, detached another body of troops, amounting to two thousand five hundred men, under Brigadier-General the Honorable William Stewart, to reduce the place. The force consisted of a detachment of Royal Artillery, a detachment of the twentieth light dragoons, light infantry battalion, first battalion of the thirty-fifth regiment, second battalion of the seventy-eighth regiment, the Baron De Roll’s regiment, and a detachment of seamen. A large Turkish force coming down the Nile from Cairo, the troops were compelled to retire, fighting all the way to Alexandria.
A formidable force now approached Alexandria, and Major-General Fraser sent a flag of truce offering to evacuate Egypt, on condition that the British prisoners should be liberated. The proposal was readily accepted, and on the 19th of September the British troops embarked for Sicily, where they arrived on the 16th of October.
1808
The first battalion of the THIRTY-FIRST regiment embarked from Sicily for Malta, on the 17th of September, 1808, where it remained until August, 1810, when it returned to Sicily.