The siege had now continued for sixty days. Napoleon had lost nearly three thousand men, by the sword and the plague. The hospitals were full of the sick and the wounded. Still, Napoleon remitted not his efforts. “Victory,” said he, “belongs to the most persevering.” Napoleon had now expended all his cannon-balls. By a singular expedient he obtained a fresh supply. A party of soldiers was sent upon the beach, and set to work, apparently throwing up a rampart for the erection of a battery. Sir Sydney immediately approached with the English ships, and poured in upon them broadside after broadside from all his tiers. The soldiers, who perfectly comprehended the joke, convulsed with laughter, ran and collected the balls as they rolled over the sand. Napoleon ordered a dollar to be paid to the soldiers for each ball thus obtained. When this supply was exhausted, a few horsemen or wagons were sent out upon the beach, as if engaged in some important movement, when the English commodore would again approach and present them, from his plethoric magazines, with another liberal supply. Thus for a long time Napoleon replenished his exhausted stores.
One afternoon in May, a fleet of thirty sail of the line was descried in the distant horizon, approaching Acre. All eyes were instantly turned in that direction. The sight awakened intense anxiety in the hearts of both besiegers and besieged. The French hoped that they were French ships conveying to them succors from Alexandria or from France. The besieged flattered themselves that they were friendly sails, bringing to them such aid as would enable them effectually to repulse their terrible foes. The English cruisers immediately stood out of the bay to reconnoitre the unknown fleet. Great was the disappointment of the French when they saw the two squadrons unite, and the crescent of the Turk, and the pennant of England, in friendly blending, approach the bay together. The Turkish fleet brought a reinforcement of twelve thousand men, with an abundant supply of military stores. Napoleon's only hope was to capture the place before the disembarkation of these reinforcements. Calculating that the landing could not be effected in less than six hours, he resolved upon an immediate assault. In the deepening twilight, a black and massy column, issued from the trenches, and advanced, with the firm and silent steps of utter desperation, to the breach. The besieged knowing that, if they could hold out but a few hours longer, deliverance was certain, were animated to the most determined resistance. A horrible scene of slaughter ensued. The troops, from the ships, in the utmost haste, were embarked in the boats, and were pulling, as rapidly as possible, across the bay, to aid their failing friends. Sir Sydney himself headed the crews of the ships, and led them armed with pikes to the breach. The assailants gained the summit of the heap of stones into which the wall had been battered, and even forced their way into the garden of the pacha. But a perfect swarm of janizaries suddenly poured in upon them, with the keen sabre in one hand, and the dagger in the other, and in a few moments they were all reduced to headless trunks. The Turks gave no quarter. The remorseless Butcher sat in the court-yard of his palace, paying a liberal reward for the gory head of every infidel which was laid at his feet. He smiled upon the ghastly trophies heaped up in piles around him. The chivalric Sir Sydney must at times have felt not a little abashed in contemplating the deeds of his allies. He was, however, fighting to arrest the progress of free institutions, and the scimitar of the Turk was a fitting instrument to be employed in such a service. In promotion of the same object, but a few years before, the “tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage” had been called into requisition, to deluge the borders of our own land with blood. Napoleon was contending to wrest from the hand of Achmet the Butcher, his bloody scimitar. Sir Sydney, with the united despots of Turkey and of Russia, was struggling to help him retain it.
Sir Sydney also issued a proclamation to the Druses, and other Christian tribes of Syria, urging them to trust to the faith of a “Christian knight,” rather than to that of an “unprincipled renegado.” But the “Christian knight,” in the hour of victory, forgot the poor Druses, and they were left, without even one word of sympathy, to bleed, during ages whose limits can not yet be seen, beneath the dripping yataghan of the Moslem. Column after column of the French advanced to the assault, but all were repulsed with dreadful slaughter. Every hour the strength of the enemy was increasing. Every hour the forces of Napoleon were melting away, before the awful storm sweeping from the battlements. In these terrific conflicts, where immense masses were contending hand to hand, it was found that the scimitar of the Turk was a far more efficient weapon of destruction than the bayonet of the European.
Success was now hopeless. Sadly Napoleon made preparations to relinquish the enterprise. He knew that a formidable Turkish army, aided by the fleets of England and Russia, was soon to be conveyed from Rhodes to Egypt. Not an hour longer could he delay his return to meet it. Had not Napoleon been crippled by the loss of his fleet at Aboukir, victory at Acre would have been attained without any difficulty. The imagination is bewildered in contemplating the results which might have ensued. Even without the aid of the fleet, but for the indomitable activity, courage, and energy of Sir Sydney Smith, Acre would have fallen, and the bloody reign of the Butcher would have come to an end. This destruction of Napoleon's magnificent anticipations [pg 322] of Oriental conquest must have been a bitter disappointment. It was the termination of the most sanguine hope of his life. And it was a lofty ambition in the heart of a young man of twenty-six, to break the chains which bound the countless millions of Asia, in the most degrading slavery, and to create a boundless empire such as earth had never before seen, which should develop all the physical, intellectual, and social energies of man.
History can record with unerring truth the deeds of man and his avowed designs. The attempt to delineate the conflicting motives, which stimulate the heart of a frail mortal, are hazardous. Even the most lowly Christian finds unworthy motives mingling with his best actions. Napoleon was not a Christian. He had learned no lessons in the school of Christ. Did he merely wish to aggrandize himself, to create and perpetuate his own renown, by being the greatest and the best monarch earth has ever known? This is not a Christian spirit. But it is not like the spirit which demonized the heart of Nero, which stimulated the lust of Henry the Eighth, which fired the bosom of Alexander with his invincible phalanxes, and which urged Tamerlane, with his mounted hordes, to the field of blood. Our Saviour was entirely regardless of self in his endeavors to bless mankind. Even Washington, who though one of the best of mortals, must be contemplated at an infinite distance from the Son of God, seemed to forget himself in his love for his country. That absence of regard for self can not be so distinctly seen in Napoleon. He wished to be the great benefactor of the world, elevating the condition and rousing the energies of man, not that he might obtain wealth and live in splendor, not that he might revel in voluptuous indulgences, but apparently that his own name might be embalmed in glory. This is not a holy motive. Neither is it degrading and dishonorable. We hate the mercenary despot. We despise the voluptuary. But history can not justly consign Napoleon either to hatred or to contempt. Had Christian motives impelled him, making all due allowance for human frailty, he might have been regarded as a saint. Now he is but a hero.
The ambitious conqueror who invades a peaceful land, and with fire and blood subjugates a timid and helpless people, that he may bow their necks to the yoke of slavery, that he may doom them to ignorance and degradation, that he may extort from them their treasures by the energies of the dungeon, the scimetar, and the bastinado, consigning the millions to mud hovels, penury, and misery, that he and his haughty parasites may revel in voluptuousness and splendor, deserves the execrations of the world. Such were the rulers of the Orient. But we can not with equal severity condemn the ambition of him, who marches not to forge chains, but to break them; not to establish despotism, but to assail despotic usurpers; not to degrade and impoverish the people, but to ennoble, and to elevate, and to enrich them; not to extort from the scanty earnings of the poor the means of living in licentiousness and all luxurious indulgence, but to endure all toil, all hardship, all deprivation cheerfully, that the lethargic nations may be roused to enterprise, to industry, and to thrift. Such was the ambition of Napoleon. Surely it was lofty. But far more lofty is that ambition of which Christ is the great exemplar, which can bury self entirely in oblivion.
Twenty years after the discomfiture at Acre, Napoleon, when imprisoned upon the Rock of St. Helena, alluded to these dreams of his early life. “Acre once taken,” said he; “the French army would have flown to Aleppo and Damascus. In the twinkling of an eye it would have been on the Euphrates. The Christians of Syria, the Druses, the Christians of Armenia, would have joined it. The whole population of the East would have been agitated.” Some one said, he would have soon been reinforced by one hundred thousand men. “Say rather, six hundred thousand,” Napoleon replied. “Who can calculate what would have happened! I would have reached Constantinople and the Indies—I would have changed the face of the world.”
The manner in which Napoleon bore this disappointment most strikingly illustrates the truth of his own remarkable assertion. “Nature seems to have calculated that I should endure great reverses. She has given me a mind of marble. Thunder can not ruffle it. The shaft merely glides along.” Even his most intimate friends could discern no indications of discontent. He seemed to feel that it was not his destiny to found an empire in the East, and, acquiescing without a murmur, he turned his attention to other enterprises. “That man,” said he, with perfect good-nature, speaking of Sir Sydney Smith, “made me miss my destiny.” Napoleon ever manifested the most singular magnanimity in recognizing the good qualities of his enemies. He indulged in no feelings of exasperation toward Sir Sydney, notwithstanding his agency in frustrating the most cherished plan of his life.—Wurmser, with whom he engaged in such terrible conflicts in Italy, he declared to be a brave and magnanimous foe; and, in the hour of triumph, treated him with a degree of delicacy and generosity which could not have been surpassed had his vanquished antagonist been his intimate friend. Of Prince Charles, with whom he fought repeated and most desperate battles in his march upon Vienna, he remarked, “He is a good man, which includes every thing when said of a prince. He is incapable of a dishonorable action.” And even of his eccentric and versatile antagonist at Acre, Napoleon says, with great impartiality and accuracy of judgment, “Sir Sydney Smith is a brave officer. He displayed considerable ability in the treaty for the evacuation of Egypt by the French. He also manifested great honor in sending immediately to Kleber the refusal of Lord Keith to ratify the treaty, which saved the French army. If he had kept it a secret for seven or eight days longer, Cairo would have been given up to the Turks, and the French army would have been obliged to surrender to the English. [pg 323] He also displayed great humanity and honor in all his proceedings toward the French who fell into his hands. He is active, intelligent, intriguing, and indefatigable; but I believe that he is half crazy. The chief cause of the failure at Acre was, that he took all my battering train, which was on board several small vessels. Had it not been for that I should have taken Acre in spite of him. He behaved very bravely. He sent me, by means of a flag of truce, a lieutenant or midshipman, with a letter containing a challenge to me, to meet him in some place he pointed out, in order to fight a duel. I laughed at this, and sent him back an intimation that when he brought Marlborough to fight me, I would meet him. Notwithstanding this, I like the character of the man. He has certain good qualities, and, as an old enemy, I should like to see him.”
A minute dissector of human nature may discern, in this singular candor, a destitution of earnestness of principle. The heart is incapable of this indifference, when it cherishes a profound conviction of right and wrong. It is undoubtedly true that Napoleon encountered his foes upon the field of battle, with very much the same feeling with which he would meet an opponent in a game of chess. These wars were fierce conflicts between the kings and the people; and Napoleon was not angry with the kings for defending strongly their own cause. There were of course moments of irritation, but his prevailing feeling was that his foes were to be conquered, not condemned. At one time he expressed much surprise in perceiving that Alexander of Russia had allowed feelings of personal hostility to enter into the conflict. A chess-player could not have manifested more unaffected wonder, in finding his opponent in a rage at the check of his king. Napoleon does not appear often to have acted from a deep sense of moral obligation. His justice, generosity, and magnanimity were rather the instinctive impulses of a noble nature, than the result of a profound conviction of duty. We see but few indications, in the life of Napoleon, of tenderness of conscience. That faculty needs a kind of culture which Napoleon never enjoyed.
He also cherished the conviction that his opponents were urged on by the same destiny by which he believed himself to be impelled. “I am well taught,” said Dryfesdale, “and strong in the belief, that man does naught of himself. He is but the foam upon the billow, which rises, bubbles, and bursts, not by its own efforts, but by the mightier impulse of fate, which urges him.” The doctrine called destiny by Napoleon, and philosophical necessity by Priestley, and divine decrees by Calvin, assuming in each mind characteristic modifications, indicated by the name which each assigned to it, is a doctrine which often nerves to the most heroic and virtuous endeavors, and which is also capable of the most awful perversion.