Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 389, March 1848

It was at this moment that the spirit and talents of Sir Sidney had their full effect. If he had continued to depend on the fire of his boats, the place would have been taken. The French were already masters of a part of the works, and they would probably have rushed into the town before the troops of Hassan Bey could have reached the shore.

"This," says the despatch, "was a most critical point, and an effort was necessary to preserve the place until their arrival. I accordingly landed the boats at the mole, and took the crews up to the breach, armed with pikes. The enthusiastic gratitude of the Turks, men, women, and children, at the sight of such a reinforcement, at such a time, is not to be described; many fugitives returned with us to the breach, which we found defended by a few brave Turks, whose most destructive weapons were heavy stones.

"Djezzar Pasha, hearing that the English were on the breach, quitted his station, where, according to ancient Turkish custom, he was sitting to reward such as should bring him the heads of the enemy, and distributing musket cartridges with his own hands. The energetic old man, coming behind us, pulled us down with violence, saying, that if any thing happened to his English friends, all was lost.

"A sortie was now proposed by Sir Sidney, but the Turkish regiment which made it was repulsed. A new breach was made, and it was evident that a new assault in superior force was intended.

"Buonaparte, with a group of generals, was seen on Cœur-de-Lion's Mount, and by his gesticulation, and his despatching an aide-de-camp to the camp, he showed that he only waited for a reinforcement. A little before sunset, a massive column was seen advancing to the breach with solemn step." The Pasha now reverted to his native style of fighting, and with capital effect. "His idea was, not to defend the breach this time, but to let a certain number in, and then close with them, according to the Turkish mode of war. The column thus mounted the breach unmolested, and descended from the rampart into the Pasha's garden, where, in a very few minutes, the most advanced among them lay headless; the sabre, with the addition of a dagger in the other hand, proving more than a match for the bayonet. In this attack, General Lannes, commanding the assault, was wounded, and General Rambaut, with a hundred and fifty men, were killed. The rest retreated precipitately.

"Buonaparte will, no doubt, renew the attack, the breach being perfectly practicable for fifty men abreast! Indeed, the town is not, nor ever has been, defensible by the rules of art. But, according to every other rule, it must and shall be defended. Not that it is worth defending, but we feel that it is by this breach Buonaparte means to march to further conquest.

"'Tis on the issue of this conflict that depends the opinion of the multitude of spectators on the surrounding hills, who wait only to see how it ends, to join the victor. And with such a reinforcement for the execution of his well-known projects, Constantinople, and even Vienna, must feel the shock."

The siege continued, perhaps as no other siege ever continued before; it was a succession of assaults, frequently by night. From the 2d of May to the 9th, there were no less than nine of those assaults! In another letter he writes: —

"Our labour is excessive; many of us, among whom is our active, zealous friend, Phelypeaux, have died of fatigue. I am but half dead; but Buonaparte brings fresh troops to the assault two or three times in the night, while we are obliged to be always under arms. He has lost the flower of his army in these desperate attempts to storm, as appears by the certificates of service which they had in their pockets, and eight generals."

From this period the desperation of Buonaparte was evident. Besides the eight generals killed, he had lost eighty officers, all his guides, carabineers, and most of his artillerymen, – in all, upwards of four thousand soldiers. But the desperation was in vain. All the assaults were repulsed with slaughter. The French grenadiers mounted the breach, only to be shot or sabred. At length, the division of Kleber was sent for. It had gone to the fords of the Jordan to watch the movements of the Turkish army, and had acquired distinction in the Egyptian campaign by the character of its general, and by its successes against the irregular horse of the Desert. On its arrival, it was instantly ordered to the assault. But the attempt was met with the usual bravery of the garrison; and Kleber, after a struggle of three hours, was repulsed. All was now hopeless on the part of the enemy. The French grenadiers absolutely refused to mount to the assault again. Buonaparte was furious at his failure, but where force was useless, he still had a resource in treachery. He sent a flag of truce into the town to propose an armistice for the burial of the dead, whose remains were already poisoning the air. This might naturally produce some relaxation of vigilance; and while the proposal was under consideration, a volley of shot and shells was fired. This was the preliminary to an assault. It, however, was repulsed; and the Turks, indignant at the treachery, were about to sacrifice the messenger who bore the flag. But Sir Sidney humanely interposed, carried him to his ship, and sent him back to the French general with a message of contempt and shame.

Retreat was now the only measure available, and it began on the night of the 20th of May. The battering-train of twenty-three pieces was left behind. The wounded and field-guns had been suddenly embarked in country vessels, and sent towards Jaffa. Sir Sidney put to sea to follow them, and the vessels containing the wounded, instead of attempting to continue their flight, steered down at once to their pursuers, and solicited water and provisions. They received both, and were sent to Damietta. "Their expressions of gratitude were mingled with execrations against their general, who had thus," they said, "exposed them to perish."

As the garrison was without cavalry, the pursuit of the flying enemy could not be followed with any decisive effect. But the gun-boats of the English and Turks continued constantly discharging grapeshot on them, so long as they moved within reach of the shore, and the Turkish infantry fired on them when their march turned inland. Their loss was formidable; the whole tract, between Acre and Gaza, was strewed with the bodies of those who died either of fatigue or wounds. At length two thousand cavalry were put in motion by the Turkish governor of Jaffa, making prisoners all the French who were left on the road, with their guns; and nothing but the want of a strong body of fresh troops to fall on the enemy seems to have prevented the capture of every battalion of that army, which, but two months before, had boasted of marching to Constantinople.

It ought to be remembered, as the crowning honour to his human honours, that the man who had gained those successes, was not forgetful of the true source of all victories which deserve the name. Sir Sidney had gone to Nazareth, and there made this expressive memorandum: —

"I am just returned from the Cave of the Annunciation, where, secretly and alone, I have been returning thanks to the Almighty for our late wonderful success. Well may we exclaim, 'the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.' W. S. S."

It may naturally be presumed that the whole progress of the siege had interested the fleet and army of England in the highest degree. There had been nothing like the defence of Acre in all the history of European war. A siege is pronounced, by military authorities, to be the most certain operation in war; with a fixed number of troops, and a fixed number of guns in the trenches, the strongest place must fall within a prescribed time. But here was a town almost open, and with no other garrison, for the first six weeks of the siege, than a battalion of half-disciplined Mussulmans, headed by such men as could be spared from two British ships of war.

The whole defence was justly regarded by the nation, less as a bold military service, than as an exploit– one of those singular achievements which are exhibited from time to time, as if to show how far intrepidity and talent combined can go; a splendid example and encouragement to the brave never to doubt, and to the intelligent never to suppose that the resources of a resolute heart can be exhausted.

But the siege of Acre did more. It certainly relieved the Sultaun from a pressure which might have endangered his throne. It may have saved India from an expedition down the Red Sea, for which the native princes looked, with their habitual hatred of their British masters; and above all, it told England that her people were as invincible on shore as on the waves, and prepared her soldiery for those triumphs which were to make the renown of the Peninsular war imperishable.

On the meeting of parliament in September 1799, George III. opened the session with an energetic speech, in which the siege of Acre held a prominent part. The speech said – "The French expedition to Egypt has continued to be productive of calamity and disgrace to our enemies, while its ultimate views against our Eastern possessions have been utterly confounded. The desperate attempt which they have lately made to extricate themselves from their difficulties, has been defeated by the courage of the Turkish forces, directed by the skill, and animated by the courage of the British officer, with the small portion of my naval force under his command."

In the discussion, a few days after, the thanks of the Lords to Sir Sidney Smith, and the seamen and officers under his command, were moved by Lord Spencer, the first Lord of the Admiralty, in terms of the highest compliment.

His lordship said, that he had now to take notice of an exploit which had never been surpassed, and had scarcely ever been equalled; – he meant the defence of St Jean d' Acre by Sir Sidney Smith. He had no occasion to impress upon their lordships a higher sense than they already entertained of the brilliancy, utility, and distinction of an achievement, in which a general of great celebrity, and a veteran and victorious army, were, after a desperate and obstinate engagement, which lasted almost without intermission for sixty days, not only repulsed, but totally defeated by the heroism of this British officer, and the small number of troops under his command.

Lord Hood said, that he could not give a vote on the present occasion without bearing his testimony to the skill and valour of Sir Sidney Smith, which had been so conspicuously and brilliantly exerted, when he had the honour and the benefit of having him under his command (at Toulon).

Lord Grenville said, that the circumstance of so eminent a service having been performed with so inconsiderable a force, was with him an additional reason for affording this testimony of public gratitude, and the highest honour which the House had it in its power to confer.

His Lordship then adverted to his imprisonment in the Temple. "In defiance of every principle of humanity, and of all the acknowledged rules of war, Sir Sidney Smith had been, with the most cold and cruel inflexibility, confined in a dungeon of the Temple; but the French, by making him an exception to the general usages of war, had only manifested their sense of his value, and how much they were afraid of him." In the House of Commons, Mr Dundas, the Secretary of State, after alluding to the apprehensions of the country, the expedition to Egypt, and the memorable victory of Aboukir, said, "that the conduct of Sir Sidney Smith was so surprising to him, that he hardly knew how to speak of it. He had not recovered from the astonishment which the account of the action had thrown him into. However, so it was; and the merit of Sir Sidney Smith was now the object of consideration, and to praise or to esteem which sufficiently, was quite impossible."

The thanks of both Lords and Commons were voted unanimously; the thanks of the Corporation of London and the thanks of the Levant Company were voted, with a piece of plate. The king gave him a pension of £1000 a-year for life; and the Sultaun sent him a rich pelisse and diamond aigrette, both of the same quality as those which had been sent to Nelson.

We now hasten over a great deal of anxious and complicated correspondence, explanatory of a convention entered into with the French for the evacuation of Egypt. Kleber, indignant at Buonaparte's flight, and his army disgusted with defeat, proposed a capitulation, by which they were to be sent to France. The distinction which Sir Sidney had now attained even with the French army, had made him the negotiator, and all was preparation to embark, when Lord Keith informed him, by orders from home, that the French must surrender as prisoners of war.

The armistice was instantly at an end. The Turks, who with their usual indolence had remained loitering in sight of Cairo, were attacked in force and broken, and all was war again. Sir Sidney's letters deprecate the measure in the strongest terms. And nothing can be clearer than that, though our expedition under Abercrombie was glorious, Sir Sidney's treaty would have saved us the expenditure of a couple of millions of money, and, what was more valuable, have spared the lives of many brave men on both sides; while the result would have been the same, as it was not our purpose to retain Egypt. Eventually, the French army capitulated in Egypt to Lord Hutchinson, on nearly the terms of the convention of the year before; and to the amount of about twenty thousand men were sent home in British vessels.

Sir Sidney's reception in England was by acclamation. But we must conclude. He was immediately employed in the defence of the coast, as the threats of invasion came loudly from France. He afterwards sailed to the defence of the Neapolitan territories. He was then sent to the protection of the King of Portugal during the French invasion, and conveyed him and his nobles to the Brazils. Where-ever any thing bold, new, or active, was required, the public eyes were instantly fixed on him, and they were never disappointed.

After the peace of 1815, he resided chiefly on the Continent, and died in Paris on the 26th of May 1840, aged 76.

The essential merit of this distinguished officer's character was, that his whole heart was in his profession; that all his views, his acquirements, his leisure, and his active pursuits, were directed towards it; and that he never lounged or lingered, or lay on his laurels, or thought that "any thing was done while any thing remained to be done."

It is observable, that all his successes arose out of his indefatigable activity and sincere zeal. If he had stayed dancing or gaming or feasting, a week longer, in Constantinople, he would have only seen Acre in possession of the French. The same principle and the same result existed in every instance of his career. He had his oddities and his fantasies in later life, but all were covered by the knightly spirit, romantic bravery, and public services of his early days. He was the chevalier of the noblest navy in the world!

MY ROUTE INTO CANADA

The sources of the Hudson must be sought in those wilds of the state of New York which lie in the interior between Lake Ontario and Lake Champlain. The tide of immigration setting westward through the valley of the Mohawk, or eddying about the shores of those lakes, has insulated that region of country, and it remains to this day almost a wilderness. Within a morning's ride from the springs of Saratoga, where luxury and fashion keep holiday from June to September, one can find oneself in a solitude that would become the Rocky Mountains. The amateur Daniel Boone may there roam through the primeval forest, and even yet snap his trigger at the wild buck, or engage the panther and bear.

Starting from such a cradle, the Hudson, like a young Hercules playing with serpents, catches up a hundred little tributary brooks, and goes leaping and brawling through the woods till it finds itself a river. Then, gathering size and strength through every curve of its way, it turns eastward to seek its fortunes in the big world. As if on purpose to try its strength and power, it comes roaring to the rocks at Glenn's falls, and there flings itself down in a froth, with the air of a stripling who signalises his majority by a terrible outbreak from parental restraint. Then, with a graceful sweep that seems the result of society upon the young forester's impetuosity, it turns its full tide into a picturesque valley, and, bending southward, begins its bright and prosperous career. Awhile it loiters along, now winding through meadows, now murmuring through glens; and then, catching to its strong embrace the lovely Mohawk that comes down with her roar of waters to meet it, the espoused Hudson, with a new dignity, that soon swells into majesty, takes its straight and glorious course through sloping uplands and mountain passes, to lose itself in the sea.

From the point where it receives the Mohawk, full a hundred and fifty miles above New York, the Hudson becomes navigable for vessels with keels. Higher up, it floats only the flat-boat and canoe. Ascending its banks till they turn abruptly westward, you have but twenty miles of land-travel to the head of Lake Champlain; from which a delightful trip through a hundred miles of mountain scenery brings you fairly into Canada. Or, if you follow up the river to Glenn's falls, 'tis only a rambbler's walk to the head of Lake George, whose quiet and unburdened waters are out of the thoroughfare, but, lying parallel with Lake Champlain, return you to the direct line of travel through the ravines of its romantic outlet at Ticonderoga. Thus, from the Mohawk to the St Lawrence, through this charming section of America, you have every where a profusion of interest in the natural scenery; and whether you would see lake, mountain, river, or cataract, you may find them all to your taste, in a wilderness that retains somewhat of that fresh beauty which fancy attributes to the world before the Flood.

So long ago as the summer of 18 – , I was a traveller in these regions, making my way into Canada. In those days there were no railways in America. By the steamer, Chancellor Livingston, I had ascended the Hudson to Albany in something less than twenty-four hours. From Albany to Lake Champlain I was one of a party chartering a post-coach, and permitted by the terms of our contract to make as easy stages as might suit our pleasure or convenience. At Whitehall we took a small sailing-craft down the lake a hundred miles and more, to Plattsburgh; and thence, resuming the land route, made our way into Canada. Compared with the more modern rate of travel, we went at a snail's pace; but with all its inconveniences, our way of making the journey had its peculiar benefits and charms. We were less superficial observers of men and things than railway passengers can possibly be. We were intelligent persons; we conversed with the men of the soil; we asked questions of plain farmers and sailors, and heard with pleasure their long stories of ancient battles in those parts, from the days of the Iroquois to the days of General Brock. We stopped by the roadside and examined places of interest, and took views of beautiful landscapes from commanding heights. And now I can say of my route into Canada what Wordsworth says of the Wye: —

"Those beauteous scenes,Through a long absence, have not been to meAs is a landscape to a blind man's eye;But oft in lonely rooms, and mid the dinOf towers and cities, I have owed to them,In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart."

In many such hours I have refreshed my memory by recurring also to such books of tourists as I have at hand, but especially in the later authors of this kind I have found little satisfaction. They all seem to have hurried over their journey without stopping to take breath; and I am inclined to believe that I was lucky in beginning my travels, while as yet the spirit of the nineteenth century was only just putting on its seven-leagued boots, and still permitted the good habit of hastening slowly. Let me, then, go over my former stages, at least in fancy; and while I interweave my histories with the personal adventures of an old-fashioned traveller, let me be met also by some of the indulgence humanely accorded to narrative old age.

Our travelling party had been thrown together less by choice than accident; and for our commander-in-chief we had unfortunately selected as wild a young Irish officer as was ever turned loose from Cork to fight his fortunes in the world. Fitz-Freke, as he called himself, had no single qualification for being our "guide, philosopher, and friend," except a boasted familiarity with the way. He had travelled it very often, and indeed seemed to hang somewhat loosely to his regiment, which was stationed at Montreal. Before we had half finished our first day's drive, we had begun to wish furloughs and half-pay had never been invented; and I am sorry to add, that his affectionate recollections of his family in Cork led him quite too frequently to the bottle. Poor Freke! we profited by his good-humour, yet abused his forbearance under rebuke; and I must own in justice, that when we at last parted company, and were to see no more of him, we were all ready to protest that he was, after all, as downright a worthy as ever buttoned an Irishman's heart beneath a buff waistcoat.

Leaving Albany before the day began to be hot, we went rapidly through the green levels upon its right bank, and crossed the river at Troy. Here we were conducted to Mount Ida, and by a geographical miracle made an easy transition to Mount Olympus, from which the view is extensive, but by no means celestial. Freke seemed to think there was some reason to suspect a hoax; but as his classical information was not of the most accurate description, I am not sure but he still labours under the impression that he has stood where the three goddesses displayed their charms to Paris; and smoked a cigar where that botheration siege was as interminably contested, as were ever those consequent hexameters of Virgil and Homer, which he adorned with dog's-ears and thumb-prints, under the diurnal ferule of his tutor. In passing through the streets, we were gratified to observe that, in spite of Diomede and Ulysses, Troy still retains its "Palladium of liberty, and independent free press;" and though we could discover no relics of the famous wooden-horse, I notice in the accounts of later tourists that an "iron horse" may now be found there in harness, which daily brings strangers into the heart of the city without any incendiary effect. Such is the change of manners and times since the days of the pious Æneas!

We rattled over a bridge, and had a fine view of the mouths of the Mohawk. Here are numerous islands, with steep sides and piny summits, to which the American General Schuyler retreated before Burgoyne, and prepared to sustain an investment. While arranging his defences, he was unjustly deprived of his command, at the very moment when, by the arrival of additional force, he would have been enabled to turn upon his pursuers; and thus the laurels of the subsequent victory were put into the hand of General Gates, while the worst effects of the expedition fell upon the estates of Schuyler, which were ravaged by the advancing foe. Gates appears to have been in all respects inferior to the gallant officer whom he superseded; and as he had the full advantage of Schuyler's preparatory measures, there is a deep jealousy of his fame, which must account for the fact noticed by the author of "Hochelaga," that he is by no means credited by his countrymen with the vastly important consequences of the capture of Burgoyne. "Gates has been called the hero of Saratoga," – says an American biographer, – "but it has a sound of mockery."

The county of Saratoga through which we were now passing, if not in these parts remarkable for scenery, is nevertheless full of interesting places, as having been the field of some of the warmest contests of the American Revolution. Traditions also still linger among its inhabitants of the earlier battles with the Indians and French; and authentic anecdotes are frequently reviving upon the road, which those who are familiar with the romances of Cooper will recognise, at once, as the ground-work of some of his fictions. So far as is possible, therefore, in America, we were now on historical ground. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, the valley of the Mohawk was filled with those fierce nations of savages called the Iroquois. The shores of the St Lawrence harboured their deadly enemies, the Adirondachs, who belonged to the powerful race of Algonquins. At the same time, the advance-guard of English adventure was pressing up through the Hudson; and from Quebec, the pioneers of New France were pushing their way towards the Mohawk. The inveterate foes of two continents thus encountered one another in the passes of Lake George and Lake Champlain; and these natural channels of reciprocal invasion became, of course, the scenes of frequent collision and deadly strife. When these preliminary feuds were ended, and the power of England reposed on both banks of the St Lawrence, the earliest and fiercest affrays of the war of Independence found here their inevitable fields. The first years of the present century were again disgraced by war between England and America, and instinctively the tide of battle returned to its old channels; and if ever – which God forefend – the mother and the daughter should fall out again, it cannot be doubted that the same passes must echo once more to the tread of martial men, and the same waters be crimsoned with the blood of brethren. They are the very breeding-places of border-feud; and Nature has furnished them with that wild luxuriance of beauty with which she loves to prepare for history, and by which she seems to challenge her to do as much again, in adorning it with romantic associations.