mise, and to revive the languid expectations of the army.

None contributed more to the success of this fatal day than the army of Italy, which, to the eternal disgrace of Bonaparte, was permitted to overawe the councils, and to assume to itself the whole power of the state.

Such a service could not be overlooked: their claim to a portion of the milliard became doubly valid, and as the war in Italy was now supposed to be at an end, thousands of them returned to France 'to claim it.

Here began the difficulties of the Directory. They had no money to give; but it was not expedient to confess it: and the expedition to Egypt was, therefore, brought forward, as an excellent expedient for quieting the present clamour, and providing for forty thousand veteran troops, inured to plunder, and impatient of controul; who were too sensible of their merits, to be quietly laid aside; and too urgent in their demands, to be cajoled with empty promises.

Hence arose the expedition to Egypt. The plunder of the Venitian docks and arsenals, had fortunately furnished them with a vast quantity of naval stores, and with several ships of the line, frigates, &c. With the former, they fitted out the vessels in the port of Toulon; and they collected transports from every quarter. While these prepa

rations were going on, the cupidity and ardour of the troops were artfully inflamed by ambiguous hints of an expedition that was to eclipse, in immediate advantages, the boasted conquests of Cortes and Pizarro.

To promote the farce (for such we are persuaded it was), artists of all kinds, chymists, botanists, members of the pyro-technical school in prodigious numbers, and we know not what quantities of people calling themselves Savans, were collected from every part of France, and driven to Toulon in shoals. When all these were safely embarked, Bonaparte assembled the Italian army, (amounting to 22,000 men), and after gravely promising them on his honour, which he observed had ever been sacred, that they should each receive on their return money enough to purchase six acres and a half of good land, took them on board, and tranquilly proceeded to bury them all in Egypt.

On his route he collected near twenty thousand more of the army of Italy-sturdy beggars, who might have disquieted the Directory if they had been suffered to remain in Europe, and who will now contribute with their fortunate comrades, to fatten the vultures of Grand Cairo.

We shall not stop to notice the capture, as it is called, of Malta,* nor the various gambols that

* That event had been secured before Bonaparte left Toulon, by the intrigues and largesses of Poussielgue: these

were played by this unwieldy armament in the Mediterranean, but having conducted it in safety to Alexandria, return to make a few miscellaneous observations on its outset, supposed destination, &c.

The first circumstance that strikes us, is the extreme ignorance of the French, with regard to the country they were going to desolate and destroy. They had had connections with its ports for ages, and yet they appear to have known no more of its interior, than the inhabitants of the moon. This want of knowledge was universal-from the Commander in Chief* to the meanest soldier in the army, all was darkness, and blind confidence in the blindest of guides!

The "Savans" were not a whit better informed than the rest-like Phaëton,

"They hop'd, perhaps, to meet with pleasing woods, " And stately fanes, and cities fill'd with gods :-”

and like him too, we imagine, they have found a general conflagration, and a river!

Now we have mentioned these men, it may not be amiss to inquire into the services the general

have been since laid open by the Bailli Teignie, and others; and made the subject of a formal accusation against the Grand Master Hompesch, by the Knights who have taken refuge in Germany, Russia, &c.

In a letter of Bonaparte's to the Directory; dated July 6th, he says, "this country is any thing but what travellers, and story tellers represent it to be."

literature of Europe is likely to derive from their exertions; services, be it remembered, for which the Directory, who forced them on board, have already received the felicitation of all the "friends of liberty."

The inquiry will be short. All the mention we find of them, from the hour of their embarkation to the present, is contained in Berthier's letter to the Consuls of the Roman Republic. "The Savans Monge, Bertolet, Boursienne, &c." says he, "fought with the greatest courage; they did not quit the General's side during any part of the action, and they proved by their exertions, that in combatting THE ENEMIES OF THEIR COUNTRY, every Frenchman is a soldier," &c.

Thus we find that the "enlightened geniuses of the eighteenth century," who were to explore the construction of the Pyramids, to dive into the Catacombs, to wind through the mazes of the sacred labyrinth, to dig up the mystic volumes of Hermes, and, in a word, to roam" with free foot" from the

The cant of the French is even more shocking than their enormities. They invade a friendly country, which they wantonly devote to pillage and devastation; and the leaders of this ferocious horde of savages have the detestable insolence to call the unoffending people whom they are exterminating for the crime of endeavouring to protect their lives and properties, and who are utterly and alike ignorant of them and their sanguinary employers-" THE ENEMIES OF FRANCE."

Cataracts to the seven mouths of the Nile; are become mere men of blood, obliged to cling to the troops for protection, and unable to advance a single step to the right or left, beyond the reach of the musquetry or cannon of the army!

But the imbecillity displayed in the outset of this strange expedition, is not more extraordinary than the obstinacy with which it has been held up to the admiration of Europe. Either ignorance, or fear, or Jacobinism, has been always at hand-to suggest a greatness of plan, where there was little, in fact, but blind hazard-to whisper a combination of means amidst the want of every thing, and to promise infallible success to men whose every step was attended with destruction and despair!

While the army was yet on its way to the place of its destination, the old plans of the French Government were in every mouth; and the wisdom was loudly applauded which was to attach the Beys to the invader, crush the dominion of the Porte, and secure the country for ever to the "Great Nation."

Bonaparte arrives, and reverses the whole scheme. The Beys are now to be crushed, because they alone have the power to resist: and the sovereignty of Constantinople is to be upheld, because it is inefficient. The applause was louder than before! "Better and better still," cried the sagacious discoverers of deep design in all the bedlam tricks of