During the arduous contest which subsisted for so many years among theprinci pal European power s towards the close of the eighteenth century, a French army invaded Egypt. A. force of men commanded by Bonaparte was detach ed to act against Syria in February 1799, principally, it is said, with the view of reducing Acre, in retaliation for the capture of the fort of Er Arise') by Djezzar. This army succeeded in taking every place on the route with facility, and at length reached the walls of Jaffa on the 7th of March of the same year. With regard to the consequences of the ensuing siege, the keenest contioversies have been agitated lay our contemv,raries : on the one hand it has been said, that the French exercised unheard of enormities on the •-• captured garrison : on the other, these have been as strenu ously denied.
The Turks, believing themselves invincible behind their walls, cut off the head of a messenger who carried a sum mons from Bonaparte to surrender, and did not answer it. But the French batteries being completed in three days, the fire of twelve-pounders opened at seven in the morning of the 7th, the summons having been sent at day-break, and was directed against a kind of square tower where the wall seemed weakest, on the south-west of the town. The breach appearing practicable by three o'clock, the signal was given for storming, amidst a fire well sustained by the garrison. The French advanced boldly ; but no sooner had they penetrated the streets, than they gave themselves up to the fury sanctioned by an assault, massacring who ever ventured to oppose them. a MI the horrors which accompany a storm are seen in every street, and repeated in every house. Here are heard the screams of some youthful female, the victim of violation, vainly imploring succour from her outraged mother, or calling on the name of her father, who is mercilessly murdered. No asylum is respected : streams of blood are flowing : and at each footstep appears a being groaning in the agonies of death." General Berthier ordered an officer, M. Miot, to take a detachment, and carry the wounded off the breach ; on ar riving at the spot, he found that his whole detachment had forsaken him. Titus disappointed, he entered the city. " What a spectacle," he exclaims, " was there ! the pallid hue of the inhabitants ; their terror ; the shouts of the sol diers ; women wandering about despoiled of their veils, re cognizing their dead or dying relatives among the dis figured bodies. The ground was overspread with dresses and furniture, and the soldiers selecting the richest from among the pestiferous garments." While all this was go ing on, a considerable portion of the garrison had retired into one of the forts, where they laid down their arms, and were conducted to bivouac before the tents of the gene ral's staff. The Egyptians were selected from among them, and removed : and the remainder, consisting of between 2000 and 3000, Sir Robert Wilson seems specificaliy to af firm 3800, Turkish artillerymen, Maugrabins and Arnauts, were put under the guard of a strong detachment. Next day they were sparingly supplied with biscuit, and parties of them were carried to get water in some vessels with which they had been furnished.
Meantime Bonaparte, elated with his conquest, issued proclamations to the inhabitants of the various towns of Palestine, giving them an option of peace or vvar, declar ing that he was merciful to the troops surrendering at dis cretion, but those were treated with severity who had in fringed the rights of war. He also solicited the friendship
of Djezzar, and his hostility towards the Mamelukes and the English.
It does not appear how these overtures were received, or what time was allowed for an answer ; but on the 10th of March, a little after mid-day, the prisoners of Jaffa were put in motion, surrounded by a vast square battalion form ed by the French division of General Bun. Suspicions arising in the French army regarding their disposal, in duced many not appointed for that duty to accompany the coiumns of Turks, who marched in profound silence. At length, having reached the sandy downs, about a mile south-west of Jaffa, they were halted near a marsh contain ing turbid. water, when the commanding officer of the French directed that the whole should be partitioned into small groups. The order being accompht.hed, the victims were conducted to different points, and inhumanly butch ered in cold blood : an atrocity unexampled in the modem history of civilized nations. Notwithstanding the number of troops employed in it, the execution of this horrible sacrifice required a long time, and it is affirmed that it was only with extreme repugnance that the soldiers fulfilled the duty imposed upon them. All the pi isoners suffered with the most heroic fortitude, with the exception of a sin gle youth, who made a fruitless appeal to the humanity of his merciless conquerors. Those who could accomplish it, with uncommon resignation performed that ablution which their religion enjoins, by means of the stagnant wa ter, and then bid each other adieu ; hut none ever attempt ed to escape. In narrating these events, M. \liot ob serves, I saw a respectable looking old man, whose mariner and appearance denoted super ior rank, I saw hint coolly cause a hole be dug in the sand at his feet, deep enough to admit of his being buried alive —Doubtless, he wished to perish by his own hands. Ile stretched himself on his back in this melancholy tomb, which now afforded him protection, while his comrades, offering supplicatory prayers to heaven, soon covered him up with sand. Then they stamped on the earth thus enshrouding him, as if to git e a more speedy termination to his sufferings. This spectacle made my heart palpitate witnin me. It took place w Rile the groups scattered on the downs were mas sacred. At last, of all the prisoners none remained but those who were beside the marsh. The cartridges of our soldiers were now expended ; and it was necessary to dis patch them swords and bayonets. I could no longer support this horrible butchery. I fled from it pale and ready to sink ; but several officers told me in the evening, that some of those miserable beings, yielding to that irresisti ble impulse which prompts mankhad to avoid destruction, leapt on each other, and thus received in their limbs the blow which was aimed at their hearts. If the truth must be disclosed, a frightful pyramid was reared of the dead and dying, streaming with blood ; and it became necessary to remove those who had expired, in order to murder others who, sheltered by this terrific rampart, had not yet been struck." Their bones are said to have lain long in heaps, and to have been shewn to travellers; but Dr Clarke could not find any traces of them, nor even obtain the most distant information that such a massacre had ever taken place.