Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol IV. No. XX. January, 1852.

“O Powerful Goodness! Bountiful Father! Merciful Guide! Increase in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen my resolution to perform what that wisdom dictates. Accept my kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power for thy continual favors to me.”

Franklin persevered in his efforts to improve himself in moral excellence, by means of this record, for a long time. He thought he made great progress, and that his plan was of lasting benefit to him. He found, however, that he could not, as at first he fondly hoped, make himself perfect. He consoled himself at last, he said, by the idea that it was not best, after all, for any one to be absolutely perfect. He used to say that this willingness on his part to be satisfied with retaining some of his faults, when he had become wearied and discouraged with the toil and labor of removing them, reminded him of the case of one of his neighbors, who went to buy an ax of a smith. The ax, as is usual with this tool, was ground bright near the edge, while the remainder of the surface of the iron was left black, just as it had come from the forge. The man wished to have his ax bright all over, and the smith said that he would grind it bright if the man would turn the grindstone.

So the man went to the wheel by which it seems the grindstone was turned, through the intervention of a band, and began his labor. The smith held the ax upon the stone, broad side down, leaning hard and heavily. The man came now and then to see how the work went on. The brightening he found went on slowly. At last, wearied with the labor, he said that he would take the ax as it then was, without grinding it any more. “Oh, no,” said the smith, “turn on, turn on; we shall have it bright by-and-by. All that we have done yet has only made it speckled.” “Yes,” said the man, “but I think I like a speckled ax best.” So he took it away.

In the same manner Franklin said that he himself seemed to be contented with a character somewhat speckled, when he found how discouraging was the labor and toil required to make it perfectly bright.

During all this time Franklin went on more and more prosperously in business, and was continually enlarging and extending his plans. He printed a newspaper which soon acquired an extensive circulation. He commenced the publication of an almanac, which was continued afterward for twenty-five years, and became very celebrated under the name of Poor Richard’s Almanac. At length the spirit of enterprise which he possessed went so far as to lead him to send one of his journeymen to establish a branch printing-office in Charleston, South Carolina. This branch, however, did not succeed very well at first, though, after a time, the journeyman who had been sent out died, and then his wife, who was an energetic and capable woman, took charge of the business, and sent Franklin accounts of the state of it promptly and regularly. Franklin accordingly left the business in her hands, and it went on very prosperously for several years: until at last the woman’s son grew up, and she purchased the office for him, with what she had earned and saved.

Notwithstanding the increasing cares of business, and the many engagements which occupied his time and attention, Franklin did not, during all this time, in any degree remit his efforts to advance in the acquisition of knowledge. He studied French, and soon made himself master of that language so far as to read it with ease. Then he undertook the Italian. A friend of his, who was also studying Italian, was fond of playing chess, and often wished Franklin to play with him. Franklin consented on condition that the penalty for being beaten should be to have some extra task to perform in the Italian grammar – such as the committing to memory of some useful portion of the grammar, or the writing of exercises. They were accordingly accustomed to play in this way, and the one who was beaten, had a lesson assigned him to learn, or a task to perform, and he was bound upon his honor to fulfill this duty before the next meeting.

After having acquired some proficiency in the Italian language Franklin took up the Latin. He had studied Latin a little when a boy at school, at the time when his father contemplated educating him for the church. He had almost entirely forgotten what he had learned of the language at school, but he found, on looking into a Latin Testament, that it would be very easy for him to learn the language now, on account of the knowledge which he had acquired of French and Italian. His experience in this respect led him to think that the common mode of learning languages was not a judicious one. “We are told,” says he, “that it is proper to begin first with the Latin, and having acquired that, it will be more easy to attain those modern languages which are derived from it; and yet we do not begin with the Greek in order more easily to acquire the Latin.” He then compares the series of languages to a staircase. It is true that if we contrive some way to clamber to the upper stair, by the railings or by some other method, without using the steps, we can then easily reach any particular stair by coming down, but still the simplest and the wisest course would seem to be to walk up directly from the lower to the higher in regular gradation.

“I would therefore,” he adds, “offer it to the consideration of those who superintend the education of our youth, whether, since many of those who begin with the Latin quit the same after spending some years, without having made any great proficiency, and what they have learned becomes almost useless, so that their time has been lost, it would not have been better to have begun with the French, proceeding to the Italian and Latin; for though after spending the same time they should quit the study of languages, and never arrive at the Latin, they would, however, have acquired another tongue or two that, being in modern use, might be serviceable to them in common life.”

It was now ten years since Franklin had been at Boston, and as he was getting well established in business, and easy in his circumstances, he concluded to go there and visit his relations. His brother, Mr. James Franklin, the printer to whom he had been apprenticed when a boy, was not in Boston at this time. He had removed to Newport. On his return from Boston, Franklin went to Newport to see him. He was received by his brother in a very cordial and affectionate manner, all former differences between the two brothers being forgotten by mutual consent. He found his brother in feeble health, and fast declining – and apprehending that his death was near at hand. He had one son, then ten years of age, and he requested that in case of his death Benjamin would take this child and bring him up to the printing business. Benjamin promised to do so. A short time after this his brother died, and Franklin took the boy, sent him to school for a few years, and then took him into his office, and brought him up to the business of printing. His mother carried on the business at Newport until the boy had grown up, and then Franklin established him there, with an assortment of new types and other facilities. Thus he made his brother ample amends for the injury which he had done him by running away from his service when he was a boy.

On his return from Boston, Franklin found all his affairs in Philadelphia in a very prosperous condition. His business was constantly increasing, his income was growing large, and he was beginning to be very widely known and highly esteemed, throughout the community. He began to be occasionally called upon to take some part in general questions relating to the welfare of the community at large. He was appointed postmaster for Philadelphia. Soon after this he was made clerk of the General Assembly, the colonial legislature of Pennsylvania. He began, too, to pay some attention to municipal affairs, with a view to the better regulation of the public business of the city. He proposed a reform in the system adopted for the city watch. The plan which had been pursued was for a public officer to designate every night a certain number of householders, taken from the several wards in succession, who were to perform the duty of watchmen. This plan was, however, found to be very inefficient, as the more respectable people, instead of serving themselves, would pay a fine to the constable to enable him to hire substitutes; and these substitutes were generally worthless men who spent the night in drinking, instead of faithfully attending to their duties.

Franklin proposed that the whole plan should be changed; he recommended that a tax should be levied upon the people, and a regular body of competent watchmen employed and held to a strict responsibility in the performance of their duty. This plan was adopted, and proved to be a very great improvement on the old system.

It was also much more just; for people were taxed to pay the watchmen in proportion to their property, and thus they who had most to be protected paid most.

Franklin took a great interest, too, about this time, in promoting a plan for building a large public edifice in the heart of the city, to accommodate the immense audiences that were accustomed to assemble to hear the discourses of the celebrated Mr. Whitefield. The house was built by public contribution. When finished, it was vested in trustees, expressly for the use of any preacher of any religious persuasion, who might desire to address the people of Philadelphia. In fact, Franklin was becoming more and more a public man, and soon after this time, he withdrew almost altogether from his private pursuits, and entered fully upon his public career. The history of his adventures in that wider sphere must be postponed to some future Number.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.[1 - Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.]

BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT

Napoleon’s Expedition to Egypt was one of the most magnificent enterprises which human ambition ever conceived. When Napoleon was a schoolboy at Brienne, his vivid imagination became enamored of the heroes of antiquity, and ever dwelt in the society of the illustrious men of Greece and Rome. Indulging in solitary walks and pensive musings, at that early age he formed vague and shadowy, but magnificent conceptions of founding an Empire in the East, which should outvie in grandeur all that had yet been told in ancient or in modern story. His eye wandered along the shores of the Persian Gulf, and the Caspian Sea, as traced upon the map, and followed the path of the majestic floods of the Euphrates, the Indus, and the Ganges, rolling through tribes and nations, whose myriad population, dwelling in barbaric pomp and pagan darkness, invited a conqueror. “The Persians,” exclaimed this strange boy, “have blocked up the route of Tamerlane, but I will open another.” He, in those early dreams, imagined himself a conqueror, with Alexander’s strength, but without Alexander’s vice or weakness, spreading the energies of civilization, and of a just and equitable government, over the wild and boundless regions which were lost to European eyes in the obscurity of distance.

When struggling against the armies of Austria, upon the plains of Italy, visions of Egypt and of the East blended with the smoke and the din of the conflict. In the retreat of the Austrians before his impetuous charges, in the shout of victory which incessantly filled his ear, swelling ever above the shrieks of the wounded and the groans of the dying, Napoleon saw but increasing indications that destiny was pointing out his path toward an Oriental throne.

When the Austrians were driven out of Italy, and the campaign was ended, and Napoleon, at Montebello, was receiving the homage of Europe, his ever-impetuous mind turned with new interest to the object of his early ambition. He often passed hours, during the mild Italian evenings, walking with a few confidential friends in the magnificent park of his palace, conversing with intense enthusiasm upon the illustrious empires, which have successively overshadowed those countries, and faded away. “Europe,” said he, “presents no field for glorious exploits; no great empires or revolutions are to be found but in the East, where there are six hundred millions of men.”

Upon his return to Paris, he was deaf to all the acclamations with which he was surrounded. His boundless ambition was such that his past achievements seemed as nothing. The most brilliant visions of Eastern glory were dazzling his mind. “They do not long preserve at Paris,” said he, “the remembrance of any thing. If I remain long unemployed, I am undone. The renown of one, in this great Babylon, speedily supplants that of another. If I am seen three times at the opera, I shall no longer be an object of curiosity. I am determined not to remain in Paris. There is nothing here to be accomplished. Every thing here passes away. My glory is declining. This little corner of Europe is too small to supply it. We must go to the East. All the great men of the world have there acquired their celebrity.”

When requested to take command of the army of England, and to explore the coast, to judge of the feasibility of an attack upon the English in their own island, he said to Bourrienne, “I am perfectly willing to make a tour to the coast. Should the expedition to Britain prove too hazardous, as I much fear that it will, the army of England will become the army of the East, and we will go to Egypt.”

He carefully studied the obstacles to be encountered in the invasion of England, and the means at his command to surmount them. In his view, the enterprise was too hazardous to be undertaken, and he urged upon the Directory the Expedition to Egypt. “Once established in Egypt,” said he, “the Mediterranean becomes a French Lake; we shall found a colony there, unenervated by the curse of slavery, and which will supply the place of St. Domingo; we shall open a market for French manufactures through the vast regions of Africa, Arabia, and Syria. All the caravans of the East will meet at Cairo, and the commerce of India, must forsake the Cape of Good Hope, and flow through the Red Sea. Marching with an army of sixty thousand men, we can cross the Indus, rouse the oppressed and discontented native population, against the English usurpers, and drive the English out of India. We will establish governments which will respect the rights and promote the interests of the people. The multitude will hail us as their deliverers from oppression. The Christians of Syria, the Druses, and the Armenians, will join our standards. We may change the face of the world.” Such was the magnificent project which inflamed this ambitious mind.

England, without a shadow of right, had invaded India. Her well-armed dragoons had ridden, with bloody hoofs, over the timid and naked natives. Cannon, howitzers, and bayonets had been the all-availing arguments with which England had silenced all opposition. English soldiers, with unsheathed swords ever dripping with blood, held in subjection provinces containing uncounted millions of inhabitants. A circuitous route of fifteen thousand miles, around the stormy Cape of Good Hope, conducted the merchant fleets of London and Liverpool to Calcutta and Bombay; and through the same long channel there flooded back upon the maritime isle the wealth of the Indies.

It was the plea of Napoleon that he was not going to make an unjust war upon the unoffending nations of the East; but that he was the ally of the oppressed people, drawing the sword against their common enemy, and that he was striving to emancipate them from their powerful usurpers, and to confer upon them the most precious privileges of freedom. He marched to Egypt not to desolate, but to enrich; not to enslave, but to enfranchise; not to despoil the treasures of the East, but to transfer to those shores the opulence and the high civilization of the West. Never was an ambitious conqueror furnished with a more plausible plea. England, as she looks at India and China, must be silent. America, as she listens to the dying wail of the Red Man, driven from the forests of his childhood and the graves of his fathers, can throw no stone. Napoleon surely was not exempt from the infirmities of humanity. But it is not becoming in an English or an American historian to breathe the prayer, “We thank Thee, oh God, that we are not like this Bonaparte.”

Egypt, the memorials of whose former grandeur still attract the wonder and the admiration of the civilized world, after having been buried, during centuries, in darkness and oblivion, is again slowly emerging into light, and is, doubtless, destined eventually to become one of the great centres of industry and of knowledge. The Mediterranean washes its northern shores, opening to its commerce all the opulent cities of Europe. The Red Sea wafts to its fertile valley the wealth of India and of China. The Nile, rolling its vast floods from the unknown interior of Africa, opens a highway for inexhaustible internal commerce with unknown nations and tribes.

The country consists entirely of the lower valley of the Nile, with a front of about one hundred and twenty miles on the Mediterranean. The valley six hundred miles in length, rapidly diminishes in breadth as it is crowded by the sands of the desert, presenting, a few leagues from the mouth of the river, but the average width of about six miles. The soil fertilized by the annual inundations of the Nile, possesses most extraordinary fertility. These floods are caused by the heavy rains which fall in the mountains of Abyssinia. It never rains in Egypt. Centuries may pass while a shower never falls from the sky. Under the Ptolemies the population of the country was estimated at twenty millions. But by the terrific energies of despotism, these numbers had dwindled away, and at the time of the French Expedition Egypt contained but two million five hundred thousand inhabitants. These were divided into four classes. First came the Copts, about two hundred thousand, the descendants of the ancient Egyptians. They were in a state of the most abject degradation and slavery. The great body of the population, two millions in number, were the Arabs. They were a wild and semi-barbarian race, restrained from all enterprise and industry, by unrelenting despotism. The Turks or Janizaries, two hundred thousand strong, composed a standing army, of sensual, merciless, unprincipled usurpers, which kept the trembling population by the energies of the bastinado, the scimitar and the bowstring in most servile subjection. The Mamelukes composed a body of twelve thousand horsemen, proud, powerful and intolerable oppressors. Each horseman had two servants to perform his menial service. Twenty-four beys, each of whom had five or six hundred Mamelukes under his command, governed this singular body of cavalry. Two principal beys, Ibrahim and Mourad divided between them the sovereignty of Egypt. It was the old story of despotism. The millions were ground down into hopeless degradation and poverty to pamper to the luxury and vice of a few haughty masters. Oriental voluptuousness and luxury reigned in the palaces of the beys; beggary and wretchedness deformed the mud hovels of the defrauded and degraded people. It was Napoleon’s aim to present himself to the people of Egypt as their friend and liberator; to rally them around his standard, to subdue the Mamelukes, to establish a government, which should revive all the sciences and the arts of civilized life in Egypt; to acquire a character, by these benefactions, which should emblazon his name throughout the East; and then, with oppressed nations welcoming him as a deliverer, to strike blows upon the British power in India, which should compel the mistress of the seas to acknowledge that upon the land there was an arm which could reach and humble her. It was a design sublime in its magnificence. But it was not the will of God that it should be accomplished.

The Directory, at last overcome by the arguments of Napoleon, and also, through jealousy of his unbounded popularity, being willing to remove him from France, assented to the proposed expedition. It was however necessary to preserve the utmost secrecy. Should England be informed of the direction in which the blow was about to fall upon her, she might, with her invincible fleet, intercept the French squadron – she might rouse the Mamelukes to most formidable preparations for resistance, and might thus vastly increase the difficulties of the enterprise. All the deliberations were consequently conducted with closed doors, and the whole plan was enveloped in the most profound mystery. For the first time in the history of the world, literature and science and art, formed a conspicuous part of the organization of an army. It was agreed that Napoleon should take forty-six thousand men, a certain number of officers of his own selection, men of science, engineers, geographers, and artisans of all kinds. Napoleon now devoted himself with the most extraordinary energy to the execution of his plans. Order succeeded order with ceaseless rapidity. He seemed to rest not day nor night. He superintended every thing himself, and with almost the rapidity of the wind passed from place to place, corresponding with literary men, conversing with generals, raising money, collecting ships, and accumulating supplies. His comprehensive and indefatigable mind arranged even the minutest particulars. “I worked all day,” said one, in apology for his assigned duty not having been fully performed. “But had you not the night also?” Napoleon replied. “Now sir,” said he to another, “use dispatch. Remember that the world was created in but six days. Ask me for whatever you please, except time; that is the only thing which is beyond my power.”

His own energy was thus infused into the hearts of hundreds, and with incredible rapidity the work of preparation went on. He selected four points for the assemblage of convoys and troops, Toulon, Genoa, Ajaccio, and Civita Vecchia. He chartered four hundred vessels of merchantmen in France and Italy as transports for the secret service, and assembled them at the points of departure. He dispatched immediate orders for the divisions of his renowned army of Italy to march to Genoa and Toulon. He collected the best artisans Europe could furnish in all the arts of human industry. He took printing types, of the various languages of the East, from the College of the Propaganda at Rome, and a company of printers. He formed a large collection of the most perfect philosophical and mathematical instruments. The most illustrious men, though knowing not where he was about to lead them, were eager to attach themselves to the fortunes of the young general. Preparations for an enterprise upon such a gigantic scale could not be made without attracting the attention of Europe. Rumor was busy with her countless contradictions. “Where is Napoleon bound?” was the universal inquiry. “He is going,” said some “to the Black Sea” – “to India” – “to cut a canal through the Isthmus of Suez” – “to Ireland” – “to the Thames.” Even Kleber supposed that they were bound for England, and reposing implicit confidence in the invincibility of Napoleon, he said, “Well! if you throw a fireship into the Thames, put Kleber on board of her and you shall see what he will do.” The English cabinet was extremely perplexed. They clearly foresaw that a storm was gathering, but knew not in what direction it would break. Extraordinary efforts were made to equip a powerful fleet, which was placed under the command of Lord Nelson, to cruise in the Mediterranean and watch the movements of the French.

On the 9th of May, 1798, just five months after Napoleon’s return to Paris from the Italian campaign, he entered Toulon, having completed all his preparations for the most magnificent enterprise ever contemplated by a mortal. Josephine accompanied him, that he might enjoy as long as possible, the charms of her society. Passionately as he loved his own glory, his love for Josephine was almost equally enthusiastic. A more splendid armament never floated upon the bosom of the ocean than here awaited him, its supreme lord and master. The fleet consisted of thirty ships of the line and frigates; seventy-two brigs and cutters, and four hundred transports. It bore forty-six thousand combatants, and a literary corps of one hundred men, furnished in the most perfect manner, to transport to Asia the science and the arts of Europe, and to bring back in return the knowledge gleaned among the monuments of antiquity. The old army of Italy was drawn up in proud array to receive its youthful general, and they greeted him with the most enthusiastic acclamations. But few even of the officers of the army were aware of its destination. Napoleon inspirited his troops with the following proclamation:

“Soldiers! you are one of the wings of the army of England. You have made war in mountains, plains and cities. It remains to make it on the ocean. The Roman legions, whom you have often imitated but not yet equaled, combated Carthage, by turns, on the seas and on the plains of Zama. Victory never deserted their standards, because they never ceased to be brave, patient, and united. Soldiers! the eyes of Europe are upon you. You have great destinies to accomplish, battles to fight, dangers and fatigues to overcome. You are about to do more than you have yet done, for the prosperity of your country, the happiness of man and for your own glory.” Thus the magnitude of the enterprise was announced, while at the same time it was left vailed in mystery.

Napoleon had, on many occasions, expressed his dislike of the arbitrary course pursued by the Directory. In private he expressed, in the strongest terms, his horror of Jacobin cruelty and despotism. “The Directors,” said he “can not long retain their position. They know not how to do any thing for the imagination of the nation.” It is said that the Directors, at last, were so much annoyed by his censure that they seriously contemplated his arrest and applied to Fouché for that purpose. The wily minister of police replied, “Napoleon Bonaparte is not the man to be arrested; neither is Fouché the man who will undertake to arrest him.” When Bourrienne inquired if he were really determined to risk his fate on the Expedition to Egypt, “Yes!” he replied, “if I remain here, it will be necessary for me to overturn this miserable government, and make myself king. But we must not think of that yet. The pear is not yet ripe. I have sounded, but the time has not yet come. I must first dazzle these gentlemen by my exploits.” One of his last acts before embarkation was to issue a humane proclamation to the military commission at Toulon urging a more merciful construction of one of the tyrannical edicts of the Directory against the emigrants. “I exhort you, citizens,” said he, “when the law presents at your tribunal old men and females, to declare that, in the midst of war, Frenchmen respect the aged and the women, even of their enemies. The soldier who signs a sentence against one incapable of bearing arms is a coward.” There was perhaps not another man in France, who would have dared thus to oppose the sanguinary measures of government. This benevolent interposition met however with a response in the hearts of the people, and added a fresh laurel to his brow.

On the morning of the 19th of May, 1798, just as the sun was rising over the blue waves of the Mediterranean the fleet got under way. Napoleon, with Eugene, embarked in the Orient, an enormous ship of one hundred and twenty guns. It was a brilliant morning and the unclouded sun perhaps never shone upon a more splendid scene. The magnificent armament extended over a semi-circle of not less than eighteen miles. The parting between Napoleon and Josephine is represented as having been tender and affecting in the extreme. She was very anxious to accompany him, but he deemed the perils to which they would be exposed, and the hardships they must necessarily endure, far too formidable for a lady to encounter. Josephine stood upon a balcony, with her eyes blinded with tears, as she waved her adieus to Napoleon, and watched the receding fleet, till the lessening sails disappeared beneath the distant horizon. The squadron sailed first to Genoa, thence to Ajaccio, and thence to Civita Vecchia, to join the convoys collected in those ports. The signal was then given for the whole fleet to bear away, as rapidly as possible, for Malta.

In coasting along the shores of Italy, Napoleon, from the deck of the Orient descried, far away in the distant horizon, the snow-capped summits of the Alps. He called for a telescope, and gazed long and earnestly upon the scene of his early achievements. “I can not,” said he, “behold without emotion, the land of Italy. These mountains command the plains where I have so often led the French to victory. Now I am bound to the East. With the same troops victory is still secure.”

All were fascinated by the striking originality, animation, and eloquence of his conversation. Deeply read in all that is illustrious in the past, every island, every bay, every promontory, every headland recalled the heroic deeds of antiquity. In pleasant weather Napoleon passed nearly all the time upon deck, surrounded by a group never weary of listening to the freshness and the poetic vigor of his remarks. Upon all subjects he was alike at home, and the most distinguished philosophers, in their several branches of science, were amazed at the instinctive comprehensiveness with which every subject seemed to be familiar to his mind. He was never depressed and never mirthful. A calm and thoughtful energy inspired every moment. From all the ships the officers and distinguished men were in turn invited to dine with him. He displayed wonderful tact in drawing them out in conversation, forming with unerring skill an estimate of character, and thus preparing himself for the selection of suitable agents in all the emergencies which were to be encountered. In nothing was the genius of Napoleon more conspicuous, than in the lightning-like rapidity with which he detected any vein of genius in another. Not a moment of time was lost. Intellectual conversation, or reading or philosophical discussion caused the hours to fly on swiftest wing. Napoleon always, even in his most hurried campaigns, took a compact library with him. When driving in his carriage, from post to post of the army, he improved the moments in garnering up that knowledge, for the accumulation of which he ever manifested such an insatiable desire. Words were with him nothing, ideas every thing. He devoured biography, history, philosophy, treatises upon political economy and upon all the sciences. His contempt for works of fiction – the whole class of novels and romances – amounted almost to indignation. He could never endure to see one reading such a book or to have such a volume in his presence. Once, when Emperor, in passing through the saloons of his palace, he found one of the maids of honor with a novel in her hands. He took it from her, gave her a severe lecture for wasting her time in such frivolous reading, and cast the volume into the flames. When he had a few moments for diversion, he not unfrequently employed them in looking over a book of logarithms, in which he always found recreation.

At the dinner table some important subject of discussion was ever proposed. For the small talk and indelicacies which wine engenders Napoleon had no taste, and his presence alone was sufficient to hold all such themes in abeyance. He was a young man of but twenty-six years of age, but his pre-eminence over all the forty-six thousand who composed that majestic armament was so conspicuous, that no one dreamed of questioning it. Without annoyance, without haughtiness, he was fully conscious of his own superiority, and received unembarrassed the marks of homage which ever surrounded him. The questions for discussion relating to history, mythology, and science, were always proposed by Napoleon. “Are the planets inhabited?” “What is the age of the world?” “Will the earth be destroyed by fire or water?” “What are the comparative merits of Christianity and Moslemism?” such were some of the questions which interested the mind of this young general.

From the crowded state of the vessels, and the numbers on board unaccustomed to nautical manœuvres, it not unfrequently happened that some one fell overboard. Though Napoleon could look with perfect composure upon the carnage of the field of battle, and order movements, without the tremor of a nerve, which he knew must consign thousands to a bloody death, when by such an accidental event life was periled, his sympathies were aroused to the highest degree, and he could not rest until the person was extricated. He always liberally rewarded those who displayed unusual courage and zeal in effecting a rescue. One dark night a noise was heard as of a man falling overboard. The whole ship’s company, consisting of two thousand men, as the cry of alarm spread from stem to stern, was instantly in commotion. Napoleon immediately ascended to the deck. The ship was put about; boats were lowered, and, after much agitation and search, it was discovered that the whole stir was occasioned by the slipping of a quarter of beef from a noose at the bulwark. Napoleon ordered that the recompense for signal exertions should be more liberal than usual. “It might have been a man,” he said, “and the zeal and courage now displayed have not been less than would have been required in that event.”

On the morning of the 16th of June, after a voyage of twenty days, the white cliffs of Malta, and the magnificent fortifications of that celebrated island, nearly a thousand miles from Toulon, emerged from the horizon, glittering with dazzling brilliance in the rays of the rising sun. By a secret understanding with the Knights of Malta. Napoleon had prepared the way for the capitulation of the island before leaving France. The Knights, conscious of their inability to maintain independence, preferred to be the subjects of France, rather than of any other power. “I captured Malta,” said Napoleon, “while at Mantua.” The reduction, by force, of that almost impregnable fortress, would have required a long siege, and a vast expenditure of treasure and of life. A few cannon shot were exchanged, that there might be a slight show of resistance, when the island was surrendered, and the tri-colored flag waved proudly over those bastions which, in former years, had bid defiance, to the whole power of the all-conquering Turk. The generals of the French army were amazed as they contemplated the grandeur and the strength of these works, upon which had been expended the science, the toil, and the wealth of ages. “It is well,” said General Caffarelli to Napoleon, “that there was some one within to open the gates to us. We should have had more trouble in making our way through, if the place had been empty.” The Knights of Malta, living upon the renown acquired by their order in by-gone ages, and reveling in luxury and magnificence, were very willing to receive the gold of Napoleon, and palaces in the fertile plains of Italy and France, in exchange for turrets and towers, bastions and ramparts of solid rock. The harbor is one of the most safe and commodious in the world. It embraced, without the slightest embarassment, the whole majestic armament, and allowed the magnificent Orient, to float, with abundance of water, at the quay.

Napoleon immediately devoted his mind, with its accustomed activity, to securing and organizing the new colony. The innumerable batteries, were immediately armed, and three thousand men were left in defense of the place. All the Turkish prisoners, found in the galleys, were set at liberty, treated with the greatest kindness, and scattered through the fleet, that their friendship might be won, and that they might exert a moral influence, in favor of the French, upon the Mohammedan population of the East. With as much facility as if he had devoted a long life to the practical duties of a statesman, Napoleon arranged the municipal system of the island; and having accomplished all this in less than a week, he again weighed anchor, and directed his course toward Egypt. Many of the Knights of Malta, followed the victorious general, and with profound homage, accepted appointments in his army.

The whole French squadron, hourly anticipating collision with the English fleet, were ever ready for battle. Though Napoleon did not turn from his great object to seek the English, he felt no apprehension in view of meeting the enemy. Upon every ship-of-the-line he had put five hundred picked men, who were daily exercised in working the guns. He had enjoined upon the whole fleet, that, in case of an encounter, every ship was to have but one single aim, that of closing immediately with a ship of the enemy, and boarding her with the utmost desperation. Nelson, finding that the French had left their harbors, eagerly but unavailingly searched for them. He was entirely at a loss respecting their destination, and knew not in what direction to sail. It was not yet known, even on board the French ships, but to a few individuals, whither the fleet was bound. Gradually, however, as the vast squadron drew nearer the African shore, the secret began to transpire. Mirth and gayety prevailed. All were watching with eagerness, to catch a first glimpse of the continent of Africa. In the evenings Napoleon assembled, in the capacious cabins of the Orient, the men of science and general officers, and then commenced the learned discussions of the Institute of Egypt. One night, the two fleets were within fifteen miles of each other; so near that the signal guns of Nelson’s squadron, were heard by the French. The night, however, was dark and foggy, and the two fleets passed without collision.

On the morning of the 1st of July, after a passage of forty days, the low and sandy shores of Egypt, about two thousand miles from France, were discerned extending along the distant horizon, as far as the eye could reach. As with a gentle breeze they drew nearer the land, the minarets of Alexandria, the Needle of Cleopatra, and Pompey’s Pillar, rose above the sand hills, exciting, in the minds of the enthusiastic French, the most romantic dreams of Oriental grandeur. The fleet approached a bay, at a little distance from the harbor of Alexandria, and dropped anchor about three miles from the shore. But two days before, Nelson had visited that very spot, in quest of the French, and, not finding them there, had sailed for the mouth of the Hellespont. The evening had now arrived, and the breeze had increased to almost a gale. Notwithstanding the peril of disembarkation in such a surf, Napoleon decided that not a moment was to be lost. The landing immediately commenced, and was continued, with the utmost expedition, through the whole night. Many boats were swamped, and some lives lost, but, unintimidated by such disasters, the landing was continued with unabated zeal. The transfer of the horses from the ships to the shore, presented a very curious spectacle. They were hoisted out of the ships and lowered into the sea, with simply a halter about their necks, where they swam in great numbers around the vessels, not knowing which way to go. Six were caught by their halters, and towed by a boat toward the shore. The rest, by instinct followed them. As other horses were lowered into the sea from all the ships, they joined the column hastening toward the land, and thus soon there was a dense and wide column of swimming horses, extending from the ships to the beach. As fast as they reached the shore they were caught, saddled, and delivered to their riders. Toward morning the wind abated, and before the blazing sun rose over the sands of the desert, a proud army of cavalry, infantry, and artillery, was marshaled upon the dreary waste, awaiting the commands of its general.

In the midst of the disembarkation, a sail appeared in the distant horizon. It was supposed to be an English ship. “Oh, Fortune!” exclaimed Napoleon, “dost thou forsake me now? I ask of thee but a short respite.” The strange sail proved to be a French frigate, rejoining the fleet. While the disembarkation was still going on, Napoleon advanced, with three thousand men, whom he had hastily formed in battle array upon the beach, to Alexandria, which was at but a few miles distance, that he might surprise the place before the Turks had time to prepare for a defense. No man ever better understood the value of time. His remarkable saying to the pupils of a school which he once visited, “My young friends! every hour of time is a chance of misfortune for future life,” formed the rule of his own conduct.

Just before disembarking, Napoleon had issued the following proclamation to his troops: “Soldiers! You are about to undertake a conquest fraught with incalculable effects upon the commerce and civilization of the world. You will inflict upon England the most grievous stroke she can sustain before receiving her death blow. The people with whom we are about to live are Mohammedans. Their first article of faith is, There is but one God, and Mohammed is his prophet. Contradict them not. Treat them as you have treated the Italians and the Jews. Show the same regard to their muftis and imaums, as you have shown to the bishops and rabbins. Manifest for the ceremonies of the Koran, the same respect you have shown to the convents and the synagogues, to the religion of Moses and that of Jesus Christ. All religions were protected by the legions of Rome. You will find here customs greatly at variance with those of Europe. Accustom yourselves to respect them. Women are not treated here as with us; but in every country he who violates is a monster. Pillage enriches only a few, while it dishonors an army, destroys its resources, and makes enemies of those whom it is the interest of all to attach as friends.”

The first gray of the morning had not yet dawned, when Napoleon, at the head of his enthusiastic column, marched upon the city, which bore the name, and which had witnessed the achievements of Alexander. It was his aim, by the fearlessness and the impetuosity of his first assaults, to impress the Turks with an idea of the invincibility of the French. The Mamelukes, hastily collected upon the ramparts of the city, received the foe with discharges of musketry and artillery, and with shouts of defiance. The French, aided by their ladders, poured over the walls like an inundation, sweeping every thing before them. The conflict was short, and the tricolored flag waved triumphantly over the city of Alexander. The Turkish prisoners from Malta, who had become fascinated by the magnificence of Napoleon, as all were fascinated who approached that extraordinary man, dispersed themselves through the city, and exerted a powerful influence in securing the friendship of the people for their invaders. The army, imbibing the politic sentiments of their general, refrained from all acts of lawless violence, and amazed the enslaved populace by their justice, mercy, and generosity. The people were immediately liberated from the most grinding and intolerable despotism; just and equal laws were established; and Arab and Copt, soon began, lost in wonder, to speak the praises of Napoleon. He was a strange conqueror for the East; liberating and blessing, not enslaving and robbing the vanquished. Their women were respected, their property was uninjured, their persons protected from violence, and their interests in every way promoted. A brighter day never dawned upon Egypt than the day in which Napoleon placed his foot upon her soil. The accomplishment of his plans, so far as human vision can discern, would have been one of the greatest of possible blessings to the East. Again Napoleon issued one of those glowing proclamations which are as characteristic of his genius as were the battles which he fought:

“People of Egypt! You will be told, by our enemies, that I am come to destroy your religion. Believe them not. Tell them that I am come to restore your rights, punish your usurpers, and revise the true worship of Mohammed. Tell them that I venerate, more than do the Mamelukes, God, his prophet, and the Koran. Tell them that all men are equal in the sight of God; that wisdom, talents, and virtue alone constitute the difference between them. And what are the virtues which distinguish the Mamelukes, that entitle them to appropriate all the enjoyments of life to themselves? If Egypt is their farm, let them show their lease, from God, by which they hold it. Is there a fine estate? it belongs to the Mamelukes. Is there a beautiful slave, a fine horse, a good house? all belong to the Mamelukes. But God is just and merciful, and He hath ordained that the empire of the Mamelukes shall come to an end. Thrice happy those who shall side with us; they shall prosper in their fortune and their rank. Happy they who shall be neutral; they will have time to become acquainted with us, and will range themselves upon our side. But woe, threefold woe to those who shall arm for the Mamelukes and fight against us. For them there will be no hope; they shall perish.”

“You witlings of Paris,” wrote one of the officers of the army, “will laugh outright, at the Mohammedan proclamation of Napoleon. He, however, is proof against all your raillery, and the proclamation itself has produced the most surprising effect. The Arabs, natural enemies of the Mamelukes, sent us back, as soon as they had read it, thirty of our people, whom they had made prisoners, with an offer of their services against the Mamelukes.”

It was an interesting peculiarity in the character of Napoleon that he respected all religions as necessities of the human mind. He never allowed himself to speak in contemptuous terms even of the grossest absurdities of religious fanaticism. Christianity was presented to him only as exhibited by the papal church. He professed the most profound admiration of the doctrines and the moral precepts of the gospel, and often expressed the wish that he could be a devout believer. But he could not receive, as from God, all that Popes, Cardinals, Bishops, and Priests claimed as divine. In the spiritual power of the Pope he recognized an agent of tremendous efficiency. As such he sincerely respected it, treated it with deference, and sought its alliance. He endeavored to gain control over every influence which could sway the human heart. So of the Mohammedans; he regarded their religion as an element of majestic power, and wished to avail himself of it. While the philosophers and generals around him regarded all forms of religion with contempt, he, influenced by a far higher philosophy, regarded all with veneration.

Since the revolution there had been no sort of worship in France. The idea even of a God had been almost entirely obliterated from the public mind. The French soldiers were mere animals, with many noble as well as depraved instincts. At the command of their beloved chieftain, they were as ready to embrace a religion as to storm a battery. Napoleon was accused of hypocrisy for pursuing this course in Egypt. “I never,” said he, subsequently, “followed any of the tenets of the Mohammedan religion. I never prayed in the mosques. I never abstained from wine, or was circumcised. I said merely that we were friends of the Mussulmans, and that I respected their prophet; which was true. I respect him now.”

Napoleon remained in Alexandria but six days. During this time he devoted himself with a zeal and energy which elicited universal admiration, to the organization of equitable laws, the regulations of police, and the development of the resources of the country. The very hour of their establishment in the city, artisans, and artists, and engineers all were busy, and the life and enterprise of the West, were infused into the sepulchral streets of Alexandria. Preparations were immediately made for improving the harbor, repairing the fortifications, erecting mills, establishing manufactories, founding schools, exploring antiquities, and the government of the country was placed in the hands of the prominent inhabitants, who were interested to promote the wise and humane policy of Napoleon. Since that day half a century of degradation, ignorance, poverty, oppression, and wretchedness has passed over Egypt. Had Napoleon succeeded in his designs, it is probable that Egypt would now have been a civilized and a prosperous land, enriched by the commerce of the East and the West; with villas of elegance and refinement embellishing the meadows and headlands of the Nile, and steamers, freighted with the luxuries of all lands, plowing her majestic waves. The shores of the Red Sea, now so silent and lonely, would have echoed with the hum of happy industry, and fleets would have been launched from her forests, and thriving towns and opulent cities would have sprung up, where the roving Bedouin now meets but desolation and gloom. It is true that in the mysterious providence of God all these hopes might have been disappointed. But it is certain that while Napoleon remained in Egypt the whole country received an impulse unknown for centuries before; and human wisdom can not devise a better plan than he proposed, for arousing the enterprise, and stimulating the industry, and developing the resources of the land.

About thirty of the French troops fell in the attack upon Alexandria. Napoleon, with his prompt conceptions of the sublime, caused them to be buried at the foot of Pompey’s Pillar, and had their names engraven upon that monument, whose renown has grown venerable through countless ages. The whole army assisted at the imposing ceremony of their interment. Enthusiasm spread through the ranks. The French soldiers, bewildered by the meteor glare of glory, and deeming their departed comrades now immortalized, envied their fate. Never did conqueror better understand than Napoleon what springs to touch, to rouse the latent energies of human nature.

Leaving three thousand men in Alexandria, under the command of General Kleber, who had been wounded in the assault, Napoleon set out, with the rest of his army, to cross the desert to Cairo. The fleet was not in a place of safety, and Napoleon gave emphatic orders to Admiral Brueys to remove the ships, immediately after landing the army, from the bay of Aboukir, where it was anchored, into the harbor of Alexandria; or, if the large ships could not enter that port, to proceed, without any delay, to the island of Corfu. The neglect, on the part of the Admiral, promptly to execute these orders, upon which Napoleon had placed great stress, led to a disaster which proved fatal to the expedition. Napoleon dispatched a large flotilla, laden with provisions, artillery, ammunition, and baggage, to sail along the shore of the Mediterranean to the western branch of the Nile, called the Rosetta mouth, and ascend the river to a point where the army, having marched across the desert, would meet it. The flotilla and the army would then keep company, ascending the Nile, some fifty miles, to Cairo. The army had a desert of sixty miles to cross. It was dreary and inhospitable in the extreme. A blazing sun glared fiercely down upon the glowing sands. Not a tree or a blade of grass cheered the eye. Not a rivulet trickled across their hot and sandy path. A few wells of brackish water were scattered along the trackless course pursued by the caravans, but even these the Arabs had filled up or poisoned.

Early on the morning of the 6th of July the army commenced its march over the apparently boundless plain of shifting sands. No living creature met the eye but a few Arab horsemen, who occasionally appeared and disappeared at the horizon, and who, concealing themselves behind the sand hills, immediately murdered any stragglers who wandered from the ranks, or from sickness or exhaustion loitered behind. Four days of inconceivable suffering were occupied in crossing the desert. The soldiers, accustomed to the luxuriance, beauty, and abundance of the valleys of Italy, were plunged into the most abject depression. Even the officers found their firmness giving way, and Lannes and Murat, in paroxysms of despair, dashed their hats upon the sand, and trampled them under foot. Many fell and perished on the long and dreary route. But the dense columns toiled on, hour after hour, weary, and hungry, and faint, and thirsty, the hot sun blazing down upon their unsheltered heads, and the yielding sands burning their blistered feet. At the commencement of the enterprise Napoleon had promised, to each of his soldiers, seven acres of land. As they looked around upon this dreary and boundless ocean of sand, they spoke jocularly of his moderation in promising them but seven acres, “The young rogue,” said they, “might have safely offered us as much as we chose to take. We certainly should not have abused his good-nature.”