About this time bad weather set in and the Tigre and Theseus were driven out to sea; as there was no suitable anchorage for them. When they got back to their station five days later it was found that the French had sapped close up to the ditch where their former assault had ended so disastrously, and were endeavouring to mine the tower itself. It was necessary that the garrison should do something to hinder this determined progress on the part of the enemy, and it was decided to make a sortie upon the French works at daybreak on the 7th, and endeavour to destroy the mine. A party of seamen under Lieutenant Wright, R.N., was detailed to destroy the mine itself, and were to be supported in this operation by the Marines and a strong Turkish Contingent; Major Douglas1 of the Marines-to whom Sir Sidney Smith had given a temporary step in rank to enable him to command the Turkish Colonels-being in charge of the sortie. A letter from General Berthier, who commanded a division of the enemy, gives the best contemporary account of this affair and, incidentally, of the merits of the Marines upon the occasion.

"On the 18th Germinal (7th April)," he writes, "the enemy at break of day attacked our left and centre; each column was headed by British Marines belonging to the ships, and their colours were seen waving with those of the Djezzar, and the batteries were all manned by Englishmen. The enemy attempted to surprise our advance posts, but their design was seen through; we received them with a brisk fire from our parallels, and all that appeared were either killed or wounded. The enemy ultimately retired without gaining an inch towards destroying our works. The central column acted with more obstinacy, and their object was to penetrate to the entrance of our mine; they were commanded by Major Thomas Oldfield, who advanced boldly towards the entrance of the mine at the head of some of his intrepid countrymen. They attacked like heroes, and were received by heroesdeath only checked their bold career; the remainder retreated and took refuge in the fortress. The approaches of our parallels remained covered with the dead bodies of English and of Turks. The body of Major Oldfield was carried off by our Grenadiers, who brought him to head-quarters; but he had expired before their arrival. His sword, to which he had done so much honour, was also honoured after his fall; it remains in the hands of one of our grenadiers. He was buried amongst us, and has carried with him the esteem of the whole French army."2

"This eulogium from an enemy," says Nicholas, "and a soldier whose proud renown is associated with that of Napoleon, is the noblest epitaph that the brave could aspire to."

"Sir Sidney Smith, at the meeting on the anniversary of the Naval Asylum, held on the 2nd of June, 1802, . . . . thus enlarges upon the merits of his departed friend, Major Oldfield :- The next is Major Oldfield, of the Marines. I will tell the company where the body of this brave man was contended for, and they will judge where, and how, he died. It was in a sortie of the garrison of St. Jean d'Acre, when attacked by General Buonaparte, that Major Oldfield, who commanded a column, was missing. On our troops advancing, he was found his body was

1 This officer, like several others, had obtained his first commission in the Marines at the age of 13.

2 The French also eulogised him in their "Dictionnaire Historique ces Sieges et des Batailles Memorables," recording his heroism and enrolling his name among the bravest of their own soldiers.

found--at the mouth of one of the enemy's mines, and at the foot of their works: our brave men hooked him by the neck-cloth as he lay dead to draw him off; the enemy at the same time pierced him with a halbert, and each party struggled for his body. The neck-cloth gave way, and the enemy succeeded in dragging to their works this brave man; and I must do them the justice which such gallant foes are justly entitled to: they buried him with all the honours of war'"I

So died Major Oldfield who saw his first service as a volunteer at the Battle of Bunker's Hill, at which he received two wounds. He was buried by the French with full military honours at the foot of Mount Carmel, and from his gallantry was remembered years afterwards by the Great Napoleon, who spoke of him in terms of admiration when on board H.M.S. Bellerophon to Captain Beatty of the Marines, who served under him at the Nile and at Acre, where he received a slight wound at the time the hero fell.2

The siege continued, and Acre still held out. A despatch from Sir Sidney Smith, dated 2nd May, gives some account of the valuable services which the Marine Corps continued to render to the defence. He says:-"We have run out a ravelin on each side of the enemy's nearest approach, in which the Marines of the Tigre and Theseus have worked under a heavy and incessant fire from the enemy in a way that commands the admiration and gratitude of the Turks, as it is evident the flanking fire produced from them contributed much to save the place yesterday. Colonel Philipeaux of the Engineers, who projected and superintended the execution, has fallen a sacrifice to his zeal for this service, want of rest and exposure to the sun having given him a fever, of which he died this morning. Our grief for his loss is excessive on every account. Colonel Douglas supplies his place, having hitherto carried on the work under his direction, and is indefatigable in completing it for the reception of the cannon.

The French, who had received a reinforcement of heavy guns, sent overland from Jaffa, continued their bombardment and attacks on the town and on the two ravelins the British had run out to flank their approaches, while the garrison, on its part, made sally after sally upon the enemy's works.

On May 7th, the 51st day of the siege, the sight of a Turkish squadron in the offing convoying reinforcements for the garrison, incited the French to another desperate assault, by which they hoped to make themselves masters of the place before the Turkish soldiers could be landed. So determined was this attack that the stormers effected a lodgement in the second storey of the north-east tower, at whose summit the tricolour was seen waving at dawn on the 8th. To seaward of the town the new reinforcements for the garrison were seen at the same hour, crowded into their boats, pulling hard for the shore about halfway between it and their transports. Everything depended on being able to keep the French from penetrating further before these troops could be landed, and Sir Sidney Smith at once landed at the Mole with every man he could spare from his ships, and plunged into the fierce struggle that was now raging at the breach. Djezzar, too, who had been sitting in his palace serving out cartridges and paying down money for the heads of Frenchmen, hastened to the scene of action; and animated by the

1 Nicholas, Historical Records of the Royal Marine Forces."

2 Vide Note 1.-Major Oldfield.

advent of their two leaders British and Turks contrived to hold their own till the arrival of the Chifflic Regiment from the landing place. This Corps was drilled and armed in the European fashion and sufficed to secure the breach from which the French were eventually repulsed altogether.

But at once the bombardment recommenced, and the walls to the southward of the angle which had hitherto been the chief point of attack, fell in masses, till a very practicable breach appeared. Upon this the besiegers poured a heavy column of troops about sunset. The assailants were unopposed, but as soon as the head of the column descended into the Pacha's garden which lay behind it, they were fallen upon by clouds of Turks and cut to pieces by dagger and scimitar. The remainder of the stormers beat a hasty retreat. At length, after suffering severely from a desperate sortie of the Chifflic Regiment, the French gave up the siege as a bad job. They raised it on the 20th May, and precipitately retreated towards Cairo on the following day, leaving twenty-three guns behind them. At El Arish, at the edge of the desert, the French Army halted on the 2nd June, and here left a small garrison before continuing its retreat. The British seamen and Marines rejoined their ships, but in the following December, Major Douglas and the Marines of the little squadron were again landed and joined the Army of the Grand Vizier

when it marched from Gaza to besiege the French garrison of Fort El Arish. The Frenchmen refusing to capitulate, it fell to Major Douglas with two other officers to reconnoitre the fortress. Batteries were then erected, and after some days' bombardment, the garrison beat a parley and Major Douglas ascended the walls of the fort by means of a rope let down to him, and received the sword of the Commandant. In his report Douglas especially represents "that the cheerful way in which the whole detachment performed their duty, exposed as they were in the desert, without tents, very ill fed, and with only brackish water to drink, gained them the admiration of the whole Ottoman Army."

It may be mentioned, in conclusion, that Major Douglas was selected by Sir Sidney Smith1 for the important and honourable duty of taking to England a Copy of the Convention, signed at El Arish, on 24th January, 1800, for the evacuation of Egypt by the French Army.2

DEFENCE OF FORT TRINIDAD-ROSAS, 1808.

"I think by some odd gimmers or device,

Their arms are set like clocks, still to strike on;

Else n'er could they hold out so as they do."

Shakespeare-King Henry VI., Part I., Act I., Scene 2.

The Spaniards at this time had revolted against the French, who had occupied their country, and seized their fortified towns, and our Naval Officers had orders to give them every possible aid. As our fleet on the coast was very powerful, things were made very warm for any French troops occupying Spanish seaports.

One of these, the town of Rosas, situated close to the eastern end of the Pyrenees, was for a short time held by the patriots, but a French and Italian3 foree 6,000 strong, coming from Figurias, and occupying the heights round the bay upon which the place is situated, and sending a detachment into the town, the inhabitants fled either to their boats or to the citadel. This was on the 7th November. But off the town, within point-blank range, lay H.M.S. Excellent and the Meteor, bomb-vessel, and hardly had the French troops entered Rosas before their guns and mortars drove them out. During the night Captain West, R.N., of the Excellent, with a party of seamen, and a portion of his Marine Detachment under Captain J. Nicholson, and Lieutenants H. J. Gillespie and G. Pattoun, landed and occupied the Citadel, detaching Lieutenant T. How, R.M., and twenty-five of his men to garrison Fort Trinidad.

1 About this period of his life Sir Sidney Smith, like the famous Joachim Murat, seems to have affected a theatrical and semi-military costume which inust have given him a very different appearance to the one we generally connect with the Naval Officers of that day. Sir Richard Church-then a subaltern in the 13th (Somersetshire) Light Infantry writes to his sister from Marmorice, on 19th February, 1801;- We have here Le Tigre and Sir Sidney Smith: he is to command a Battalion of Marines, and seamen on shore; with him there must be success. His dress is curious, a large pair of mustachios, a long blue cloak lined with emine, gold epaulets, and a large sabre."-Fr. "Historical Review." 2 Vide Note II.

3 The French Division of Reille and Pino's Italian Division. Reille was in command. It must be remembered that at this time the French Army contained regiments drawn from several conquered nationalities.

4 Rosas was used as a base from which the British ships could intercept French vessels which tried to run the blockade of the French garrison in Barcelona.

The town of Rosas, looked at from the roadstead, stands at the head of the Bay. It was then but a narrow strip of houses. Behind it, not more than half-amile distant, rise the range of mountains which skirt the flat and swampy plain of the River Ampurdam. Beyond the plain the snow-capped Pyrenees soar into the blue sky. On the left of the town is the citadel, an irregular pentagon in shape, enclosed by two very thick and high walls. On the right, rather more than a mile from the town, and standing on a rugged hill coming up from the water's edge, is a Star Fort called "La Trinidad," the communication between it and the town being by a rough and narrow road along the beach. Overlooking "La Trinidad," within close range, is a high hill known as the Puig Rom, which virtually commanded the fort, and from which an enemy would have been enabled to drive out its occupants with ease, had not its superior height been discounted by the peculiar construction of the fort. "Next the sea it was constructed as a fort with strong walls some 50 feet high. Beyond this, and joined to it rose another fort to the height of thirty or forty feet more, and behind this again was a tower rising twenty or thirty feet still higher. The tower of course, having its back to the cliff (the Puig Rom), sheltered the middle and lower portions of the fortress from the fire of the battery above it."

"A pretty correct idea of our relative positions may be formed if the unnautical reader will imagine our small force placed in the nave of Westminster Abbey, with the enemy attacking the summit of the great western tower from the summit of a cliff a hundred feet higher than the tower, so that the breach in course of formation corresponds to the great west window of the Abbey. It was no easy matter for them to scale the external wall of the tower up to the great window, and more difficult still to get down from the window into the body of the church."1

Į "Autobiography of a Seaman" (Lord Cochrane).