favourable to
the Syrian Christians, and the assurances of Sir Sidney Smith had great
weight, and there was soon a sensible decrease in the amount of
provisions and supplies brought into the French camp.

The breach widened under the heavy fire kept up continuously upon it by
the French batteries, and as it was evident that other assaults would be
made at that spot, the engineers began to throw out a ravelin, or
advanced work, from the foot of the walls on each side of the breach, so
as to take any assaulting party in flank. On the 1st of May the French,
thinking that the breach must now be practicable, advanced for the
fourth time.

A heavy gale had blown all day, the ships of war and gun-boats were
rolling heavily at their anchorage, and it was doubtless thought that
they would be unable to use their guns. In the afternoon, therefore, a
body of men ran forward with six scaling-ladders; crossing the moat as
before, they planted their ladders and attempted to mount the breach.
They were, however, assailed by so heavy a fire of musketry from the
Turks that the leading party were literally swept away. In spite of the
heavy weather, the ships joined their fire to that of the batteries, and
a storm of shot and shell was rained upon the trenches, and the 2000 men
who had been seen to advance in readiness for the assault, finding it
impossible to issue from their shelter, retired to their camp. The
marines of the two men-of-war had manned the new works, and their fire
contributed much to the repulse of the French.

Sir Sidney Smith, in his despatches home, expressed his regret at the
heavy loss of life encountered by the French in their desperate attempts
to perform the impossible feat of entering by a breach that could only
be reached by scaling-ladders. The point of attack had certainly been
badly chosen, for, while the masonry of the upper chamber tower was very
rotten, that of the lower part was excellent; whereas the walls
themselves were, in most places, badly built, and could have been
demolished in a very short time by the heavy guns the French now had in
their batteries. Thirty of these had been landed at Jaffa, and brought
up to the front.

In addition to the sortie of the 16th April, Sir Sidney Smith kept the
besiegers constantly on the alert by landing parties from the ships'
boats on the flanks of their lines of trenches. The attacks were
sometimes pushed home, the earthworks were overthrown, the fascines
ca