ch on November 20 described the victory as foiling an
enterprise against the most valuable interests of the British empire,
and as likely to lead other powers to combine for the general
deliverance of Europe. Let us trace its effects under these two
headings. Bonaparte's conquest of Egypt was designed to be a step
towards the overthrow of British power and commerce in the east. He
found himself shut up in his conquest. Great ideas presented themselves
to him. He would take Constantinople, and conquer Europe by a flank
attack. He would be a second Alexander, and after another Issos would
drive the English from India. Already French envoys were inciting Tipu
Sultan to war. From the shores of the Red sea Bonaparte wrote to bid him
expect his army. The letter was seized by a British ship. Nelson's
victory encouraged the sultan, Selim III., the nominal lord of Egypt, to
declare war. A Turkish army and fleet were assembled at Rhodes, and
another army in Syria. Bonaparte did not wait to be attacked in Egypt.
The conquest of Syria would deprive the British fleet of its source of
supplies in the Levant, and would open the way to a conquest either of
Constantinople or Delhi.[289] On February 15, 1799, he captured El
Arish, and on March 6 took Jaffa by storm. Then with an army weakened by
disease and fighting, he marched on Acre. There he again had to meet a
British sea-captain.

[Sidenote: _DEFENCE OF ACRE._]

After his distinguished service at Toulon, and some later employment,
Sir Sidney Smith, in 1795, was appointed to the command of some small
vessels with which he did much damage to the enemy off the Norman coast.
He was taken prisoner in 1796 and kept in France for eighteen months. He
escaped in 1798 with the help of a royalist officer of engineers,
Colonel Phelypeaux, was sent to Constantinople as joint-plenipotentiary
with his brother, and, Nelson being at Naples, became senior naval
officer in the Levant. Acre, as the best harbour on the Syrian coast,
was specially important to British maritime supremacy in those waters.
So long as it remained uncaptured, Bonaparte could not advance, for the
door would be left open to an attack on his rear. If he took the place,
he believed that Syria would rise against Djezzar, its Turkish ruler.
The fortifications were weak, but Nelson's victory deprived him of the
power of investing it by sea. Smith sent his friend, Phelypeaux, in the
_Theseus_ (74) to teach the Turks how to strength