ower
of Acre, was explored, and means taken for countermining it.

Meanwhile a vast Mussulman army had been gathered among the mountains of
Samaria, and was preparing to descend upon Acre, and attack the
besiegers in concert with the garrison of Djezzar. Junot, with his
division, marched to encounter them, and would have been overwhelmed by
their numbers, had not Napoleon himself followed and rescued him (April
8) at Nazareth, where the splendid cavalry of the orientals were, as
usual, unable to resist the solid squares and well-directed musketry of
the French. Kleber, with another division, was in like manner
endangered, and in like manner rescued by the general-in-chief at Mount
Tabor (April 15). The Mussulmans dispersed on all hands; and Napoleon,
returning to his siege, pressed it on with desperate assaults, day after
day, in which his best soldiers were thinned, before the united efforts
of Djezzar's gallantry, and the skill of his allies. At length, however,
a party of French succeeded in forcing their way into the great tower,
and in establishing themselves in one part of it, in despite of all the
resolution that could be opposed to them. At the same critical moment,
there appeared in the offing a Turkish fleet, which was known to carry
great reinforcements for the Pacha. Everything conspired to prompt
Napoleon to finish his enterprise at whatever cost, and he was bravely
seconded.

Sir Sydney Smith, however, was as resolute to hold out until the fleet
should arrive, as Napoleon was eager to anticipate its coming. The
English commander repaired with his handful of seaman to the tower, and
after a furious assault dislodged the occupants. Buonaparte did not
renew the attack in that quarter, but succeeded in breaking the wall in
another part of the town; and the heroic Lannes headed a French party
who actually entered Acre at that opening. But Djezzar was willing they
should enter. He suffered them to come in unmolested; and then, before
they could form, threw such a crowd of Turks upon them, that discipline
was of no avail: it was a mere multitude of duels, and the brave
orientals with their scimitars and pistols, overpowered their enemies,
and put them to death--almost to a man. Lannes himself was with
difficulty carried back desperately wounded.

The rage of Buonaparte at these repeated discomfitures may be imagined.
The whole evil was ascribed, and justly, to the presence of Sir Sydney
Smith; and he spoke of