might
almost be described as the greatest sea-fight in history.

On the evening of August 1, 1798, thirteen great battleships lay drawn
up in a single line parallel with the shore, and as close to it as the
sandbanks permitted. The head ship was almost stern on to the shoal
which, running out at right angles to the shore, forms Aboukir Island.
The nose of each succeeding ship was exactly 160 yards from the stern
of the ship before it, and, allowing for one or two gaps, each ship was
bound by a great cable to its neighbour. It was a thread of beads,
only each "bead" was a battleship, whose decks swarmed with brave men,
and from whose sides gaped the iron lips of more than a thousand heavy
guns. The line was not exactly straight; it formed a very obtuse
angle, the projecting point at the centre being formed by the _Orient_,
the biggest warship at that moment afloat, a giant of 120 guns.

Next to her came the _Franklin_, of 80 guns, a vessel which, if not the
biggest, was perhaps the finest sample of naval architecture in
existence. The line of ships was more than one mile and a half long,
and consisted of the gigantic flagship, three ships of the line of 80
guns, and nine of 74 guns. In addition, it had a fringe of gunboats
and frigates, while a battery of mortars on the island guarded, as with
a sword of fire, the gap betwixt the headmost ship and the island.
This great fleet had convoyed Napoleon, with 36,000 troops crowded into
400 transports, from France, had captured Malta on the voyage, and
three weeks before had safely landed Napoleon and his soldiers in
Egypt. The French admiral, Brueys, knew that Nelson was coming
furiously in his track, and after a consultation with all his captains
he had drawn up his ships in the order which we have described, a
position he believed to be unassailable. And at three o'clock on the
afternoon of August 1, 1798, his look-outs were eagerly watching the
white topsails showing above the lee line, the van of Nelson's fleet.

Napoleon had kept the secret of his Egyptian expedition well, and the
great Toulon fleet, with its swarm of transports, had vanished round
the coast of Corsica and gone off into mere space, as far as a
bewildered British Admiralty knew. A fleet of thirteen 74-gun ships
and one of 50 guns was placed under Nelson's flag. He was ordered to
pursue and destroy the vanished French fleet, and with characteristic
energy he set out on one of the most dramatic se