The Sun.
London, England, 1841-06-30 00:00:00

MORNING SUN

were taken ; 700 of one regiment, who hid evaettated the
town in the night, marched down to the beach with drums
beating, and quietly laid down their arms. The bat-
teries were awfully knocked about, many guns upset, and
several burst. Vast quantities 01 munitions of war and
pro-
visions, together with specie to the amount of 5,0001. were
found in the town. Nahmoud Bey, the Governor, effeeted
his escape, but was afterwards taken by the mountaineers.
Poetry has crowned the terrific taking of Aare and the
beginning of a carmen tritamphale written on the 'cession
would have served one Commodore for his threatening war-
song, as well as ever did the " Song of Roland" serve Nor-
mandy's chieftain, on the eves of his onsets.
Now ye ramparts ! I am near you
Strengthening yotir inviolate town,
For the flag of England hastens
Not to save, but smite you down.
From a thousand mouths of terror
L';2t on bolt shall volley dawn,
Till abov.: the smoky darkness
Napier'e b
We ,:znnot pass by the 5
„,ziner crowns the town.
ple,zlid action of Admiral Stopfor
—an actiolt which has covered i.t.!" Admiral with immortal
n
honour. It was Admiral Sir Robert bt.: ford who left his flag
ship for the Phenix, who directed the I:ttai-2,, who fired the
first shot oo the devoted fortress, who neared wee formidable
batteries, and under the bristling cannon (the labom-s and as-
cumulationi of ages) stood up with wolness, daring, una.baken
courage, and commanded the whole operations.
The.result of this grand action was 3,000 prisoners, an int.,
mcn'e quantity of warlike stores accumulated for years in this
celebrated fortress, and po.sessiern of the entire coast of Syria.
The fail of Acre will echo and re-echo through the world.
The Sovereigns of Europe w;11 see that the spirit of Nelson
s'iil lives in the 1 ritish navy, that her fleets can yet batter
down mighty works deemed by ordinary people impregnable,
and that England is yet the undisputed Mistress of the Sea.
Our deytiviption of this great action is complete as it ap-
pears above, but the following letter, as if hit off by the
sweep of a suitor's tar-brush, with an honest and hearty seal,
presents a rough and sphited sketch of the Sidon and Acre
actions. The brave Commodore figures in it bravely, and it
conics from one who accompanied every inch of the business :
"My dear Father—l have received your welcome letter,
and am happy to hear all our dear family are well, as I am
at prevent, although I must say, since I wrote last to you,
we have had some sharp work for the eyes, I do assure you.
First and foremost, we took Sidon. I was ashore with the
Royal Marines, whom we call jollies, and right jolly fellows,
believe me, they are for fighting, as the Egyptians know to
their cost ; but now I must tell you, as far as 1 can learn
from the marines, their officers proposed to send out
skirmishers to cover their ten while they formed their
landing, and go on in what they call sections or three',
or quarter distant solurans. But our brave Commodore,
who is called Charley— a rum ore to look at, but a
rare one to go—swore he would have no " parade nonsense,"
but would make skirmishers of us all ; so off we set with the
Turks helter-skelter, the devil take the hindmost. I believe
our niessmates, the Turks, thought us mad, for the moment
one of them shortened sail, or lagged behind, the gallant old
Commodore, who was without his jacket, with his shirt-sleeves
tucked up, and an old straw hat, let fly a stone at him, with
" Bear a hand, rnessmates: shake a reef out of your trousers."
_ _

Oh, it was capital fun ! Only a pity they were not our saucy
neighbours on the other side of the water, that we might have
tried to take the shine out of them, instead of the miserable
half-starved Egyptian recruits, poor rascals, we bad to deal
with. Poor fellows, I pitied them, but it was no fault of
ours. Next we went to St. Jean d'Acre, a mighty strong place,
and where we cast anchor at about two o'clock on the after-
ternoon of the 3d of November, beat to quarters, and away we
rattled at the fortificalions ; but, alter the first broadside, the
smoke was so thick, devil a thing could we see, but we blazed
away at a fine rate. Some of us put four shots in the guns
at a time, which made the guns kick, and sometimes stranded
and carried away the breeching; but, as we were determined to
give them a good dose, we did not vend upon trifles. When
we had fired away about two hours, a most wicked shell from
the Gorgon steam-ship went slap hang into their largest maga-
zine of powder, blew 1,390 men to atoms, upset their guns, and
knocked the carriages to pieces on the ramparts, and killed
their artillerymen : after which, no wonder that they
were cowed, and would not stand to their guns, and
marched out of the place, poor devils. Some mistake was
made by some of the ships not taking their proper berths, and
the Admiral finding one of the ships filing over into another,
hung out the signal to discontinue the action, so they had after-
wards nothing to do but look on. We have taken a great
many guns and stores, and a great deal of cash ; so I hope,
my dear father, to bring you home some prize money, which
is a rare thing in these days. If it had not been for she blow-
ing up of the magazine by the Gorgon, as we had fired away
larnost all our powder and shot, they say we should have at-
tempterl to storm it next day ; in that case, I think a great
number of would have lost the number of our mess, which
means, being sent to Davy's locker, or if not to kingdom come,
the place was so devilish strong. But " All's well that ends
good luck
n d i andband re
rr ep
og
ro4t d
-fired very
well," and we hare had
-hoflesun,
The Egyptians stuffed
badly. Give my love to all at home prpm your loving son,
and so could not trail their ;iins fore and aft,
1 J. 44
" St. Jean d'Acre, November 5.
('ea rfiairleed

NAPIER AT ALEXANDRIA.
Commodore Napier's ship " the Powerful," though she had
the warmest berth at Acre, was, strange to say, only bulled
twice. After the engagement she sailed for Alexandria, where
the Commodore further crowned his glory, by settling in stir:
hours, not with treaties and protocols, but on the word of
honour of a British officer, and under the guns of a British
man-of-war—the Egyption question, against which all the
diplomatists in Europe had been knocking thssir heads for the
last five years, and which shook the Ottoman empire to its
centre, and all but involved Europe in the flames of a general
tsar. The short circumstances are these :
Commodore Napier having arrived off Alexandria with
reinforcement of several ships, learnt from her Majesty's
Vice-Consul, Mr. Larking, of the transmission of the terms
of settlement proposed by Mehemet Ali to Lord Palmerston,
through the Government of Malta ; namely, that hit Hjgh-
ness would restore the Ottoman fleet, withdraw his forces
from Syria, and content himself with the hereditary poseeasiorr
of Egypt alone. Whereupon the Commodore took the Power-
ful in with her guns double shotted. Twenty-four hours' time
was given for the Pacha's ultimatum ; before the expiration
of which the Pacha signified his assent, and the treaty was
duly signed and executed on the 24th inst. A more formal ra-
tification of the treaty was made by Admiral Stopford shortly
after.
A Maltese Correspondent, who saw the Gallant Commodore
at Alexandria at this time, gives this short but entertaining
sketch of him :
On the 26th of November he landed at Alexandria, and
spent his time in walking through the town in a plain coat
without epaulettes, and all the inhabitants, Turk, Arab, and
Christian, manifested the most intense desire to see hint. He
took up his quarters at the British Consulate, and in the ceurse
of the afternoon the principal Consuls stalled on him. On the
27th, about noon; be passed through the bazaars in the carriage
of Mr. Larking with a groat cavalcade to he presented to the
Pacha, and I perceived that most of the Orientals gave him-a
profound salaam. Nobody would have believed that Lord Pal-
merston would have entrusted such a delicate negotiation to
Commodore Napier, who has always been considered a mere
fighting man, but the result shows that his Lerdship'sipregnos-
tications in this respect have not been deceived. he town
was in a perfect state of jubilee, and the old stagers say this
is the merriest Bairam they ever saw.