English Caricature and Satire on Napoleon I. John Ashton

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СКАЧАТЬ smiled, As if he had been reconciled. That smile, some whispered, is a gracious one, This guess was not, tho’, a sagacious one; The Janizary was not spared, His fellow-prisoners’ fate he shared; But previously brave Nap withdrew, And at a distance had a view; The signal given—none dared to stop— The musquetry went pop—pop—pop. Nap thro’ his spy glass marked the fun, And cried out ‘bravo’ when ’twas done— His soldiers, who the dead surrounded, Humanely stabbed and killed the wounded.

      Napoleon now turned his attention to the siege of St. Jean d’Acre, where the garrison had the advantage of European aid, besides which, Sir Sydney Smith cruised about the fort, and Napoleon’s battering-train, which had been captured, was duly pointed at the besiegers. He was, besides, called off to help Kleber, who was in an awkward situation at Mount Thabor, and had been fighting Achmet Pasha, who had a considerably superior force, from six in the morning till one in the afternoon. Not one moment too soon did Napoleon make his appearance; but he turned the tide of battle, and the Turks were defeated with the loss of 5,000 or 6,000 men, and all their stores, &c.

      Back they went to St. Jean d’Acre, and did their best at the siege; but it was not to be. Reinforcements were thrown into the town, Napoleon’s army grew smaller, provisions got scarcer, the plague was in their midst; so, sending his sick and wounded to Jaffa, he raised the siege and began to retreat on May 20.

      O’Meara tells us Napoleon’s version of the causes which led to this.48 ‘ “The chief cause of the failure there was that Sir Sydney Smith took all my battering-train, which was on board of several small vessels. Had it not been for that, I would have taken Acre in spite of him. He behaved very bravely, and was well seconded by Phillipeaux, a Frenchman of talent, who had studied with me as an engineer. … The acquisition of five or six hundred seamen as cannoniers, was a great advantage to the Turks, whose spirits they revived, and whom they showed how to defend the fortress.

      ‘ “But he committed a great fault in making sorties, which cost the lives of two or three hundred brave fellows, without the possibility of success. For it was impossible he could succeed against the number of the French who were before Acre. I would lay a wager, he lost half of his crew in them. He dispersed proclamations among my troops which certainly shook some of them, and I, in consequence, published an order, stating that he was mad, and forbidding all communication with him. Some days after, he sent, by means of a flag of truce, a lieutenant, or a midshipman, with a letter containing a challenge to me, to meet him at some place he pointed out, in order to fight a duel. I laughed at this, and sent him back an intimation that when he brought Marlborough to fight me I would meet him. Notwithstanding this, I like the character of the man.” ’

      The French reached Jaffa on May 24, and found the hospitals full of wounded and those sick of the plague. Compelled still to retreat, it was necessary to remove the sick; and, to encourage his soldiers in the task, and to show them how little was the risk, Napoleon is said to have handled several of the infected.

      CHAPTER XVI.

       Table of Contents

      RETREAT FROM JAFFA—POISONING OF FIVE HUNDRED SOLDIERS—DIFFERENT ENGLISH AUTHORITIES THEREON—NAPOLEON’S OWN STORY, ALSO THOSE OF LAS CASES AND O’MEARA—RETREAT TO CAIRO.

      But this retreat became the subject of a dreadful accusation against Napoleon, which must have hit him hard at the time of his projected invasion in 1803—aye, quite as hard as the massacre at Jaffa. It was nothing less than that he poisoned, with opium, 500 of his sick soldiers, before he left Jaffa. There was a solid foundation for this fearful charge, as will be shown hereafter. Combe speaks of it thus—

      Another great thing Boney now did,

       With sick the hospitals were crowded,

       He therefore planned, nor planned in vain,

       To put the wretches out of pain;

       He an apothecary found—

       For a physician, since renown’d,

       The butchering task with scorn declined,

       Th’ apothecary, tho’, was kind. It seems that Romeo met with such a one, This is a mournful theme to touch upon, Opium was put in pleasant food, The wretched victims thought it good; But, in a few hours, as they say, About six hundred, breathless lay.

      The truth of this has never been accurately established, but I fancy, at that time, there were very few Englishmen who did not thoroughly believe it. Sir Robert Wilson wrote: ‘Buonaparte finding that his hospitals at Jaffa were crowded with sick, sent for a physician, whose name should be inscribed in letters of gold, but which, from important reasons, cannot be here inserted; on his arrival, he entered into a long conversation with him respecting the danger of contagion, concluding at last with the remark, that something must be done to remedy the evil, and that the destruction of the sick at present in the hospital, was the only measure which could be adopted. The physician, alarmed at the proposal, bold in the confidence of virtue, and the cause of humanity, remonstrated vehemently, respecting the cruelty, as well as the atrocity, of such a murder; but, finding that Buonaparte persevered and menaced, he indignantly left the tent, with this memorable observation; “Neither my principles, nor the character of my profession, will allow me to become a murderer; and, General, if such qualities as you insinuate are necessary to form a great man, I thank my God that I do not possess them.”

      POISONING THE SICK AT JAFFA.

      ‘Buonaparte was not to be diverted from his object by moral considerations; he persevered, and found an apothecary, who (dreading the weight of power, but who since has made an atonement to his mind, by unequivocally confessing the fact) consented to become his agent, and to administer poison to the sick. Opium, at night, was distributed in gratifying food, the wretched, unsuspecting, victims banqueted, and, in a few hours, five hundred and eighty soldiers, who had suffered so much for their country, perished thus miserably by the order of its idol. …

      ‘If a doubt should still exist as to the veracity of this statement, let the Members of the Institute at Cairo be asked what passed in their sitting after the return of Buonaparte from Syria; they will relate, that the same virtuous physician, who refused to become the destroyer of those committed to his protection, accused Buonaparte of high treason, in the full assembly, against the honour of France, her children, and humanity; that he entered into the full details of the poisoning of the sick, and the massacre of the garrison, aggravating these crimes by charging Buonaparte with strangling, previously, at Rosetta, a number of French and Copts, who were ill of the plague; thus proving that this disposal of his sick was a premeditated plan, which he wished to introduce into general practice. In vain Buonaparte attempted to justify himself; the members sat petrified with terror, and almost doubted whether the scene passing before their eyes was not an illusion.’

      Dr. Wittman assures his readers that whilst he was in Egypt with the army, a man was pointed out to them as having been the executioner of Napoleon’s commands to poison the sick and wounded French soldiers in the hospitals of Jaffa.

      Barre says: ‘Although neither Sir Robert Wilson nor Dr. Wittman mention the name of the worthy physician who refused with horror, and of the infamous wretch, who basely consented to become the executioner of the sick soldiers, it is now well known that the former was the worthy physician Dr. Desgenettes, and the latter, one Rouyer, an infamous apothecary, who thus became the murderer of his own countrymen, in compliance with the wishes of a Corsican assassin.’

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