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 that chivalrous person ever after with the venom of a personal hatred. Sir Sydney, in requital of Buonaparte's proclamation--inviting (as was his usual fashion) the subjects of the Pacha to avoid his yoke, and ally themselves with the invaders--put forth a counter address to the Druses and other Christian inhabitants of Syria, invoking their assistance in the name of their religion, against the blasphemous general of a nation which had renounced Christianity. Napoleon upon this said that Sir Sydney was a madman; and if his story be true, Sir Sydney challenged him to single combat; to which he made answer, that he would not come forth to a duel unless the English could fetch Marlborough from his grave, but that, in the meantime, any one of his grenadiers would willingly give the challenger such satisfaction as he was entitled to demand. Whatever inaccuracy there may be in some of these circumstances, there is no doubt of the fact that Buonaparte and the brave commodore strove together at Acre, under the highest influence of personal resentment, as well as martial skill and determination.
[_21st May._] The siege had now lasted sixty days. Once more Napoleon commanded an assault, and his officers and soldiery once more obeyed him with devoted and fruitless gallantry. The loss his army had by this time undergone was very great. Caffarelli and many other officers of the highest importance were no more. The plague had some time before this appeared in the camp; every day the ranks of his legions were thinned by this pestilence, as well as by the weapons of the defenders of Acre. The hearts of all men were quickly sinking. The Turkish fleet was at hand to reinforce Djezzar; and upon the utter failure of the attack of the 21st of May, Napoleon yielded to stern necessity, and began his retreat upon Jaffa.