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LONDON:

Printed by T. Burton, No. 31, Little Queen-ftreet,

for the Proprietors of Dodfley's Annual Regifter,

W.OTRIDGE AND SON; R. FAULDER; J. CUTHELL; OGILVY AND SON;
R. LEA; J. NUNN; J. WALKER; LACKINGTON, ALLEN, AND CO.
E. JEFFERY; AND VERNOR AND HOOD.

PREFACE.

THE

HE campaigns, or rather combined campaign of 1799, in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, for extent and variety of action, is diftinguished even among those of the prefent war, and unprecedented in the annals of the world.

In the hiftory of a war, carried on by fo many armies, on fo extended a theatre, it is impoffible, without confufion, and lofing fight of thofe combinations and defigns, which alone can give intereft to the fubject, to be fo copious and circumftantial as in that of wars, in which, the campaign is bounded by the occupation of a few paffes, and the reduction of one or two fortified towns. What would have been formerly the whole of a plan, for one feafon, has now become only a part of a more comprehenfive system. The Annalift must therefore write his accounts of military defigns and operations on the fame general scale on which they are conceived and executed. Marches, fieges, battles, and retreats, which might, in former times have ferved, each of them, for the subject of a separate narrative, or perhaps, fome of them of a heroic poem, muft, in the hiftory of the prefent, and probably of future, wars, be confidered as only component parts of one more general action. If books were extended in proportion to the multiplication of facts and reafon

t

ings, the republic of letters would fink under its own weight. Claffifications, refults, conclufions, and maxims, long perhaps the fabjects of difcuffion, become the elements of new compofitions.

The neceffity of compreffion, in our European campaigns, is not leffened by the co-incident movements of armies in Syria, Egypt, and India; nor yet by the negociations at Raftadt and Seltz: a scene of political intrigue bearing fome analogy to the wide and various field of action.

The time that was neceffary for the arrangement of fo many materials into a plan, not entirely difproportionate to our ufual dimensions, and for the correction of errors, by recent and undoubted information, will, we truft, afford not only an apology for being fomewhat Jater in the publication of this volume, than was promised in our last; but afford a new proof of our earnest defire, by all means, to render our work as complete and fatisfactory as poffible. On the whole, our engagements to the public, with regard to the time of bringing up this work, which had indeed fallen greatly behind, have been now fulfilled. It may be said that we have now very nearly overtaken time. It shall be our care to keep an equal pace with this in future: though at a due distance. The Annual Register is not addreffed to the fame curiofity that thirfts after newspapers, but to curiofity of a higher order: that of feeing plans and fyftems unfolded by events; and these events, from new relations and combinations, deriving not only a degree of novelty, but greater intereft and importance.

THE

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A general View of the Year 1799.-Hazardous Situation of Buonaparte, in confequence of the Defruction of the French Fleet.-Prefent State of Egypt.-Mammalukes.-Boys-Arabs.-Jews-Greeks.-Cophts.Force, Land and Marine, under the Command of Buonaparte.-Various Cares of Buonaparte.-Means of maintaining the Army. And of recruiting and preferving it.-Buonaparte rejpects himself, and gives Orders to his Officers to refpect, the Prejudices of all the Egyptians.--His Proclamation to the People of Egypt.-At great Pains to propagate, in all Mahometan Countries, a Belief of his Veneration for Islaumism and the Prophet. -Treachery and Punishment of the principal Sheick, or Shereef, of Alexandria.-Endeavours of Buonaparte to blend and harmonize the French and the Egyptians.-Meafures taken for the Accomplishment of that Defign.Grand Feaft at Cairo, on the Anniversary of the French Republic.-Great Ceremony at the annual opening of the Grand Canal of Cairo.-Liberality of Buonaparte to the Egyptians.Useful Infitutions.--Government of Egypt attempted to be affimilated to the new Government in France.— Notables-Departments. And a general Affembly, or Divan, in Egypt. -Difficulty of operating and producing any permanent Change in the Minds of Barbarians-Jealoufes of the French.--Difcontents.-MurVOL. XLI.

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