Boston at this time. He had removed to New-| succession, who were to perform the duty of port. On his return from Boston Franklin went watchmen. This plan was, however, found to to Newport to see him. He was received by his be very inefficient, as the more respectable peobrother in a very cordial and affectionate manner, ple, instead of serving themselves, would pay a all former differences between the two brothers fine to the constable to enable him to hire subbeing forgotten by mutual consent. He found stitutes; and these substitutes were generally his brother in feeble health, and fast declining-worthless men who spent the night in drinking, and apprehending that his death was near at hand. He had one son, then ten years of age, and he requested that in case of his death Ben

jamin would take this child and bring him up to | were accustomed to assemble to hear the disthe printing business. Benjamin promised to do courses of the celebrated Mr. Whitefield. The so. A short time after this his brother died, and

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.*
BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.

THE EXPEDITION TO EGYPT.

NAPOLEON'S enterprises which

APOLEON'S Expedition to Egypt was one

human ambition ever conceived. When Napoleon was a schoolboy at Brienne, his vivid imagination became enamored of the heroes of antiquity, and ever dwelt in the society of the illustrious men of Greece and Rome. Indulging in solitary walks and pensive musings, at that early age he formed vague and shadowy, but magnificent conceptions of founding an Empire in the East, which should outvie in grandeur all that had yet been told in ancient or in modern story. His eye wandered along the shores of the Persian Gulf, and the Caspian Sea, as traced upon the map, and followed the path of the majestic floods of the Euphrates, the Indus, and the Ganges, rolling through tribes and nations, whose myriad population, dwelling in barbaric pomp and pagan darkness, invited a conqueror. "The Persians," exclaimed this strange boy, "have blocked up the route of Tamerlane, but I will open another." He, in those early dreams, imagined himself a conqueror, with Alexander's strength, but without Alexander's vice or weakness, spreading the energies of civilization, and of a just and equitable government, over the wild and boundless regions which were lost to European eyes in the obscurity of distance.

above the shrieks of the wounded and the groans of the dying, Napoleon saw but increasing indications that destiny was pointing out his path toIward an Oriental throne.

When the Austrians were driven out of Italy, and the campaign was ended, and Napoleon, at Montebello, was receiving the homage of Europe, his ever-impetuous mind turned with new interest to the object of his early ambition. He often passed hours, during the mild Italian evenings, walking with a few confidential friends in the magnificent park of his palace, conversing with intense enthusiasm upon the illustrious empires, which have successively overshadowed those countries, and faded away. "Europe," said he, "presents no field for glorious exploits; no great empires or revolutions are to be found but in the East, where there are six hundred millions of men."

Upon his return to Paris, he was deaf to all the acclamations with which he was surrounded. His boundless ambition was such that his past achievements seemed as nothing. The most brilliant visions of Eastern glory were dazzling his mind. "They do not long preserve at Paris," said he, "the remembrance of any thing. If I remain long unemployed, I am undone. The renown of one, in this great Babylon, speedily supplants that of another. If I am seen three times at the opera, I shall no longer be an object of curiosity. I am determined not to remain in Paris. There is noWhen struggling against the armies of Aus- thing here to be accomplished. Every thing here tria, upon the plains of Italy, visions of Egypt and passes away. My glory is declining. This little of the East blended with the smoke and the din corner of Europe is too small to supply it. We of the conflict. In the retreat of the Austrians must go to the East. All the great men of the before his impetuous charges, in the shout of vic-world have there acquired their celebrity." tory which incessantly filled his ear, swelling ever

* Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.

When requested to take command of the army of England, and to explore the coast, to judge of the feasibility of an attack upon the English in their own island, he said to Bourrienne, "I am

perfectly willing to make a tour to the coast. Should the expedition to Britain prove too hazardous, as I much fear that it will, the army of England will become the army of the East, and we will go to Egypt."

|ities of humanity. But it is not becoming in an English or an American historian to breathe the prayer, "We thank Thee, oh God, that we are not like this Bonaparte."

Egypt, the memorials of whose former grandeur still attract the wonder and the admiration of the civilized world, after having been buried, during centuries, in darkness and oblivion, is again slowly emerging into light, and is, doubt

He carefully studied the obstacles to be encountered in the invasion of England, and the means at his command to surmount them. In his view, the enterprise was too hazardous to be undertaken, and he urged upon the Directory the Ex-less, destined eventually to become one of the pedition to Egypt. "Once established in Egypt," great centres of industry and of knowledge. The said he, "the Mediterranean becomes a French Mediterranean washes its northern shores, openLake; we shall found a colony there, unenervated ing to its commerce all the opulent cities of Euby the curse of slavery, and which will supply the rope. The Red Sea wafts to its fertile valley place of St. Domingo; we shall open a market the wealth of India and of China The Nile, for French manufactures through the vast re-rolling its vast floods from the unknown interior gions of Africa, Arabia, and Syria. All the car- of Africa, opens a highway for inexhaustible avans of the East will meet at Cairo, and the internal commerce with unknown nations and commerce of India, must forsake the Cape of tribes. Good Hope, and flow through the Red Sea. Marching with an army of sixty thousand men, we can cross the Indus, rouse the oppressed and discontented native population, against the English usurpers, and drive the English out of India. We will establish governments which will respect the rights and promote the interests of the people. The multitude will hail us as their deliverers from oppression. The Christians of Syria, the Druses, and the Armenians, will join our standards. We may change the face of the world." Such was the magnificent project which inflamed this ambitious mind.

England, without a shadow of right, had invaded India. Her well-armed dragoons had ridden, with bloody hoofs, over the timid and naked natives. Cannon, howitzers, and bayonets had been the all-availing arguments with which England had silenced all opposition. English soldiers, with unsheathed swords ever dripping with blood, held in subjection provinces containing uncounted millions of inhabitants. A circuitous route of fifteen thousand miles, around the stormy Cape of Good Hope, conducted the merchant fleets of London and Liverpool to Calcutta and Bombay; and through the same long channel there flooded back upon the maritime isle the wealth of the Indies.

It was the plea of Napoleon that he was not going to make an unjust war upon the unoffending nations of the East; but that he was the ally of the oppressed people, drawing the sword against their common enemy, and that he was striving to emancipate them from their powerful usurpers, and to confer upon them the most precious privileges of freedom. He marched to Egypt not to desolate, but to enrich; not to enslave, but to enfranchise; not to despoil the treasures of the East, but to transfer to those shores the opulence and the high civilization of the West. Never was an ambitious conqueror furnished with a more plausible plea. England, as she looks at India and China, must be silent. America, as she listens to the dying wail of the Red Man, driven from the forests of his childhood and the graves of his fathers, can throw no stone. Napoleon surely was not exempt from the infirm

The country consists entirely of the lower valley of the Nile, with a front of about one hundred and twenty miles on the Mediterranean. The valley six hundred miles in length, rapidly diminishes in breadth as it is crowded by the sands of the desert, presenting, a few leagues from the mouth of the river, but the average width of about six miles. The soil fertilized by the annual inundations of the Nile, possesses most extraordinary fertility. These floods are caused by the heavy rains which fall in the mountains of Abyssinia. It never rains in Egypt. Centuries may pass while a shower never falls from the sky. Under the Ptolemies the population of the country was estimated at twenty millions. But by the terrific energies of despotism, these numbers had dwindled away, and at the time of the French Expedition Egypt contained but two million five hundred thousand inhabitants. These were divided into four classes. First came the Copts, about two hundred thousand, the descendants of the ancient Egyptians. They were in a state of the most abject degradation and slavery. The great body of the population, two millions in number, were the Arabs. They were a wild and semi-barbarian race, restrained from all enterprise and industry, by unrelenting despotism. The Turks or Janizaries, two hundred thousand strong, composed a standing army, of sensual, merciless, unprincipled usurpers, which kept the trembling population by the energies of the bastinado, the scimitar and the bowstring in most servile subjection. The Mamelukes composed a body of twelve thousand horsemen. proud, powerful and intolerable oppressors. Each horseman had two servants to perform his menial service. Twenty-four beys, each of whom had five or six hundred Mamelukes under his command, governed this singular body of cavalry. Two principal beys, Ibrahim and Mourad divided between them the sovereignty of Egypt. It was the old story of despotism. The millions were ground down into hopeless degradation and poverty to pamper to the luxury and vice of a few haughty masters. Oriental voluptuousness and luxury reigned in the palaces of the beys: beggary and wretchedness deformed the mud

hovels of the defrauded and degraded people. It❘ orders for the divisions of his renowned army of was Napoleon's aim to present himself to the people of Egypt as their friend and liberator; to rally them around his standard, to subdue the Mamelukes, to establish a government, which should revive all the sciences and the arts of civilized life in Egypt; to acquire a character, by these benefactions, which should emblazon his name throughout the East; and then, with oppressed nations welcoming him as a deliverer, to strike blows upon the British power in India, which should compel the mistress of the seas to acknowledge that upon the land there was an arm which could reach and humble her. It was a design sublime in its magnificence. But it was not the will of God that it should be accomplished.

Italy to march to Genoa and Toulon. He collected the best artisans Europe could furnish in all the arts of human industry. He took printing types, of the various languages of the East, from the College of the Propaganda at Rome, and a company of printers. He formed a large collection of the most perfect philosophical and mathematical instruments. The most illustrious men, though knowing not where he was about to lead them, were eager to attach themselves to the fortunes of the young general. Preparations for an enterprise upon such a gigantic scale could not be made without attracting the attention of Europe. Rumor was busy with her countless contradictions. "Where is Napoleon bound?” was the universal inquiry. "He is going," said The Directory, at last overcome by the argu- some to the Black Sea"-"to India”—“to ments of Napoleon, and also, through jealousy cut a canal through the Isthmus of Suez"of his unbounded popularity, being willing to re- "to Ireland"-" to the Thames." Even Kleber move him from France, assented to the proposed supposed that they were bound for England, expedition. It was however necessary to pre- and reposing implicit confidence in the invinciserve the utmost secrecy. Should England be bility of Napoleon, he said, "Well! if you informed of the direction in which the blow was throw a fireship into the Thames, put Kleber on about to fall upon her, she might, with her in- board of her and you shall see what he will do." vincible fleet, intercept the French squadron- The English cabinet was extremely perplexed. she might rouse the Mamelukes to most formida-They clearly foresaw that a storm was gatherble preparations for resistance, and might thus ing, but knew not in what direction it would vastly increase the difficulties of the enterprise. break. Extraordinary efforts were made to All the deliberations were consequently conducted equip a powerful fleet, which was placed under with closed doors, and the whole plan was en- the command of Lord Nelson, to cruise in the veloped in the most profound mystery. For the Mediterranean and watch the movements of the first time in the history of the world, literature French. and science and art, formed a conspicuous part On the 9th of May, 1798, just five months after of the organization of an army. It was agreed Napoleon's return to Paris from the Italian camthat Napoleon should take forty-six thousand paign, he entered Toulon, having completed all men, a certain number of officers of his own his preparations for the most magnificent enterselection, men of science, engineers, geographers, prise ever contemplated by a mortal Josephine and artisans of all kinds. Napoleon now de-accompanied him, that he might enjoy as long as voted himself with the most extraordinary energy to the execution of his plans. Order succeeded order with ceaseless rapidity. He seemed to rest not day nor night. He superintended every thing himself, and with almost the rapidity of the wind passed from place to place, correspond-lord and master. The fleet consisted of thirty ing with literary men, conversing with generals, raising money, collecting ships, and accumulating supplies. His comprehensive and indefatigable mind arranged even the minutest particulars. “I worked all day,” said one, in apology for his assigned duty not having been fully performed. "But had you not the night also?" Napoleon replied. "Now sir," said he to another, use dispatch. Remember that the world was created in but six days. Ask me for whatever you please, except time; that is the only thing which is beyond my power."

possible, the charms of her society. Passionately as he loved his own glory, his love for Josephine was almost equally enthusiastic. A more splendid armament never floated upon the bosom of the ocean than here awaited him, its supreme

ships of the line and frigates; seventy-two brigs and cutters, and four hundred transports. It bore forty-six thousand combatants, and a literary corps of one hundred men, furnished in the most perfect manner, to transport to Asia the science and the arts of Europe, and to bring back in return the knowledge gleaned among the monuments of antiquity. The old army of Italy was drawn up in proud array to receive its youthful general, and they greeted him with the most enthusiastic acclamations. But few even of the officers of the army were aware of its destination. Napoleon inspirited his troops with the following proclamation:

His own energy was thus infused into the hearts of hundreds, and with incredible rapidity the work of preparation went on. He selected "Soldiers! you are one of the wings of the four points for the assemblage of convoys and army of England. You have made war in mountroops, Toulon, Genoa, Ajaccio, and Civita tains, plains and cities. It remains to make it Vecchia. He chartered four hundred vessels of on the ocean. The Roman legions, whom you merchantmen in France and Italy as transports have often imitated but not yet equaled, comfor the secret service, and assembled them at the bated Carthage, by turns, on the seas and on the points of departure. He dispatched immediate | plains of Zama. Victory never deserted their