Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v2p1.djvu/475

 1$h$ 10' P.M. Captain Curry observing a French gun-vessel in flames, and drifting to the eastern bank of the river, forced his way past the castle, under a heavy discharge of grape and musketry, in order to save the crew. On boarding the djerm, he found four Arabs with their knives in readiness, anxiously searching for some concealed victim; but fortunately the Frenchmen had all escaped. He had scarcely quitted her again before she blew up, On presenting the pendant which he had struck to the Capitan Pacha, that chieftain expressed the strongest admiration of his conduct, and presented the cutter’s crew with a purse of forty sequins. At 6$h$ A.M. on the 19th the castle surrendered, after an honorable defence. The prisoners taken on this occasion amounted to 268, of whom 160 had recently arrived from France; about 40 of the garrison had been killed and wounded during the siege. Several black females and a young Frenchwoman were found in the castle. Encouraged by this success, the allies determined to press their operations against the enemy in the interior; and with this determination, Major-General Hutchinson arrived in person at Rosetta on the 26th, having left Major-General Coote in command of the army before Alexandria.

Captain Curry had previously taken possession of a djerm, lying alongside the wharf at Rosetta, and added her to the flotilla by the name of the Betsy. In this vessel, armed with a 24-pounder carronade, he proceeded up the Nile; and putting on shore at Montubis, went from thence with Sir W. Sidney Smith, Captain James Hillyar, Colonel Bromley, and other officers, to make a reconnoissance inland. On their return they passed through Berimbal, a considerable village about nine or ten miles above Rosetta, and then along the banks of a canal said to form a communication between the river and Lake Bourlos, but which actually terminates at a place called Sowacanisara, or the Christian’s Well; about a quarter of a mile from which another canal commences arid runs into the lake. At Berimbal they were received by the inhabitants with apparently great joy, the women collecting in a body and setting up a noise somewhat similar to that made at an Irish wake, or rather of a number of English females scolding each other.

On the 26th April, Sir Sidney Smith, accompanied by