OF THE BRITISH EXPEDITION то EGYPT; TO WHICH IS SUBJOINED, A SKETCH OF THE PRESENT STATE OF THAT ILLUSTRATED WITH MAPS, AND A PORTRAIT OF SIR RALPH ABERCROMBY. BY ROBERT THOMAS WILSON, LIEUTENANT COLONEL OF CAVALRY IN HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S SERVICE, AND KNIGHT OF THE IMPERIAL MILITARY ORDER PUBLISHED BY CONRAD, & co. AND SOLD AT THEIR BOOK Bonsal Niles, Printers, Wilmington. 1803. Ja /54/812 FIELD MARSHAL HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF YORK, COMMANDER IN CHIEF, &c. &c. &c. SIR, PLACED in the army, and honoured by your protection, I have ever considered that the utmost energies I was capable of exerting, should be directed to obtain your approbation. Private feelings would therefore have induced me to dedicate my work to your Royal Highness, had you not, Sir, a claim on every military production.—— A claim not arising only from your high situation, but founded on the universally acknowledged fact, that, under your auspices, the British army has attained a character, which was never out-rivalled in the most brilliant æra of the English History. When your Royal Highness assumed the com mand, abuses had disordered the service. Your judicious regulations, impartially executed, instantly checked their pernicious influence, and soon recovered to the profession that respect which for a time had been denied, finally establishing it on the basis of honour, emulation, and merit. This language, Sir, strictly represents the general sentiment of your country, whose honest eulogies must be much more gratifying than all the panegyrics which adulation could indite. To you, Sir, must also be attributed those arrangements and that impulse of zeal, which, notwithstanding the severe losses in the war, placed at the disposal of government, to carry on a ninth campaign, the force which composed the Egyptian army; an army which, whilst manifesting so conspicuously that national valour, which your Royal Highness has so often witnessed, and animated by your presence, appropriates to itself a celebrity for unrivalled discipline. I am aware, Sir, that I have undertaken a very difficult task, and with anxiety await the result; |