the British government would reconsider upon reading the details of the convention. Keith, when he heard the details was supportive of the convention but also sent a letter to Kléber with details of his orders that demanded nothing less than an unconditional surrender. This letter reached Kléber at Cairo on 18 March, by which time Yusef had moved an army of 40,000 men to nearby Heliopolis. Kléber was outraged and led his troops against Yusuf. He inflicted a heavy defeat upon the Ottoman forces in the 20 March Battle of Heliopolis. Kléber was assassinated in Cairo on 14 June by Suleiman al-Halabi, a Syrian student supportive of the Ottoman cause. Kléber's successor was General Jacques-François Menou. In the meantime the British government, led by William Pitt the Younger, had received a copy of the convention and agreed to its acceptance. However a British envoy, Lieutenant Wright of , did not reach the French troops until 22 August at which point he was refused admission to Alexandria - General Menou being optimistic of French fortunes in a renewed campaign. Wright endeavoured to communicate the acceptance to the French rank and file and induce them to revolt against their generals who refused to allow them to go home, but was turned away. Upon hearing of this rejection the British government decided upon a fresh offensive to evict the French from Egypt. This was successfully carried out resulting in the surrender of French forces at Alexandria in August 1801 and the subsequent repatriation of French troops on British ships. British parliamentary debates The British government's actions in regards the convention were criticised in the House of Commons by MP Thomas Tyrwhitt Jones. He put forward a motion on 2 June 1801 to discover who had initially ordered that no treaty was to be agreed to. Jones praised Smith's actions and stated that the requirement of keeping British troops tied up in Egypt to fight the French may have caused the loss of Hanover to the forces of the Second League of Armed Neutrality in April 1801; the loss of Portugal to Franco-Spanish forces during the War of the Oranges in June 1801; and severely weakened the defences of the British Isles. Jones' opponents said that he had unsuccessfully raised the issue on no fewer than 12 occasions and his latest motion was defeated by 138 votes to 22. References 1800 in France 1800