by a flotilla of British guns and Ottoman gunboats and near the mouth of the Damietta. On seeing this the French abandoned the post and retired upon Port Said; the two garrisons numbering altogether 700 men were also evacuated and embarked on board five small vessels in the hope to be able to reach the port of Alexandria. Four of these vessels however were captured and carried into Abu Qir Bay with only one escaping to the coast of Italy. On 6 June Colonel Lloyd with his detachment of the 86th regiment numbering about 150 men set out to march across the desert to Cairo a distance by a route intended to be taken in order to avoid meeting a superior force. By the 10th these men joined Colonel John Stewart's detachment which was to be attached to Yusuf Pashas' (the Grand Vizier) army on the right bank of the Nile. Hutchinson moved about three miles in front to the village of Saael on the 14th and two days later advanced to a position just out of reach of the French works. The same day he was joined by the 28th Regiment of Foot and the 42nd Highland Regiment who had marched from the camp before Alexandria in twelve days. Meanwhile, the 320 troops under Stewart and Lloyd with the Grand Vizier moved to a parallel position and arrived on 20 June at Imbaba a village a few miles from the fortress of Giza opposite Cairo on the banks of the Nile. Here they lay directly opposite to Cairo and in which Belliard had stationed his large garrison. Hutchinson made another movement on the 21st and invested the town of Giza with the Anglo Ottoman force encamped close to the French advanced works on the other side of the river. By this time the force besieging Cairo had swelled to 20,000 men. An important letter had been found in the pocket of a French General named Roize who was killed in the action at the Battle of Alexandria. The letter written by Menou expressed an apprehension that the British would cut the embankment which formed the canal of Alexandria and thereby to let the waters of the sea into Lake Mariout, cutting off any chance of escape for the French. This was subsequently done by the engineers and water rushed in flooding the area and making the canal unusable and