Upon his second arrival at Alexandria, Nelson again found the main anchorage empty of the French fleet, though busy with transports. Napolean had arrived three days after Nelson’s previous visit on 28th June, and landed his army, which had proceeded to take Alexandria and Cairo.
The French fleet were discovered at anchor in Aboukir Bay, east of Alexandria, and defeated in a daring exploit which took the British ships to landward of the anchored French line to join battle. Of the thirteen ships of the line in the French fleet, eleven, including the great three-decker flagship, L’Orient, were burnt, sunk or taken, and French naval influence was removed from the Mediterranean, cutting Napoleon’s line of supply. William Darley describes the battle from his position on Zealous, heavily and successfully engaged early in the battle and the only British ship to escape serious damage (see letter, item 3), and lists the ships engaged on both sides.
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Duplicate of a letter from William Darley, Captain of Marines, aboard Zealous, at Aboukir, off the Nile, Egypt, 14 August 1798, to his friend and colleague Laurence Desborough, serving off Cadiz and recently ordered home
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Please note: An annotated transcript of Darley's letter is available as a PDF file: please follow the link in the right-hand column.