“The shore, to the extent of four leagues, was covered by wrecks, which enabled us to form an estimate of the loss that we had sustained at the battle of Aboukir.  To procure a few nails, or a few iron hoops, the wandering Arabs were employed in burning on the beach the masts, gun-cariages, boats, &c. which had been constructed at so vast an expence in our ports.”

In both these accounts it is sufficiently manifest, that the French were fully convinced there could be no possibility of denying their defeat, however they might seek to disguise the extent of their disaster.  The grand designation of their expensive and numerous armament was thus, at a single blow, completely frustrated:  and, instead of finding themselves, flushed with success, in a treacherously subjugated country, with a view of extending their conquest to India; they became, at once, reduced to depend on their own resources for even their subsistence, in a distant land, without any other hope of ever returning home, than what was afforded them by the remote prospect of a peace.

Though Admiral Nelson had written his dispatches for the commander in chief immediately after this glorious victory, he was unable to send Captain Berry, of the Vanguard, in the Leander of fifty guns, to the Earl of St. Vincent, off Cadiz, till the 5th of August.

In a few days after, as if the admiral had foreseen the fate of the Leander, which it will appear he certainly apprehended, he prepared a copy of these dispatches to the Earl of St. Vincent; and transmitted it to Evan Nepean, Esq.  Secretary to the Admiralty, by the Honourable Captain Thomas Bladen Capel, in La Mutine brig, to which he had just been appointed on Captain Hardy’s promotion to the Vanguard.  In these will be seen his own modest and pious account of a victory, perhaps, without parallel, when duly considered in it’s completeness and consequences.

     “Vanguard,
     Mouth of the Nile, 7th August 1798.

     “SIR,

“Herewith, I have the honour to transmit you a copy of my letter to the Earl of St. Vincent, together with a line of battle of the English and French squadrons; also, a list of the killed and wounded.  I have the honour to inform you, that eight of our ships have already top-gallant yards across, and are ready for any service:  the others, with the prizes, will soon be ready for sea.  In an event of this importance, I have thought it right to send Captain Capel, with a copy of my letter to the commander in chief, overland; which, I hope, their lordships will approve:  and I beg leave to refer them to Captain Capel, who is a most excellent officer, and fully able to give every information; and I beg leave to recommend him to their lordships notice.

     “I have the honour to be, Sir, your most obedient servant,

     “Horatio Nelson.

     “P.S.  The island I have taken possession of; and brought off the
     two thirteen-inch mortars, with all the brass guns, and destroyed
     the iron ones.”