In a letter to Earl Elgin, then ambassador at Constantinople, his lordship thus expresses his grateful attachment to the Turks.  “They,” says he, “do me but justice, in believing that I am always alert to do them every kindness; for, as no man ever received greater favours from the Sublime Porte, so no one shall be more grateful.”  His lordship sincerely regrets the escape of Bonaparte; and remarks, that those ships which he had destined for the two places where Bonaparte would certainly have been intercepted, were—­from the Admiralty’s thinking, doubtless, that the Russians would do something at sea—­obliged to be at Malta and on other services, in which he also thought the Russian admiral would have assisted:  “therefore,” he adds, “no blame lays at my door.”  The Vincejo sloop, however, his lordship says, had a few days before taken a vessel from Egypt, with General Voix, and seventy-five officers; and that Captain Long was happy enough to save the dispatches, which had been thrown overboard with a weight insufficient to instantly sink them.  These dispatches represented the extreme distress of the French army in Egypt; and he expresses his hope, that the Sublime Porte will never permit a single Frenchman to quit Egypt.  “I own myself,” says his lordship, in that severe spirit of Antigallicanism for which he was ever so remarkable, “wicked enough, to wish them all to die in that country they chose to invade.  We have scoundrels of French enough in Europe, without them.”  It is contrary to his opinion, he repeats, to allow a single Frenchman, from Egypt, to return to France, during the war; nor would he subscribe any paper giving such permission.  “But,” concludes his lordship, “I submit to the better judgment of men.”

To Spencer Smith, Esq. now secretary of the embassy, his lordship writes in a similar strain—­“I have read, with pleasure, all that has passed in Egypt, between Bonaparte, Kleber, and the Grand Vizier; and I send Lord Elgin some very important papers, which will shew their very deplorable situation:  but I cannot bring myself to believe they would entirely quit Egypt; and, if they would, I never would consent to one of them returning to the continent of Europe during the war.  I wish them to perish in Egypt; and give a great lesson to the world, of the justice of the Almighty.”

On the 23d of December, his lordship received information from Sir Thomas Troubridge, that the Culloden, in going into the Bay of Marsa Scirocco, in the Island of Malta, to land cannon, ammunition, &c. from Messina, for the siege, had struck on a rock, and was greatly damaged.  The rudder, and great part of the false keel, were carried away; and the rudder would have been lost, but for Sir Thomas’s timely exertion in getting a hawser reeved through it.  The pintles were all broken; and the ship was steered to the anchorage, with the sails, in a safe but leaky state.  In answer to his friend Troubridge, respecting this unfortunate accident, Lord Nelson says—­“Your resources never fail; and you would contrive something, I dare say, if the ship’s bottom was knocked out.”