At once Bonaparte made desperate efforts to carry the "mud-hole" by storm.

Led with reckless gallantry by the heroic Lannes, his troops gained part of the wall and planted the tricolour on the north-east tower; but all further progress was checked by English blue-jackets, whom the commodore poured into the town; and the Turkish reinforcements, wafted landwards by a favouring breeze, were landed in time to wrest the ramparts from the assailants' grip.

On the following day an assault was again attempted: from the English ships Bonaparte could be clearly seen on Richard Coeur de Lion's mound urging on the French; but though, under Lannes' leadership, they penetrated to the garden of Gezzar's seraglio, they fell in heaps under the bullets, pikes, and scimitars of the defenders, and few returned alive to the camp.

Lannes himself was dangerously wounded, and saved only by the devotion of an officer.
Both sides were now worn out by this extraordinary siege.

"This town is not, nor ever has been, defensible according to the rules of art; but according to every other rule it must and shall be defended"-- so wrote Sir Sidney Smith to Nelson on May 9th.