At Acre he had lost nearly 5,000 men in killed, wounded, and plague-stricken, though he falsely reported to the Directory that his losses during the whole expedition did not exceed 1,500 men: and during the terrible retreat to Jaffa he was shocked, not only by occasional suicides of soldiers in his presence, but by the utter callousness of officers and men to the claims of the sick and wounded.

It was as a rebuke to this inhumanity that he ordered all to march on foot, and his authority seems even to have been exerted to prevent some attempts at poisoning the plague-stricken.

The narrative of J.Miot, commissary of the army, shows that these suggestions originated among the soldiery at Acre when threatened with the toil of transporting those unfortunates back to Egypt; and, as his testimony is generally adverse to Bonaparte, and he mentions the same horrible device, when speaking of the hospitals at Jaffa, as a camp rumour, it may be regarded as scarcely worthy of credence.[118] Undoubtedly the scenes were heartrending at Jaffa; and it has been generally believed that the victims of the plague were then and there put out of their miseries by large doses of opium.

Certainly the hospitals were crowded with wounded and victims of the plague; but during the seven days' halt at that town adequate measures were taken by the chief medical officers, Desgenettes and Larrey, for their transport to Egypt.

More than a thousand were sent away on ships, seven of which were fortunately present; and 800 were conveyed to Egypt in carts or litters across the desert.[119] Another fact suffices to refute the slander mentioned above.