The spectacle must have been breathtaking. Thirteen ships of the line, carrying 1,026 cannons among them; 42 frigates, brigs, avisos, and other smaller vessels; and 130 transports of every description made up the armada. Aboard them were about 17,000 troops, as many sailors and marines, over a thousand pieces of field artillery, 100,000 rounds of ammunition, 567 vehicles, and 700 horses. 

Before reaching its destination-known to but a handful of men-the fleet was to be swelled by three lesser convoys, from Genoa Ajaccio, and Civita Vecchia, bringing the total of men to about 55,000 and the number of sail to almost four hundred.

On the open sea, the armada would cover two to four square miles; and when it was anchored off its final destination, the people ashore, "when they looked at the horizon, could no longer see water, but only sky and ships: they were seized by unimaginable terror'." Thus wrote Nicholas the Turk, an Arab poet, who chronicled the events to follow. 

On the deck of L'Orient General Bonaparte, Member of the Institute and supreme commander of the army and navy forces constituting the Left Wing of the Army of England', watched the vessels glide past the flagship, which they saluted as they passed. If anyone knew the purpose of the expedition, it was he; but what his motives were in taking its command, no one to this day could say with certainty, and perhaps he himself did not know.