Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 389, March 1848

Those were stirring times. In the same year he was appointed lieutenant of the Alcide. And in this ship he was present at Graves' action with the French, off the Chesapeake.

In the following year he was in the greatest naval action of the war – the famous battle of the 12th of April 1782, off the Leeward Islands, when Rodney defeated the French fleet, commanded by the Comte de Grasse. In the following May, he was appointed to the command of the Fury sloop, by Rodney; and in the October following was promoted to the rank of captain into the Alcmene, having been on the list of commanders only five months.

Thus he was a captain at the age of eighteen! The war was now at an end; his ship was paid off, and he went to reside at Caen, for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of the French language. There he spent a well-employed and agreeable time. Many of the French families of condition resided in the neighbourhood; and the young captain, having brought letters to the Duc de Harcourt, governor of the province, was hospitably received. The French were then a polished people; they knew nothing of republicanism, and were not proud of their ferocity; they had none of that frantic hatred of England which is the folly and the fashion of our day, and might be regarded as a civilised people. The duke invited him to his country-seat, and there showed him the improvements in his grounds, and introduced him to his visitors.

Like most men destined to distinction, Sir Sidney Smith was constantly preparing himself for useful service, by the acquisition of knowledge. The Mediterranean is naturally presumed to be the great theatre of naval exploits. He obtained leave of absence, and went to the Mediterranean. While at Gibraltar, thinking, from the violent language of the Emperor of Morocco, that there might be a Moorish war, he made a journey along the coast of Morocco, for the purpose of acquainting himself with the condition of its naval force and harbours. Having obtained the necessary information, which obviously required considerable exertion and no slight expense, he stated its results in a manly and intelligent letter to the Admiralty, offering his services in case of hostilities, and suggesting the appointment of a squadron to be stationed outside the Straits, for the prevention of any naval enterprise on the part of the Moors.

Among the most accessible ports, he mentions Mogadore, which, as not being a bar harbour, is easily approachable by ships of force; and though the works contained many guns, yet they were so ill-placed, that in all probability they could not resist an attack. We recollect that the cannonade of this town was one of the exploits on which the Prince de Joinville plumed his heroism, and of which all France talked as if it were the capture of a second Gibraltar.

The same spirit of inquiry and preparation for probable service led him to Sweden, during the war of the brave and unfortunate Gustavus with the Empress Catherine.

We may pause a moment on the memory of one of the most remarkable princes of his time. Gustavus, born in 1746, in 1771 ascended the throne of Sweden, on the death of his father Frederic.

The Swedish nobility were poor, and affected a singular habit of following the fashions of France, of whose government, probably, the chiefs of their body were pensioners. The lower orders were ignorant, and probably not less corrupted by the gold of Russia. Gustavus found his throne utterly powerless between both, – a States-General possessing the actual power of the throne, and even that assembly itself under the control of a Russian and a French faction, designated as the hats and caps. Gustavus, a man of remarkable talent, great ardour of character, and much personal pride, naturally found this usurpation an insult, and took immediate means for its overthrow. He lost no time; his first efforts were exerted to attach the national militia to his cause. When all was ready, the explosion came. The governor of one of the towns suddenly issued a violent diatribe against the States-General. The king was applied to to punish the contumacious rebel. He instantly sent a large military force, with his brother at its head, to punish the governor. By secret instructions it joined him. The plan was now ripening. In all that follows, we are partly reminded of Charles I., of Cromwell, and of Napoleon. Like Charles, the king entered the assembly of the States and demanded some of the members. Like Napoleon, he had the regiments of the garrison ready on parade, and rushing out of the assembly, he was received by the troops with shouts. The oath of allegiance was renewed to him with boundless acclamation. Several of the chiefs of the States-General were immediately put under arrest, and the whole body were completely intimidated. On the next day, the States-General were once more invited to assemble. The king, at the head of his military staff, like Cromwell, entered the hall, and presented them with the "new constitution." The troops had already settled the question. On its being put to the vote of the assembly, a majority appeared in its favour. The States-General sank into a cipher, and the revolution was triumphant.

The new constitution had given great joy to the people, long disgusted with the arrogance of the States-General. But the nobles, whose powers had been curtailed, nourished a passion for vengeance. The war of 1788 with Russia, in which the finances of the kingdom began to be severely pressed, gave them the opportunity. The States still existed; and the disaffected nobles, influenced their votes, to the extent of refusing the supplies, though the Danes were in the Swedish territory, and actually besieging Gothenburg at the moment. The king must have been undone, but for the patriotism of the mountaineers of Dalecarlia; who, if they could not give him money, gave him men. Gustavus, indignant at his palpable injuries, now determined on extinguishing the power which had thus thwarted him in his career. In 1788, he suddenly arrested the chiefs of the opposition, and introduced a law, still more controlling the power of the nobles. But this act was regarded as doubly tyrannical, and deserving of double vengeance.

On the conclusion of the war within two years after, the malcontents, fearful that the leisure of peace would produce further assaults on their privileges, resolved to take the decision into their own hands.

The period began to be troubled. The French revolution had just broken out, and it had at once filled all the Continental sovereigns with alarm, and all the population with vague theories of wealth, enjoyment, and freedom. The king of Sweden, known for his talents, distinguished in war, and loud in his hatred of France and her furies, had been chosen by the allied monarchs to head the invasion of the republic. Whether the councils of the nobles partook more of fear, or hatred, or the hope of political overthrow, can now be scarcely ascertained; but they issued in an atrocious conspiracy against the royal life.

It is remarkable that there is scarcely an instance of conspiracy against the lives of eminent personages, in which the design was not previously discovered, and was successful only through an unwise and contemptuous disregard of the intelligence. This seems to have been the course of things, from the days of Cæsar. The King of Sweden was informed of his danger; and even that the attempt was deferred only until the period of some fêtes, to be given at court. But the king, accustomed to danger, and probably refusing to believe in the existence of a crime rare among his countrymen, disdained all measures of precaution, and even appears not to have taken any further notice of the conspiracy. This might have been the conduct of a brave man, but the consequence showed that it was not the conduct of a wise one.

On the 16th of March 1792, the ball was given: the king appeared among the maskers: he was evidently careless of all hazard, and was conversing with a group, when, Ankerstrom, the intended assassin, entered the Salle. This traitor had been a captain in the service, but had been dismissed, or had conceived himself to be insulted by the king. Gustavus was pointed out to him by one of the conspirators: he stole behind the king, and fired at his back a pistol loaded with slugs and nails. Gustavus fell mortally wounded, and was carried to his chamber in agony. The assassin coolly walked out of the Salle, unobserved in the confusion, but was arrested next day. He was brought to trial, and died the death of a regicide. The chief conspirators were banished. The king languished until the end of the month, when he died, with great firmness and resignation.

On the pistol of Ankerstrom may have turned the fortunes of the French Revolution. Gustavus, a king, a man of military genius, and ardent in all that he undertook, would have escaped all the errors of the Duke of Brunswick. His personal rank would have rendered him independent of the wavering politics of the allies; his talent would have rectified the obsolete notions of their statesmen; and his spirit of enterprise would have rescued his army from the most fatal of all dangers to an invader – delay. He would have overruled the prejudices of the Aulic Council, and the artifices of the Prussian cabinet; and hoisted the allied flag in Paris, before the first levy of the Republic could have taken the field.

France can scarcely be regarded as having an army until 1795. The old royal army, though consisting of 180,000 men, was scattered in position and doubtful in principle. The Republican levies were yet but peasantry. The King of Sweden, at the head of 150,000 Prussians and Austrians, then the first troops in Europe in point of equipment and discipline, would have walked over all resistance; and France would have been spared the most miserable, and Europe the bloodiest, page of its annals.

The fall of Gustavus was also fatal to his dynasty. His son, Gustavus IV., inheriting his passions without his talents, and quarrelling with his allies without being able to repel his enemies, was expelled from the throne, after a series of eccentricities almost amounting to frenzy. He was arrested in the streets by General Alderkreutz, by order of the Diet. His uncle, the Duke of Sudermania, was appointed regent; and, on the king's subsequent abdication, was proclaimed king, by the title of Charles XIII.

On his death, Bernadotte was elected to the throne, which he retained through life; – the solitary instance of permanent power among all the generals of the French empire; but an instance justified by high character, by his acquirement of the throne without crime, and by its possession without tyranny.

There may be no royal road to fame, but there are some habits which naturally lead to it; one of those, activity of spirit, Sir Sidney Smith possessed in a remarkable degree. Wherever any thing new or exciting in his profession was to be seen, there he was certain to be. In 1789, the Swedish and Russian fleets were fighting in the Baltic. England was at peace, – his ship had been paid off; relaxation, the London balls, the Parisian theatres, rambles through the German watering-places, were before him. Ten thousand idlers of the navy would have enjoyed them all without delay. But the young captain was determined to rise in his profession; and, as the time might come when a Swedish or a Russian war might be on the hands of England herself, he felt that it might be advantageous for an English officer to have some knowledge of the Baltic.

Unluckily, the chief portion of his correspondence in Sweden has been lost. It was very voluminous; but, with all his documents on the subject of his Swedish service, it had been left in Camelford House, to the care of its proprietor, Lord Grenville. The house was subsequently let for the residence of the Princess Charlotte, and the papers were removed to the care of a tradesman near Cavendish Square, whose premises were destroyed by fire, and the MSS. were almost wholly consumed. If there is no other moral in the story, it should at least be a warning to diplomatic and warlike authorship, to apply to the press as speedily as possible.

But, from his Swedish expedition is certainly to be dated the whole distinction of his subsequent career. He might otherwise have lingered through life on half-pay, or have been suffered merely to follow the routine of his profession, and been known only by the Navy List.

In 1789, he applied for six months' leave of absence to go to the Baltic, but without any intention to serve. There he was introduced to the King of Sweden, and attracted so much interest by his evident ability and animation of manner, that the king was desirous of fixing him in his service, and of giving him an important command. The temptation was strong, but we need scarcely say, that even if leave were given, it ought not to have been accepted. No man has a right to shed the blood of man but in defence of his own country, or by command of his own sovereign. But in the next year he received the following flattering request from the king.

"Captain Sidney Smith, – The great reputation you have acquired in serving your own country with equal success and valour, and the profound calm which England enjoys not affording you any opportunity to display your talents at present, induce me to propose to you to enter into my service during the war, and principally for the approaching campaign.

"To offer you the same rank and appointments which you enjoy in your own country, is only to offer you what you have a right to expect; but to offer you opportunities of distinguishing yourself anew, and of augmenting your reputation, by making yourself known in these northern seas as the élève of Rodney, Pigot, Howe, and Hood, is, I believe, to offer you a situation worthy of them and yourself, which you will not resist; and the means of acquitting yourself towards your masters in the art of war, by extending their reputation, and the estimate in which they are held already here.

"I have destined a particular command for you, if you accept my offer, concerning which I will explain myself more in detail when I have your definitive answer. I pray God to have you in his holy keeping. Your very affectionate

"Haga, January 17, 1790."

This showy offer overcame Sir Sidney's reluctance at once; but as he could not enter into the Swedish service without leave from home, he took advantage of the opportunity of bringing home despatches from the minister in Stockholm, and thus became the bearer of his own request. The Duke of Sudermania, the king's second in command, also wrote to him a most friendly letter, entreating of him to return as speedily as possible, and bidding him bring some of his brave English friends along with him.

The offer to him had been the command of the light squadron. Sir Sidney set out on the wings of hope accordingly, and expected to be received with open arms by the ministers; but he was seriously disappointed in the expected ardour of his reception. It was with extreme difficulty that he could find any one to listen to him. At last he obtained an audience of the Duke of Leeds, who, however, would give no answer, until the whole matter had been laid before a cabinet council. The gallant sailor now began to experience some of those trials to which every man in public life is probably subjected, at one time or another. He now determined to wait with patience, and his patience was amply tried. In this state he remained for six weeks, until at last he determined to write to the King of Sweden, proposing to give up his appointment, but stating that he was determined to return to join the Duke of Sudermania as a volunteer. Sir Sidney now offered to be the bearer of despatches to Sweden, but the offer was declined with official politeness. He immediately sailed for Sweden, when the King placed him on board a yacht which followed the royal galley in action.

We must now take leave of this war of row-boats, in which, however, several desperate actions were fought; but though row-boats or galleys were the chief warriors, both fleets exhibited a large number of heavy frigates or line-of-battle ships. Those, however, were scarcely more than buoys, among the narrow channels of the Baltic, obstructed as they were by islands, headlands, and small defensible harbours. Sir Sidney was active on all occasions. In one instance, where an attack on the Russian fleet was proposed, and the objection made by the captains was the difficulty of proceeding by night through an intricate channel, he rode across a neck of land, took a peasant's boat from the shore, sounded the channel during the night, and made himself master of the landmarks, settling the signals with the advanced post on shore.

He was soon after engaged in a desperate action, in which he, with his little troop, having been abandoned by the divisions ordered to attack on other points, was beaten, after a most gallant resistance.

But the King knew how to feel for brave men, however unlucky, and sent him a complimentary letter, on the gallantry and zeal which "he had the faculty of communicating to those who accompanied him." The King, in several communications, remarks on this quality of exciting the spirit of activity and enterprise in others, which seems to have been Sir Sidney's characteristic in almost every period of his naval career; and which doubtless proceeded from peculiar ardour and animation in himself.

The war closed by an armistice and treaty, in 1792. But Sir Sidney then received the reward of his gallant zeal, in his investiture with the Grand Cross of the Swedish Order of the Sword, by George III. himself; which we believe to have been an unusual distinction in the instance of foreign orders, and to have been at the request of the late King of Sweden.

Though Sir Sidney Smith had apparent reason to complain of the coldness of his reception on his first return to England, it is evident that his conduct in Sweden had attracted the attention of ministers. As a simple English captain, attracting the notice of the most warlike monarch of Europe, evidently holding a high place in his confidence, offered a distinguished command, and receiving one of the highest marks of honour that could be conferred by Gustavus, he was regarded as having done honour to his country. But we have heard from those who were intimate with him in early life, that he was also a remarkably striking personage in person and manners; his countenance singularly expressive, his manner full of life, and his language vivid and intelligent. His person was then thin and active, which in after-life changed into heaviness and corpulency – a most complete transformation; but if the countenance had lost all its fire, it retained its good sense and its good nature.

From an early period of the Revolutionary war, the eyes of France had been turned on Egypt, a country which the extravagant descriptions of Savary had represented as capable of "being turned into a terrestrial paradise, if in possession of France." There her men of science were to reveal all the mysteries of the Pyramids, her philosophers were to investigate human nature in its most famous cradle, her soldiers were to colonise in patriarchal ease and plenty; and even her belles and beaux were to luxuriate in gilded galleys on the waters of the inscrutable Nile, and revel in painted palaces in the shade of tropical gardens, and bowers that knew no winter! Further collision with England led to further objects; and in time, when the Republic had assumed a shape of direct hostility with all Europe, with England at its head, the seizure of Egypt tempted France in another form, as the first step to the conquest of India.

But long before this period, the sagacity of the English cabinet had seen the probable direction of French enterprise, and felt the necessity of obtaining all possible information relative to the coasts of Asiatic Turkey and Syria. For this important purpose Sir Sidney Smith was chosen, and sent on a secret mission to Constantinople; partly, perhaps, from the circumstance that his brother, Mr Spencer Smith, who was then our ambassador there, would communicate with him more advantageously than with a stranger; but undoubtedly much more for his qualifications for a service of such interest and importance.

Nothing is left of those memorials, further than a few notes of the expenses of his journeys; from which he appears to have examined the coasts of the Black Sea, the Bosphorus, the Dardanelles, the Archipelago, and the Ionian Islands. But he was now to distinguish himself on a higher scene of action.

In September 1793, the officers of the French navy at Toulon, and the chief inhabitants, disgusted with the Revolution, and alarmed by the cruelties of the Revolutionary tribunals; hoisted the white flag, and proposed to Lord Hood, commanding the British squadron off the coast, that he should take possession of the city and shipping, in the name of Louis XVII.

It must be confessed, that there never was a great military prize, more utterly thrown away, nor an effort of loyalty more unlucky. The whole transaction only gives the lesson, that what the diplomatists call "delicacy" is wholly misplaced when men come to blows, and that in war promptitude is every thing. The first act of Lord Hood ought to have been to remove the fleet, strip the arsenals, and send the whole to England, there to be kept secure for its rightful king. The next ought to have been, to give every inhabitant the means of escaping to some safer quarter, with his property. The third ought to have been, to garrison the forts with every soldier who could be sent from Gibraltar and England; from which we could have sent 50,000 men within three weeks. Toulon then might have been made the stronghold of a loyal insurrection in the south, and the garrison of all the foreign troops, which the French princes could muster.

Not one of these things was done. The ships were left until the last moment, through "delicacy" to the people; the people were left to the last moment, through a perilous confidence in the chances of war; and Toulon was lost by an attack of ragamuffins, and the battery of Lieutenant Buonaparte, which an English regiment would have flung into the sea, and sent its commandant to an English prison.

But, even in the midst of these instances of ill-luck, Sir Sidney Smith made himself conspicuous by his services. When returning from his Mediterranean survey, he happened to stop at Smyrna; and there observing a number of British sailors loitering about the streets, he offered them service; and purchasing a small lateen-rigged vessel, about forty feet long, which he manned with forty sailors, and steering for Toulon, he turned over his little vessel and its crew to Lord Hood.

This was another example of that activity of mind and ready attention to circumstances, which characterised his career. A hundred other officers might have seen those sailors wandering about Smyrna, without thinking of the purchase of a vessel to make them useful to their country; or might have been too impatient to return to England, for a detour to Toulon.

Lord Hood, though a brave man, was a dull one, and had all the formality of a formal time. Sir Sidney's gallant volunteering was forgotten, and the defence of Toulon was carried on under every possible species of blundering. At length the enemies' guns began to play from the heights, and the order was given for the fleet to retire. Whether even this order was not premature may still be doubted; for the French batteries, few and weak, could scarcely have made an impression on so powerful a fleet; and the British broadsides might have made it impossible for the enemy to hold the town, especially after all its works had been dismantled. But the order was given, and was about to be executed, when Sir Sidney asked the question which seems to have occurred to no one else: "What do you mean to do with all those fine ships: do you mean to leave them behind?" Some one called out, – "Why, what do you mean to do with them?" The prompt answer was, – "Burn them, to be sure." By some chance, the answer reached Lord Hood's ears; he immediately sent for Sir Sidney, and to him, though on half pay, and then irregularly employed, was given this important duty.

The employment was highly perilous, not only from the hazards of being blown up, or buried in the conflagration, but from the resistance of the populace and galley-slaves, besides that of the troops, who, on the retreat of the English, were ready to pour into the town. His force, too, was trifling, consisting only of the little vessel which he had purchased at Smyrna, three British gun-boats, and three Spanish. But the operation was gallantly performed. The stores of the arsenal were set on fire; a fireship was towed into the middle of the French fleet, and all was soon one immense mass of flame: perhaps war never exhibited a scene more terribly sublime. Thirteen sail of the line, with all the storehouses, were blazing together. The French, too, began to fire from the hills, and the English gun-boats returned the fire with discharges of grapeshot on the troops as they came rushing down to the gates of the arsenal. All was uproar and explosion.