This officer having attempted, with great gallantry, to cut out a
vessel from one of the enemy's harbours, was taken after an obstinate
resistance, such as obtained him the marked respect of those who were
witnesses of his valour, and knew the circumstances in which it was
displayed. Upon his arrival at Paris, he was instantly thrown into
prison; where the nature of his situation will best be understood,
by knowing, that amongst its MITIGATIONS, was the permission to walk
occasionally in the court, and to enjoy the privilege of shaving
himself. On the old system of feelings and principles, his sufferings
might have been entitled to consideration, and even in a comparison with
those of citizen La Fayette, to a priority in the order of compassion.
If the ministers had neglected to take any steps in his favour, a
declaration of the sense of the House of Commons would have stimulated
them to their duty. If they had caused a representation to be made, such
a proceeding would have added force to it. If reprisal should be thought
advisable, the address of the House would have given an additional
sanction to a measure which would have been, indeed, justifiable without
any other sanction than its own reason. But, no. Nothing at all like
it. In fact, the merit of Sir Sydney Smith, and his claim on British
compassion, was of a kind altogether different from that which
interested so deeply the authors of the motion in favour of citizen La
Fayette. In my humble opinion, Captain Sir Sydney Smith has another sort
of merit with the British nation, and something of a higher claim
on British humanity, than citizen La Fayette. Faithful, zealous, and
ardent, in the service of his king and country; full of spirit; full of
resources; going out of the beaten road, but going right, because his
uncommon enterprise was not conducted by a vulgar judgment;--in his
profession, Sir Sydney Smith might be considered as a distinguished
person, if any person could well be distinguished in a service in which
scarcely a commander can be named without putting you in mind of some
action of intrepidity, skill, and vigilance, that has given them a fair
title to contend with any men, and in any age. But I will say nothing
farther of the merits of Sir Sydney Smith: the mortal animosity of
the regicide enemy supersedes all other panegyric. Their hatred is a
judgment in his favour without appeal. At present he is lodged in the
tower of the Temple, the last prison of Louis the Sixteenth, and the
last but one of Maria Antonietta of Austria; the prison of Louis the
Seventeenth; the prison of Elizabeth of Bourbon. There he lies, unpitied
by the grand philanthropy, to meditate upon the fate of those who are
faithful to their king and country. Whilst this prisoner, secluded
from intercourse, was indulging in these cheering reflections, he might
possibly have had the further consolation of learning (by means of the
insolent exultation of his guards), that there was an English ambassador
at Paris; he might have had the proud comfort of hearing, that this
ambassador had the honour of passing his mornings in respectful
attendance at the office of a regicide pettifogger; and that in the
evening he relaxed in the amusements of the opera, and in the spectacle
of an audience totally new; an audience in which he had the pleasure of
seeing about him not a single face that he could formerly have known in
Paris; but in the place of that company, one indeed more than equal
to it in display of gaiety, splendour, and luxury; a set of abandoned
wretches, squandering in insolent riot the spoils of their bleeding
country. A subject of profound reflection both to the prisoner and to
the ambassador.