[R] _The Life and Correspondence of Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith,
G. C. B._ By T. BARROW, Esq. F. R. S. Two vols. Bentley, London.
A glance at the history of European fleets would give, perhaps, the
highest conception of human powers in the whole progress of mankind.
Philosophy, literature, and legislation, of course, have attained
illustrious distinctions. But the naval service combines every thing:
personal intrepidity, the strongest demand upon personal resources,
the quickest decision, the most vigorous exertion of manual and
mechanical skill, the sternest hardihood, and the most practical and
continual application of science.
The unrivalled triumph of human invention is the instrument by which
all those powerful qualities are brought into play: a ship of the
line, with all its stores, its crew, and its guns on board, is the
wonder of the world. What must be the dexterity of the arrangement by
which a thousand men can be victualled, at the rate of three meals
a-day, for four months; a thousand men housed, bedded, clothed, and
accoutred; a battery of a hundred and twenty guns--the complement of
an army of fifty thousand men, and two or three times the weight of
field-guns--fought; this mighty vessel navigated through every
weather, and the profoundest practical science applied to her
management, through night and day, for years together? No combination
of human force and intellectual power can contest the palm with one of
those floating castles, of all fortresses the most magnificent, the
most effective, and the most astonishing.
The history of the British navy, in its present form, begins with that
vigorous and sagacious prince, Henry VII., who was the first builder
of ships, calculated not merely for the defence of the coast, but as
an establishment of national warfare. The strong common-sense of his
rough, but clear-headed son, Henry VIII., saw the necessity for
introducing order into the navy; and he became the _legislator_ of the
new establishment. He first constructed an admiralty, a Trinity-board
for the furtherance of scientific navigation; appointed Woolwich,
Deptford, and Portsmouth as dockyards, and declared the naval service
a _profession_.
Elizabeth, who had all the sagacity of Henry VII., and all the
determination of his successor, paid especial attention to the navy;
and the national interest was the more strongly turned to its efficacy
by the preparations of Spain, which was then the paramount power of
Europe. When the Armada approached the English shores, she met it with
a navy of one hundred and seventy-six ships, manned with fourteen
thousand men. And in that spirit of wise generosity, which always
marked her sense of public service, she doubled the pay of the sailor,
making it ten shillings a-month. The defeat of the Armada gave a still
stronger impulse to the popular feeling for the sea; signals were
formed into a kind of system, and all the adventurous spirits of her
chivalric court sought fame in naval enterprise.
From that period a powerful fleet became an essential of British
supremacy; and the well-known struggle of parties, in the time of the
unfortunate Charles, began in the refusal of a tax to build a fleet.
In the early part of his reign, Charles had built the largest ship of
his time, "The Sovereign of the Seas," carrying one hundred guns.
The civil war ruined every thing, and the navy was the first to
suffer. Cromwell found it dilapidated, but his energy was employed to
restore it. Blake, by his victories, immortalised himself, and raised
the name of the British fleet to the highest point of renown; and
Cromwell, at his death, left it amounting to one hundred and
fifty-four sail, of which one-third were of the line. The Protector
was the first who proposed naval estimates, and procured a regular
sum for the annual support of the fleet.
The Dutch war, in the reign of Charles, compelled further attention to
the navy; and when William ascended the throne, he found one hundred
and fifty-four vessels, carrying nearly six thousand guns; but the
French still exceeded us by one thousand guns.
In the reigns of George I. and II. the fleet continued to increase in
size, strength, and discipline. Much of this was owing to the Spanish
and French wars. In the war of 1744 we had taken thirty-five sail of
the French line! But the incessant treachery of French politics was
soon to be still more strikingly exhibited, and more severely
punished.
The revolt of the American colonies stimulated the French government
to join the rebels. The hope of doing evil to England has always been
enough to excite the hostility of foreigners. France was in alliance
with us; but what was good faith to the temptation of inflicting an
injury on England? An act of intolerable treachery was committed;
France, unprovoked, suddenly sent a fleet and army to the aid of
America, and the French war began, to the utter astonishment of
Europe.
But there is sometimes a palpable retribution even here. In that war,
which was wholly naval on the part of France, her fleets were
constantly beaten; and the defeat of De Grasse, in the West Indies,
finished the naval contest by the most brilliant victory of the
period. Another vengeance was reserved for England in Europe. The
siege of Gibraltar, if not undertaken directly at the suggestion of
France, at least a favourite project of hers, and attended by French
officers and princes, became one of the most gallant and glorious
defences on record; the besiegers were defeated with frightful loss,
and the war closed in a European acknowledgment of English
superiority.
But the retribution had not yet wrought its whole work. Rebellion
broke out in France. The French troops returning from America had
brought back with them republican views and vices. The treaty-breaking
court was destroyed at the first explosion; the treaty-breaking
ministers were either slain, or forced to take refuge in England: the
treaty-breaking king was sent to the scaffold; and the treaty-breaking
nation was shattered by civil and foreign war; until, after a quarter
of a century of fruitless blood, of temporary successes, and of
permanent defeats, the empire was torn in pieces; France was
conquered, Paris was _twice_ seized by the Allies, and Napoleon died a
prisoner in English hands.
The naval combats of the American war had a remarkable result. They
formed a preparation for the still more desperate combats of the
French naval war. They trained the English officers to effective
discipline; they accustomed the English sailors to victory, and the
French to defeat; and the consequence was, a succession of English
triumphs and French defeats in the war of 1793, to which history
affords no parallel.
The French republican declaration of war was issued on the memorable
first of February 1793. Orders were instantly sent to the ports for
the fleet to put to sea. Such was its high state of preparation, that
almost immediately fifty-four sail of the line, and a hundred and
forty-six smaller vessels, were ready for sea. The republican activity
of France had already determined on contending for naval empire; and a
fleet of eighty-two sail of the line were under orders, besides nearly
as many more on the stocks. But all was unavailing. The defeats
suffered in the ten years previous to the peace of Amiens in 1803,
stripped France of no less than thirty-two ships of the line captured,
and eleven destroyed; and her allies, Holland, Spain, and Denmark, of
twenty-six of the line, with five hundred and nineteen smaller ships
of war taken or destroyed, besides eight hundred and seven French
privateers also taken or destroyed. The French had become builders for
the English. Of their ships of the line fifty were added to the
English navy.
On the recommencement of the war in 1804, the British fleet numbered
nearly double that of the enemy; but the French ships were generally
larger and finer vessels. It is difficult to understand from what
circumstance the French, and even the Americans, seem always to have
the superiority in ship-building. Our mechanical skill seems always to
desert us in the dockyard.
During the war, our naval armament continued to increase from year to
year, until, in 1810, it had reached the prodigious number of five
hundred pennants, of which one hundred were of the line, with one
hundred and forty-five thousand seamen and marines!
Since the peace, a good deal of attention has been paid to the
construction of ships of war. But it appears to have been more
successful in the economical arrangement of the interior than in the
figure, which is the essential point for sailing. The names of
Seppings, Symonds, Hayes, Inman, and others, have attained some
distinction; but we have not yet obtained any certain model of a good
sailing ship. Some vessels have succeeded tolerably, and others have
been total failures, though built on the same stocks and by the same
surveyor. Yet the strength, the stowage, and the safety, have been
improved. It is rather extraordinary that government has never offered
a handsome reward for the invention of the best sailing model; as was
done so long since, and with such effect, in the instance of the
time-keepers. Five thousand pounds for a certain approach to the
object, and five thousand more for complete success, would set all the
private builders on the pursuit; and it can scarcely be doubted that
they would ultimately succeed. Even now, the private yacht-builders
produce some of the fastest sailing vessels in the world; the merchant
ship-builders send out fine ships, of the frigate size, and the
private steam-ship builders are unrivalled; while we have continual
complaints of the deficiencies of the vessels built in the royal
dockyards.
Some of those complaints may be fictitious, and some ignorant; but the
constant changes in their structure, and their perpetual repairs,
imply inferiority in our naval schools of architecture. The chief
attention of the royal dockyards, within these few years, has been
turned to the building of large steam-ships, armed with guns of the
heaviest calibre. But the attempt is evidently in a wrong direction.
The effort to make fighting ships of steamers, ruins them in both
capacities. It destroys their great quality, speed; and it exposes
them with an inadequate power to the line-of-battle ship. They are
incomparable as _tugs_ to a fleet, as conveying troops, as outlying
vessels, as every thing but men-of-war. A shot would break up their
whole machinery, and leave them at the mercy of the first frigate that
brought its broadside to bear upon them in their helpless condition.
In all the trials of the fleet during the last two years, the heavy
armed steamers were invariably left behind in a gale, while one of the
light steamers ran before every frigate.
We have now two fleets on service, one in the Tagus, and another at
Malta; but both are weak in point of numbers, though in a high state
of equipment. A few rasee guardships are scattered round the coast.
Some large steamers remain at Portsmouth and Plymouth ready for
service; but, from all accounts, there is nothing of that active and
vigorous preparation which ought to be the essential object of the
country, while France is menacing us from day to day, while she has an
immense naval conscription, is building powerful ships, is talking of
invasion, and hates us with all the hatred of _Frenchmen_. In such
emergencies, to think of sparing expense is almost a public crime; and
no public execration could be too deep, as no public punishment could
be too severe, if neglect of preparation should ever leave us at the
mercy of the most mischievous of mankind. But no time is to be thrown
away.
Whether we shall be prepared to meet and punish aggression, ought no
longer to be left dependent on the will of individuals. The _nation_
must bestir itself. It must have meetings, and subscriptions, and
musters. We must be ready to give up a part of our superfluities to
save the rest. Whether France intends to attack us, without
provocation, and through a mere rage of aggression, we know not; but
the language of her journals is malignant, and it is the part of wise
and brave men to be prepared.
We shall now give an outline of the gallant career of one of those
remarkable men, who, uniting courage and conduct, achieved an
imperishable name in our naval annals.
William Sidney Smith was born on the 21st of June 1764. He began his
naval career before he was twelve years old. All his family, for four
generations, had been naval or military. His great-grandfather was
Captain Cornelius Smith. His grandfather was Captain Edward Smith, who
commanded a frigate, in which he was severely wounded in an attack on
one of the Spanish settlements in the West Indies, where he died
shortly after. His father was the Captain Smith of the Guards, whose
name became so conspicuous on the trial of Lord George Germaine, to
whom he was aide-de-camp at the battle of Minden, and who after that
trial retired from the army in disgust. Sir Sidney's uncle was a
general, and his two brothers were Lieut.-Colonel Douglas Smith,
governor of Prince Edward's Island, and John Spencer Smith, who held a
commission in the Guards, but afterwards exchanged the service for
diplomacy, in which his name became distinguished as an envoy to
several Continental courts during the war of the Revolution. Sir
Sidney's mother was the daughter of a Mr Wilkinson, an opulent London
merchant, who, however, seems to have disinherited his daughter from
discontent at her match, and left the chief part, if not the entire,
of his property to her sister, who was married to Lord Camelford. Sir
Sidney was for a few years at Tunbridge School, from which, however,
he was withdrawn at an age so early that nothing but strong natural
talent could have enabled him to exhibit in after-life the fluency,
and even the occasional eloquence, which distinguished his pen. His
first rating on the books of the Admiralty was in the Tortoise, in
June 1777. In the beginning of the next year he was appointed to the
Unicorn, and began his career by a gallant action, in which his ship
captured an American frigate. He was then but fourteen. In 1779 he
joined the Sandwich, the flag-ship of Rodney, in which he was present
at the victory obtained over the Spaniards in the next year.
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