Samuel Rice was born at Chislehurst on the 19th August 1775, and was the son of John Rice, one of an old Welsh family long established at Mydfai (Mythvey).[1] His mother was a daughter of Samuel Plumbe, who had married the sister of Henry Thrale, M.P., the then sole proprietor of what subsequently became Barclay & Perkins' Brewery, and the husband of the lady who has been named by posterity "Dr Johnson's Mrs Thrale."

Being one of a family of thirteen, young Rice was fortunate in having grandparents possessed of the wherewithal to give their grandchildren a start in life, and possessed, moreover, of sufficient intelligence to assure themselves that the money spent on education was well laid out. It is, perhaps, remarkable that, although very ordinary boys at school and not above getting into scrapes, all of John Rice's seven sons entered honourable professions and did well. The eldest took Holy Orders; two were in the Royal Navy; two in the Army; and two were lawyers, one of the latter becoming an Indian judge and receiving the honour of knighthood. John Rice himself, who was an only child, had been at Eton, but his sons were educated at Cheam (Mr Gilpin's), and Samuel, the second son, remained there until 1792, when, as was customary in those days, he was sent abroad to learn French before entering the army.

Those were stirring times. France was in a state of revolution, with her king and queen in prison; a republican Government on the point of being established, and Continental Europe up in arms, with the hope of being able to restore order in the country and prevent the excesses which were likely to result from the indiscipline of a republican army in league with the mob. At first England maintained a strict neutrality, and held aloof from interference with the internal affairs of France; thus, when, in the spring of 1792, Sam Rice took up his residence at St Omer (some twenty miles from Calais), he found the French well-disposed towards his countrymen, though he, the true British boy of the period, was disinclined to regard his new hosts otherwise than as the natural enemies of his country.

In spite of the fact that he was kept hard at work, learning not only French, but also drawing, fencing, and dancing, he appears, from his letters home, to have found leisure for shooting, fishing, and riding, and he thoroughly enjoyed the change of scene as well as the novelty of being at a tutor's instead of at school. On this subject he wrote, soon after his arrival in France, to his elder brother, then at Cambridge—

"It gives me great pleasure to feel myself freed of my leading-strings, and to be my own master, doing what I will without being scolded and sworn at. I am like the Frenchmen; I like Liberty; but I think they have carried theirs too far, and will not do well without a little more steadiness. We find our own wine; I have bought for the present two dozen of claret and one of Burgundy. You cannot afford to drink such wine."

This matter of wine, which in those days was considered a necessity even for a young gentleman of barely seventeen, eventually led Sam Rice to complain to his father about the scanty allowance which he made him. Twenty guineas a-year for extras, including clothes, was, he said, a ridiculously small sum upon which to attempt to "live as other gentlemen do"; and he summed up his necessary annual expenses as follows: "Wine (weak stuff), half a bottle a-day, and occasionally giving to friends, eight guineas; washing, hairdressing, and hair powder, six guineas." His appeal, however, had little effect, and on his father's refusal to increase his allowance, the young student cut down his wine bill in order to have more money to spend on shooting.

That he benefited by his sojourn abroad is evident from the letters which he wrote in French to his father from time to time; and his knowledge of the language proved of the greatest value to him in after life. Living as he did at St Omer, in an atmosphere of military preparedness for war, he acquired at an early age habits of careful observation; he learned also to form his own opinions and to use his own judgment, and he became imbued with the true military spirit. His remarks on the situation as he found it at St Omer in 1792 are of interest—

"St Omer," he wrote, "is well fortified with ramparts and flanked with bastions; and there are several drawbridges before you get out of the town, which, of course, makes it very inaccessible, if well garrisoned. But the worst part is that they have got such a few meagre dogs that, I am sure, at the sight of an Austrian army they would be glad to accept of any terms of capitulation. To be sure there is one battalion of Swiss, who are undoubtedly good soldiers; but I believe that it is generally thought that they will not fight, because the Swiss remain neutral, and they cannot fight against the Germans, as they are allies. The people do not seem much afraid of the Austrians;[2] they stump and bully now, but when the enemy comes a little closer, I am very much mistaken if they will not draw in their horns."

Again, a little later, he wrote—

"There is a great preparation for war here. I don't know how many hundred men are employed every day in repairing the batteries, in forming new ones, and in making new drawbridges, as well as in cutting rivers to surround the town. All this is done by order of General Lukener. Also vast quantities of stores and ammunition are daily brought into the town, and hay in abundance, for I never walk out of the town but I meet twenty or thirty waggon-loads of hay coming from the country to be laid up in the town in case of want. I heard yesterday that a party of hussars belonging to the French had killed no less than four hundred of the Austrian cavalry, but that General Gouire (or some such name), a French general, was killed. I cannot say that this is a fact; but, if it is, most likely you will have heard of it before this reaches you. Some gentlemen from here have been to see the camps at Valenciennes and Lille, and all along the side of French Flanders, which they say are so strongly entrenched that it will be impossible for the enemy to come into the country. They saw ten thousand hussars pass them all at once as they were in their carriage, and had to wait four hours to let the cannons pass. All the hussars had great moustaches, which gave them a savage appearance."