"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.