Enterprise and Adventure/Sir Sydney Smith's Escape
SIR SIDNEY SMITH'S ESCAPE.
Sir Sidney Smith, who was charged by Admiral Hood with the duty of burning the French fleet at Toulon, in 1793, fell into the hands of the French two years later, and was treated with considerable severity as a prisoner of war. Confined in the Temple, that gloomy prison in Paris, in which the unfortunate Louis the Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette spent their last days, the unwholesome closeness of his dungeon brought on an illness which for a time threatened to put an end to his career. In this condition, prompted by the impulses of his own generous nature, he wrote a letter to Napoleon Bonaparte, imploring him to order that he, a dying prisoner, might be allowed to breathe the air beyond his prison walls. No answer was returned to this request; but Sir Sidney soon after reviving, a plan was successfully devised, by which he effected his escape.
A friend had provided him with a false passport, a sword, a pistol, and a loose great-coat; and thus provided, sleeping by night in obscure road-side cabarets, and by day proceeding cautiously by bye-roads, he made his way through Normandy. Following the windings of the Seine, and avoiding Rouen and other great cities, he finally got to the coast in the neighbourhood of Havre. This was a dangerous spot, for it was here that he had been captured, and consequently his person was known to the authorities; but he was aware that a number of British ships of war were blockading that port, and if he could only communicate with these, he knew that his escape would be easy. Having secreted himself in a little town at a considerable distance from the coast, he walked to the sea shore, where he arrived in the dusk of the evening, and here, at length, he was so fortunate as to find a solitary fisherman in charge of several boats. Sir Sidney, who had spoken French from a child with the fluency of a native, told the man that he had a particular reason for wishing to visit one of the English ships lying off the harbour, and that he would give a handsome reward to be conveyed aboard. The poor fisherman consented on condition that the stranger would wait till it was later, and meanwhile invited him to his cottage to take rest before starting. Sir Sidney accepted his offer, and followed him to a cottage, where a poor old woman, the fisherman's wife, spread a cloth and laid before them a good supper. But their guest was too unwell to eat, and was not unnaturally anxious lest the man should only have asked for delay in order to betray him. He was now, however, in their power, and it was useless to hesitate; so he merely asked for leave to lie down and sleep until the time to depart had arrived. The woman accordingly gave him a clean mattress in the room in which they sat; and here, worn out with a long day's walk, he wrapped himself in his cloak and slept.
At the appointed hour the fisherman awoke his guest, and bade him follow him. Sir Sidney started from his place and obeyed, and with a joyful heart stepped into the boat which lay waiting for them in a little cove. Feeling himself once more upon his native element, after so many wanderings, the gallant sailor drew his cloak around him with an involuntary gesture of satisfaction, which the man observed, but mistook its meaning. To Sir Sidney's surprise, he laid his hand upon his shoulder, and said, "Do not hide yourself, sir, from me, for I have known you all along." Sir Sidney was scarcely alarmed by this speech, for they were alone and he was armed. "If you indeed know me," he said calmly, "who am I?" "You are Commodore Smith," replied the man; "you more than once gave me a glass of spirits with your own hands, when I have come in my boat, the 'Diamond,' on wet nights, to sell fish to your crew, and I should be a scoundrel if I betrayed you."
In telling this anecdote to a friend, long afterwards, Sir Sidney remarked, "You see by this occurrence that no man can be aware how the most apparently trifling events may influence his future safety, nor how humble may be the individual who may have his life or liberty in his hands. And thus, my friend, Almighty Providence appears to weave together all his creatures in a mutual kindly dependence, so that none may say, 'I can have no need of you.'" The little fishing-boat conveyed its freight safely to the side of a British man-of-war, the "Argo" frigate, which joyfully took him aboard, and without loss of time brought him to England, where the return from his perilous adventures, of this great favourite of the people, was welcomed with almost a national rejoicing.