hat of swimming by night through the Russian fleet, a
distance of two miles, carrying a letter enclosed in a bladder to the
Swedish admiral.

Sidney Smith afterwards entered the Turkish service. When war broke
out betwixt France and England in 1790, he purchased a tiny craft at
Smyrna, picked up in that port a hybrid crew, and hurried to join Lord
Hood, who was then holding Toulon. When the British abandoned the
port--and it is curious to recollect that the duel between Sidney Smith
and Napoleon, which reached its climax at Acre, began here--Sidney
Smith volunteered to burn the French fleet, a task which he performed
with an audacity and skill worthy of Dundonald or Nelson, and for which
the French never forgave him.

Sidney Smith was given the command of an English frigate, and fought a
dozen brilliant fights in the Channel. He carried with his boats a
famous French privateer off Havre de Grace; but during the fight on the
deck of the captured ship it drifted into the mouth of the Seine above
the forts. The wind dropped, the tide was too strong to be stemmed,
and Sidney Smith himself was captured. He had so harried the French
coast that the French refused to treat him as an ordinary prisoner of
war, and threw him into that ill-omened prison, the Temple, from whose
iron-barred windows the unfortunate sailor watched for two years the
horrors of the Reign of Terror in its last stages, the tossing crowds,
the tumbrils rolling past, crowded with victims for the guillotine.
Sidney Smith escaped at last by a singularly audacious trick. Two
confederates, dressed in dashing uniform, one wearing the dress of an
adjutant, and the other that of an officer of still higher rank,
presented themselves at the Temple with forged orders for the transfer
of Sidney Smith.

The governor surrendered his prisoner, but insisted on sending a guard
of six men with him. The sham adjutant cheerfully acquiesced, but,
after a moment's pause, turned to Sidney Smith, and said, if he would
give his parole as an officer not to attempt to escape, they would
dispense with the escort. Sidney Smith, with due gravity, replied to
his confederate, "Sir, I swear on the faith of an officer to accompany
you wherever you choose to conduct me." The governor was satisfied,
and the two sham officers proceeded to "conduct" their friend with the
utmost possible despatch to the French coast. Another English officer
who had escaped--Captain Wright--joined Si