A sailor from his boyhood, and without occupation after the American War, he passed into the service of Sweden, In consequence of the glorious naval engagement of 1791, he got the Grand Cross of the Order of the Sword, and shortly afterwards he offered his services to Turkey. Recalled after a few months by a proclamation of the King of England, he found himself, together with Lord Hood, at the siege of Toulon. In the course of 1796, while lying before Havre, he boarded a French corsair, which only a dead calm prevented him from taking in his wake. A sailor having secretly cut the cable of the craft, manned by English sailors in replacement of the French, the rising tide drove it into the Seine, where it was attacked by superior forces and was obliged to surrender. Taken to Paris, Smith was at first confined in the prison of l’Abbaye, then in that of the Temple. It was from the latter that his friends, by means of a forged order of the minister of the police, managed to effect his escape, a circumstance apparently very simple in itself, but which later on, under the walls of St. Jean d’Acre, contributed to frustrate most gigantic projects, and perhaps effectually prevented the revolution of the East. After that it becomes rather difficult to assign great causes to great events. On his return to England, Sidney Smith got the command of the _Tiger_, four-and-twenty guns, and was instructed to watch the coast of Egypt. After having bombarded Alexandria, he set sail for Syria, where his presence and his advice induced the pasha to defend St. Jean d’Acre. It was owing to his aid and obstinate resistance that the siege had to be raised. It was on that occasion that he was presented by the sultan with an aigrette of great price, and received from Napoleon the not less flattering remark: ‘This devil of a Sidney Smith has made me miss my fortune.’ On his return to London he received the freedom of the City, in addition to a magnificent sword of honour. Elected to the Commons, he kept his seat up to the Peace of Amiens, when he obtained a new command, and in 1805 took Capri after a siege of a few hours. When, in 1807, Napoleon had deposed the House of Braganza, he took the Prince Regent of Portugal and his family to the Brazils. Since then he had remained inactive, though, as may be easily imagined, inactivity did not suit his temperament. The Congress of Vienna offered him a magnificent opportunity for displaying his mental energy, and, as a consequence, he was one of the first to arrive. He represented himself as being vested with full powers by the former King of Sweden, Gustavus IV., who, under the title of the Duc de Holstein, had entrusted him with a claim relative to the throne he had lost. That very honourable mission had been bestowed upon him in virtue of his being a former Swedish naval officer and a knight of the ‘Order of the Sword.’