for the sake of patriotism. We speak thus decidedly, in order that our feeble voice may impress upon the youth of the present and of the future day, that it is a crime against God and against man to draw the sword of the slayer in any other save their country's cause.

As to the apology of our hero at finding him in the predicament that we have thus strongly condemned, the one that we are going to produce will be thought weak upon the general merits, but powerful as applicable to Sir Sidney's individual case. Let the reader always remember that we offer an apology, not a defence. This apology consists in his thirst for distinction, in his passionate love of glory, merging in and displaying themselves in an unquenchable zeal for the honour of his country. It was this that led him into the error, not an error of the heart but of calculation-an error to which people of chivalrous characters are peculiarly liable.

Sir Sidney Smith continued to serve the King of Sweden with great advantage to that prince, and reputation to himself, until the peace of Riechenback, and, for his eminent services, was rewarded with the grand cross of the order of the Sword.

That his splendid, yet we think misplaced ser

vices, were not regarded with the stern view of the moralist by our own government of that period, is evident, by his own sovereign conferring upon him the additional honour of an English knighthood, at St. James's.

CHAPTER IV.

Enters the Turkish service-Fits out a man-of-war at his own risk-Gets a reinforcement of seamen at SmyrnaJoins Lord Hood at Toulon-Some account of the transactions at that place.

IMPATIENT of the inactivity of peace, and despising the blandishments and dissipation of fashionable society, his mind could find sustenance and satisfaction only in the bustle and excitement of actual service. We find him, therefore, in 1793, serving as a volunteer in the Turkish marine, and, when thus employed, he happened to be at Smyrna when the war broke out with France. This intelligence was to him like the sound of the trumpet to the war-horse. Whether he had received the usual notice from the Admiralty, issued on similar occasions, we know not-to Sir Sidney it would have been of little moment. Nothing now occupied his thoughts but the best and most advantageous method of repairing to his post

among the defenders of his country. His thirst now for the "pomp and circumstance of war" was a virtue.

In this emergency, his mind always teeming with resources, he determined to repair to England with some advantage to his country. He came not single-handed. At this time there were several valuable seamen out of employ at Smyrna. He was resolved that they should not be lost to his sovereign. Accordingly, at his own risk, he purchased one of the latteen-rigged, fast-sailing craft of the Archipelago, and with equal humanity and patriotism manned it with these men, who would otherwise have been, at this critical juncture, lost to the service.

Without the protection of a letter of marque, he shipped himself, with about forty truculent fellows, in this diminutive man-of-war, and hoisting the English flag and pennant, he named it the Swallow Tender, and sailed down the Mediterranean in search of the English fleet, which he found at Toulon, a short time before the evacuation of that sea-port, and the destruction of its magazines, dockyard, and arsenals.

It was at this memorable epoch, and on this fatal spot, that Bonaparte first signalised himself. Many and sufficiently accurate are the accounts extant of the siege of this strongly fortified

place by the French, when it was temporarly held by the combined British and Spanish forces, for the partisans of the Bourbons. It is not our office to enter fully into the operations, or to give a minute detail of the events that led to the calamitous results; but we must give some account of them, the better to understand the position in which Lord Howe found himself, and the English and allied forces co-operating with him. Oppressed, irritated, and almost driven to despair by the multiplied and still multiplying atrocities of the democrats who were then devastating France under the direction of the ferocious Robespierre, the southern sections of that distracted kingdom openly displayed a monarchical feeling. They ardently longed for the peaceful and mild tyranny of the Bourbons.

On the 23rd of August, 1793, commissioners representing the sections of the department of the Rhone went on board the Victory, the flag-ship of Lord Howe, then lying off Marseilles, expecting to meet commissioners from Toulon, deputed by the sections of the department of Var, for the same purpose-that of recalling Louis XVIII., and re-establishing a monarchical government.

With this view, on the 26th of August, the deputies of all the sections agreed to proposals made by Lord Howe, and signed a declaration