Contentment

If it be my lot to crawl, I will crawl contentedly; if to fly, I will fly with alacrity, but as long as I can avoid it, I will never be unhappy.

-       Sydney Smith[1]

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[1]William Sidney Smith (1764-1840) was an individualist with a flair for guerrilla warfare. He was frigate captain at the start of the French Revolutionary War and in 1795 was captured on the coast of France during a cutting-out expedition and imprisoned in Paris until early 1798, largely because the French thought he was also engaged in espionage: at this he was also accomplished, aided by his fluent French. He was then sent to the Mediterranean where he clashed with both Nelson and Lord Keith, neither of whom appreciated his high-handed independence and failure to consult. He nonetheless won fame in supporting a Turkish force that repulsed Napoleon’s siege of Acre in 1799, ending his march north from Egypt on Syria. However, after Napoleon’s escape to France, a subsequent convention he made with the French at El Arish in 1800 to evacuate Egypt was repudiated by the British government. The French were subsequently defeated in 1801 at Aboukir by Abercromby, an action in which Smith assisted in the British landings.

Smith was too much of a maverick to be greatly appreciated by the Navy, even though he was a popular hero. He continued to be employed in unusual tasks until 1814: a blockade of the Dutch coast in 1803-04; an early but unsuccessful use of rockets against Boulogne. Originally knighted by the Swedes in the 1792 for (unauthorized) service against the Russians, he was eventually made a British KCB in 1815, and rose to full admiral in 1821 during his long retirement—in Paris, where he is buried in the Pere Lachaise cemetery.  (Source: National Maritime Museum – nmm.ac.uk)