Sir William Sidney Smith Escapes Gaol in France – 24 February 1798
Confined for two years on suspicion of espionage, in February 1798 Captain Sir William Sidney Smith was sprung from the notorious Temple Prison by French royalists and made good his daring escape to Britain.
In April 1796 Captain Sir William Sidney Smith had been captured at Honfleur whilst in the process of cutting out a privateer. Suspected of involvement in intelligence affairs, and of having set fire to half of the French fleet at Toulon in 1793 whilst serving as a volunteer, he had also been the scourge of the French Atlantic coast for several years. Thus, it was no surprise that the French government refused to exchange him for an equivalent French captain held in Britain. Almost immediately after capture he was taken to Paris, branded a ‘monster and incendiary’, and incarcerated in l’Abbaye de St. Germain along with his faithful midshipman friend and secretary, John Wesley Wright. They were joined there by a French royalist lieutenant, François de Tromelin, who only avoided a date with the guillotine by passing himself off as Smith’s French-Canadian servant, ‘John Bromley’.
Smith was indeed an intelligence agent, working for the influential Secretary to the Admiralty, Evan Nepean. A fluent French speaker, oozing with confidence (not to mention a braggart whose only rival in the Navy for self-promotion was Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson), Smith had been running an intelligence operation on the French Atlantic coast in support of the French royalists for a couple of years. Knowing his reputation for clandestine activities, the Republican authorities ordered that he be treated as a state prisoner rather than a prisoner of war. His capture and imprisonment were an awkward complication to the negotiations of Lord Malmesbury, the diplomat who was attempting to bring the war with the French to an end.
Upon arrival at l’Abbaye, Smith and his ‘servant, Bromley’ were incarcerated in a cell high in the building; Wright was imprisoned alone in a different cell. In no time Smith and Tromelin began exchanging signals with three young women across the street, but their hopes that this interaction might enable them to engineer a quick escape were dashed when they were moved from the Abbaye. Paul Barras, a member of the French Directory, had charged Smith with planning to burn Le Havre, an act considered to be punishable by death. Accordingly, the three men were removed to the Temple, an unhealthy ancient prison used to house those condemned to death. Here they were kept in close confinement, although Smith was able to retain the services of ‘Bromley’.
Yet hopes of freedom for the prisoners soon returned when the three women of their earlier acquaintance re-appeared at the window of a room overlooking the Temple. It transpired that Richard Cadman Etches, a British-born Danish national who had once spied for Catherine the Great, was attempting to organise Smith’s escape with the help of French royalists. As an accredited purchaser of prize vessels and a wine merchant, Etches had permission to visit French ports, and was thus able to make the necessary escape arrangements. Through their interactions with the women, the prisoners were able to contact de Tromelin’s wife, and when the Frenchman was allowed out on errands dressed in his servant’s garb, (a Newmarket jockey’s outfit!), he passed messages between Smith and the royalists.
In 1797, a 30-year-old French royalist, Colonel Louis-Edmond Picard de Phélippeaux, arrived in Paris to rescue Smith, along with several other high-profile prisoners in the Temple, including two men who had assisted him in his own earlier escape from the French Revolutionaries. Unfortunately, his initial plan failed when the authorities discovered a tunnel (in the last stages of completion) to the Temple from a nearby house. Smith’s somewhat relaxed confinement then became more rigorous with the appointment of a strict Jacobin to the position of governor.
In July 1797 de Tromelin /Bromley was released from the Temple, and Wright (who had been in solitary confinement) was at last given permission to keep his captain company. Smith lavished his personal charm on the harsh governor, as well as all the women with whom he came into contact, and in time he was allowed out of the prison on parole. Henry Swinburne, the British agent for transports in Paris, provided him with money, and Smith hoped that he might soon be exchanged. In anticipation of such an agreement, the British government had returned to France Captain Jacques Bergeret, who had been captured in 1796 with his frigate, Virginie by Captain Sir Edward Pellew. When the Directory refused the exchange, Smith’s hopes were dashed. (Honourably, Bergeret returned to England, surrendering to the authorities at Stapleton Prison, Bristol, in March 1798.) Smith’s cause was also not helped by the head of the British mission in Paris refusing to discuss his exchange for fear of jeopardising his negotiations over other officers. Although the Admiralty offered to exchange a thousand French PoWs for the captain, they would not countenance the Directory’s counteroffer of Smith for four thousand men.
Realistically, the only chance of Smith gaining his freedom was through an escape, and after two years of imprisonment his opportunity finally came. On 24 February 1798 Phélippeaux, who was well known at the Temple through a relationship he had formed with the governor’s daughter, sent two accomplices (dressed as French officers) into the prison bearing papers signed by the Minister of Marine, stating that Smith and Wright should be passed into their care for transfer to a prison at Fontainebleau. For a moment the escape plan was jeopardised by the prison governor’s insistence that a detachment of guards should accompany Smith to his next prison. However, the British officer gave his word of honour to accompany his supposed keepers ‘wherever they wanted to take him’, which was accepted, and he and Wright were allowed to depart with the two men. Stepping into the coach, Smith looked into the eyes of de Tromelin, whilst across the carriage was Phélippeaux himself.
The escape was far from guaranteed however, for the coach had not gone a hundred yards before it hit a bollard and smashed into a fruit stall, attracting a crowd who seemed inclined to call for the police. Taking to their heels, the men fled, to eventually rendezvous at a house in the Rue de l’Université. Here Smith learned that de Tromelin’s wife had enlisted the assistance of Chouan royalists in his escape, for the papers had been obtained by one of their men in the Ministry of Marine after the minister had signed several blank orders for his officials prior to departing the city. Next day Smith, Wright and Phélippeaux were able to trick their way past the city sentries and headed for Rouen, which was about 75 miles north-west of Paris, well situated for a dash to the coast.
For some time, the French authorities had no idea that Smith had escaped, and it was only when a friendly doctor from the Temple enquired as to how the British captain was adapting to his new prison that checks were instigated and the escape was discovered. By then Smith and Wright were safely ensconced in Rouen awaiting false passports. Once these were received, they travelled west and crossed the River Seine at Honfleur, the scene of their original capture, where they boarded a hired fishing boat and were taken out to sea. Not surprisingly a British frigate was lying close to the coast – Smith and his colleagues were welcomed aboard the Argo 44, Captain James Bowen, which eventually landed them at Portsmouth on 5 May. From there Smith travelled to London, where the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Spencer, was summoned from Wimbledon to be told the news of his escape. Within days he was feted by all and sundry, including Prime Minister William Pitt, the foreign secretary Lord Grenville, and even the King, in a private interview at Buckingham Palace. In due course, to celebrate Smith’s escape the British government generously released Captain Bergeret from his parole, allowing him to return to France.