The British Secret Service and the Escape of Sir Sidney Smith from Paris in 1798 MICHAEL DUREY Murdoch University Abstract This article seeks to modify the common perception that the activities of the British secret service during the French revolutionary wars were amateurish and unsuccessful by focusing on one e€ective operation masterminded by British agents, the escape of Sir Sidney Smith and John Wesley Wright from the Temple prison in Paris in 1798. It explores Smith's early espionage career in detail and examines the means used by the British secret service to aid his escape and to keep its activities hidden from public view. It also brings to light a new spy network organized by Smith while he was in the Temple, which was to remain in place for several years. H istorians are often sceptical of the value of intelligence services. Intelligence gathering and espionage activities are seen to be expensive, prone to producing whatever information best pleases and of little strategic or tactical value.1 Ironically, the need for, indeed the cult of, secrecy among intelligence operatives frequently encourages scepticism, for successful operations can rarely be publicized without jeopardizing both those involved and the channels of espionage. Failures, on the other hand, seem to have a way of becoming public knowledge. Occasionally, however, it is possible to peep behind the smokescreen of secrecy and discover details of a successful operation. The rescue of Sir Sidney Smith from the Temple prison in April 1798 is I am grateful for the comments on a draft of this paper by Simon Burrows, Iain McCalman, Thomas Munch-Petersen and Mark Philp. I am particularly indebted to Elizabeth Sparrow, who kindly allowed me to make use of materials which she has accumulated and to read a draft of her paper, `Secret Service under Pitt's Administrations, 1792±1806', published in History, 1xxxiii (1998), 280±94. Research for this article was greatly facilitated by a grant from the Australian Research Council. 1 For scathing (and exaggerated) comments on Sidney Smith's contemporary, the `spymaster' William Wickham, see Martyn Lyons, France under the Directory (Cambridge, 1975), p. 42; Richard Cobb, `Our Man in Berne', A Second Identity: Essays on France and French History (1969), pp. 184± 91. Christopher Andrew, Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community (1987), p. 24, more generally states that `Over Europe as a whole the gains from eighteenth-century espionage and covert action were probably smaller than the time and money expended on them.' c The Historical Association 1999. Published by * Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 438 ESCAPE OF SIR SIDNEY SMITH IN 1798 one such occasion, for although even the most recent biographer of Smith has followed his predecessors by declaring that French royalists organized and carried out the plot,2 in reality Smith's escape was masterminded by the British secret service. Sir Sidney Smith is best known for his thwarting of Bonaparte's imperial ambitions at the siege of Acre in 1799. Less well known is his signi®cant role as an agent of the British secret service from the beginning of the French revolutionary wars. Indeed, until recently one might have been forgiven for being unaware that such an organization as the British secret service existed in this period, for, apart from two works which focused on only one part of the activities of the master spy William Wickham,3 almost no research had been carried out on this clandestine organization. Yet recent studies have shown that from the ®nal months of 1792, with the establishment of the alien oce as a sub-branch of the home oce, a secret service had begun to emerge in Britain which had both espionage and counter-intelligence functions.4 By the time that Smith was captured in 1796, the British secret service had its tentacles deep within the French republic, co-ordinated from bases in Switzerland and the Channel Islands. At the same time, its counter-intelligence capacity was more than sucient to thwart the rather ad hoc e€orts of French intelligence agencies. This British secret service was aggressive, professional and durable, although by no means always successful. That it was in¯uential on the way in which the war was fought is now indisputable. Sir Sidney Smith was an important undercover agent for the secret service; his capture in 1796 was a serious blow to the web of networks which linked the agents of Britain with those of the Bourbon princes in France. His escape was a considerable coup for the intelligence service. The purposes of this article are: to uncover some of Sir Sidney Smith's secret service activities, before, during and after his captivity, which hitherto have not been fully explored; to bring attention to the considerable e€orts, both ocial and clandestine, made by government to 2 Tom Pocock, A Thirst for Glory: The Life of Admiral Sir Sidney Smith (1996) [hereafter Pocock, Smith], pp. 56±63; The Life and Correspondence of Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith, ed. John Barrow (2 vols., 1847) [hereafter Barrow, Life and Correspondence], i. 219±23; Memoirs of Admiral Sir Sidney Smith, ed. E. G. G. Howard (2 vols., 1839) [hereafter Howard, Memoirs], i. 130±6; Lord Russell of Liverpool, Knight of the Sword: The Life and Letters of Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith (1963) [hereafter Russell, Knight of the Sword], pp. 62±3; Peter Shankland, Beware of Heroes: Admiral Sir Sidney Smith's War against Napoleon (1975) [hereafter Shankland, Beware of Heroes], pp. 19±23. 3 Harvey Mitchell, The Underground War against Revolutionary France: William Wickham's Missions 1794±1800 (Oxford, 1965) [hereafter Mitchell, Underground War]; W. R. Fryer, Republic or Restoration in France? 1794±1797 (Manchester, 1965). 4 Roger Wells, Insurrection: The British Experience (Gloucester, 1983), ch. 2; Maurice Hutt, Chouannerie and Counter-revolution: Puisaye, the Princes and the British Government in the 1790s (2 vols., Cambridge, 1983) [hereafter Hutt, Chouannerie]; Elizabeth Sparrow, `The Alien Oce, 1792±1806', Historical Journal, xxxiii (1990), 361±84; Elizabeth Sparrow, `The Swiss and Swabian Agencies, 1795±1801', Historical Journal, xxxv (1992) [hereafter Sparrow, `Swiss and Swabian Agencies'], 861±84. c The Historical Association 1999 * MICHAEL DUREY 439 secure Smith's release; to explain the role of the British secret service in his liberation; and, by examining the aftermath of the escape, to throw light on the ways in which the British secret service sought to keep its activities hidden. I The roots of Sir Sidney Smith's two-year imprisonment in the Abbaye and Temple prisons in Paris as a state prisoner rather than as a prisoner of war lie partly in the role he played in the evacuation of Toulon in December 1793. Learning while in Constantinople that the French naval base of Toulon was in the hands of the allies, he sailed there at his own expense from Smyrna to o€er assistance to Lord Hood, commander of the British Mediterranean ¯eet.5 By the time of his arrival, however, the allies' position was untenable and evacuation plans were underway. Although still ocially a naval ocer on half-pay, Sir Sidney, under written orders from Hood, commanded the units charged with destroying military stores at the dockyard and burning the French ships which could not be withdrawn.6 This enterprise was only partly successful, owing to the pusillanimity of the Spanish troops under his command. Nevertheless, Smith returned to Britain as a minor hero. In France, however, the scorched earth policy at Toulon long remained a source of bitterness; Smith was perceived to be an incendiary, who had acted outside the laws of war.7 Smith's status as a state prisoner following his capture in 1796 was also the consequence of his suspected involvement in espionage while an ocer serving in the navy o€ the coast of France. The French authorities' instincts were right; Sir Sidney had been deeply immersed in cloak and dagger operations since the outbreak of war between revolutionary France and the European monarchies in 1792.8 Before his intervention at Toulon, Smith had been involved, at the behest of Lord Grenville at the foreign oce, in gathering intelligence in the Black Sea region on Russian and Turkish naval capabilities.9 Thereafter, his secret service activities were on behalf of the admiralty and war oce. As captain of the frigate Diamond and commander of a squadron of small boats o€ the northern and western coasts of France, his ocial orders included 5 Bodleian Library [hereafter Bod. Lib.], Dep. Bland Burges 41, [Bland Burges] to Sidney Smith, 4 Jan. 1793; Liverpool Papers, British Library Additional Manuscript [hereafter BL Add. MS], 38271, fo. 133, statement of Sir Sidney Smith's case ( for compensation), June 1817. 6 Barrow, Life and Correspondence, i. 127, claims that the destruction of the French ¯eet was Smith's idea. 7 In the abortive peace negotiations held at Lille in 1797, one of the French demands was for reparations for the destruction caused at Toulon. 8 Hugues Marquis, `L'Espionnage Britannique en France pendant la ReÂvolution francËaise (1789± 1802)', unpublished TheÁse de doctorat Nouveau ReÂgime (Univerisite de Lille III, 1990) [hereafter Marquis, `L'Espionnage Britannique'], p. 172. 9 Bod. Lib., Dep. Bland Burges 41, Grenville's instructions to Smith, 19 June 1792. c The Historical Association 1999 * 440 ESCAPE OF SIR SIDNEY SMITH IN 1798 inshore operations against French merchant vessels, the interception of neutral vessels, the capture of privateers and the gathering of naval intelligence.10 But he also became involved in more clandestine activities, for which his mastery of the French language, his intimate knowledge of the ports on the Channel and Atlantic coasts and his expertise in inshore operations made him particularly suitable. Smith's ocial duties put him under the orders of Sir John Borlase Warren, commander of the Channel ¯eet, but his espionage activities gave him considerable latitude for independent action. His clandestine operations focused on forging and sustaining links between British intelligence networks controlled from the Channel Islands and Switzerland and royalist counter-revolutionary forces in a large region embracing western France and Paris. Among other clandestine duties, Smith landed and picked up secret agents on the coast and supplied the chouans (royalist rebels in Brittany and Normandy) with money and weapons.11 In October 1795, for instance, Smith landed on the Normandy coast the chevalier de la Fruglaye, an agent in the pay of Captain Philippe d'Auvergne in Jersey. Fruglaye returned safely two months later, having linked up with the chouan leader, Louis FrotteÂ.12 Less than a month before his capture Smith landed another agent at Herqui, who sent back information from the royalist army near St Malo.13 This agent may have been Sir Sidney's main assistant in this underground world of espionage, the twenty-six-year-old John Wesley Wright. Wright was Smith's secretary on board ship (to hide his covert activities and perhaps to protect himself in the event of capture, he also held the junior rank of midshipman). As be®ts a secret agent of his high calibre, Wright is a mysterious ®gure. Of Irish or Lancastrian origin, he spent his early childhood in Minorca and, at the tender age of ten, apparently served as a naval volunteer in the defence of Gibraltar. After two years at a school in Wandsworth, he joined a mercantile company in the city. His work took him to St Petersburg for ®ve years, where he became pro®cient in Russian and French. How he came to be Smith's secretary in 1794 is not known, but his naval position was merely a cover for his espionage work, which included spending considerable periods ashore in 10 See, for example, Public Record Oce [hereafter PRO], Admiralty papers [hereafter ADM], 1/2492, nos. 234, 235, Smith to Admiralty, 10, 19 July 1795; PRO, ADM 1/2493, no. 137, Smith to Admiralty, 12 April 1796. 11 See, for example, PRO, ADM 2/1349, Admiralty to Smith, 30 April 1795; Admiralty to Sir Richard Strachan, 30 April 1795. 12 Private Papers of George, Second Earl Spencer, First Lord of the Admiralty 1794±1801, ed. Julian S. Corbett (2 vols., 1918) [hereafter Spencer Papers], i. 119±20, Smith to Earl Spencer, 15 Dec. 1795; PRO, Home Oce papers [hereafter HO], 69/8, fo. 41, Smith to Bouillon [d'Auvergne], 17 Oct. 1795. For d'Auvergne, self-styled prince de Bouillon, see G. R. Balleine, The Tragedy of Philippe d'Auvergne (1973) [hereafter Balleine, Philippe d'Auvergne]. 13 PRO, ADM 1/2493, no. 138, Smith to Admiralty, 30 March 1796; PRO, HO 69/8, fo. 48, Smith to Bouillon, 9 April 1796. c The Historical Association 1999 * MICHAEL DUREY 441 France, sometimes in the company of a French royalist military engineer, Louis-Edmond Picard de PheÂlippeaux.14 On the voyage which ended with his capture in April 1796, Smith also had on board Jacques-Jean-Marie FrancËois Boudin de Tromelin, a former royalist soldier who had survived the debaÃcle of the Quiberon expedition the previous year. Although Smith frequently had French eÂmigreÂs on board ships in his squadron as supernumeraries, Tromelin did not usually sail with him. He belonged to Captain Philippe d'Auvergne's intelligence network based in the Channel Islands and normally acted as postmaster on the tiny island of Marcou, one link in a chain which connected d'Auvergne with the VendeÂe, Brittany, Normandy and Paris.15 Smith's ®nal cruise on the Diamond began on 9 February 1796, when his squadron left Spithead.16 His orders, as usual, included seeking out French privateers which preyed on British merchant shipping. One particularly swift French privateer, the Vengeur, had evaded British cruisers for many weeks. On 17 April 1796 Smith found it sheltering under a battery close to Le Havre at the mouth of the Seine. No doubt, for the swashbuckling Smith the troublesome privateer was a target worthy of a cutting-out expedition, but there remain some puzzling features about Smith's activities on the night of his capture which suggest that he was also involved in a clandestine operation. According to the captain's log for Monday 18 April 1796 (which was written by Smith's successor, Lieutenant Pearson): We sent the boats, manned and armed, to interrupt a Swedish ship going into Havre. At eight p.m. the cutter came on board from Sir Sidney for a supply of arms and ammunition; sent them to Sir S[idney], who was going to attack a lugger in the roads. At two a.m. heard the report of several guns and musquetry in the roads . . .17 Apparently, therefore, at 4 pm (according to the master's log) Smith had headed o€ with all the boats to search a neutral vessel. This, to say the least, was extremely unusual. It was even more unusual than the ship's captain commanding a cutting-out expedition, which Smith also proceeded to do. Usually, such operations were the province of junior ocers courting celebrity and promotion. Smith's own explanation for his presence, in a letter written to the admiralty soon after his capture, rested on a series of accidents: the illness of his ®rst lieutenant; the unexplained unavailability of his second; and the absence of his 14 Pocock, Smith, pp. 44±5; information from Elizabeth Sparrow. Pocock, Smith, p. 40; PRO, HO 69/8, fo. 48, Smith to Bouillon, 9 April 1796. For the Channel Islands correspondence, see Alfred Cobban, `The Beginning of the Channel Isles Correspondence, 1789±94', Aspects of the French Revolution (St Albans, 1973), pp. 225±38; Balleine, Philippe d'Auvergne, chs. 9±11. 16 PRO, ADM 51/1124, captain's log, Diamond. 17 Ibid. 15 c The Historical Association 1999 * 442 ESCAPE OF SIR SIDNEY SMITH IN 1798 third.18 Knowing that the French authorities would read the letter, Smith's explanation was probably given to allay their suspicions, for they viewed Smith's presence in the boats as evidence, if not proof, of his involvement in espionage. Equally unexplained was the presence of both Wright and Tromelin in the boats. To have risked all three of those involved in secret service activities on the Diamond in what ought to have been a minor naval incursion seems unwarranted, unless an espionage operation was also involved. It is possible that Wright was returning from a mission that night and that Smith went with the boats to collect him. Such activities were not unknown; Wright was almost certainly the agent who in the previous month had been landed on the shore the night before the attack on the battery at Herqui to liaise with local royalist forces.19 It is signi®cant that Smith followed that mission with a subsequent naval operation to cover his tracks. Tromelin's presence on the operation is particularly perplexing. As a returned eÂmigreÂ, he was most at risk of execution if captured and recognized. Sir Sidney's explanation to d'Auvergne for why he needed him was obscure. `I am sorry he su€ers in [your] opinion for staying with us', he wrote. `I cannot part with him, having as yet no substitute. I trust you to justify him if any questions arise.'20 Tromelin obviously, therefore, had a particular role to play that night, which required him to be dressed as a `jockey'.21 This description probably means that he was wearing English country clothes, a version of which a spy reported to be fashionable among the jeunesse doreÂe in Paris at this time.22 Even if Smith's primary intention had been to capture the Vengeur, he gave himself sucient time also to make contact with the shore. The operation against the privateer began at 8 pm, but, according to Smith, they did not board the Vengeur until 2.30 am, giving him more than six hours to ful®l his espionage activities.23 The respected naval historian, William James, noted that Smith's boats took a long detour so that they approached the Vengeur as if they were ®shing boats leaving the harbour at Le Havre.24 This was almost certainly not a detour, nor `a reconnoitering expedition' as one newspaper report suggested,25 but the return trip from a mission on shore. 18 Barrow, Life and Correspondence, i. 197, Smith to Evan Nepean, 6 May 1796. Lieutenant Pine had been wounded in the previous month when successfully storming a battery close to the harbour of Herqui, on the Brittany coast. He had returned to England with the news. PRO, ADM 51/1124; Pocock, Smith, p. 39. 19 PRO, ADM 1/2493, no. 138, Smith to Admiralty, 30 March 1796. 20 PRO, HO 69/8, fo. 48, Smith to Bouillon, 14 April 1796. 21 Jean Hyde de Neuville, MeÂmoires et Souvenirs du Baron Hyde de Neuville (2 vols., Paris, 1888) [hereafter Hyde de Neuville, MeÂmoires], i. 166, calls Tromelin `l'aimable jockey'. Howard, Memoirs, i. 114, probably exaggerates when he describes him as being `buck-skinned, booted and spurred'. 22 R. R. Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution (2 vols., Princeton, 1964), ii. 213. 23 PRO, ADM 1/2493, no. 140, Smith to Admiralty, 6 May 1796. 24 William James, The Naval History of Great Britain (6 vols., 1902), i. 359. 25 Berrow's Worcester Journal, 28 April 1796. c The Historical Association 1999 * MICHAEL DUREY 443 There is enough evidence to suggest, therefore, that Smith had two purposes for his trip into the mouth of the Seine, one of which was concerned with secret service.26 The decision to cut out the privateer was Smith's own, either to kill two birds with one stone or to cover his espionage activities with a normal naval operation. Whatever he was planning obviously took longer than anticipated, for his capture was the result of his prize, its anchor having been cut, drifting up the Seine beyond the shore batteries at Le Havre (on a windless night) and being seen from the shore.27 Unable to manoeuvre the Vengeur to safety, he fought long enough to enable at least one of his boats to escape before hauling down his colours. II The system for dealing with prisoners of war in European theatres of operations during the eighteenth century was both humane and sensible, at least for ocers and before the advent of Napoleon. For other ranks, periodic general exchanges (cartels) occurred, organized, in Britain, by the transport board. Captured ocers who gave their parole were not imprisoned, but were free to ®nd their own accommodation until they were exchanged for an ocer of similar rank. Both Smith and Wright could therefore have expected to remain prisoners for a few months at most. But by designating them as state prisoners rather than prisoners of war, the French authorities allowed neither Smith nor Wright to be exchanged for ocers of similar rank in the usual manner.28 Following his surrender, Smith had undergone a long examination before the French government's commissaire at Le Havre. Although he was treated well, he was immediately afterwards sent under strong escort to Paris.29 Wright and Tromelin, the latter luckily passing muster as `John Bromley', Smith's French-Canadian servant, accompanied him to the Abbaye prison, where the two British ocers were kept separate from each other. The rest of the crew was marched to Rouen. 26 Two other pieces of information support this interpretation. In May 1796, D'Auvergne reported that he was having diculty disposing of arms left by Smith on St Marcou. In June, James Talbot con®ded to his uncle that his proposed mission to France as `a commissioner from Government to the Royalist armies' had been aborted. It seems clear that Smith's capture thwarted some secret plan; PRO, War Oce papers [hereafter WO], 1/921, fos. 393±400, Bouillon to William Windham, 3 May 1796; Bod. Lib., Talbot Papers, Ms Talbot c. 12, James Talbot to Governor [Sir George] Nugent, 2 June 1796. 27 Smith had been heavily involved in the months before his capture in revising the charts of the Normandy coastline and observing `the nature of the ground over which the tides of this part of the Channel so impetuously rush'; Howard, Memoirs, i. 89. The master's log gives the weather as calm on 18 April. 28 For the mechanisms of prisoner exchanges during the revolutionary war, before Napoleon destroyed the process, see Michael Lewis, Napoleon and his British Captives (1962), ch. 2. 29 Berrow's Worcester Journal, 28 April 1796; Portsmouth City Record Oce [hereafter PCRO], CCS/15 (copy), Sidney Smith to John Smith ( father), 30 April 1796. c The Historical Association 1999 * 444 ESCAPE OF SIR SIDNEY SMITH IN 1798 The French authorities' ostensible justi®cation for keeping Smith as a state prisoner rested on his not having held a commission during the evacuation of Toulon. He could, therefore, be accused of incendiarism. This charge, however, had little chance of being sustained, for Smith had been acting under Lord Hood's written orders in Toulon. Nor could this charge be used against Wright, who had not been present at Toulon. The claim, made in the ocial Paris newspaper, the Moniteur Universal, that Smith had been aiming to burn Le Havre dockyard, was probably equally spurious.30 For months, however, Smith had been considering some sort of action involving the port, from which it was expected that a force capable of invading the Channel Islands would come. `I have been constantly o€ Havre endeavouring to provoke the ``menacing'' party to come out and ®ght us on their way to the Islands', he informed d'Auvergne in October 1795. `We ®nd Havre roads a very convenient place to stop occasionally, and I hope by degrees to get suciently acquainted with the banks to play them a trick before they play me one.'31 That Smith was contemplating a surprise attack on the town in April, possibly in conjunction with local chouans, gains some support from the fact that he had been stockpiling weapons on St Marcou and from the log of the Diamond's master, for when Smith sent the cutter back to the ship after examining the neutral vessel on the 18th, it was supplied with `®re faggots' as well as arms and ammunition.32 Of course, these could have been required to burn the privateer rather than the dockyards, but why Smith did not use them when the Vengeur began to drift up the Seine is one of several unanswered questions remaining from this episode. French accusations of incendiarism, which were formalized by an Act of Accusation signed by the Director Paul-FrancËois Barras, were merely an excuse for holding Smith and Wright outside the normal prisoner exchange system while the authorities sought sucient information to charge them with espionage. Some evidence was obtained against the prisoners. In December 1796 the British transport board was informed that the criminal magistrate in Paris responsible for Smith's case had been given secret letters which Smith had left with a courier who had subsequently betrayed the royalist network in Brittany. Under examination, Smith had refused to answer questions.33 Presumably, these letters were insuciently incriminating ± most secret correspondence was either in number or allusion code ± for in February 1797 the responsibility for Smith and Wright was transferred from the justice department to the 30 Russell, Knight of the Sword, p. 59. PRO, HO 69/8, fo. 36, Smith to Bouillon, 17 Oct. 1795. 32 PRO, WO 1/921, fos. 393±400, Boullion to Windham, 3 May 1796; PRO, ADM 52/2928, master's log and journal, Diamond. The presence of faggots was ignored by Smith's biographers, whose views on Smith's espionage activities are equivocal. 33 PRO, ADM 1/3732, Henry Swinburne to Transport Board, 31 Dec. 1796. 31 c The Historical Association 1999 * MICHAEL DUREY 445 department of marine. The prisoners nevertheless remained under the threat of a military tribunal. The capture of Smith and Wright was a source of potential embarrassment for the British government. Both were secret agents acting under the cover of the king's uniform and thus were vulnerable to charges of spying. They had, moreover, been heavily involved in royalist attempts to subvert the French government from within, a crime against international law, from the Directory's perspective.34 Nevertheless, members of the British government ± particularly Grenville at the foreign oce, William Windham as secretary at war, and Sir Evan Nepean at the admiralty, who were responsible for most of Britain's espionage activities ± made concerted e€orts to obtain their release. Initially, not knowing what evidence might be brought against them, the government sensibly acted as if they expected Smith and Wright to be exchanged in the customary manner. Orders went out from the admiralty to organize Smith's exchange as soon as news was heard of his capture.35 But following rebu€s from France through the normal channels, Captain Bergeret of the Virginie, who had been captured by Sir Edward Pellew of the Indefatigable in early May 1796, was sent unilaterally to Paris as Smith's exchange.36 The Directory, however, refused to acknowledge him and the honourable but unfortunate man was forced to return to his parole conditions in England.37 In time of war there were few diplomatic channels to follow, but in October 1796 James Harris, earl of Malmesbury, headed a delegation to Paris to discuss the possibilities of peace. Included in his instructions from Grenville was a request immediately on arrival to enquire into the treatment of Smith and to seek his exchange. Malmesbury was to inform the French negotiators that the British government had decided that, unless Smith was given all the privileges of a prisoner of war, no French ocer would be given parole.38 Although Malmesbury verbally informed foreign minister Charles Delacroix of the British threat, he personally disagreed with this policy of retaliation. Believing the French government to be of `an irritable and jealous Complexion', he feared that it would merely respond by treating all British prisoners of war harshly. Thus, Malmesbury's ®rst ocial note merely requested that Smith be accorded prisoner of war status.39 In the meantime, while Henry Swinburne, the British commissary charged with general exchange negotiations, used his own channels of 34 PRO, Foreign Oce papers [hereafter FO], 27/46, fo. 105, Malmesbury to Grenville, 27 Oct. 1796. 35 PRO, ADM 3/116, Admiralty Board minutes, 22 April 1796. 36 Barrow, Life and Correspondence, i. 266. For Bergeret's heroic battle with Pellew, see James Henderson, The Frigates (Ware, 1998), p. 33. 37 The Times, 18, 19 July 1796. 38 PRO, FO 27/46, fo. 39, Malmesbury's instructions, 14 Oct. 1796. 39 PRO, FO 27/46, fo. 237, Malmesbury to Grenville, 28 Nov. 1796; PRO, FO 27/46, fo. 105, Malmesbury to Grenville, 27 Oct. 1796; PRO, FO 27/46, fo. 107, Malmesbury's ®rst note. c The Historical Association 1999 * 446 ESCAPE OF SIR SIDNEY SMITH IN 1798 communication, members of Malmesbury's entourage made surreptitious approaches to the ministers of police and of marine, as well as to their junior ocials, in an e€ort to improve Smith's situation. Most active were James Talbot and George Ellis. Talbot was Malmesbury's secretary, just embarking on a short but notorious career, steeped in espionage activities, in the diplomatic service.40 Ellis was a prominent wit and Whig, who had followed the duke of Portland's group into Pitt's government in 1794. Malmesbury had requested him for the mission as `the only person in whom I could place entire con®dence'.41 He had served a similar function when Malmesbury was ambassador at The Hague during the crisis years of 1786±7. Ellis a€ected a languid, foppish pose, ideal cover for a man involved in secret activities.42 No doubt Ellis o€ered judicious bribes during his various negotiations with the French authorities, but although a promise was extracted to allow Swinburne to visit Smith, nothing came of these e€orts.43 Grenville was unimpressed by Malmesbury's cautious approach and ordered him to follow his original orders immediately.44 He was convinced that the French government could not `for two days stand the clamour which would be raised against them if they drove us to the necessity of retaliation'. There was, moreover, the question of naval morale; the government had to be seen to be assisting an ocer of Smith's seniority.45 Malmesbury's second note, on 23 November, was, however, equally unsuccessful. Delacroix continued to prevaricate. The Directory, he claimed, ignored the notes; ultimate responsibility for Smith's situation lay not with himself but with the minister of marine, who was absent from Paris.46 As Malmesbury prepared to return home, his peace mission a failure, he confessed that the French `seem to me to completely misunderstand the Case [of Smith]; and, serious as it is, to attach a much greater degree of political Importance to it, than it deserves'.47 It appears 40 Bod. Lib., Ms Talbot f. 1, fos. 12±13, James Talbot's diary, 26, 28 Oct. 1796 ( for Talbot perambulating the walls of the Temple prison); Sparrow, `Swiss and Swabian Agencies'. Talbot joined Wickham in Switzerland as his secretary immediately after Malmesbury's mission ®nished and replaced Wickham when he was forced back to London at the end of 1797. 41 The Manuscripts of J. B. Fortescue, preserved at Dropmore (12 vols., 1894) [hereafter Dropmore Papers], iii. 259, Malmesbury to Grenville, 14 Oct. 1796. 42 Sir Gilbert Elliot noted of Ellis in 1793 that he is `certainly clever in some points, but his whole mind and faculties are so completely unstrung by his habitual lounge and he is so completely nothing that it is very fatiguing'; see The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1790±1820, ed. R. G. Thorne (5 vols., 1986), iii. 700±1. 43 PRO, FO 27/46, fos. 235±7, Malmesbury to Grenville, 28 Nov. 1796; BL Add. MS 69292, Smith to Lady Camelford, 3 Feb. 1797. 44 PRO, FO 27/46, fos. 141±2, Grenville to Malmesbury, 7 Nov. 1796. 45 Dropmore Papers, iii. 283, Grenville to Malmesbury, 10 Dec. 1796. 46 PRO, FO 27/46, fos. 359±61, Malmesbury to Grenville, 20 Dec. 1796. In reality, Smith and Wright had once again been switched back from the marine's hands into those of the ministry of the interior; The Windham Papers, ed. Earl of Rosebury (2 vols., 1913) [hereafter Windham Papers], ii. 22, Smith to Windham, 6 Oct. 1796; PRO, ADM 1/3734, Wright to Ministre de la Marine, 7 Aug. 1797. 47 PRO, FO 27/46, fos. 306±7, Malmesbury to Grenville, 14 Dec. 1796. c The Historical Association 1999 * MICHAEL DUREY 447 that Malmesbury had not been fully briefed on the part played by Smith and Wright in the underground war against France. Smith himself, as Grenville had anticipated, was strongly opposed to a policy of retaliation, on the same grounds as Malmesbury. It would extend `the evil instead of operating towards the object in question'. This, he urged, was his true position; Grenville should ignore any comments to the contrary in his letters which had passed through the hands of his captors.48 Grenville ®nally accepted this argument and no formal proscription on parole for French ocers was announced. But in the ®rst half of 1797 the cartels were silently stopped or retarded; some gesture had to be made. In July 1797 Malmesbury again opened peace negotiations with a French delegation in Lille. As in the previous year, his instructions included a reference to Smith; he was to use the prospect of a general exchange of prisoners as a lever to promote Sir Sidney's release.49 Both sides were more inclined to serious negotiations than in 1796.50 The French plenipotentiaries, led by EÂtienne Le Tourneur, comprised moderate or equivocal republicans anxious for peace. After the negotiations had stalled at an early stage, an opportunity to press Smith's case came when Hugues Maret, one of the French delegation,51 asked Malmesbury to intercede on behalf of a relative, a prisoner of war in England. Malmesbury replied that the cartel would not be restarted until Smith had been released. He pointedly reminded Le Tourneur, who had been a Director in 1796, that he had failed to act on his two notes during the previous negotiation. Le Tourneur pretended not to remember the issue clearly, but stated that Smith had no right to be considered a prisoner of war. He promised, however, to write to Paris.52 For a few weeks Malmesbury was mildly optimistic that a favourable decision might ensue, but the coup of 18 Fructidor (4 September 1797), by members of the Directory against the royalists and moderates in the legislative conseils, dashed his hopes. The French negotiators were recalled by the revamped Directory, to be replaced by a much more belligerent delegation, who soon brought the negotiations to a halt.53 Smith and Wright remained immured in the Temple prison; the British government had exhausted virtually every ocial avenue. All that could be done was to send Bergeret back to Paris once again, on paroled leave, personally to seek his exchange from the Directory.54 48 PRO, FO 27/46, fos. 325±6, Smith to Grenville, 7 Dec. 1796. PRO, FO 27/49, fo. 209, Grenville to Malmesbury, 29 June 1797. 50 Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763±1848 (Oxford, 1994), p. 173. 51 For Maret's career as a diplomat and trimming politician, see Olivier Blanc, Les espions de la ReÂvolution et de l'Empire (Paris, 1995) [hereafter Blanc, Les espions]. 52 PRO, FO 27/50, fos. 122±3, Malmesbury to Grenville, 6 Aug. 1797. 53 PRO, FO 27/50, fo. 280, Malmesbury to Grenville, 11 Sept. 1797. 54 National Maritime Museum [hereafter NMM], NEP 2, Smith to Nepean, 12 Feb. 1798 [endorsed 12 Jan.]; Dublin Evening Post, 15 May 1798. Bergeret was aware of the escape plot, but was not personally involved. In July 1798 he was released from his parole. NMM, NEP 2, Smith to Nepean, 8 June 1798. 49 c The Historical Association 1999 * 448 ESCAPE OF SIR SIDNEY SMITH IN 1798 III Contrary to received opinion, the British government had been involved in clandestine means to assist Sir Sidney and Wright within a few weeks of their capture. As might be expected, evidence is sparse, fragmentary and scattered, but it is clear that assistance was channelled through the Normandy chouans, under the leadership of Louis FrotteÂ, with whose group Smith had been in contact at the time of his capture. In April 1796 FrotteÂ's bands were still in reasonable shape as a military force, but within a few months they had been scattered and defeated by the inexorable advance of General Lazare Hoche's mobile columns from the VendeÂe and Brittany. In June, Frotte ¯ed to London, where he was to remain until April 1797.55 Hoche's policy of lenity towards chouan chefs who unconditionally surrendered, while it brought order to the region remarkably quickly, exempted returned eÂmigreÂs, thus leaving at large a group of recalcitrant chevaliers whose alternatives were limited. One such was Wright's companion in espionage, Colonel PheÂlippeaux, who was to play a major role in Smith's escape. Like so many other royalists, when PheÂlippeaux ®rst emigrated he had joined CondeÂ's eÂmigre corps on the Rhine frontier. This force, blessed with too many ocers and too few men, was intended by the French princes to be the spearhead of a new invasion of France, but owing to Austrian parsimony and raison d'eÂtat, it slowly stagnated on the frontier. By 1795 it was being ®nanced by Britain, with William Wickham and Charles Gregan Craufurd overseeing its activities.56 PheÂlippeaux's original connection with the British secret service came through Wickham, who from late 1794, under diplomatic cover, had been the main controller of Britain's counterrevolutionary e€orts in eastern and southern France. In the early months of 1795 Wickham carefully selected from CondeÂ's force ten thoroughly dependable `cavalier nobles' to be part of an intelligence network linking the west of France to his headquarters in Berne. PheÂlippeaux was one of these.57 Wickham also supported the prisoners by being one of the sources of ®nance that was vital for making their daily living conditions bearable. Smith, Wright and their faithful servant were transferred from the Abbaye prison to the Temple on 3 July 1796.58 Although Smith and Wright were placed in solitary con®nement, with the former incarcerated in the rooms on the third ¯oor of the central tower once graced by Louis XVI, both direct and indirect communication became possible between 55 Hutt, Chouannerie, ii. 461, 554n. Wickham Papers, Hampshire Record Oce [hereafter HRO], 38M49/1/26/11, Grenville to Wickham, 9 March 1795, no. 5; PRO, FO 74/5, fos. 273±6, Wickham to Grenville, 30 March 1795, no. 15. 57 HRO 38M49/1/56/24, William Wickham to Henry Wickham, 27 March 1831. 58 Prefecture de Police Archive, Registres du Temple AB/330, 15 messidor an IV. It was thought in England that the transfer to the Temple was owing to French fears that Smith was about to escape; The Times, 17 Sept. 1796. 56 c The Historical Association 1999 * MICHAEL DUREY 449 Wickham and Sir Sidney.59 Money was regularly supplied to the prisoners through these channels at least until August 1797.60 At the same time, Wickham allocated £1,000 to royalist agents in Paris to assist in Smith's escape.61 Smith's hopes of liberation were ®rst raised while in the Abbaye prison when he made contact through his prison window with three royalist women in a house opposite. Using a visual code, communications continued even after he was transferred to the Temple.62 The Three Muses, as Smith dubbed them, were in no position to help the prisoners themselves, but they did arrange to smuggle money into the prison for Smith from his friend the Sardinian chevalier de Ravel and, later, from Henry Swinburne.63 They also enabled Mme. Tromelin to make visual contact with her husband from their apartment.64 Ensuring that Smith had money did more than improve the daily lives of the two prisoners; it also opened up opportunities to prepare an escape. Political society under the Directory was steeped in venality and corruption. In the age of the assignat, hard money opened most doors, in Smith's and Tromelin's case almost literally.65 Before the latter returned to England in a cartel in July 1797, he was given permission at times to leave the Temple on various errands. He naturally used the opportunities to make contact with his wife and other royalists. Later, the gaoler allowed Sir Sidney to leave the Temple for a few hours at a time. Smith's biographers have accepted his explanation that the gaoler permitted this very unusual indulgence because Smith had given his word that he would not try to escape.66 This romantic notion can be dismissed; only gold would have persuaded the gaoler to risk the wrath of the Directory, under whose direct orders Smith and Wright were incarcerated au secret. Moves to prepare an escape plan for the two prisoners accelerated following the imprisonment in the Temple of three leaders of the royalist Paris agency in January 1797.67 Charles Bertholet de la Villeurnois, Thomas Duverne de Presle and the Abbe Andre Charles Brottier were part of an ultra-royalist network ± the Paris agency ± which was funded by Wickham. Their arrest led the comte de Rochecotte, commander 59 Malmesbury Papers, HRO 9M73/G1802/1, Wright to Jackson, 8 Oct. 1796; HRO 38M49/1/52/ 14, 15, Wickham to Smith, 6 July 1796, Smith to Wickham, 20 July 1796; HRO 9M73/TD 340, Smith to Malmesbury, 1 Dec. 1796; Windham Papers, ii. 21, Smith to Windham, 6 Oct. 1796; Dropmore Papers, iii. 276±77, Grenville to Smith, 22 Nov. 1796. Maps and plans of the Temple at this time can conveniently be seen in George Bordonove, Louis XVII et l'eÂnigme du Temple (Paris, 1995). 60 Wickham Papers, HRO38M49/1/122, fos. 15, 19, 24, 49. 61 Mitchell, Underground War, p. 105n. 62 Naval Chronicle, x (1803), 189. 63 `Biographical Memoirs of Sir William Sidney Smith', Naval Chronicle, iv (1800), 459. 64 Howard, Memoirs, i. 115±16. 65 See, in particular, Blanc, Les espions, ch. 7. 66 Pocock, Smith, p. 53; Russell, Knight of the Sword, p. 60. 67 Mitchell, Underground War, pp. 110±11. c The Historical Association 1999 * 450 ESCAPE OF SIR SIDNEY SMITH IN 1798 of the royalist units to the west of Paris, to make plans to free them. He chose as his instruments three of FrotteÂ's chouans, PheÂlippeaux, Boisgirard, a dancer at the OpeÂra, and the conspiratorial Jean Hyde de Neuville, alias L'Oiseau (the last two having recently succeeded in freeing PheÂlippeaux from prison).68 Rochecotte, as part of a ploy to extract funds for his wider designs from the British government, agreed to include Smith and Wright in the escape plans. The ®rst plan, a tunnel under the outer wall of the prison into the exercise yard, went awry when the diggings collapsed. Hyde de Neuville and his accomplices, however, escaped unscathed.69 Before further plans could reach fruition the disastrous coup of Fructidor threw the royalists into confusion. In the aftermath, Villeurnois and Brottier were hastily deported to French Guiana with many other royalists; Duverne, having turned informer, was released. For several months the royalists were in no position, and had little inclination, to help Smith and Wright. At this juncture the admiralty decisively intervened, throwing into the equation one of the many mysterious characters who inhabited the cloak-and-dagger underworld at this time. Richard Cadman Etches, alias Andrew Smith and R. Ellis, was an international agent of Danish nationality who had been in the pay of Catherine the Great. At one time he was her commissary general of marine responsible for the coast from Ostend to Copenhagen and during the Russo-Swedish war of 1788±90 he had established a ¯otilla of Russian privateers under English captains in the Baltic.70 Coincidentally, Sidney Smith fought for the Swedes in the same war. While working for Catherine II, Etches put forward several bold plans to promote Russia's global interests. One was for the capture of Bassora (modern-day Basra), `this grand Emporium of Commerce'. Its possession, he argued, would open up commerce to Russia throughout the world, including the Americas and the Paci®c. One consequence, once Pitt's administration had been replaced, would be a `natural union' and an o€ensive±defensive treaty between Russia and Britain.71 Etches's plan required `a feint', which involved publicly proclaiming that the Bossara mission was only a scienti®c expedition to the north-west coast of America.72 He thus became embroiled in the Nootka Sound a€air in 1790. For the British, Etches was potentially a dangerous man. Nepean had him closely watched when he was in London in late 1789.73 In January 1790 the foreign oce learned the full extent of Etches's plans when the captain of one of the Russian privateers, on receiving a 68 69 70 71 72 73 Hyde de Neuville, MeÂmoirs, i. 147±50; Shankland, Beware of Heroes, p. 14. `Biographical Memoirs', Naval Chronicle, iv (1800), 461±2; Hyde de Neuville, MeÂmoirs, i. 163±5. Bod. Lib., Dep. Bland Burges 51, fos. 14±17; Dep. Bland Burges 52, fos. 60±2. Ibid., Dep. Bland Burges 51, fo. 20, Etches's plan for capturing Bassora. Ibid., Dep. Bland Burges 55, fo. 1. BL Add. MS 69078, Sir Evan Nepean's notebook, disbursements for 31 December 1789. c The Historical Association 1999 * MICHAEL DUREY 451 bribe of £50, handed over a box of the Dane's private papers to the British consul in Ostend.74 By 1796 Etches was again living in London, at Bryanston Street, Portman Square. In May, having recently returned from France, he wrote to Earl Spencer, ®rst lord of the admiralty, o€ering to spy for him. Etches had a clever and e€ective cover story for his visits to France. As an accredited purchaser of prize vessels, he was permitted to visit all the French ports. He also had permission to use captive English seamen to navigate the ships he bought. He proposed that on each trip he gather marine intelligence, which would be transferred to the admiralty via the blockading ¯eets when they searched his vessels on their return to his home port. They could even, he slyly suggested, impress most of the seamen and thus bypass the cartel system.75 Spencer immediately put Etches under the control of Nepean, who was by now responsible for admiralty intelligence. Within a few months Etches was also supplying military and naval intelligence from Holland.76 Etches's connections with the French marine department made him an excellent choice for leading the Temple escape group, as responsibility for the two prisoners had once again been transferred to that department in February 1797. The plan which was eventually used to free Smith and Wright involved obtaining an unused sheet of ocial notepaper from the marine department, with the signature of the minister, PleÂville le Pelley, appended. The order to transfer the prisoners to another prison, which enabled the conspirators to free Smith and Wright from the Temple, was written on this. Another conspirator recruited to the group who had connections with the marine was Count Antoine Viscovitch, variously described as a Dalmatian and a Pole. Like Etches, he was an experienced international agent. He ®rst came to the notice of the British when he o€ered to spy for Malmesbury in The Hague in 1787.77 In 1793 he was in Paris, working on the sta€ of Jean-Jacques de Beaune's winter company, which was ful®lling military contracts for the republican army. In May, he and eight others were arrested, following rumours that the company was raising artillery units that would defect to the royalists as soon as they were transferred to the VendeÂe. No proof was found to condemn the company, although de Beaune was later guillotined, probably owing to his pre-war ®nancial links with England.78 In this murky world of Paris under the Directory Viscovitch made his living as a ®xer or facilitator for the Director, Barras. In 1797 he was 74 Bod. Lib., Dep. Bland Burges 55, fo. 1. Spencer Papers, i. 255±7, Etches to Spencer, 7 May 1796. NMM, NEP 2, MS 60/026, William Wilby to Etches, 5, 26 Oct. 1796, Etches to Nepean, 5, 21 Nov. 1796. 77 Information from Elizabeth Sparrow. 78 Albert Goodwin, `War Transport and a ``Counter-revolution'' in France in 1793: the Case of the Winter Company and the Financier Jean-Jacques de Beaune', War and Society: Historical Essays in Honour and Memory of J. R. Western 1928±1971, ed. M. R. D. Foot (1973), pp. 213±24. 75 76 c The Historical Association 1999 * 452 ESCAPE OF SIR SIDNEY SMITH IN 1798 involved as an intermediary during two sets of peace negotiations, with Venice and with Portugal. His job was to extract bribes from the foreign missions, in return for the goodwill of his employer. He then laundered the money by investing in biens nationaux, which were transferred to the main participants. Barras was the major bene®ciary, but in the negotiations with Portugal, Talleyrand, the new minister of foreign a€airs, also held his hand out. This particular transaction became public knowledge and in December the Portugese negotiator Araijo de Azevedo was thrown into the Temple, where he was soon followed by Viscovitch.79 Viscovitch was thus a prisoner himself while the plot to free Smith and Wright matured. Just what his role was is dicult to determine, but there are two possibilities. The ®rst is that he used his in¯uence in the marine department to obtain the notepaper signed by PleÂville. This document was certainly the key to the success of the plot. Smith's later statement to Nepean that Viscovitch, who had loaned him 1,000 louis d'or, was `the person on whom the question depended', suggests that he may have played the pivotal role with the marine department.80 Knowing Viscovitch's connections with Barras and Talleyrand, however, another possibility arises. Might members of the government have been bribed to turn a blind eye while the plot progressed?81 Etches certainly tried to bribe someone. In a letter, unfortunately undated, to Nepean he wrote of advancing 13,000 livres and of entering into an engagement to deposit a further 82,000 in an account in the bank of Herries Herrisse and Co. in Paris. As a result of this transaction, he expected Smith to return to England within a fortnight.82 The agent in this a€air was John Keith, who had worked for Herries since 1793 and was Etches's right-hand man in the escape plot. Herries himself had long been a banker involved in channelling money for bribery and espionage purposes.83 It is now impossible to unravel all the pecuniary transactions that were involved in the escape plot, although following his return to England Smith was reimbursed £1,514 on 16 June and further sums totalling £376 on 30 June and 13 October. Etches received £1,200 in January towards the escape plan and a further £900 in June.84 Smith's costs covered the 79 Blanc, Les espions, pp. 158±60. NMM, NEP 2, fo. 51, secret memo of Sir Sidney Smith, 16 June 1798. 81 For rumours of Barras's links with royalists in 1797, see Hyde de Neuville, MeÂmoires, i. 159. When Jean-Marie FrancËois, a former member of the Paris agency, was in the Temple after his arrest in November 1797, various attempts were made to bribe ocials on his behalf. The money came from Britain, but instead of going into the pockets of the relevant ocials, it seemed to have made its way to the Directory. In November 1798 Wickham suggested to Canning that he examine Dutheil (who liaised between d'Artois and the British government) regarding `the money paid to save FrancËois from prison. The Directory really appear to have got the whole of it'; PRO, FO 27/53, Wickham to Canning, 21 Nov. 1798. Perhaps unsurprisingly, FrancËois was released from prison by Fouche after Brumaire. 82 NMM, NEP 2, fo. 28, Etches to Nepean, n.d. 83 Blanc, Les espions, pp. 27, 151, 296. Herries had close links with the future minister of police, Joseph FoucheÂ, who at the time of the escape plot was working for Barras. 84 NMM, NEP 3, Earl Spencer's disbursement of secret service money 1798±1801. 80 c The Historical Association 1999 * MICHAEL DUREY 453 loan from Viscovitch, £200 `To a second person who from situation was necessarily privy to the transaction', and all the expenses involved in getting the prisoners from the Temple to the frigate Argo o€ the Normandy coast (including £35 for hiring the boat and boatman).85 If are added to this the various sums Wickham had paid since 1796 and the 95,000 francs (nearly £4,000) Etches deposited with Herries, at least £10,000 was spent in securing freedom for Smith and Wright. If Etches masterminded the plot and Keith and Viscovitch dealt with the ®nancial side, it was PheÂlippeaux who organized the details of the escape plan. He hired the ®acre, which took them from the Temple, found the safe houses on the route to the coast, and hired the boat which took them to the rendezvous with the Argo. He was assisted by Tromelin, who had returned to Paris, bringing yet more money from Grenville and Pitt.86 Smith and Wright were regularly kept informed of progress, either by Etches, who seemingly was able to slip in and out of the Temple at will (life imitating Baroness Orczy's art), or by other members of the group who snatched a few words with Smith in a local restaurant when he was out on parole for a few hours.87 As far as can be ascertained, the escape itself, which took place on 23 April 1798, was carried out entirely by French royalists. Boisgirard and Le Grand de Palluau, one of PheÂlippeaux's chouans, were the military imposters who gave the gaoler PleÂville's `orders' for the transfer of the prisoners and who accompanied them to the ®acre waiting outside the Temple gates. Ready for any possible trouble by the roadside were Hyde de Neuville and two other royalists from the VendeÂe, Sourdat and Laban. Tromelin was on the box next to the driver, while PheÂlippeaux sat inside the carriage. They made o€ to a safe house in Paris, before heading for Rouen.88 PheÂlippeaux accompanied Smith and Wright throughout their journey.89 On 8 May, when an excited Sir Sidney burst into his mother's bedroom in London, he introduced PheÂlippeaux as `his deliverer'.90 IV Modern accounts of the escape of Sir Sidney Smith and his friend John Wright from the Temple have criticized the British government for inaction and lack of interest. Pocock has written that after Malmesbury left France at the end of 1797, `The British government seemed to have 85 NMM, NEP 2, fo. 51, Smith's secret memo, 16 June 1798. Russell, Knight of the Sword, p. 61. 87 NMM, NEP 2, [Smith] to Nepean, 12 Jan. 1798. For Keith's presence in the restaurant when Smith was there, see Shankland, Beware of Heroes, p. 19. 88 Pocock, Smith, p. 59. 89 Hyde de Neuville, MeÂmoirs, i. 168. 90 Shankland, Beware of Heroes, p. 23. PheÂlippeaux was still receiving a government allowance of £10 a month in 1801; Huskisson Papers, BL Add. MS 38769, fo. 22, Memo to Lord Hobart, 18 May 1801. 86 c The Historical Association 1999 * 454 ESCAPE OF SIR SIDNEY SMITH IN 1798 abandoned attempts to negotiate his release.'91 Shankland claims that `the British government made no further e€ort to help him.'92 All commentators since the event have assumed that the escape was planned and directed by the royalists alone.93 Such an interpretation is not surprising; the commanding but clandestine role played by men working for the British secret service was subsequently hidden under a cloud of obfuscation and exaggeration. Sir Sidney himself followed a line of conduct which added to the mysti®cation. He had ± and has ± a reputation for being garrulous and excitable.94 Yet in this episode he was not only the soul of discretion, but he also deliberately spread disinformation which accentuated the e€orts of the royalists and masked the role of the British secret service in his liberation. His ®rst letter to his father on his return to England set the tone. Knowing that John Smith would not resist the opportunity to spread the good news far and wide, Smith gave him a partial and distorted account of his escape. `The Directory', he wrote, `having ordered a general assemblage of all English Prisoners together in One Prison, my Friends the royalists (of which there are no small number in France) contrived to o€er me the means of escape which by their assistance was e€ectuated most happily.'95 No reference at all was made to the role of Etches or others working for the British secret service. Smith's arrival in London caused a sensation. His friends, rejoicing in his return, ®lled the clubs and co€ee houses with accounts of his daring and bravery, emphasizing the spontaneous nature of the escape and Smith's resourcefulness.96 The pro-opposition Morning Post sourly noted that his `weak friends' had `injudiciously pu€ed him into importance among those who never think for themselves'.97 But for the government, these initial reports, based on Smith's personal accounts, served the purpose of masking the true roots and meaning of the escape plot. Grenville and Windham were anxious to hide the role played by their agents, not only for operational reasons, but also because many of the agents still remained in peril. Viscovitch was not deported until 20 May.98 By October Keith had been imprisoned twice in the Temple on suspicion; and Wilby, Etches's agent in Rotterdam who went to Paris to manage Etches's mercantile a€airs, had also been arrested. Finally, 91 Pocock, Smith, p. 56. Shankland, Beware of Heroes, p. 18. Howard, Memoirs, i. 130; Barrow, Life and Correspondence, i. 202; Russell, Knight of the Sword, p. 62. 94 For Nelson's dismissive comment on Smith (before he came to recognize his talents), see Pocock, Smith, p. 32. For Smith's boundless enthusiasm, see Dropmore Papers, ii. 605, Thomas Grenville to Lord Grenville, 27 July 1794. 95 PCRO, CCS/15, Smith to John Smith, 5 May 1798. 96 See the reports from English newspapers carried in [Philadelphia] Porcupine's Gazette, 7, 8 July 1798. 97 [London] Morning Post, 9 May 1798. 98 Blanc, Les espions, p. 160. 92 93 c The Historical Association 1999 * MICHAEL DUREY 455 Etches became the subject of `a thundering denunciation', an `e€ectual outlawry', by Nicholas Madgett, the Irish-born ocial in the marine department, and his `Green Cravat Gang'.99 None of these agents was, however, prosecuted. Indeed, Viscovitch and Keith, as well as several of the royalists involved in the plot, subsequently went with Smith and Wright to the Mediterranean in 1799. That they all escaped may have been owing partly to bribery, but it is also the case that the silence from England helped to protect them. From the beginning, the government-®nanced press in London assisted in muddying the waters surrounding Smith's liberation. The ®rst published reports emphasized the fortuitous nature of the escape: Smith and Wright were being ocially removed to another prison under escort; and an accident or mob activity on the journey gave Smith and Wright the opportunity to slip away from their guards.100 Only the opposition newspapers, the Courier and the Morning Post, dared to hint that more than good fortune explained Smith's liberation. The former sarcastically referred to the `marvellous accounts' in the other newspapers and pointed out that some pre-planning must have been involved.101 The Morning Post, reprinting the `lucky escape' story, commented: `Those who believe this story are very welcome to believe it.'102 No newspaper mentioned the possible involvement of the secret service. A more accurate account of the escape only reached the public once it was known from the French newspapers what the authorities in Paris had discovered about the plot. It then became possible to publish facts which demonstrated that considerable planning had gone into the escape.103 But still no mention was made of secret service involvement. The only hint came from The Times report that `a Foreigner of some distinction' undertook a plan which had been formulated in England.104 But this was not followed up. The outbreak of rebellion in Ireland soon gave the newspapers something more substantial to write about. V As with all good spy stories, there is one ®nal twist to this particular plot, which helps to explain both why the British government put so much time, energy and money into securing Smith's escape and why, apart from the natural desire to protect its agents, it was anxious subsequently to keep news of the episode to a minimum. By the time the British secret 99 NMM, NEP 2, Smith to Nepean, 8 June 1798, Etches to Nepean, 7 Oct. 1798. The Green Cravat Gang comprised the United Irishmen in Paris plotting a French invasion of their country. 100 The Times, 7, 14 May 1798; Berrow's Worcester Journal, 10 May 1798; Morning Chronicle, 9 May 1798; Dublin Evening Post, 15 May 1798 (reprinting the account from the Sun). The Annual Register (1798), `Chronicle', 36, took its account from the London Courier. 101 Courier, 12 May 1798. 102 Morning Post, 9 May 1798. 103 Dublin Evening Post, 23 May 1798. 104 The Times, 25 May 1798. c The Historical Association 1999 * 456 ESCAPE OF SIR SIDNEY SMITH IN 1798 service became involved in the plot in the autumn of 1797, the high hopes that undercover activities might destroy the Directorial reÂgime had disappeared. The Paris agency had been broken up and dispersed; Wickham's plans to help the royalists gain power by legitimate means had been shattered by Fructidor and the subsequent deportation to Guiana of many leading deputies; and Wickham himself was in an increasingly untenable position in Switzerland (he had `voluntarily' left the country by the end of the year). Of the main intelligence networks, only d'Auvergne's `La Correspondance' retained its continuity. Amid the ruins of `the Grand Plan', however, a revived intelligence network based on Paris and using surviving elements of the old royalist agency, began to emerge. Its facilitator was Sir Sidney Smith, its initial nerve centre the Temple prison. At ®rst glance it may appear incongruous that the main prison in Paris for political prisoners should act as a centre of espionage activity, but given the relative openness of the old buildings used as prisons in that era, such a view is not outlandish. In Britain and Ireland at this time, the gaolers and guards of prisons such as Newgate in London and Kilmainham and Newgate in Dublin could not prevent prisoners communicating freely with the outside world, even when they were held au secret.105 In Paris, where bribery was more common, communications were even easier. Smith and Wright, for instance, kept in contact although both were in solitary con®nement.106 Thus, at the same time as the escape strategy was devised, plans to re-establish a permanent conduit between Paris and London were brought to fruition. Smith envisaged the network using the services of any French groups hostile to Jacobinism.107 The central ®gure in this new organization was `Julie Caron', with whom Smith was in contact while still a prisoner. Caron was the nomme de guerre of the Abbe Ratel, a committed counterrevolutionary who had been one of the Parisian correspondents sending information to D'Antraigues in the early years of the revolution.108 Penetrating some of the important ministries in Paris, whence clerks and junior ocials corrupted by secret service payments kept him informed, he was to write regular intelligence bulletins which were to reach England following the same route, via Rouen and the coast, that Smith himself had used in his escape. Wright, soon back on active service (and again conducting missions in the French interior), was responsible for organizing the collection of correspondence from the coast.109 105 For Newgate in London, see, for example, Michael Durey, `William Winterbotham's Trumpet for Sedition: Religious Dissent and Political Radicalism in the 1790s', Journal of Religious History, xix (1995), 154±6. For Dublin, see PRO, HO 100/86, fo. 179, Wickham to Edward Cooke, 23 March 1799. 106 Malmesbury Papers, HRO 9M73/G1803/7. 107 Dropmore Papers, iv. 207±8, Windham to Grenville, 17 May 1798. 108 Marquis, `L'Espionnage Britannique', p. 175. For D'Antraigues's bulletins, see Harvey Mitchell, `Francis Drake and the Comte D'Antraigues: A Study of the Dropmore Bulletins, 1793±1796', Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, xxix (1956), 123±44. 109 PRO, FO 27/53, Smith to Grenville, 24 Aug. 1798, Smith to George Canning, 26 Aug. 1798. c The Historical Association 1999 * MICHAEL DUREY 457 Ratel's ®rst bulletin arrived in May 1798 and, although regular intelligence reports were temporarily interrupted two months later, by early September he was able to promise that he was `now in a position to know all that happens . . . I hope soon to obtain yet more new sources.'110 Ratel continued regularly to dispatch reports until November 1799. Smith remained as controller of the network only until he left for the Mediterranean in October 1798. Thereafter, the London end of the organization was in the hands of FrancËois Mallet-Butigny (known to the French police as `Mallet dit CreÂcy'), a Genevan and relative by marriage to Wickham, who had used him as an agent and had sent him, with PheÂlippeaux, to western France as one of the `cavalier nobles' to bolster the counter-revolutionary forces in 1795.111 Before escaping to England, Mallet had been chef in the Rouen region, a nodal point on the line of correspondence.112 His strong intelligence contacts in Normandy thus made him an ideal controller of the network.113 The value of this network in 1798±9, when dashed hopes were replaced by expectations generated by the creation of the second coalition, cannot be assessed in this article except to say that, without it, the British government's understanding of what was happening in Paris would have been reliant on only one, partly discredited source, remnants of the old Paris agency which was resurrected in Swabia. In an ideal world, intelligence is always con®rmed from an alternative and separate source. That the government had at least two strings to its bow at this period was owing to the British secret service's ability to organize Smith and Wright's escape from the Temple in 1798. 110 PRO, FO 27/53, `Julie Caron' to `Guillaume Le Cointre', 2 Sept. 1798. Wickham's correspondence with Mallet for 1795±6 can be found in the Wickham Papers, HRO 38M49/1/81. 112 Archives Nationales F7/6286, dos. 5841. 113 Marquis, `L'Espionnage Britannique', pp. 177±8. 111 c The Historical Association 1999 *