Robert Ker Porter 1777 -1842 Portrait of Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith 1764-1840, Holding a Sword and a Torch

Robert Ker Porter 1777 -1842

Portrait of Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith 1764-1840, Holding a Sword and a Torch

30 x 25 in. (76 x 64 cm.)

The Portrait refers to Admiral Sir William Smiths heroic command at the Siege of Acre in March 1799, when he and a crew of Levantines under his command resisted successfully against Napoleon having captured Napoleons guns being convoyed up the coast, and mounted them on the walls against Napoleon. He held Acre for 2 1/2 months eventually being relieved. It was this action that made his name. Smith, Sir (William) Sidney (1764–1840), naval officer, was born on 21 June 1764 in Park Lane, London, the second son of John Smith of Midgham, Berkshire, a captain in the guards and gentleman-usher to Queen Charlotte, wife of George III; he was also grandson of Edward Smith, an army officer who was governor of Fort Charles at Kingston, Jamaica, and fought under Wolfe at Quebec. Another relation named Edward had been a captain in the navy who, in command of the Eltham, was killed in the attack on La Guayra on 18 February 1743. Sidney Smith's mother was the daughter of Mary Thurlow, a Norfolk heiress, and Pinckney Wilkinson, a London merchant, who regarded John Smith as an adventurer but was unable to prevent his daughter eloping with him in 1760. They had two other sons: Charles Douglas and John Spencer. Wilkinson disinherited his daughter and severed all connection with her and her three sons. However, Wilkinson's younger daughter Ann had married Thomas Pitt, first Baron Camelford, and, persuaded by him, Wilkinson relented sufficiently to pay for his grandsons' education at Tonbridge School. John Smith and his wife then quarrelled and she fled to Bath, near where the boys completed their education at a boarding-school, but stayed with their father occasionally in Midgham Cottage in the grounds of Midgham Hall, near Newbury, Berkshire. There Sidney Smith was first observed to be vivacious, quick, daring, and mercurial. Smith entered the navy in June 1777 on board the storeship Tortoise, going out to North America, and in January 1778 moved to the brig Unicorn, which with the 44 gun Experiment in September 1778 captured the 32 gun American frigate Raleigh. On 25 November 1779 he joined the Sandwich, flagship of Sir George Bridges Rodney, and in her was at an engagement with a Spanish squadron off Cape St Vincent in January 1780, and at those between the British and French fleets on 17 April and 15 and 19 May 1780. Having passed his examination for lieutenant, in September 1780 Smith was appointed in this rank to the Alcide and in her was present off the Chesapeake in September 1781 at Admiral Graves's unsuccessful attempt to relieve the British army at Yorktown, and at the battle of the Saintes in April 1782. In May 1782 he was appointed to command the sloop Fury and in May 1783 was promoted to the 32 gun Alcmene. At the return of peace, when the Alcmene was paid off, Smith lived for two years in France, for the most part near Caen, and in 1787 travelled through Spain to Gibraltar and Morocco, where, in expectation of future hostilities, he took deliberate note of the sultan's naval forces and bases, then reported on them to the Admiralty. In 1789 Smith obtained a further six months' leave from the Admiralty to travel to Sweden and Russia, then at war. At the Swedish naval base of Karlskrona he was offered employment in the Swedish navy and, though he had as a condition of his leave agreed to forgo any such opportunity, he returned to London to request that his undertaking be waived, carrying the British ambassador's dispatches and a message from the Swedish king Gustavus III. He and his request were ignored; Smith returned to Sweden and travelled on to the Gulf of Finland, where the summer campaigning season of 1790 had begun, and where, despite his undertaking, he agreed to serve Gus