202 



HEREDITY AND DEVELOPMENT OF NAVAL OFFICERS. 



a spendthrift and of unlimited generosity; his manners were lively and agreeable. 

 He showed also a manly daring and determination. Like his father he was tena- 

 cious of his opinions, and his vanity and self-assertion led him into collision with 

 his contemporaries. His hyperkinesis was an effective trait in his small naval 

 encounters. 



Smith was nomadic. On leave at the age of 20, he spent two years in France, 

 visited Spain, journeyed through Morocco, where he volunteered his services in case 

 of war, went to St. Petersburg and to Stockholm, where he became a military 

 adviser of the Swedish king; then returned to the navy. Everywhere he showed 

 restlessness. His mother's sister had a son, Lord Camelford, who entered the navy 

 and became a commander. He shot and killed a lieutenant on another vessel for not 

 obeying his commands; he committed an assault in Drury Lane theater and was 

 found guilty, but disappeared. Five years afterwards he returned to England and 

 was wounded in a duel. In his will he desired that his body should be buried under a 

 certain tree in the canton of Berne, Switzerland, "at whose foot," he says, "I form- 

 erly passed many solitary hours, contemplating the mutability of human affairs." 



William Smith was of a mechanical turn of mind and interested in inventions. 

 He was a patron of the arts. His memory was so great that he could repeat pages 

 of poetry. He loved to entertain parties of young ladies by clever tricks, charades, 

 and conundrums, for all of which he demanded as payment a kiss from each. At 

 the age of 76 years, as death was near, he fancied himself as strong or at least as 

 capable of coping with an enemy at sea or ashore as in the prime of life. But this 

 euphoria soon passed into mental and bodily decay until he died of a total paralysis. 



FAMILY HISTORY OP WILLIAM SIDNEY SMITH. 



1 1 (F F F), Captain Cornelius Smith (1661-1727). 



II 1 (F F), Captain Edward Smith, commander of a frigate. II 3 (M F), Pinkney Wilkin- 

 son, an opulent merchant of London, who disinherited his daughter, Mary. II 5, William Pitt, 

 first Earl Chatham (1708-1778). 



Fraternity of F: III 2, General Edward Smith, 

 commander of the Forty-third regiment and governor 

 of Fort Charles, Jamaica. Ill 3 (F), Captain John 

 Smith, of the Guards, quitted the service in disgust. 

 Ill 4 (M), Mary Wilkinson, married against her father's 



wishes. Fraternity of M: III 5, Wilkinson. Ill 



6, Thomas Pitt, first Baron Camelford (1737-1793), an 

 English politician. 



Fraternity of Proposilus: IV 1, Charles Douglas 

 Smith, lieutenant colonel and governor of Prince 

 Edward's Island. IV 2, John Spencer Smith (died 

 1840), held a commission in the Guards but quitted 

 the service to enter the field of diplomacy. He be- 

 came minister plenipotentiary at Constantinople. IV 

 4 (Propositus), WILLIAM SIDNEY SMITH. IV 5 (consort), 



Lady Caroline Mary . IV 6, Thomas Pitt, second 



Baron Camelford (1775-1804), had an adventurous and 

 wayward career in the navy, attaining the rank of com- 

 mander. He was finally killed in a duel. 



V 1, Edward Herbert Smith, a clergyman of the Established Church. V 2, William 

 Sidney Smith, a captain in the Royal Navy. Children of Propositus: V 4, Captain Arabin, 

 Royal Navy. V 6, Baron de Delmar. V 8, Colonel de St. Glair. V 9, Sir William Rumbold 

 Smith, died in India. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



BARROW, SIR J. 1848. Life of Sir William Sidney Smith. London: Bentley. 2 vols. 



