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Rh  additional honour of receiving the insignia of his knighthood from his own sovereign at St. James’s.

When the war with France broke out, in 1793, Sir W. Sidney Smith was employed as a volunteer in the Turkish marine, and chanced to be at Smyrna, where there were collected at the same time a number of English seamen out of employ. Being intent on returning home himself in obedience to the customary notice from the Admiralty, he bethought himself of these men, as likely to be lost to their country at such a critical time, and with equal patriotism and humanity determined to restore them to her service. He accordingly, at his own risk, purchased one of the lateen rigged small craft of the Archipelago, and fitted her out under the English flag, and the name of the Swallow Tender. In this diminutive man of war, of between thirty and forty feet keel, he shipped himself, with about as many turbulent fellows, and sailed down the Mediterranean in search of the British fleet, which he found at Toulon about a fortnight before the evacuation of that place. Our officer here delivered up his troublesome charge to the Commander-in-Chief, and was waiting for a passage to England, as a guest with Lord Hood, on board the Victory, at the time it became necessary to decide upon the fate of the French ships and arsenal, and when the extrication of the allied army was the principal object of solicitude,