Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/248

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THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

sent over to Paris in 1796 to try and effect the exchange of Sir Sidney Smith, tells us that he was accompanied by Major Gall, ostensibly as secretary, Gall's real object being to fetch his two daughters, released but still unable to leave. Gall obtained passports for himself, his sister, and daughters, but the vessel in which they sailed was captured off Calais by a French privateer and taken to Dunkirk. They were, however, promised release. Gall was a friend of Warren Hastings, and when in Paris in 1791 attended the Jacobin Club, but was suspected of being a spy. Swinburne found in Paris Mitford, brother-in-law of Lord C. Annesley, Chenevix, son of the Bishop of Waterford, and Walter Smythe, brother of the famous Mrs. Fitzherbert. Relegated to Fontainebleau during the elections, he there met Lady Rodney[1] and her daughters. There were nine English prisoners of war in the Palace, and he sent them clothes. Recalled because Sir Sidney Smith mistakenly thought him wanting in zeal, Swinburne was joined at Calais by a Captain Davies of Hull, who had escaped from Arras, and who crossed over with him in the guise of his servant.

Lord Malmesbury, also at Paris in 1796 trying to negotiate peace, met the sons of the Rev. Charles Este, a well-known Whitehall preacher. One of them, a journalist, was but too friendly with the

  1. The Admiral married a Lisbon lady; she died in 1829, aged ninety.