Alexandria from Acre, Bonaparte gave a grand dinner to Smith, loaded him with attentions and presents, and obtained permission to send three small boats to France. Not till two days afterwards did Smith learn that Bonaparte had himself left in one of these boats, and he vainly pursued him. Michelet argues that the English Government winked at Bonaparte's escape in the hope of his restoring the Bourbons, but this theory, like Nakoula's story, has a dubious air. If Bonaparte and Smith really dined together it was a curious sequel to their exchange of incivilities at Acre, where Smith endorsed and distributed a Turkish proclamation inviting the French to desert, as the Directory had sent them there merely to get rid of them; Napoleon responded by vilifying Smith, who sent him a challenge, which Bonaparte declined.
After Waterloo Smith, to avoid his creditors, settled in Paris, died there, and was buried in Père Lachaise. His brother Spencer, a diplomatist, went to reside at Caen, where he died in 1845. The Duke of Wellington, who met Smith at Paris in 1815, could not believe that a man so silly in all other affairs could be a good naval officer, and he told Croker an anecdote of Smith waiting on Louis XVIII. at the time of the English expedition against Algiers to represent that Lord Exmouth was incompetent, and that failure was inevitable unless he himself were appointed. The king heard him out,
