BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF JOHN WESTLEY WRIGHT, ESQ. COMMANDER IN THE ROYAL NAVY

Summary

THE long and earnest course of remonstrance and requisition on the part of Mr. Wright with the government of France, on the subject of its extraordinary severity; the interference of the British Ambassador, Lord Malmesbury, in his favour, and the like course of remonstrance by Sir Sidney Smith, had produced not the smallest mitigation. In the middle of the year 1797, General Pichegru was appointed President of the Council of Five Hundred, and Sir Sidney Smith laid before him a statement of his situation, and demanded relief. He also addressed the Directory to the same effect; these appeals were afterwards made public, of which the following are copies:–

A la Tour du Temple, le 8 Juin, 1797.

Le Commodore Anglais Sidney Smith, au Général Pichegru, President du Conseil des Cinq-Cents.

citoyen president,

Quand j'apprends, au fond de ma prison, que Pichegru est porté au fauteuil d'un des conseils de la nation, et Barbé-Marbois à celui de l'autre, je respire; parce que cet hommage rendu à la vertu, à la probité et aux talens, offrant la preuve que la majorité de vos collegues vous ressemble, offre en meme temps l'espérance que la modération et l'humanité règneront en France et retabliront l'harmonie entre nos deux nations qui sont faites pour s'entre-estimer, et qui ne sont pas plus ennemies au fond pour ètre rivales. […]