The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT

Two vols. Crn. 8vo. with Portrait, 36s.

THE PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE AND MEMOIRS

OF

DANIEL O'CONNELL, M.P.

By WM. J. FITZPATRICK, F.S.A.

KNT. ST. GREG. GT.

'In these volumes there is nothing tedious, and they are well put together.'—Standard.

'Mr. Fitzpatrick, who has done more than any living writer for Irish biography, has in this, his latest and most important work earned the gratitude of all students of Irish politics.'—Daily Telegraph.

'This work stands high above the extravagant and indiscriminating eulogies of O'Connell, accompanied by ignorant and malignant denunciations of all opposed to him, hitherto given to the world by patriotic biographers.'—Times.

'Inspired by love and admiration, pursued with laborious and indefatigable industry, and guided by honesty and good judgment. It gives a higher and, we believe, a truer view of O'Connell's character than has been given to the world before.'—Vanity Fair.

'Fresh light is thrown upon a most interesting period of Irish history by this publication, in which Daniel O'Connell reveals his innermost thoughts upon great public questions, as well as on themes of sacred and private import. Courts and Cabinets—the intrigues of public men and the subtleties of political organisations—are alike laid open to the public gaze.'—Daily Chronicle.

'To Mr. Fitzpatrick is due the gratitude of all students of history, of truth, and of human character for the patience and pertinacity with which he has collected these letters, and the knowledge, discretion, and tact of his arrangement. He has let O'Connell tell his own story, and the connecting thread is slight and scientific, such as only minute knowledge of his period could make it. The reader is hardly conscious of its presence, yet it suffices to weld a huge mass of miscellaneous correspondence into an authentic biography and lifelike portrait of the man who, of all others, made the greatest mark on his country and his generation.'—Athenæum.

'Mr. Fitzpatrick, while presenting to us a collection of moderate extent, has not only woven them into a web of fair average continuity, but has, as a sculptor would, presented to us his hero "in the round," so that we may consider each of his qualities in each varied light, and judge of their combination into a whole, whether it is mean or noble, consistent or inconsistent, natural or forced.... Few indeed, as I think, of those who give a careful perusal to these pages, will withhold their assent from the double assertion that O'Connell was a great man, and that he was a good man. Upon this issue the volumes now before us will enable us to try him: and in trying him to try ourselves. For who can any longer doubt that some debt is still due to him; that he was, to say the least, both over-censured and undervalued?'—Mr. Gladstone, in The Nineteenth Century.

London: JOHN MURRAY, Albemarle Street.

SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT

BY

W. J. FITZPATRICK, F.S.A.

• AUTHOR OF 'LIFE, TIMES, AND CORRESPONDENCE OF BISHOP DOYLE'
• 'LIFE OF LORD CLONCURRY'
• 'CORRESPONDENCE AND MEMOIRS OF DANIEL O'CONNELL'
• 'IRELAND BEFORE THE UNION' ETC.

LONDON
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1892

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PREFACE

These rough notes—begun long ago and continued at slow intervals—were put aside during the onerous task of editing for Mr. Murray the O'Connell Correspondence. The recent publication of Mr. Lecky's final volumes, awakening by their grasp a fixed interest in pre-Union times, and confirming much that by circumstantial evidence I had sought to establish, affords a reason, perhaps, that my later researches in the same field ought not to be wholly lost. Mr. Lecky's kindness in frequently quoting me[1] merits grateful acknowledgment, not less than his recognition of some things that I brought to light as explanatory of points to which the State Papers afford no clue. This and other circumstances encourage me in offering more.

My sole purpose at the outset was to expose a well-cloaked case of long-continued betrayal by one of whom Mr. Froude confesses that all efforts to identify had failed;[2] but afterwards it seemed desirable to disclose to the reader a wider knowledge of an exciting time.[3] In various instances a veil will be found lifted, or a visor unlocked, revealing features which may prove a surprise. Nor is the story without a moral. The organisers of illegal societies will see that, in spite of the apparent secrecy and ingenuity of their system, informers sit with them at the same council-board and dinner-table, ready at any moment to sell their blood; and that the wider the ramifications of conspiracy, the greater becomes the certainty of detection.

It may be that some of these researches are more likely to interest and assist students of the history of the time than to prove pleasant reading for those who take up a book merely for enjoyment. Yet if there is truth in the axiom that men who write with ease are read with difficulty, and vice versâ, these chapters ought to find readers. Every page had its hard work. Tantalising delays attended at times the search for some missing—but finally discovered—link. Indeed, volumes of popular reading, written currente calamo, might have been thrown off for a tithe of the trouble.

'If the power to do hard work is not talent,' writes Garfield, 'it is the best possible substitute for it. Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns them up.' Readers who, thanks to Froude and Lecky, have been interested by glimpses of men in startling attitudes, would naturally like to learn the curious sequel of their subsequent history. This I have done my best to furnish. The present volume is humbly offered as a companion to the two great works just alluded to. But it will also prove useful to readers of the Wellington, Castlereagh, Cornwallis, and Colchester Correspondence. These books abound in passages which, without explanation, are unintelligible. The matter now presented forms but a small part of the notes I have made with the same end.

A word as regards some of the later sources of my information. The Pelham MSS. were not accessible when Mr. Froude wrote. Thomas Pelham, second Earl of Chichester, was Irish Secretary from 1795 to 1798, but his correspondence until 1826 deals largely with Ireland, and I have read as much of it as would load a float. Another mine was found in the papers, ranging from 1795 to 1805, which filled two iron-clamped chests in Dublin Castle, guarded with the Government seal and bearing the words 'Secret and Confidential: Not to be Opened.' These chests were for a long time familiar objects exteriorly, and when it was at last permitted to disturb the rust of lock and hinge, peculiar interest attended the exploration. Among the contents were 136 letters from Francis Higgins, substantially supporting all that I had ventured to say twenty years before in the book which claimed to portray his career. But neither the Pelham Papers in London nor the archives at Dublin Castle reveal the great secret to which Mr. Froude points.

That so many documents have been preserved is fortunate. Mr. Ross, in his preface to the Cornwallis Correspondence, laments that 'the Duke of Portland, Lord Chancellor Clare, Mr. Wickham, Mr. King, Sir H. Taylor, Sir E. Littlehales, Mr. Marsden, and indeed almost all the persons officially concerned, appear to have destroyed the whole of their papers.' He adds: 'The destruction of so many valuable documents respecting important transactions cannot but be regarded as a serious loss to the political history of these times.'

I have freely used the Registry of Deeds Office, Dublin—a department peculiar to Ireland. Originating in penal times, its object was to trace any property acquired by Papists—such being liable to 'discovery and forfeiture.' This office served as a valuable curb in the hands of the oppressor, and ought to prove a not less useful aid to historic inquirers; but, hitherto, it has been unconsulted for such purposes. Few unless legal men can pursue the complicated references and searches, and—unlike the Record Office—fees attend almost every stage of the inquiry. Here things stranger than fiction nestle; while the genealogist will find it an inexhaustible store.

I have to thank the Right Hon. the O'Conor Don, D.L.; Sir William H. Cope, Bart.; Mrs. John Philpot Curran; Daniel O'Connell, Esq., D.L.; D. Coffey, Esq.; Jeremiah Leyne, Esq.; the late Lord Donoughmore, and the late Mr. Justice Hayes for the communication of manuscripts from the archives of their respective houses. The Rev. Samuel Haughton, F.T.C.D., kindly copied for me some memoranda made in 1798 by the Rev. John Barrett, Vice-Provost T.C.D., regarding students of alleged rebel leanings. Sir Charles Russell, when member for Dundalk, obligingly made inquiries concerning Samuel Turner; Mr. Lecky transcribed for me a curious paper concerning Aherne, the rebel envoy in France, and has been otherwise kind. My indebtedness to Sir Bernard Burke, Keeper of the Records, Dublin Castle, dates from the year 1855.

The late Brother Luke Cullen, a Carmelite monk, left at his death a vast quantity of papers throwing light on the period of the Rebellion. No writer but myself has ever had the use of these papers, and I beg to thank the Superior of the Order to which Mr. Cullen belonged for having, some years ago, placed them in my hands.

The array of notes and authorities on every page is not the best way to please an artistic eye; but in a book of this sort they are indispensable and would be certainly expected from the oldest living contributor to 'Notes and Queries.'

While there are many persons who enjoy a fox hunt, there are others would vote it a bore; and readers of this mind had better, perhaps, pass over the various stages of my chase after Samuel Turner, and come to something that may suit them better.

49 Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin:
New Year's Day, 1892.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Vide England in the Eighteenth Century, vii. 211; viii. 42-44, 45, 191, 240, etc.

[2] See Froude's English in Ireland, vol. iii. sec. vi.

[3] I have been further encouraged by the very favourable judgment of an acute critic, the late Mr. Hepworth Dixon, regarding a book of mine, written on the same lines as the present. See Athenæum, No. 1649, pp. 744 et seq.

CONTENTS

SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT

CHAPTER I
A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR

It is now some years since Mr. Froude invested with new interest the Romance of Rebellion. Perhaps the most curious of the episodes disclosed by him is that where, after describing the plans and organisation of the United Irishmen, he proceeds to notice a sensational case of betrayal.[4]

An instance has now to be related [he writes] remarkable for the ingenious perfidy with which it was attended, for the mystery which still attaches to the principal performer, and for his connection with the fortunes and fate of Lord Edward Fitzgerald.

Lord Edward's movements had for some time been observed with anxiety, as much from general uneasiness as from regret that a brother of the Duke of Leinster should be connecting himself with conspiracy and treason. His proceedings in Paris in 1792 had cost him his commission in the army. In the Irish Parliament he had been undistinguished by talent, but conspicuous for the violence of his language. His meeting with Hoche on the Swiss frontier was a secret known only to a very few persons; Hoche himself had not revealed it even to Tone; but Lord Edward was known to be intimate with McNevin. He had been watched in London, and had been traced to the lodgings of a suspected agent of the French Directory; and among other papers which had been forwarded by spies to the Government, there was one in French, containing an allusion to some female friend of Lady Edward, through whom a correspondence was maintained between Ireland and Paris. Lady Edward's house at Hamburg was notoriously the resort of Irish refugees. Lord Edward himself was frequently there, and the Government suspected, though they were unable to prove, that he was seriously committed with the United Irishmen. One night, early in October, 1797,[5] a person came to the house of Lord Downshire in London, and desired to see him immediately. Lord Downshire went into the hall and found a man muffled in a cloak, with a hat slouched over his face, who requested a private interview. The Duke (sic) took him into his Library, and when he threw off his disguise recognised in his visitor the son of a gentleman of good fortune in the North of Ireland, with whom he was slightly acquainted. Lord Downshire's 'friend' (the title under which he was always subsequently described) had been a member of the Ulster Revolutionary Committee. From his acquaintance with the details of what had taken place it may be inferred that he had accompanied the Northern delegacy to Dublin and had been present at the discussion of the propriety of an immediate insurrection. The cowardice or the prudence of the Dublin faction had disgusted him. He considered now that the conspiracy was likely to fail, or that, if it succeeded, it would take a form which he disapproved; and he had come over to sell his services and his information to Pitt. In telling his story to Lord Downshire he painted his own conduct in colours least discreditable to himself. Like many of his friends, he had at first, he said, wished only for a reform in parliament and a change in the constitution. He had since taken many desperate steps and connected himself with desperate men. He had discovered that the object of the Papists was the ruin and destruction of the country, and the establishment of a tyranny worse than that which was complained of by the reformers; that proscriptions, seizures of property, murders, and assassinations were the certain consequences to be apprehended from their machinations; that he had determined to separate himself from the conspiracy.[6] He was in England to make every discovery in his power, and if Lord Downshire had not been in London he had meant to address himself to Portland or Pitt. He stipulated only, as usual, that he should never be called on to appear in a court of justice to prosecute any one who might be taken up in consequence of his discoveries.

Lord Downshire agreed to his conditions; but, as it was then late, he desired him to return and complete his story in the morning. He said that his life was in danger even in London. He could not venture a second time to Lord Downshire, or run the risk of being observed by his servants. Downshire appointed the empty residence of a friend in the neighbourhood. Thither he went the next day in a hackney coach. The door was left unlocked, and he entered unseen by anyone. Lord Downshire then took down from his lips a list of the principal members of the Executive Committee by whom the whole movement was at that time directed. He next related at considerable length the proceedings of the United Irishmen during the two past years, the division of opinion, the narrow chance by which a rising had been escaped in Dublin in the spring, and his own subsequent adventures. He had fled with others from Belfast in the general dispersion of the leaders. Lady Edward Fitzgerald had given him shelter at Hamburg, and had sent him on to Paris with a letter to her brother-in-law, General Valence.[7] By General Valence he had been introduced to Hoche and De la Croix. He had seen Talleyrand, and had talked at length with him on the condition of Ireland. He had been naturally intimate with the other Irish refugees. Napper Tandy[8] was strolling about the streets in uniform and calling himself a major. Hamilton Rowan[9] had been pressed to return, but preferred safety in America, and professed himself sick of politics. After this, 'the person'—as Lord Downshire called his visitor, keeping even the Cabinet in ignorance of his name—came to the immediate object of his visit to England.

He had discovered that all important negotiations between the Revolutionary Committee in Dublin and their Paris agents passed through Lady Edward's hands. The Paris letters were transmitted first to her at Hamburg. By her they were forwarded to Lady Lucy Fitzgerald[10] in London. From London Lady Lucy was able to send them on unsuspected. Being himself implicitly trusted, both by Lady Edward and by Lady Lucy, he believed he could give the Government information which would enable them to detect and examine these letters in their transit through the post.

Pitt was out of town. He returned, however, in a few days. Downshire immediately saw him, and Pitt consented that 'the person's' services should be accepted. There was some little delay. 'The person' took alarm, disappeared, and they supposed that they had lost him. Three weeks later, however, he wrote to Downshire from Hamburg, saying that he had returned to his old quarters, for fear he might be falling into a trap. It was fortunate, he added, that he had done so, for a letter was on the point of going over from Barclay Teeling[11] to Arthur O'Connor,[12] and he gave Downshire directions which would enable him to intercept, read, and send it on.

Such an evidence of 'the person's' power and will to be useful made Pitt extremely anxious to secure his permanent help. An arrangement was concluded. He continued at Hamburg as Lady Edward's guest and most trusted friend, saw everyone who came to her house, kept watch over her letter-bag, was admitted to close and secret conversations upon the prospect of French interference in Ireland with Reinhard, the Minister of the Directory there, and he regularly kept Lord Downshire informed of everything which would enable Pitt to watch the conspiracy. One of his letters, dated November 19, 1797, is preserved:—

'A. Lowry writes from Paris, August 11, in great despondency on account of Hoche's death, and says that all hopes of invading Ireland were given over.

'I then saw Reinhard, the French Minister, who begged me to stay here, as the only mode in which I could serve my country and the Republic. I instantly acquiesced, and told him I had arranged matters with Lord Edward Fitzgerald in London for that purpose. I showed him Lowry's[13] letter. He said that things were changed. Buonaparte would not listen to the idea of peace, and had some plan which I do not know. I told him the spirit of republicanism was losing ground in Ireland, for the Catholics and Protestants could not be brought to unite. I mentioned then what Fitzgerald told me in London, viz., that after I left Ireland they had thoughts of bringing matters to a crisis without the French. Arthur O'Connor was to have had a command in the North, he himself in Leinster, Robert Simms[14] at Belfast; that the Catholics got jealous of this, and Richard McCormick,[15] of Dublin, went among the societies of United Men and denounced the three as traitors to the cause, and dangerous on account of their ambition. All letters to or from Lady Lucy Fitzgerald ought to be inspected.

'She, Mrs. Matthieson, of this place, and Pamela[16] carry on a correspondence. Lewins, Teeling, Tennant, Lowry, Orr, and Colonel Tandy are at Paris. Tone expects to stay the winter there, which does not look like invasion. Oliver Bond is treasurer. He pays Lewins and McNevin in London. Now for myself. In order to carry into effect the scheme which you and Mr. Pitt had planned, it was requisite for me to see my countrymen. I called on Maitland,[17] where I found A. J. Stuart,[18] of Acton, both of them heartily sick of politics. Edward Fitzgerald had been inquiring of them for me. I went to Harley Street, where Fitz told me of the conduct of the Catholics to him and his friends. He said he would prevail on O'Connor, or some such, to go to Paris. If not, he would go himself in order to have Lewins removed. Mrs. Matthieson[19] has just heard from Lady Lucy that O'Connor is to come. I supped last night with Valence, who mentioned his having introduced Lord Edward and O'Connor to the Minister here in the summer, before the French attempted to invade Ireland. They both went to Switzerland, whence O'Connor passed into France, had an interview with Hoche, and everything was planned.[20]

'I feared lest Government might not choose to ratify our contract, and, being in their power, would give me my choice either to come forward as an evidence or suffer martyrdom myself. Having no taste for an exit of this sort, I set out and arrived here safe, and now beg you'll let me know if anything was wrong in my statements, or if I have given offence. If you approve my present mode of life, and encourage me so to do, with all deference I think Mr. Pitt may let me have a cool five hundred,[21] which shall last me for six months to come. To get the information here has cost me three times the sum, and to keep up the acquaintance and connections I have here, so as to get information, I cannot live on less.'[22]

The betrayer, before his interview with Downshire closed, supplied him with a list of the Executive Committee of United Irishmen. This list, duly given by Mr. Froude, includes—

Jackson and his son; Oliver Bond; John Chambers; James Dickson; Casey, a red-faced Dublin priest; Thomas Addis Emmet; Dr. McNevin, a physician who had great weight with the papists;[23] Braughall, John Keogh and R. McCormick, who belonged to the committee, though they did not attend; Samuel Turner; Lord Edward Fitzgerald; Arthur O'Connor; Alexander Stewart; two Orrs, one an attorney and a dangerous person, the other of Derry, described as a clever, sensible, strong-minded man; B. Teeling; Tenants, of Belfast; Agnew, of Larne; Lawless, Lord Cloncurry's son; Hamill, of Dominick Street[24]; Inishry,[25] a priest, a canting, designing man, who swore in Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Lawless.[26]

Lord Downshire, who negotiated in this affair, had weight with Pitt. The husband of an English peeress, and the son of Lord North's Secretary of State, he was a familiar figure at Court. He had sat for two English constituencies; and in the Irish Parliament as senator, borough proprietor, governor of his county, and one of the Privy Council, he wielded potent sway. His later history and fall belong to chapter ix.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] The English in Ireland (Nov. 1797), iii. 278.

[5] It was October 8, 1797.

[6] But it will appear that he continued to the end to play the part of a flaming patriot.

[7] Cyrus Marie Valence, Count de Timbrune, born 1757, died 1822. His exploits as a general officer are largely commemorated in the memoirs of his friend, Dumouriez. After having been severely wounded, he resided for some time in London; but was expelled by order of Pitt on June 6, 1793. He then took up his residence in a retired outlet of Hamburg, which our spy soon penetrated; and he at last wormed himself into the confidence of Valence. The General afterwards resumed active military service, and fought with distinction in Spain and Russia.—Vide Discours du Comte de Ségur à l'occasion des Obsèques de M. Valence; Souvenirs de Madame Genlis, &c.; Alison's Hist. Europe, 1789-1815, x. 189.

[8] The strange career of Tandy—who was made a general by Bonaparte—is traced in chapter viii. infra.

[9] Some notice of Hamilton Rowan's adventurous courses will be found in chapter xv. infra.

[10] Lady Lucy Fitzgerald, sister of Lord Edward, married in 1802 Admiral Sir Thos. Foley, K.C.B., died 1851.

[11] Bartholomew Teeling was his correct name. In 1798 he was hanged in Dublin.

[12] Arthur O'Connor, nephew and heir of Lord Longueville, sat in Parliament for Philipstown, and spoke so ably on Indian affairs that Pitt is said to have offered him office. In November 1796 he joined the United Irishmen, and from that date his life is one of much activity and vicissitude. Excitement and worry failed to shorten it. He became a general in the French service, and died, aged eighty-eight, April 25, '52.

[13] Alexander Lowry was the treasurer for Down. Tone describes Lowry and Tennant as 'a couple of fine lads, whom I like extremely.'—Life, ii. 433. Aug. 1797. Their youth and ingenuousness would make them easy prey.

[14] Robert Simms had been appointed to the chief command of the United Irishmen of Antrim; but he is said to have wanted nerve. James Hope, in a narrative he gave Dr. Madden, said that Hughes, the Belfast informer, once proposed to him to get rid of Simms by assassination. Hope pulled a pistol from his breast and told Hughes that if ever he repeated that proposal he would shoot him.

[15] Richard McCormick, originally secretary of the Catholic Committee, and afterwards an active 'United Irishman,' and styled by Tone, in his Diary, 'Magog.'

[16] The wife of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald says that she was the daughter of Mde. de Genlis by Philippe Egalité, Duke of Orleans; but a letter appears in Moore's Memoirs from King Louis Philippe denying it, and Mde. de Genlis calls her a child by adoption. Pamela was a person of surpassing beauty; her portrait arrests attention in the gallery of Versailles. R. B. Sheridan proposed for her, but she rejected him in favour of Lord Edward. Died 1831; her remains were followed to Père la Chaise by Talleyrand.

[17] The allusion may be to Captain Maitland—afterwards General Sir Thomas Maitland, Governor of Ceylon, a son of Lord Lauderdale. He was in Parliament from 1774 to 1779, and from 1790 to 1796, when he sat for the last time in the House—a circumstance which may, perhaps, explain the remark that he was sick of politics. Died 1824. In 1800 he was Colonel Maitland, and in the confidence of Lord Cornwallis.

[18] Who Stuart was, see p. [36] infra; also Lord Cloncurry's Memoirs, p. [63].

[19] Madame de Genlis states in her memoirs that her niece, Henriette de Sercey, married M. Matthiessen, a rich banker of Hamburg. The General Count Valence married a daughter of Madame de Genlis, and resided near Hamburg on a farm where the latter wrote several of her works.

[20] The expedition of Hoche to Bantry Bay in December, 1796.

[21] 'I just made a couple of betts with him, and took up a cool hundred.'—The Provoked Husband, by Vanbrugh and Cibber, ii. i. 311, ed. 1730. See also Smollett's Don Quixote, bk. iii. c. viii.

[22] Froude, iii. 277 et seq.

[23] Alexander Knox, in his History of Down, errs in saying (p. [26]) that 'Dr. McNevin was an influential member of the Established Church.'

[24] All these men, unless Hamill and Inishry, are to be found in books which treat of 1798. The first is noticed in the Dublin Penny Journal, March 1, 1834 (p. [274]). In 1797 Mr. Hamill was indicted for defenderism and acquitted, 'and the witnesses for the Crown were so flagrantly perjured that the judge, I have heard, ordered a prosecution' (Speech of Henry Grattan in Parliament, May 13, 1805—Hansard, ii. 925).

[25] As regards 'Inishry,' no such cognomen is to be found in the pedigrees of MacFirbis or O'Clery, or any name to which it might be traced. The name that the spy gave was probably Hennessy—which Downshire, in writing from dictation, may have mistaken for 'Inishry.'

[26] Long before the publication of Mr. Froude's book, Arthur O'Connor, in a letter to Dr. Madden, states that 'Lord Edward took no oath on joining the United Irishmen.'—Vide their Lives and Times, ii. 393.

CHAPTER II
ARRESTS MULTIPLY

It was not easy to separate the threads of the tangled skein which Mr. Froude found hidden away in the dust of the past. But, lest the process of unravelling should tax the reader's patience, I have transferred to an Appendix some points of circumstantial evidence which led me, at first, to suspect, and finally to feel convinced, that 'the person' was no other than Samuel Turner, Esq., LL.D., barrister-at-law, of Turner's Glen, Newry—one of the shrewdest heads of the Northern executive of United Irishmen.[27] Pitt made a good stroke by encouraging his overtures, but, like an expert angler, ample line was given ere securing fast the precious prey.

One can trace, through the public journals of the time, that the betrayer's disclosures to Downshire were followed by a decided activity on the part of the Irish Government. The more important of the marked men were suffered to continue at large, but the names having been noted Lord Camden was able, at the threatened outburst of the rebellion, to seize them at once. Meanwhile an influential London paper, the 'Courier' of November 24, 1797, gave a glimpse of the system that then prevailed by announcing the departure from Dublin for England of Dr. Atkinson, High Constable of Belfast, charged, it is said, with full powers from Government to arrest such persons as have left Ireland, and against whom there are charges of a treasonable or seditious nature.

The former gentleman is well known, and will be long remembered by the inhabitants of Belfast, for the active part he took in assisting a Northern Marquis,[28] and the young apostate of the County Down, to arrest seven of their fellow-citizens on September 16, 1796; since which period these unfortunate men have been closely confined without being allowed to see their friends, and now remain without hope of trial or liberation.

'The young apostate of Down'—thus indicated for English readers ninety years ago—was Lord Castlereagh, afterwards Minister for Foreign Affairs, and well twitted by Byron for his Toryism; but who, in 1790, had been elected, after a struggle of two months' duration and an outlay of 60,000l., Whig Member for Down. Like Pitt, he began as a reformer; like Disraeli, he avowed himself a Radical; and presided at a banquet where toasts were drunk such as 'Our Sovereign Lord the People.' Ere long his policy changed, and his memory is described as having the faint sickening smell of hot blood about it.

Mr. Froude's work has been several years before the world; it has passed through various editions. Thousands of readers have been interested by his picture of the muffled figure gliding at dark to breathe in Downshire's ear most startling disclosures, but no attempt to solve the mystery enshrouding it has until now been made.[29]

The name of Samuel Turner obtains no place on the list of Secret Service moneys[30] expended by the Irish Government in 1798—thus bearing out the statement of Mr. Froude that the name of the mysterious 'person' was not revealed in the most secret correspondence between the Home Office and Dublin Castle. At the termination of the troubles, however, when the need of secrecy became less urgent, and it was desirable to bestow pensions on 'persons who had rendered important service during the rebellion,' the name of Samuel Turner is found in the Cornwallis Papers as entitled to 300l. a year. But a foot-note from the indefatigable editor—Mr. Ross—who spared no labour to acquire minute information, confesses that it has been found impossible to procure any particulars of Turner.

For years I have investigated the relations of the informers with the Government, and Samuel Turner is the only large recipient of 'blood-money' whose services remain to be accounted for. Turner's name never appeared in any printed pension list. Mr. Ross found the name at Dublin Castle, with some others, in a 'confidential memorandum,' written for the perusal of the Lord Lieutenant, whose fiat became necessary. The money was 'given by a warrant dated December 20, 1800,' but the names were kept secret—the payments being confidentially made by the Under-Secretary.

At this distance of time it is not easy to trace a life of which Mr. Ross, thirty years earlier, failed to catch the haziest glimpse; but I hope to make the case clear, and Turner's history readable.

Previous to 1798 he is found posing in the double rôle of martyr and hero—winning alternately the sympathy and admiration of the people. Mr. Patrick O'Byrne, an aged native of Newry, long connected with an eminent publishing firm in Dublin, has replied to a letter of inquiry by supplying some anecdotes in Turner's life. It is a remarkable proof of the completeness with which Turner's perfidy was cloaked that Mr. O'Byrne never heard his honesty questioned.[31]

In 1836 there was a tradition current in Newry of a gentleman named Turner, who in the previous generation had resided in a large red brick house situated in the centre of a fine walled-in park called Turner's Glen, on the western side of Newry, in the County Armagh. Mr. Turner had been in 1796 a member of the great confederacy of United Irishmen, one of the leaders who, for self and fellows, 'pledged his life, his fortune, and his honour' to put an end to British supremacy in Ireland. About the date mentioned the notorious Luttrell, Lord Carhampton, who was commander of the forces in Ireland at the time, and was then making a tour of inspection of the army, had to pass through Newry. The chief hotel in Newry at that time adjoined the post-office. The gentry and merchants of Newry generally went to the post-office shortly after the arrival of the mails to get their letters, and while waiting for the mail to be assorted promenaded in front of the hotel, or rested in the coffee-room. Mr. Turner wore the colours he affected—a large green necktie. Lord Carhampton, while his horses were being changed, was looking out of the coffee-room windows of the hotel, and his eye lighted on the rebel 'stock:' here was a fine opportunity to cow a rebel and assert his own courage—a quality for which he was not noted. Accordingly he swaggered up to Mr. Turner and, confronting him, asked 'Whose man are you, who dares to wear that rebellious emblem?' Mr. Turner sternly replied, 'I am my own man. Whose man are you, who dares to speak so insolently to an Irish gentleman?' 'I am one who will make you wear a hempen necktie, instead of your flaunting French silk, if you do not instantly remove it!' retorted Lord Carhampton. 'I wear this colour,' replied Mr. Turner courageously, 'because I like it. As it is obnoxious to you, come and take it off.' Carhampton, finding that his bluster did not frighten the North Erin rebel, turned to leave; but Turner, by a rapid movement, got between him and the door, and, presenting his card to the general, demanded his address. Carhampton told him he would learn it sooner than he should like. Turner thereupon said, 'I must know your name; until now I have never had the misfortune to be engaged in a quarrel with aught but gentlemen, who knew how to make themselves responsible for their acts. You cannot insult me with impunity, whatever your name may be. I will yet find it out, and post you in every court as a coward.' The Commander of the Forces withdrew from Newry, having come off second best in the quarrel he had provoked. Mr. Turner, for reasons connected with the cause in which he had embarked, was obliged to lie perdu soon after, and so Carhampton escaped the 'posting' he would, under other circumstances, have got from the Northern fire-eater.

The general accuracy of Mr. O'Byrne's impressions is shown by the 'Life and Confessions of Newell the Informer,' printed for the author at London in 1798.[32] Newell travelled with the staff of Lord Carhampton, and in April, 1797, witnessed the scene between Turner and him.

Newell's pamphlet, which created much noise at the time and had a large circulation, did not tend to weaken popular confidence in Turner. It appeared soon after the time that he had begun to play false; but Newell, with all his cunning, had no suspicion of Turner.

The late Mr. J. Mathews, of Dundalk, collected curious details regarding the rebel organisation of Ulster in 1797. With these details the name of Samuel Turner is interwoven, but, although the object of Mathews was to expose the treachery of some false brothers, he assigns to Turner the rank of a patriot and a hero. How the authorities, by a coup, made a number of arrests, is described; and how Turner, after some exciting adventures, got safely to France.[33]

The spy on this occasion was Mr. Conlan, a medical practitioner in Dundalk. A sworn information, signed by Conlan, is preserved among the Sirr MSS. in Trinity College, Dublin. It is dated 1798, when Turner himself was betraying his own colleagues to Pitt! Conlan states that one evening, after Turner had left his house at Newry to attend a meeting of United Irishmen at Dundalk, the officer in command at the barracks of Newry got orders to march on Dundalk and arrest the leaders. An officer's servant apprised Corcoran, who was an adherent of Turner's. Corcoran mounted a horse and galloped to Dundalk, where he arrived in time to warn Turner. Conlan recollected Turner and Teeling travelling through Ulster and holding meetings for organisation at Dundalk, Newry, Ballinahinch (the site of the subsequent battle), Ronaldstown, Glanary, and in Dublin at Kearn's, Kildare Street,[34] where the principal meetings were held.[35]

I find in the Pelham MSS. the examination of Dr. John Macara, one of the Northern State prisoners of 1797. It supplies details of the plan of attack which had been foiled by the arrests. 'Newry was to be attacked by Samuel Turner, of Newry aforesaid, with the men from Newry and Mourn.'[36]

It was not Conlan alone who reported Turner's movements to the Crown. Francis Higgins, the ablest secret agent of Under-Secretary Cooke, announces that Turner had sent 'letters from Portsmouth for the purpose of upholding and misleading the mutinous seamen into avowed rebellion;'[37] and some weeks later he states that 'Turner had returned from Hamburg with an answer to the Secret Committee of United Irishmen.'[38]

We know on the authority of James Hope, who wrote down his 'Recollections' of this time at the request of a friend, that Turner, having fled from Ireland, filled the office of resident agent at Hamburg of the United Irishmen. The Irish envoys and refugees, finding themselves in a place hardly less strange than Tierra del Fuego, ignorant of its language, its rules and its ways, sought on arrival the accredited agent of their brotherhood, hailed him with joy, and regarded the spot on which he dwelt as a bit of Irish soil sacred to the Shamrock. The hardship which some of the refugees went through was trying enough. James Hope, writing in 1846, says that Palmer, one of Lord Edward's bodyguard in Dublin, travelled, 'mostly barefooted, from Paris to Hamburg, where he put himself into communication with Samuel Turner.' The object of Palmer's mission was to expose one Bureaud, then employed as a spy by Holland. 'Palmer,' writes Hope, 'gave Turner a gold watch to keep for him.' He enlisted in a Dutch regiment, and was found drowned in the Scheldt. 'When Turner,' adds Hope, 'was applied to for the watch by Palmer's sister, he replied that he forgot what became of it.'

Hamburg in troubled times was a place of great importance for the maintenance of intercourse between England and France. Here, as Mr. Froude states, 'Lord Downshire's friend' had vast facilities for getting at the inmost secrets of the United Irishmen. Hope's casual statement serves to show how it was that this 'person' could have had access to Lady Edward Fitzgerald's confidence, and that of her political friends at Hamburg.

FOOTNOTES:

[27] In chapter vii. my contention will be found established on conclusive testimony, which had failed to present itself until years had been given to a slow process of logical deduction. Vide also Appendix to this volume.

[28] 'The Northern Marquis' was, of course, Lord Downshire.

[29] 'A Lanthorn through some Dark Passages, with a Key to Secret Chambers,' was the title originally chosen for the present book, but I finally laid it aside as being too much in the style of old Parson Fry's 'Pair of Bellows to Blow away the Dust.'

[30] How this book got out of the Castle and was sold for waste paper by a man named Fagan is a curious story in itself. The volume is now preserved in the Royal Irish Academy.

[31] A prisoner named Turner, Christian name not given, indicted for high treason, is announced as discharged in December 1795, owing to the flight of a Crown witness.—Vide Irish State Trials (Dublin: Exshaw, 1796); Lib. R. I. Academy.

[32] Vide pp. [21]-2. Newell's pamphlet will be found in the Halliday Collection, vol. 743, Royal Irish Academy.

[33] Vide Mr. Matthew's narrative in The Sham Squire, sixth edition, pp. [355]-363.

[34] This place of rendezvous was, doubtless, chosen because of its proximity to Leinster House, where Lord Edward mainly lived.

[35] Major Sirr's Papers (MS.), Trinity College, Dublin. Conlan's information makes no mention of a remarkable man, the Rev. William Steel Dickson, D.D., a Presbyterian pastor of Down, and described by the historians of his Church as ready to take the field. Dr. Dickson, in his Narrative, admits (p. [193]) that he had been 'frequently in the company of Lowry, Turner, and Teeling.' Turner was a Presbyterian and possibly wished to spare a pastor of his Church.

[36] The Pelham MSS. Examination dated September 6, 1797. Pelham, afterwards Lord Chichester, was Chief Secretary for Ireland at that time, and his papers are a useful help in throwing light upon it. A large portion of them are occupied by a correspondence with Generals Lake and Nugent regarding Dr. Macara; he offered to inform if let out on bail. Lake hoped that he would prove a valuable informer; and, as he was far from rich, could not afford to reject pecuniary reward; but, although Macara at first seemed to consent, his replies were finally found to be evasive.

[37] Higgins to Cooke, MS. letter, Dublin Castle, June 7, 1797.

[38] Ibid., August 29, 1797. Five weeks later Turner makes his disclosure to Downshire.

CHAPTER III
FATHER O'COIGLY HANGED

Mr. Froude, after a perusal of the letters of Downshire's friend, and other documents, states that a priest named O'Coigly or Quigley 'had visited Paris in 1797, returned to Dublin, and had been with Lord Edward Fitzgerald at Leinster House; that he was now going back to Paris, and Arthur O'Connor determined to go in his company.[39] Their mission, though ostensibly for presenting an address from the London corresponding society of United Irishmen to the French Government, was really for the double purpose of urging upon it the prompt despatch of an invading fleet to Ireland, and of deposing the Irish envoy, Lewins, who, instead of Turner, had begun to be suspected. Mr. Lawless, afterwards Lord Cloncurry, invited O'Coigly to dinner in London; and it was on this occasion that O'Connor met the priest for the first time. O'Coigly, under the name of Captain Jones, with Allen[40] seemingly as his servant, and Leary, left London for Margate, on their mission of mystery. O'Connor travelled by another route to Margate, took the name of Colonel Morris, and was accompanied by Binns. On the following day, at the King's Head Inn, Margate, all the party were arrested by two Bow Street officers. O'Coigly and O'Connor had dined at Lawless's lodgings more than once; and here, though not necessarily with his knowledge, the travelling arrangements seem to have been made. Whether Turner was a guest does not appear; but he was certainly in London at this time, and as one of the Executive Committee is likely to have been invited. Presently it will be shown that from this quarter came all the information which enabled Pitt to seize O'Connor and O'Coigly at Margate en route to France, although, to elude observation, they had journeyed by different roads. The prisoners, meanwhile, were removed to London, examined before the Privy Council, and then transmitted to Maidstone Jail to await their trial. The source of the information which caused these historic arrests on February 27, 1798, has hitherto remained a mystery. Father O'Coigly, while in jail, wrote some letters, in which he failed to avow his share in the conspiracy, but admitted to have made a previous visit to Cuxhaven. This was part of the city of Hamburg. Turner, in addition to being the official agent of the United Irishmen at Hamburg, was an old Dundalk acquaintance of O'Coigly's, and no doubt was promptly hailed by the country priest.

Turner and O'Coigly are mentioned in Hughes's information. They belonged to the same district organisation. After describing Teeling, Turner and Lowry working in concert in 1797, Hughes adds that priest Quigly or O'Coigly introduced him at that time to Baily and Binns.[41] The paper revealed by Mr. Froude, now shown to be Turner's, and other letters from the same hand in the 'Castlereagh Papers,' show that the writer always felt a strong dislike to work with the 'Papists,' especially priests. 'Casey, the red-faced, designing Dublin priest,' was one of the leading men he met in Dublin, and whose 'prudence or cowardice' disgusted him. Immediately after O'Coigly's return to London we find the authorities on his track. The priest himself refers to an abortive attempt to arrest him by night at Piccadilly.[42] Mr. Froude, dealing with this case, does not seem to have suspected that the arrival in London of Downshire's friend, at the time of the arrests at Margate, was other than accidental. Yet clearly it was business of no ordinary moment which brought him back to London at this time. It will be remembered that, panic-stricken and fearing death from the assassin's knife, he had returned to Hamburg in October 1797, ere an answer came from Pitt to the proposition of betrayal conveyed by Lord Downshire.

It happened that at this particular time [writes Mr. Froude] that Downshire's friend was in London, and Pelham (the Irish Secretary) knew it. If the 'friend' could be brought over, and could be induced to give evidence, a case could then be established against all the United Irish leaders. They could be prosecuted with certainty of conviction, and the secrets of the plot could be revealed so fully that the reality of it could no longer be doubted.

Most earnestly Camden[43] begged Portland[44] to impress on the 'friend' the necessity of compliance. 'Patriotism might induce him to overcome his natural prejudice.' If patriotism was insufficient, there was no reward which he ought not to receive.[45] Portland's answer was not encouraging: 'The friend,' he said, 'shall be detained. As to his coming over to you, I have reason to believe that there is not any consideration on earth which would tempt him to undertake it. He is convinced that he would go to utter destruction. Better he should stay here and open a correspondence with some of the principal conspirators, by which means you may be apprised of their intentions. If I could be satisfied, or if you would give it as your positive opinion that this person's testimony or presence would crush the conspiracy, or bring any principal traitor to justice, I should not, and Lord Downshire would not, hesitate to use any influence to prevail on his friend to run any risk for such an object. But if he should fail and escape with his life, he could render no further service. Weigh well, therefore, the consequence of such a sacrifice.'[46]

After describing the arrest at Margate of Father O'Coigly, O'Connor, and Binns, Mr. Froude writes:—

O'Connor wrote a hurried note to Lord Edward, telling him not to be alarmed, nothing having been taken upon them which compromised any individual.[47] The messenger to whom the note was entrusted was unfortunate or treacherous, for it fell into the hands of the Government. Had O'Connor known the connection between the Government and Lord Downshire's friend, he would have felt less confident. There was evidence, if it could only be produced, which would send both Lord Edward and himself to the scaffold.

It may be observed here—en parenthèse—that Downshire must have felt conflicting emotions when called upon to communicate information which might bring Lord Edward to the block. His father had married the sister of James, Duke of Leinster; Lord Edward was, therefore, the first cousin of Lord Downshire.

One of the most truthful chapters of the laudatory life of Reynolds, the informer,[48] is that aiming to show that he could not have been the spy who caused the arrests at Margate. But the biographer is unable to offer any suggestion as to who that agent was—so carefully veiled from Reynolds, one of their own confidential prompters, was the part played by Turner in that episode.

The information which led to the arrest of O'Connor, O'Coigly, and his companion cannot have come from Ireland, because in the 'Book of Secret Service Monies expended in the Detection of Treasonable Conspiracies' no entry appears connected with the above incident, unless 'Dutton's Expenses going to England to attend Quigly's Trial,' and where he had merely to swear to the priest's handwriting. For his courage in doing this—having once seen him sign a lottery ticket at Dundalk—50l. is paid to 'Dutton on June 12, 1798.' The names of Newell and Murdoch certainly appear in the 'Secret Service Money' book about that time; but it is clear from Newell's narrative—doubtless a genuine and frank confession—that neither he nor Murdoch had any hand in tracing the movements of O'Coigly and O'Connor.

Lord Castlereagh was now acting for Pelham as Chief Secretary for Ireland. On July 25, 1798, a secret letter—printed in the 'Castlereagh Papers'—is addressed to him from the Home Office:—

I am directed by the Duke of Portland to inform your Lordship that I have received intelligence from a person very much in the confidence of [Reinhard] the French Minister at Hamburg,[49] that several French officers and soldiers have lately arrived at that place, where they have purchased sailor's dresses, clothed themselves in them, and gone on to Denmark and Sweden, from whence it is intended that they should embark for the North of Ireland.[50] I know not what credit is to be given to this information, which must be received with caution, as it does not appear to have reached his Majesty's Minister at Hamburg.

It comes, however, from a person[51] whose reports while he was in this country[52] were known to his Excellency as singularly accurate and faithful—the same who gave such an accurate account of the proceedings of O'Connor and Coigly whilst they were in this country, and on whose authority those persons were apprehended.[53]

Some of the letters of 'Lord Downshire's friend,' not being forthcoming in the official archives, Mr. Froude assumed that they had been destroyed; but, however masked, they are recognisable in the 'Castlereagh Correspondence.' Several anonymous papers, furnishing information of the movements of the United Irishmen about Hamburg and elsewhere, crop up in that book, having been enclosed from Whitehall for the guidance of Dublin Castle. One of these letters makes special reference to information already sent to Lord Downshire.[54]

Another long letter of the same batch will be found the first placed in the second volume of Castlereagh, though an examination of it shows that it belongs to the middle of the previous volume. Detailed reference is made to Father O'Coigly's mission and movements, both in France and in London. One is struck by the accuracy of its information regarding the Ulster United Irishmen, of whom Turner was one. Of MacMahon, who travelled to Paris with O'Coigly, we learn that, 'tired of politics, especially those of France, he is to write to Citoyen Jean Thomas,[55] à la poste restante à Hamburg, whom he looks on as a good patriot.'[56] It will be remembered that a similar phrase occurs in the letter of Downshire's friend, printed by Froude, i.e. Rowan had 'professed himself sick of politics.' Again, 'I found Maitland and Stewart, of Acton, both heartily sick of politics.'

How to hang O'Coigly was now the difficulty. The Government knew—from somebody who had worked with him—that he was deep in the treason; but nothing could persuade the informer to prosecute him openly.

On April 11, 1798, Wickham writes from Whitehall:—

It is most exceedingly to be lamented that no person can be sent over from Ireland to prove Coigly's handwriting. Proof of that kind would be so extremely material, that I have no doubt that the law officers would think it right to put off the trial if they could have any hope of any person being found, in a short time, who could speak distinctly to his handwriting.[57]

The secret adviser who, as Portland said, 'should be detained,' worked his brain until at length a man, hailing from a place suspiciously familiar to Turner, is sent for to swear to the point. Samuel Turner, formerly of Newry, had intimate knowledge of every man in the place. One Frederick Dutton, described as 'of Newry,' was now subpœnaed by the Crown to swear to O'Coigly's handwriting in a letter addressed to Lord Edward Fitzgerald. 'He claimed to have seen Coigly write his name for the purpose of getting a watch raffled which belonged to a poor man under sentence of death.' Dutton had been a dismissed servant and had kept a public-house at Newry without a licence.[58]

Turner—it seems absurd to doubt the identity—got back to London on Tuesday, May 15, 1798. What secret help he gave to the law officers can only be inferred, for they pledged themselves that he should never be asked to come forward publicly. Though O'Connor, O'Coigly, and Binns[59] were arrested on March 1, their trials did not take place till late in May 1798. The Duke of Norfolk, Lords Moira, Suffolk, Oxford, John Russell, and Thanet, Fox, Sheridan, Whitbread, Erskine, Grattan, all testified to O'Connor's character. All the prisoners were acquitted, except the priest, notwithstanding that Lord Cloncurry paid a counsel to defend him. He was hanged on Penenden Heath, June 7, 1798. Judge Buller had leant heavily on O'Coigly in his charge.

O'Coigly [writes Lord Holland] was condemned on false and contradictory evidence. I do not mean to aver, as Lord Chancellor Thurlow assured me he did to Judge Buller, who tried him, that 'if ever a poor man was murdered it was O'Coigly,' but simply to allude to a circumstance which, in the case of a common felon, would probably have saved his life. The Bow Street officer who swore to finding the fatal paper in his pocket-book, and remarked in court the folding of the paper as fitting that pocket-book, had sworn before the Privy Council that the same paper was found loose in O'Coigly's great-coat, and, I think, had added that he himself had put it into the pocket-book. An attorney of the name of Foulkes[60] gave me this information, and I went with it to Mr. Wickham, who assured me that the circumstance should be carefully and anxiously investigated before the execution. But the order had gone down, and while we were conversing the sentence was probably executed.[61]

Lord Holland adds that when the Judge was descanting on the mildness and clemency of the Administration, O'Coigly quietly took a pinch of snuff and said 'Ahem!'

When no evidence was produced in court which could legally ensure a verdict against O'Coigly, it seems reasonable to assume from the tone of the law officers and the Judge that they possessed some secret knowledge of his guilt, for in point of fact, though O'Coigly declared his innocence, he was deeply pledged to the conspiracy.

'O'Connor was leaving the court in triumph,' writes Mr. Froude, 'but the Government knew their man too well to let him go so easily. He was at once re-arrested on another charge, and was restored to his old quarters in Dublin Castle.'[62] From whom the fatal whisper came does not appear, but the sequel seems to leave no doubt that to Turner it was due. MacMahon and other prominent rebels were Presbyterian clergymen of Ulster. It was an object now with those who desired the collapse of the conspiracy to detach the Presbyterian party from the 'Papists.' Binns was a staunch Presbyterian rebel, a colleague of O'Coigly. In a letter dated Philadelphia, 1843, Binns, addressing Dr. Madden, states that great efforts were used to try and persuade O'Coigly to implicate him, 'offering Mr. Coigly his life if he would criminate me agreeable to the instructions of the Government, which proposal he indignantly refused to accede to. Though heavily ironed, he pushed the gentlemen out of his cell, when he there lay under sentence of death.'

We have seen that when severely tried he resorted to snuff. He had other small consolations. Even in his irons he talked irony. One of several letters of protest addressed by the priest to Portland, shortly before his death, tells him that he is 'one of his Grace's envoys to the other world, charged with tidings of his mild and merciful administration.'

As O'Coigly's memory has been all but beatified as a martyr's, it is due to the interests of historic truth to add—especially after the remarks of Lord Holland—the following from a letter written by Arthur O'Connor in 1842:—

Though there was not legal evidence to prove that the paper found in Coigly's coat-pocket was Coigly's, yet, the fact is, it was his, and was found in his riding-coat; for when the five prisoners were brought to Bow Street, a report was spread that the papers taken on the prisoners were lost; for the first time Coigly said it was fortunate the papers were lost, for that there was one in his pocket that would hang them all. He never made a secret to his fellow-prisoners that he got that paper from a London society. In my memoirs I will clear up this point.

O'Connor's promised work, however, never appeared.

As regards Dutton, the witness who swore to O'Coigly's handwriting, his subsequent career was cast on a spot also frequented by Turner.[63] He is found at Cuxhaven, not very far from Hamburg, and, until 1840, holding office in its postal and diplomatic departments, and the husband of a lady well connected.[64] Cuxhaven, as gazetteers record, was from 1795 a place of the utmost importance for the maintenance of intercourse between England and the Continent.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] The English in Ireland, iii. 312.

[40] Allen, a draper's assistant in Dublin, afterwards a colonel in the service of France.

[41] Report of the Secret Committee, p. [31]. (Dublin, 1798.)

[42] Life of the Reverend James Coigly, p. [28]. (London, 1798.) Halliday Collection, R.I.A., vol. 743.

[43] The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

[44] The Home Secretary.

[45] Camden to Portland, March 1, 1798. English in Ireland, iii. 310.

[46] Portland to Camden, March 7, 1798.

[47] In O'Connor's valise were found 900l., a military uniform, and some papers relating to Lord Edward Fitzgerald.—W. J. F.

[48] Life of Thomas Reynolds, by his Son. (London, 1839.)

[49] For proofs of the intimacy between Reinhard and Turner at Hamburg, see Castlereagh Papers, i. 277 et seq.; and my chapter on McNevin, infra.

[50] In August, 1798, Humbert and 900 Frenchmen arrived in Killala Bay.

[51] 'The person' is the name by which Downshire's friend, the betrayer, is usually styled in the letters from the Home Office to Dublin Castle. The words, 'while he was in this country,' show that he had left England, as Downshire's friend admittedly did, in panic.

[52] 'I.e. in October 1797, when he called upon Downshire; and again in March 1798, when Portland offered him large sums if he would openly prosecute.'

[53] Mr. Lecky describes this arrest, and rather suggests that it may have been due to Higgins in Dublin (vide viii. 55). The above evidence points surely to the Hamburg spy.

[54] See Castlereagh Papers, i. 231-6.

[55] Of course one of Turner's many aliases. See p. [97], infra.

[56] Castlereagh Correspondence, ii. 1-7.

[57] Ibid. i. 178.

[58] Dutton, on his examination, said that he had sworn in Ireland against one 'Lowry.' This is the man whom Turner, in his letters, constantly points to. Dutton admitted that he had previously sworn secrecy to the Society of United Irishmen, but the oath had been sworn only on a spelling-book.

[59] Trial of Arthur O'Connor and James Quigley at Maidstone. Howell's State Trials, vols. xxvi. and xxvii.

[60] Foulkes was the attorney whom Lawless engaged to defend O'Coigly. Lord Cloncurry, in his Memoirs, writes very inaccurately of the facts. He says that the arrests took place at Whitstable, instead of Margate, and that O'Coigly was hanged on May 7, whereas he should have written June. See p. [67].

[61] Memoirs of the Whig Party. By Lord Holland, afterwards a Cabinet Minister.

[62] Froude's English in Ireland, iii. 321.

[63] See p. [31], infra.

[64] In the Pelham MSS. is a letter signed Frederick Dutton, regarding his Vice-Consulate, and dated Dec. 19, 1825.

CHAPTER IV
THE BETRAYER'S INTERVIEW WITH TALLEYRAND

The letters of secret information in the well-known 'Castlereagh Correspondence' being mostly without date are inserted regardless of chronological sequence, and are often, from dearth of explanation, wholly unintelligible. One of these secret reports follows a letter of Portland's[65]—to be found later on—regarding the intercepted memorial which Dr. McNevin had addressed to the French Government. The particular references to Lord Downshire, to Hamburg, to Fitzgerald, and to the North of Ireland, of which Turner was a native—not to speak of his 'tone of injured innocence,' 'the dread of those from whom I come as to the ascendency of the Papists'—all point to him as the writer.

His tone as usual is hostile to Lewins, a Roman Catholic envoy of great honesty, whose reputation he is ever seeking to injure; and the intrigue, it may be added, very nearly succeeded in getting Lewins superseded. Mr. Froude, it will be remembered, when describing his unmasked informer writes:

Lady Edward Fitzgerald had sent him on to Paris with a letter to her brother-in-law, General Valence. By Valence he had been introduced to Hoche and De la Croix. He had seen Talleyrand and had talked at length with him on the condition of Ireland.

It was in February, 1798, that Mr. Froude's spy reappeared in London.[66] He had interviews at the Home Office, where he received some instructions, which are not stated. Camden urged Portland to beg of him to give evidence publicly, and to offer reward to any amount. But all to no effect. At last it was decided, as the next best thing to do, 'that he should open a correspondence with the principal conspirators, by which means you may be apprised of their intentions.' This is exactly what he is now found doing. On April 17 he goes to Paris, no doubt sent by the Home Office, to ascertain what arrangement had been made by O'Coigly and O'Connor as regards the long-sought French expedition to Ireland.

De la Croix will be chiefly remembered as the Minister for Foreign Affairs with whom Tone had to do. But he had been personally offensive to Lord Malmesbury, the English Minister, and M. Talleyrand was appointed to succeed La Croix on July 15, 1797.[67]

The following letter is to be found in the 'Castlereagh Papers' (i. 231-6), and derives additional importance from its close connection with Talleyrand:—

Secret Intelligence.

April 17th [1798], arrived in Paris.

On the 19th waited on the Minister for Foreign Affairs; it being Décadi, he was gone to the country. Left my name, and called next day, at eleven; instantly admitted; talked over the purport of my visit, which I had brought in writing, as follows:—

'Citizen Minister,—Since I had the honor of seeing you in September last, I understand attempts have been made to injure my character here by some persons equally despicable as malicious (I mean Lewines and his associates), from whom, though United Irishmen, I pride myself in differing, both in sentiment and conduct; nor should I condescend to answer their infamous charges.[68]

'I, however, take great pleasure in acquainting you with what I have been about, viz., trying to bring over to the side of the United Irish what is called the Independent Interest, alias the Country Gentlemen, all of whom have commands either in the Yeomanry or Militia,[69] and to whom the safety of the interior will be entrusted, whilst the regular troops march against the enemy. These gentlemen have always been much against the Government, but feared, in a revolution, the loss of their property, especially such as held their estates by grants of Oliver Cromwell. For some time past a union has been formed among this body for the purpose of forcing England into whatever measures they choose as soon as an invasion takes place; all of my most particular friends are of this association, and they have infused into the minds of the rest the idea that English faith is not to be relied on. In consequence, they are all now completely up to the formation of a Republic and a separation from Britain, provided the French Directory will give, under their seal, the terms and conditions Ireland has a right to expect and demands. I took upon me to say France never meant to treat Ireland has a conquered country; that, certainly, they would expect a contribution towards defraying the great expense incurred in supporting the cause of liberty; but what the sum would be, I could not take upon me to mention. They insist upon having that specified, and any other conditions for this purpose.

'Citizen Minister, I now apply to you; to none other have I hinted my business, and the most profound secrecy will be requisite in order to completely deceive the English Government. I shall mention to you the channel of correspondence, &c., with the ciphers I'll make use of, if it is requisite to write, but which I sha'n't do without your permission, and giving you the letter to enclose to Hamburg.[70]

'I have the honour to remain,' &c.

Thus far the letter of Turner to Talleyrand—for Turner it assuredly is. It does not follow that the Minister believed all he was told. The quondam Bishop of Autun could read a soul. He was a diplomat, however, and showed to his visitor that cautious courtesy which he had learned when a bishop. He who said that speech is given to conceal thoughts,[71] was not the man to be at once swayed by words. The despatch now before us had been addressed to the Home Office, and must be one of the papers Mr. Froude thought destroyed. The copy of his letter to Talleyrand having been submitted to Portland, the spy thus resumes:—

The Minister then said it was a matter extremely interesting, that other things were on the tapis at present, but desired I would call again on the second uneven day from that, and he'd[72] enter into particulars. I did so, and gave him the following letter. He said he had laid my first before the Directory; that their opinions coincided with his, but that they could not give anything under their hands or seal, nor he either; that I had perfectly expressed their intentions. I told him this was perfectly satisfactory to me, but I feared it would not be so to them. 'Surely,' says he, 'they have a confidence in you, and you shall have it from the Directory, if you choose.' I said I hoped that would be sufficiently satisfactory to my friends, and begged to know when I could see him again—the 1st of the next decade, as they were still very busy on other matters.

Copy of the Letter to Talleyrand.

'Citizen Minister,—Wishing to give the Government every satisfaction on the point of my mission, I now have the honour of laying before you every particular. I am extremely glad to find it appears to you interesting, which induces me to hope as little delay will be given as possible. I think it incumbent on me to state to you that the spirit of the North is completely broken, and I fear shortly the rest of Ireland will be in the same predicament.[73] A vast number of the persons concerned in persecuting the United Irish are those from whom I come; for at present they dread, and with good reason, the ascendency of this body. As soon as you set these gentlemen's minds at ease in regard to their property, the business of revolution will get leave to go on, and the British Government will find themselves clogged in their system of terror, without knowing why. The enclosed paper contains the mode in which I am to act, &c., &c. I have the honour, &c.'

Turner then adds:—[74]

Enclosure, containing the ciphers I sent to the Marquess of Downshire, and the following postscript:—

'The intention of the ciphers was, if I thought it requisite to write from Paris, to say who I had had communication with and as a channel of conveying any intelligence you might allow me to send during my stay. The letter to be addressed to Charles Ranken,[75] Esq., at Mr. Elliot's, Pimlico, London, to be put in the common post-office at Hamburg, and sealed with a particular seal I have for the purpose. As soon as I receive the proper paper or document, in order to save time, I am to get, if possible, into England; if that can't be done with safety, I'm to go to either Bremen or Hamburg, write thence to Ranken, who comes over before him. I attest the business on oath, and he goes instantly for Ireland. Ranken,[76] having been a banker at Belfast, a man of good property, and looked on by Government as a friend, can pass and repass as if to settle accounts at Hamburg.

'I beg leave once more to inform you that delay will be looked on, I fear, as non-compliance; and, if there's any particular point on which you wish for accurate information, I think I can undertake to obtain it.'

The spy's letter then proceeds:—

He (Talleyrand) seemed to disapprove of my venturing to Ireland or England; asked me if I knew anything of Fitzgerald.[77]

Waited on him the first of the following decade; he said nothing was resolved on. I asked if the Irish were to wait for their coming or not. He said by all means to wait, and not to risk or expose themselves. 'May I assure them you'll come in the course of three months?' 'No, we cannot fix a time; it may be more, or not so long. I shall depend on you to obtain for me as accurate a statement, with as much information as you can collect.' I desired to know on what particular point, otherwise I should be at a loss; he said he could not mention any particular. I then promised as much as I could collect in general, with a particular and accurate one of Ireland. I then asked if I might venture to assert that the French Government would be content with being paid the expense of their former expedition, and of that which will be sent; that they will leave the Irish to choose a constitution for themselves as soon as English influence is destroyed; guaranteeing to every individual their property, without respect to old Catholic claims and to their political conduct prior to the time of actual invasion. 'You may venture to assure them that the property of no individual will be seized upon, but the reverse. On the other points we cannot give an answer.'—'When shall I see the Directory?'—'On the ninth of this decade I shall speak to the President, and you may bring to me one of your acquaintance that is known to him, who will introduce you;' or that I might go alone, as my name was sufficiently known to him. Between that and the 9th I spoke to Abbé Grégoire[78] to accompany me; but he declined it, as did Stone;[79] upon which I wrote, on the 8th, to the Minister, to say that these two had refused, and that they thought he himself ought to do it, or give me a note of introduction to the President; but that, if it was disagreeable, I would not press the matter further, as I looked on his word as that of the Directory, and that I would call next day at the Directory, when, if I could get an audience, so much the better; if not, I thought it imprudent to wait longer.

Next day I called at the Directory and sent in my name. I there met Duckett,[80] who told me it would be impossible to see any of them that day; for a letter, which he had just brought them, which came from Leonard Bourdon,[81] would give them, he believed, work enough, as he understood it contained some very interesting matter. I was to have seen some of them that day likewise; an answer came to us both that they were too much occupied. I then went to the Minister, and sent in my name, as did, at the same time, Colonel La Harpe and the Swiss Deputies. We were all sent off, as he was very busy. I left a note with his Secretary, saying I would set out next day, which I did, the 20 Floreal, alias Wednesday, the 9th May; arrived at Cuxhaven the Wednesday following; sailed the next day, landed at Lowestoff on Tuesday morning, got to town [London] that night, accompanied by one Jeffrey,[82] who passes himself off for a Scotchman, was coming to Yarmouth as an American, was in Paris last September, speaks French as a Frenchman, looks extremely like one, and lodges at the New Hummums, Covent Garden.

It is quite clear that the above letter was written by the same nameless spy who poses in Froude's book as 'Lord Downshire's friend.' 'One of his letters, dated November 19, 1797, is preserved,' writes Mr. Froude; but, no doubt, a few others are preserved too, and may be found in the correspondence of Lord Castlereagh. How they escaped destruction is a marvel. Wickham, on January 11, 1799, writes, regarding 'United Irishmen' at Hamburg: 'The enclosed very curious papers the Duke of Portland desires may be laid before the Lord Lieutenant, and afterwards destroyed.'

So careful was the spy of his reputation that he vouchsafes not a signature. Internal evidence, however, shows that he was the man who made his disclosure to Downshire, and was by him put in correspondence with Portland.

From the letter just quoted it appears that, after his efforts to pick news from Talleyrand and fish in Irish channels at Paris, he returned, viâ Cuxhaven, to London, where he arrived on Tuesday night, May 15, 1798. This date is worthy of note. The spy feared to show himself in London and felt that his life was unsafe. What brings him back to London on May 15, 1798? His favourite post was Cuxhaven or Hamburg. O'Coigly, Binns, and Leary, though arrested in March en route to France, were not put on their trial until Monday, May 21, 1798. This case is reported at extraordinary length in Howell's 'State Trials' and would fill a volume. Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon, prosecuted. The mass of secret information which the Crown contrived to acquire strikes very forcibly. Letters written in cipher by O'Coigly to Lord Edward Fitzgerald and others are translated and expounded by Scott. All the parties concerned in the conspiracy had false names. Mrs. Mathiessen[83] is called 'Marks;' 'a man going to William's,' means 'going to France,' etc. It was largely on evidence of this sort that O'Coigly was convicted and hanged.[84]

The betrayer tells Talleyrand that 'the spirit of the North was completely broken.' In point of fact, however, it was in the North that the real martial spirit of the United Irishmen blazed, and there the best battles were afterwards fought under the leadership of Orr and Monroe. Turner was anxious to make the French turn their thoughts of invasion to other points on the Irish coast, and he so far succeeded that in August, 1798, Humbert's expedition, embracing not 1,000 men, landed at Killala, among the starved and unarmed peasantry of Connaught. He calculated on meeting enthusiastic support; but, as Mr. Lecky says, it soon became apparent how fatally he had been deceived. After winning one battle, and losing another, Humbert surrendered to Cornwallis.

'May I assure them that you'll come in three months?' Talleyrand is asked. The object of this and other questions, which, to a casual reader, seem hardly consistent with Turner's treachery to his friends, is now pretty plain. Great doubt prevailed as to whether an invasion of Ireland was really to be attempted. The First Consul blew hot and cold upon it. If the spy, as an envoy of the United Irishmen, could only extort from Talleyrand an explicit reply in writing avowing the intention to invade, and telling the exact time on which the descent on Ireland was to be made, England would thus be well prepared, and her fleet able to destroy the French armament as she had already destroyed that of De Winter. Why Bonaparte, at first so anxious for invasion, should have changed his mind, is explained, in the recently published Memoirs of Gouverneur Morris, as due to the conflicting reports of Irish envoys. At St. Helena he told Las Cases that his mistake in '98 was to have gone to Egypt and not to Ireland.[85]

Mr. Froude states that the betrayer had discovered one of the objects of the Papists to be the seizure of property, and had determined to separate himself from the conspiracy. Attention is requested to that part of the foregoing letter[86] where the writer refers to the Cromwellian holders of estates in Ireland, and asks that every individual be guaranteed his property without respect to old Catholic claims and to their political conduct prior to the time of actual invasion. Samuel Turner represented some of the Cromwellian Settlers, and 'his most particular friends,' as he calls them, were amongst those who held grants of land in succession to the old Papist proprietary. The descendants of these men viewed invasion with alarm, lest their lands should go, just as the property of the Papists had already gone.[87]

Talleyrand's caution in talking with Turner contrasts with the freedom with which he opened his mind on the same subject to his confrères. A very important book was published in 1890 at Paris by M. Pallain, 'Talleyrand sous le Directoire.' It depicts his diplomatic life, and gives the pith of his despatches. From Turner and Duckett he probably derived some impressions regarding Great Britain and Ireland. He augurs well from the Irish rebellion, which has been 'cemented,' adds Talleyrand, 'by the blood of celebrated victims.' The first victim was the Rev. William Jackson, in 1794. Talleyrand urges the invasion of Ireland and the establishment of an Irish Republic 'for the instruction or chastisement of England.' 'Nelson's fleet,' he says, 'is manned almost exclusively by Irishmen,' and that their patriotism 'will teach them to see in the English their oppressors and enemies.' Talleyrand's sketch of 'Irish Landed Proprietors' is full and curious.

Another man who, besides Talleyrand and Grégoire, dealt cautiously with Turner was Stone, as Turner in his secret letter to the Home Office admits. Stone had been tried in England for high treason and sent into exile.[88] At Hamburg and at Paris he belonged to the set mentioned by Mr. Froude's cloaked spy[89] as including Lady Edward Fitzgerald (Pamela), Lady Lucy Fitzgerald, Mrs. Matthiessen, and General Count Valence. Madame de Genlis in her 'Memoirs' mentions Stone conjointly with her daughter Madame de Valence and her 'niece' Pamela.[90]

FOOTNOTES:

[65] See Castlereagh Papers, i. 251. See also chapter vii. of the present volume.

[66] Froude, iii. 301.

[67] See M. de Talleyrand, par M. de Villemarest, ch. viii.; Hist. du Directoire, par M. de Barante, liv. iv.

[68] Of infidelity to the rebel cause.

[69] Mr. Froude, speaking of 'the second arrest of two of the leading committees of Belfast,' says (iii. 237) that 'Lake seized papers which revealed the correspondence with France, the extent of the revolutionary armament, and the measures taken for the seduction of the army and militia. The papers were sent to Dublin and were laid before a secret committee.' See also correspondence in re McNevin's Memorial, ch. vii. infra.

[70] The spy sought to deceive the French Government in this report. The Cromwellian Settlers never thought of joining the United Irishmen. One of Turner's objects seems to have been to get a written undertaking from Talleyrand that the estates of these Settlers should be left intact, and money sent to promote an alleged treasonable conspiracy of Cromwellian Settlers against England, but which, in point of fact, did not exist. The Ulster Presbyterians were, no doubt, rebels; but these men were the descendants, not of the Cromwellian adventurers, but of King James's Planters.

[71] This phrase is assigned to Talleyrand by Harel in the Nain Jaune; but the thought had been previously expressed by another bishop, i.e. Jeremy Taylor.

[72] The contractions 'he'd' and 'sha'n't' are entirely consistent with Turner's 'you'll' in the letter to Downshire, transcribed by me from the Pelham MSS. See p. [50], infra; also Turner's acknowledged letter to Cooke, p. [97].

[73] This alternate blowing of hot and cold worked its end. A long letter from the Home Office furnishing secret items to Dublin Castle goes on to say (Castlereagh, ii. 361): 'Lewins had often complained that the conduct of the French Government had been hitherto so indecisive with respect to Ireland that all their projects had naturally failed.' However, it was admitted by Talleyrand that 'Ireland was the only vulnerable part of the British Empire.'

[74] The Cabinet, Mr. Froude says, was kept in utter ignorance of his name, and in the most secret despatches of the Home Office he is known only as 'Lord Downshire's friend.' These precautions will remind us of the cipher of the Louvais despatches, which has hitherto baffled all efforts to identify the Man in the Iron Mask.

[75] The narrative of Edward J. Newell—the spy who turned against his employers—states (London, 1798, p. [59]) that he was asked to give information 'against Charles Rankin and others for high treason.'

[76] Our spy often refers to Rankin and others of Belfast: 'He [the betrayer] had fled with others from Belfast at the general dispersion of the leaders,' writes Mr. Froude, iii. 280.

[77] Whatever he knew of Lord Edward Fitzgerald is told in the first letter. See pp. [5], 6, ante.

[78] This was Henri Grégoire, the celebrated Bishop of Blois—a most influential member of the National Convention, and afterwards of the Council of Five Hundred. The aplomb of our spy in hailing such men as friends will be appreciated. Grégoire was a cautious man, who voted against the divorce of Napoleon and Joséphine, and opposed the Emperor's marriage with Marie-Thérèse. During the 'Reign of Terror,' when urged to follow the Archbishop of Paris and abjure his priestly duties, he refused. B. 1750, d. 1831.

[79] Stone, see p. [33] infra.

[80] Duckett, an Irish rebel agent, falsely suspected by Tone of being a spy, will figure in chapter x.

[81] See p. [110] infra.

[82] Possibly John Jeffrey, brother of Francis. He was a Scotchman, and usually resided in America (Life of Jeffrey, by Lord Cockburn, i. 50). How completely a Republican spirit possessed him is shown by his brother's letters to him in 1797, beginning 'My dear Citizen' (ii. 30 et seq.). The subsequent Lord Jeffrey was also a democrat, and his movements may have been shadowed, as those of Coleridge notoriously were.

[83] See Froude, iii. 283, or ante.

[84] Compare letter from 'Castlereagh to Wickham,' p. [44] ante.

[85] Mémoires de Sainte-Hélène.

[86] The precise and careful wording is that of a lawyer, which Turner was.

[87] Mr. J. P. Prendergast, in his Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland, prints, from original MSS., a 'list of adventurers for land in Ireland' (p. 417). Among them we find: 'Samuel Turner of London, merchant taylor, £200.' 'Richard Turner, senior and junior, taylors, £200.' These persons are also found subscribing the same sum, he adds, as 'adventurers, for the sea-service' (p. 417). The hereditary feelings and predilections of a Cromwellian Settler can be traced in the letter to Talleyrand.

[88] I find in the contents of the long-sealed chest at Dublin Castle, 'The Examination of Samuel Rogers, of Cornhill, Banker,' regarding his relations with Stone, dated May 10, 1794. With it is preserved an autograph statement by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, technically called his examination, embracing ten folios, dated May 9, 1794, and explaining his intercourse with Stone.

[89] Vide p. [5], ante.

[90] Memoirs of Madame de Genlis, iv. 130-36.

CHAPTER V
LORD CLONCURRY SHADOWED

Discoveries and arrests now multiplied, despite the care with which Reinhard and Lady Edward persuaded themselves that all negotiations had been fenced.

Lord Cloncurry in his Memoirs writes of his 'dear friend Lord Edward Fitzgerald,' and readers of that book will remember the touching narrative given of the writer's arrest and long confinement in the Tower. This peer seeks to show that he himself was innocent of treason, but Mr. Froude states, after studying the letters of Lord Downshire's friend, that 'Lord Cloncurry was a sworn member of the Revolutionary Committee.'[91] The betrayer's first interview with Downshire took place on October 8, 1797. In that interview he ranked among the marked men, Lawless, afterwards Lord Cloncurry. During the next month we find his movements narrowly watched. One of Mr. Froude's sensational surprises is a statement in reference to this subsequent British Peer and Privy Councillor. Pelham, Chief Secretary for Ireland, writing to the Home Office on November 7, 1797, refers to the fact—if fact it is—that

'Mr. Lawless, Lord Cloncurry's eldest son, is going to England this night, charged with an answer to a message lately received from France. I have sent Captain D'Auvergne in the packet with Mr. Lawless, with directions to find where he means to go in London, and to give you immediate information.'[92]

A story never loses in its carriage; and Portland was perturbed by the news. The Hamburg spy, who was the first to mention Lawless's name, was now consulted.

Two secret letters from the Home Office, dated June 8, 1798, and printed in Lord Castlereagh's 'Correspondence,' speak of a communication received from 'a person in Hamburg,' and how

'His Majesty's confidential servants have found it necessary to take into custody and detain several natives of Ireland, now resident here, of whose intimate connection and correspondence with the leaders and inciters of the present rebellion in Ireland there was no room whatever to doubt.... Communicate this information to the Lord Lieutenant, that the Honourable Mr. L——, Mr. S., of Acton,[93] and Messrs. T., A., and C.,[94] of the Temple, have been apprehended here, and Messrs. McG—— and D—— at Liverpool;[95] and that warrants for apprehending the following have been granted: Dr. O'K——, C——[96] of Abbey Street, Dublin, and Mr. H——.[97]

Lord Cloncurry states that the Duke of Leinster, Curran, and Grattan, who happened to be visiting him, were also taken into custody; but this statement is not wholly borne out by contemporary accounts.

Wickham's second letter of June 8, 1798, recurs to the arrests and speaks of 'most secret, though accurate, intelligence received from Hamburg,' adding:—

There are some papers found in Mr. Lawless's possession that tend directly to show his connection with some of the most desperate of the Republican party here, as well as with those who are in habitual communication with the French agents at Hamburgh, and his Grace is in daily expectation of some material evidence from that place, tending more directly to implicate that gentleman in a treasonable correspondence with the enemy.[98]

'Braughall' was another name which will be found in the list written out by Downshire from his visitor's dictation. Lord Cloncurry, in his Memoirs, describes Braughall as 'his business agent and confidential friend;' while Tone constantly refers to him in cordial terms. The newspapers of the day record his arrest and how 'papers of a very seditious nature were found in his house.'[99] Among them was a letter from Lawless urging him to contribute to the defence of unfortunate O'Coigly, and mentioning that 'Little Henry' had munificently subscribed. This passage, Lord Cloncurry states, was interpreted at Dublin Castle as referring to Henry Grattan, though the writer meant Mr. Henry of Straffan, brother-in-law to Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and as the result of this mistake Grattan was placed under arrest, but speedily liberated.

A memoir of O'Coigly is furnished by Dr. Madden in the first edition of his 'United Irishmen,' and embodies information derived from Cloncurry. Deferring to the Hon. Mr. Lawless, when in London, he says: 'Every Irishman who frequented his house was vigilantly watched by agents of a higher department than the police.' Pelham says that he sent Captain D'Auvergne on board the packet with Lawless, charged to find out where he went to in London; and it would seem that during the tedious journey of those days, Lawless suspected D'Auvergne's mission. 'The agent of a higher department than the police' would also apply to Turner, who was in London at this time. Who was the detective who had his berth next to young Lawless on board the boat, sat and chatted with him in the coach to London, and afterwards dogged his steps? Letters furnishing secret information, and signed 'Captain D'Auvergne, Prince of Bouillon,' may be found in the 'Castlereagh Papers.'[100] This personage represented an old and illustrious French family. The Prince, finding his patrimony sequestered during the Revolution, looked out for a livelihood, and seems to have been not fastidious as to the sort. Cloncurry states that when bidding good night at the house of a friend, he would say, 'I haven't the conscience to keep my poor spy shivering longer in the cold.' After 1798, D'Auvergne's usual post was Jersey, whence his letters in the 'Castlereagh Papers' are dated, and furnish the fruit of espionage, including all warlike preparations made by the French at Brest.[101]

Mr. Froude quotes a letter from Portland, part of which is to the same effect as that already given, and announcing the discovery of important papers 'in Mr. Lawless's [Cloncurry's] possession that tend directly to show his connection with some of the most desperate of the Republican party in England, as well as with those who are in habitual communication with the French agents at Hamburg; and yet,' he continued, 'under present circumstances, and with evidence of the nature of that of which the Government here is in possession, strong and decisive as it is, none of those persons can be brought to trial without exposing secrets of the last importance to the State, the revealing of which may implicate the safety of the two kingdoms.'[102] But although the leading men could not be brought to trial, it was fit to hold them fast, that thus the teeth of the conspiracy might be drawn. One important man—Stewart of Acton—was certainly let out on bail; but he was a cousin of Lord Castlereagh's.

These rough notes ought not to close without some notice of a reply to Portland's criminatory remarks, which the late Lord Cloncurry has placed on record. When the 'Castlereagh Papers' appeared he was an octogenarian and enjoying, it is to be hoped, an unimpaired memory; but it is an open secret that the book known as 'Lord Cloncurry's Personal Memoirs' was fully prepared for publication, and its style strengthened throughout, by a practised writer connected with the Tory press of Dublin, and who believed that Cloncurry had been wrongly judged in 1798.

As to the papers alleged by Mr. Wickham to have been found in my possession, [Lord Cloncurry is supposed to write] and tending directly to show my connection with some of the most desperate of the Republican party in London and Hamburgh, I now solemnly declare that I believe the statement to be a pure fiction, and that no papers were found, as I am most certain that, with my knowledge, no papers existed which could have had any such tendency, more directly or indirectly than, perhaps, a visiting ticket of Arthur O'Connor's, or a note from O'Coigly in acceptance of my invitation to dinner.[103]

On the other hand, it is stated in a letter to the Home Office, dated July 24, 1799, that rebel despatches had been regularly addressed to Mr. Lawless in the Temple, 'whose fate,' it is added, 'is much lamented at Paris.'[104] Lord Cloncurry himself admits that in the autumn of 1797 he was elected—but without his desire or knowledge—a member of the Executive Directory of the United Irishmen, 'when, for the first and only time, I attended a meeting held at Jackson's in Church Street.'[105] This date furnished fresh proof of the promptitude and accuracy of Turner's information to Downshire (supplied also in the autumn of 1797)—information which revealed the adhesion of Lawless, afterwards Lord Cloncurry, to the Executive Directory. Jackson's name is also to be found in the list as dictated by Turner. Of course Lawless must have been already a United Irishman, or he could not be eligible for election to a seat in the Directory. Binns, who was arrested with O'Connor and O'Coigly at Margate, says: 'Coigly was no stranger to Lawless; he made him a United Irishman in his father's house, in Merrion Street, Dublin.'[106] Cloncurry's Memoirs state merely that O'Coigly, who was the finest-looking man he had ever seen, presented to him a letter of introduction, descriptive of Orange persecution, which it was alleged he had suffered.

Lawless and O'Coigly had opinions in common; and both were much together in London. The former never forgave O'Connor for having—as he said—unfairly sacrificed O'Coigly during the trials at Maidstone.[107] In collecting evidence to hang the priest, renewed attention fell upon Lawless. His first imprisonment lasted for six weeks. On April 14, 1799, on the eve of his marriage with Miss Ryall, who at last died of a 'broken heart,' he was again arrested on Portland's warrant and committed to the Tower, where he remained two years. Lord Cloncurry states that his father, in dread of confiscation following his son, left away from him 65,000l. However, the Irish rebel lived to become a British peer, a Privy Councillor, and the adviser of successive Viceroys. Dr. Madden, who received much help from Cloncurry when compiling his 'Lives of the United Irishmen,' states that Robert Emmet dined with this peer in Paris, previous to leaving France on his ill-fated enterprise; and Madden, in his second edition (ii. 137), says he knows not how to reconcile the account of the interview, as supplied in 'Cloncurry's Personal Memoirs,' with a verbal account of the same given by his lordship to himself.

The list noted by Downshire from the dictation of his visitor, though complete as regards the Rebel Executive of 1797, far from embraced all the names which more careful thought must have brought to the recollection of the informer. It had now become second nature to him to discharge, almost daily, letters of fatal aim, jeopardising the lives and reputations of men who implicitly trusted him. He also, as it appears, 'opened a correspondence' with leading United Irishmen. It is not sought to be conveyed that all the information came from Turner; but the following remarks of Mr. Froude, although they repeat a few names already mentioned, are important, as connecting 'Lord Downshire's friend' with the harvest of captures in midsummer 1798:—

Every day was bringing to the private knowledge of the Cabinet how widely the mischief had spread, as the correspondence which continued with Lord Downshire's friend added to the list of accomplices. Lord Cloncurry's son was no sooner arrested, than Stewart of Acton, a young Agar, a young Tennent, young Curran, McGuckin, Dowdall, and twenty others,[108] whose names never came before the public, were found to be as deeply compromised as he.[109]

The question was even mooted as to whether he and others should not be excepted by name from the Bill of Indemnity, or even specially attainted by a Bill of Pains and Penalties, in consideration of the impossibility of convicting them by the ordinary course of the law.[110]

Turner's knowledge and duties as a United Irishman having been mainly confined to Ulster, it seemed strange that one of the Northern Committee could be so intimate with O'Connor and Lord Edward. Even in the betrayer's first interview with Downshire he reveals much intimate acquaintance with both. All this can be readily understood now. In November, 1796, O'Connor took a house near Belfast, preparatory to offering himself for the representation of Antrim. Dr. Madden states that Lord Edward and O'Connor lived together for some months, and during their stay maintained friendly intercourse with the Northern leaders.[111] Soon after we find the command in Ulster assigned to O'Connor. 'Arthur O'Connor,' resumes Mr. Froude, describing the events of December, 1797, 'after spending a few months in the Castle,'[112] had been released on bail, Thomas Addis Emmet and Lord Edward Fitzgerald being his securities. "The person" who had come to Lord Downshire had revealed the secret of the visit to Switzerland; but without betraying his authority Camden could not again order O'Connor's arrest.'[113] After an interval, however, and at a critical moment, O'Connor was apprehended anew, and he remained a State prisoner until 1802.

At an early stage of this chase I met with the seeming difficulty that the name of Samuel Turner appears in the list of leading rebels which 'the person' gave to Lord Downshire.[114] In undertaking to give a complete list of the Executive Committee, he could not well omit his own name. No doubt to invest it with increased importance, he puts it next after those of Lord Edward and Arthur O'Connor (the nephew of Lord Longueville), and before Stewart of Acton and the future Lord Cloncurry. The act is consistent with the usual swagger of the man, and shows the ingenuity by which he hoped to baffle all subsequent evidence of his treachery.

Lord Camden writes: 'The intelligence with which we are furnished would, if certain persons could be brought forward, be sufficient to bring the conspiracy to light, defeat its ill consequences, and make a salutary impression on the minds of the people.'[115] 'Unfortunately,' comments Mr. Froude, '"certain persons" declined to be brought forward. Pelham, when in London, made large offers to Lord Downshire's friend, but without effect.'

FOOTNOTES:

[91] Froude, iii. 287.

[92] This announcement had its origin in one of the secret letters of McNally (MSS. Dublin Castle). Lawless was to sail for London 'to-morrow night,' he wrote, 'and ought to be watched every hour'; but nothing is said of the answer to France, of which Pelham declares he was the bearer. McNally lived in Dublin, was a United Irishman, and confidential lawyer of the body, but had been bought over. The strange story of his life is told in a succeeding chapter. This man was now asked to find out all he could about Lawless.

[93] Lord Castlereagh, in a letter addressed to Colonel Lord William Bentinck, dated, Dublin Castle, June 24, 1798, and given to me by Mr. Huband Smith, states that, according to the information received, 'Mr. Stewart had accepted the post of Adjutant-General for Armagh in the rebel army. Bentinck, writing to General Nugent three days later, says that Stewart, when his prisoner, 'confessed to me privately that he was a United Irishman.' This tends to show how generally accurate was the information communicated through Downshire.

[94] Trenor, Agar, and Curran. Trenor was the secretary of Lawless. Cloncurry's Memoirs state (p. [68]) that the hardships to which Trenor was exposed brought on illness and caused his death.

[95] It appears from a letter of Wickham's (Castlereagh, i. 313) that the two men arrested at Liverpool were McGuckin and Dowdall.

[96] The Dublin Directory for 1798 records the name of 'John Chambers, 5, Abbey Street.' Here again the handiwork of Downshire's 'friend' is traceable. The private list of the executive, which he gave him, includes Chambers's name. Mr. Chambers, grandson of the above, tells me that when the warrant was issued, a judge of unpopular antecedents hid the rebel in his house.

[97] The imprisonment of Hamilton, the nephew of Russell, is noticed in the letter from Hamburg. Castlereagh Papers, ii. 5.

[98] Wickham to Castlereagh, Whitehall, June 8, 1798.

[99] McNally's secret letters, scores of which I have read in MS., make frequent mention of Braughall as a man with whom he was intimate; and it is likely that the news of Lawless's intended journey to England came from Braughall innocently. McNally, while incriminating others, uniformly seeks to exculpate Braughall, whose counsel he was (MS. letter of May 25, 1798). On June 13, 1798, he expresses his opinion that 'Braughall is an enemy to force'; and a characteristic hint drops: 'If Braughall could be made a friend—and I do believe he is not disinclined to be one, for I know he always reprobates tumult—his influence is great, and his exertions would go far to restore peace.' Braughall had been secretary to the Catholic Committee, and is repeatedly mentioned by Tone in his Journal. A fine portrait of Braughall, in oils, may be seen in the boardroom of the Royal Dublin Society, of which he was secretary. After his arrest, this picture was relegated to a cellar of the institution; but, thanks to Lord J. Butler, it has been recently unearthed and restored. He died in 1803.

[100] Castlereagh, i. 250, 373, 382; ii. 104, 162, &c.

[101] He obtained the rank of Post-Captain, R.N., in 1784; and at the time that he was with Lord Camden at Dublin Castle he commanded the 'Bravo' gunboat. In 1805 he was gazetted 'Rear-Admiral of the Blue.' His name crops up now and then in the Wellington Correspondence. Thus, on November 15, 1814, when the Bourbons had been restored, this gentleman, now signing himself 'D'Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon, &c.' writes from 'Bagatelle, Jersey,' thanking his Grace for the condescending interest he had shown in recovering for him the small sovereignty of Bouillon. Vide also a piquant memoir of His Serene Highness Philip d'Auvergne, Prince de Bouillon, in Public Characters for 1800-1, pp. 545, 561. His father, though of ancient lineage, embarked in commercial pursuits; and it is added that at Jersey 'a multitude of spies were kept in constant pay.' A love of epistolary intrigue seems to have been hereditary with Captain d'Auvergne, Prince of Bouillon. History records that Cardinal d'Auvergne Bouillon, 'during the War of the Succession, held a culpable correspondence with the enemy, i.e. Marlborough, Orrery, and Galloway.

[102] Portland to Camden, June 8.—S. P. O.

[103] Personal Recollections of Lord Cloncurry.

[104] Castlereagh Papers, ii. 361.

[105] Personal Recollections of Lord Cloncurry, p. [38].

[106] Purchased by the father of Lord Cloncurry from Lord Mornington (Cloncurry's Recollections, p. [8]). In this house the Duke of Wellington was most certainly born in 1769, though his Grace was himself ignorant of the fact, as his Census return, in 1850, shows. It is now the headquarters of the Land Commission.

[107] Statement of Lord Cloncurry to Mr. O'Neill Daunt.

[108] Stewart of Acton, Tennent, McGuckin, Hamilton, and many of the twenty others, were all, like Turner, belonging to the Ulster branch of the organisation.