THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY From the collection of James Collins, Drumcondra, Ireland. Purchased, 1918. 9^/57 Co I viqi inefl. 8*0., priea 143,, __ SfiBViCa UNDER' FITT. By W. J. I mftfATMCK. F.S.A.. Anthorof " Prirate CowMpond-ii I Imd Kemoirs of D«iiel O'ConneU. M.P.. ' &c. . . ' Satiiidftr Keview."— "The extentive asd veculiunow- tmg» poSMSsed by Mr. S'it'Patrii:!c has be«n ^e^ibited tir atnMBts in divera boDks-befora 'Secret Service Under rPitt.' But we do not kaowthat in any of these it has shown ' VattUt to freat^r advantage than in the present ▼olume. people will experience no difficulty and find much pl( _ ._ inlMMaidinx. r . . A better addition to the curlosititti of ' histoid we have not lately seen.'] A. ' SMCRBT SERVICE UNDER PITT. v. _ ^ ' Times."— " Mr. Fit/Patrick cleaie up sonie louK-stand* tecmyaterieiwitii ereat sscacitr. and by meanyofhis minute Mtaprttfoofld Knowledge 01 documents, persons. ancfpTents, ~f(aoceeds in iUuminatinar some of the darkest pasaases ia the, | SwrtniT of I^>fi{''f0u3Blracy, and of the treachery ao con- ftkauy akaoMKed with it. . . . On almost every pace he ttdrowa aaAdtnentic and instructive lisbt on the darker sidea €rf the Irishhigtoity of the times jvith- which h>i is dealing. 4^'. . 'Jncvturatrick's book may be commended alike for a» jlktoncal lapbrtaace and for its intriaeic intereat." Xijoad^n : lAngmana. Gieen. and Oo. S' The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. UNIVERSITY OF lUINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN I EC 2 2 m3 y * ^ 9 r-v ,.,»». -A SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT ^^^,- , ■,:<- v^.77^|.jj^(Pp^^: .;- Two vols. Cm. 8vo. with Portrait, 36a. THE PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE AND MEMOIRS OF DANIEL O'CONNELL, M.P. By WM. J. FITZPATRICK, F.S.A. KNT. BT. OBBO. OT. * In these Tolumes there Is nothing tedious, and they are well put together.' Standard. * Mr. Fltzpatrick, who has done more than any living writer for Irish Mography, has in this, bis latestand most importaut work .earned the gratitude of all students of Irish politics.'— Dailx Telkubapu. ' This work stands high above the extravagant and indiscriminatinir enlogies of O'Coiiuell, accompanied by ignorant and malignant denunciatious of all oppos^ to him, hitherto given to the world by patriotic biographers.'— Timbs. ' Inspired by love and admiration, pursued, with laborious and indefatigable industry, and guided by honesty and good judgment. It gives a nigber and, we believe, a tmer view of 0*Conneirs character than has been given to the world before.' — VANrnr Fair. * Fresh light is thrown upon a most interesting period of Irish hintory by this publication, in which Daniel U'Connell reveals his innermost thoughts npon 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 organisationi —are alike laid open to the public gaze.'— Daily Ohbonicle. ' To Mr. Fitzpatrlck is due the gratitude of all students of history, of truth, and of human character for the patience and pertinacity with which be has collected these letters, and the knowledge, discretion, and tact of his arrangement. He has let O'Connell tell his own story, and the coouectiag thread is slight and scientiflc, such as only miuute knowledge of his period could make it. The reader is hardly Conscious of its presence, yet it suffices to weld a huire mass of miscellaneous oorjv- sp'indence into an authentic biography and lifelike portrait of the man who, of all oibers, made the greatest mark on his country and his generation.' — Athen^um. * Mr. Fitzpatrlck, while presenting to us a collection of moderate extent, has not only woven them into a web of fair average continuity, but has, ss a sculptor would, presented to us his hero "in the round," fo 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, naturnl 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 neat man, and that he was a good man. Up«n 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 ftill due to him ; that he was, to say the least, both over-oensured and under- valued ? ' — Mr. OLAbSTOKE, in 7%« Mneteenth Century. London : JOHN MUBBAT, Albemarle Street. ._J,L£j£^>.^, * SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT BY W. J. FITZPATEICK, F.S.A. AUTHOH OF 'life, TIMES, AND CORRESPONDENCE OF BISHOP DOTLB* 'LIKE OF LOUD CLONCUKRY ' 'COUUESl'OVnEVCE and UEMOIRS of DANIEL o'cosnell' 'IliELANU BEFORE THE UNION' ETC. LONDON LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. AND NEW YOKE: 15 EAST IB'" STEEET 1892 All rights renrved '^ PRINTED BT erori'iswooDK and co., jjew-strket squai^s LONDON ^1^.-., fim^tlgSK^^%^P7^^'r:^!fWV^W^^^^p!^ *7 -r: ^. ,^ ■ :j;r^-'-»'n'^A *.•■•- i^:^-rs'i^-s^^'- '.r PEEFACE 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 fre- quently quoting me ' 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 ; ^ but afterwards it seemed desirable to disclose to the reader a wider knowledge of an exciting time.^ 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 ingeiiuity of their system, informers sit with them at the ' Vide England in the Eighteenth Century, vii. 211 ; viii. 42-44, 46, 191, 240, etc. '■* See Froude'a English in Ireland, vol. iii. sec. vi. ^; * I have been further encouraged by the very favourable judgment of an ^A" acute critic, the late Mr. Hepworth Dixon, regarding a book of mine, written on the same lines as the present. See Athenceum, No. 1649, pp. 744 et seq. •?**. VI SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT same council-board and dinner-table, ready at any moment to sell their blood ; and that the wider the ramifications of con- spiracy, 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 versa, 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 Gar- field, * 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 Welling- ton, Castlereagh, Cornwallis, and Colchester Correspondence. These books abound in passages which, without explanation, are uninteUigible. 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 in- formation. 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 correspond- ence 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 PREFACE VU 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 ven- tured 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. Eoss, in his preface to the Cornwallis Correspondence, laments that * the Duke of Portland, Lord Chancellor Clare, Mr. Wickham, Mr. Kmg, 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 Eecord 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 ; a viii SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT 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 Eev. 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., regard- ing students of alleged rebel leanings. Sir Charles Russell, when member for Dundalk, obligingly made inquiries con- cerning 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 CarmeUte 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. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAQB I. A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR 1 II. ARRESTS MULTIPLY 8 III. FATHER O'COIGLY HANGED 16 IV. THE BETRAYER'S INTERVIEW WITH TALLEYRAND . . 24 V. LORD CLOXCURRY SHADOWED 35 VI. THE MASK TORN OFF AT LAST 44 VII. DR. MACNEVIN'S MEMORIAL INTERCEPTED . . .52 VIII. GENERAL NAPPER TANDY 70 IX. ARREST OF JAGERHORN IN LONDON — THE PLOT THICKENS — TURNER SHOT THROUGH THE HEAD . 91 X. EFFORTS TO EXCITE MUTINY IN THE ENGLISH FLEET . 105 XI. THE BETRAYER OF LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD . .116 XII. WILLIAM TODD JONES— EMMET'S REBELLION . . 166 XIII. THOMAS COLLINS — PHILLIPS' THE SACERDOTAL SPY . . 163 XIV. LEONARD MCNALLY 174 XV. FATHER ARTHUR O'LEARY 211 XVI. ARTHUR O'LEARY IN LONDON 227 X SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT CHAPTER PAGK XVII. THE REGENCY — STRUGGLE BETWEEN WHIG AND TORT CAMPS — O'LEARY and THE PRINCE OF WALES . . 253 XVIIl. BISHOP HUSSEY 280 XIX. PRESBYTERIAN MINISTERS DEEP IN TREASON — PLOT AND COUNTER-PLOT 290 XX. THOMAS REYNOLDS : SPY, AND BRITISH CONSUL . . 301 XXI. ARMSTRONG AND THE SHEARESES — GENERAL LAWLESS 308 APPENDIX 335 INDEX 380 r ■ h 'i tfiMlfcr 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 curi- ous 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.' 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 ' The English in Ireland (Nov. 1797), iii. 278. 2 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT refugees. Lord Edward himself wae 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,' 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 oflf his disguise recognised in his visitor the son of a gentleman of good fortune in the North of Ireland, with whom he was shghtly ac- quainted. 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 discus- sion 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 hkely 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 teUing 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.* 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 > It was October 8, 1797. * But it will appear that he cootinaed to the end to play the part of a flaming patriot. A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR S late, he desired him to return and complete his story in the morn- ing. 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 Irish- men 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 Hjtfnburg, and had sent him on to Paris with a letter to her broth'er^-law, General Valence.^ 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 * was strolling about the streets in uniform and calling himself a major. Hamilton Rowan ^ 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 ignor- ance 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 ' Cyrus Marie Valence, Count de Timbrune, bom 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 pene- trated ; and he at last wormed himself into the confidence of Valence. The General afterwards resumed active military service, and fought with distinction n Spain and Eussia. — Vide Discours du Comte de Sigur a Voccasion des Obsiques de M. Valence ; Souvenirs de Madame Genlis, &c. ; Alison's Hist. Europe, 1789-1815, x. 189. ^ The strange career of Tandy — who was made a general by Bonaparte — is traced in chapter viii. infra. ' Some notice of Hamilton Bowan's adventurous courses will be found in chapter xv. infra. B 2 4- SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT through Lady Edward's hands. The Paris letters were transmitted first to her at Hamburg. By her they were forwarded to Lady Lucy Fitzgerald * 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 Httle 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'^ to Arthur O'Connor,^ 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 Ii eland were given over. ' Lady Lucy Fitzgerald, sister of Lord Edward, married in 1802 Admiral Sir Thos. Foley, K.C.B., died 1851. * Bartholomew Teeling was his correct name. In 1798 he was hanged in Dublin. • 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 oflBce. 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 26, 62. THE BEAUTIFUL PAMELA 6 • I then saw Reinhard, the French Minister, who begged me to «tay 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 ' 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 CathoUcs 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 ^ at Belfast ; that the Catholics got jealous of this, and Richard McCormick,^ of Dublin, went among the societies of United Men and denounced the three as traitors to the cause, and dangerous on accoimt of their ambition. All letters to or from Lady Lucy Fitzgerald ought to be inspected. * She, Mrs. Matthieson, of this place, and Pamela * 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 * 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. * 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, onoe proposed to him to get rid of Simms by assassination. Hope pulled a pistol irom his breast and told Hughes that if ever he repeated that proposal he would shoot him. * Richard McCormick, originally secretary of the Catholic Committee, and afterwards an active ' United Irishman,' and styled by Tone, in his Diary, * Magog.* ■* The wife of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitz- gerald says that she was the daughter of Mde. de Genlis by Philippe Egalit^, 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 P^e Is Chaise by Talleyrand. 6 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT Mr. Pitt had planned, it wai^ requisite for me to see my country- men. I called on Maitland,' where I found A. J. Stuart,* 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 tlie 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 ' 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 ta 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.* ' I feared lest Government might not choose to ratify our con- tract, 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 coc^ five hundred,-^ 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 heie, so as to get information, I cannot live on less.' ^ • The allusion maybe to Captain Mai tland— 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. ^ Who Stuart was, see p. 36 infra ; also Lord Cloncunry's Memoirs, p. 63. * 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. * The expedition of Hoche to Bantry Bay in December, 1796. » ' I just made a couple of betts with him, and took up a cool hundred.' — The Provoked Husband, by Vanbrugh and Cibber, iL i. 311, ed. 1730. See also Smollett's Don Quixote, bk. iii. c. viii. • Froude, iii. 277 et seq. THE REBEL DIRECTORY 7 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 ; * 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, de- scribed as a clever, sensible, strong-minded man ; B. Teeling ; Tenants, of Belfast ; Agnew, of Larne ; Lawless, Lord Cloncurry's son ; Hamill, of Dominick Street * ; Inishry,' a priest, a canting, designing man, who swore in Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Lawless.* 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. * Alexander Knox, in his History of Down, errs in saying (p. 26) that * Dr. McNevin was an influential member of the Established Church.' * 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). * 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.' * 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. 8 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT 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.' 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 dieclosures 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. ' 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 Blow process of logical deduction. Vide also Appendix to this volume. LORD CASTLEREAGH V The former gentleman is well known, and will be long remem- bered by the inhabitants of Belfast, for the active part he took in assisting a Northern Marquis,^ 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 60,000Z., 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.^ The name of Samuel Turner obtains no place on the list of Secret Service moneys ^ 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, ' ' The Northern Marquis ' was, of course, Lord Downshire. ' ' 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.' » 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 Eoyal Irish Academy. - f-vr^f^^-!^" '■''• ...-■--».- i:^ 10 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT 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 Cornwalhs Papers as entitled to 300^ a year. But a foot-note from the indefatigable editor — Mr. Boss — 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 re- cipient 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 role 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.^ 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 • 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. B. I. Aoad&my. ■'•Jl ♦THE WEARING OF THE GREEN' 11 Tumer*8 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 hfe, 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 quaUty for which he was not noted. Accordingly he swaggered up to Mr. Turner and, con- fronting 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. Car- hampton 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. l2 SECRET SERVICE UNDER TUT 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.^ Newell travelled with the staff of Lord Carhampton, and in April, 1797, wit- nessed 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.'* 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 organ- isation at Dundalk, Newry, Ballinahinch (the site of the subsequent battle), Eonaldstown, Glanary, and in Dublin at ' Vide pp. 21-2. Newell's pamphlet will be found in the Hallidaj GoUec tion, vol. 743, Royal Irish Academy. 2 Vide Mr. Matthew's narrative in The Sham Squire, sixth edition, pp. 365-363. •T TURNER AT HAMBURG 15 Kearn's, Kildare Street,^ where the principal meetings were held.2 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.' ' 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 ; ' * and some weeks later he states that * Turner had returned from Hamburg with an answer to the Secr^ C This place of rendezvotts was, doabtless, chosen because of its proximity to Leinster House, where Lord Edward mainly lived. * Major Sirr's Papers (MS.), Trinity College, Dublin. Conlan's informa- tion makes no mention of a remarkable man, the Bev. 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. * The Pelham MSS. Examination dated September 6, 1797. Pelham, afterwards Lord Chichester, was Chief Secretary for L-eland 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 re- garding 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 a£Ford to reject pecuniary reward ; but, although Macara at first seemed to con- sent, his replies were finally found to be evasive. * Higgins to Cooke, MS. letter, Dublin Castle, June 7, 1797. * Ibid., August 29, 1797. Five weeks later Turner makes his disclosure to Downshire. ■..,'=ra5f<^ 14 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT 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 im- portance 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. 15 CHAPTEE 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.' ^ Their mission, though ostensibly for presenting an address from the London corresponding society of United Irishmen to the French Govern- ment, 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 ^ 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 oflBcers. O'Coigly and O'Connor had dined at Lawless's lodgings more than once; and here, though not necessarily with his know- ledge, 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 • TJm English in Ireland, iii. 312. ' Allen, a draper's assistant in Dublin, afterwards a colonel in the service of France. -■'*L,wrT^Ti- - 16 SECRET SERVICE UNDER Pirr 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 infonijation. They belonged to the same district organisation. >After de- scribing 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.^ 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,' especi- ally 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.'* 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 • Report of the Secret Committee, p. 31. (Dublin, 1798.) * Life of the Reverend James Coigly, p. 28. (London, 1798.) Halliday Collec- tion, R.I.A., vol. 743. AN ASTUTE SUGGESTION 17 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 in- duced to give evidence, a case could then be estabhshed 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 ' begged Portland * to impress on the * friend ' the necessity of comphance. ' Patriotism might induce him to overcome his natural prejudice.' If patriotism was insufifi- cient, there was no reward which he ought not to receive.' Port- land'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, aSptSi 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.' '' 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 com- promised any individual.* The messenger to whom the note was ' The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. * The Home Secretary. ' Camden to Portland, March 1, 1798. English in Ireland, iii. 310. * Portland to Camden, March 7, 1798. * In O'Connor's valise were found 9001., a military uniform, and some papers relating to Lord Edward Fitzgerald.— W. J. F» ■ ' ^'-i-r^w^ 18 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT 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 oijly be produced, which would send both Lord Edward and himself to the scaffold. It may be observed here — en parenthese — that Downshire must have felt conflicting emotions when called upon to com- municate 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 ^rst cousin of Lord Downshire. One of the most truthful chapters of the laudatory life of Eeynolds, the informer, ^ 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 Eeynolds, 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 L-eland, 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 — 501. 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 — ' Life of Thomas Reynolds, by his Son. (London, 1839.) ACCURATE INFORMATION 19 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 [Beinhard] the French Minister at Hamburg,^ that several French officers and soldiers have lately arrived at that place, where they have purchased sailor's dresses, clothed them- selves in them, and gone on to Denmark and Sweden, from whence it is intended that they should embark for the North of Ireland.^ 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 ^ whose reports while he was in this country * were known to his Excellency as singularly accurate and faithful— i^e 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.^ Some of the letters of * Lord Downshire's friend,' not being forthcoming in the official archives, Mr. Fronde as- sumed 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.^ ' For proofs of the intimacy between Reinhard and Turner at Hamburg, see Castlereagh Papers, i. 277 et seq. ; and my chapter on McNevin, infra. '^ In August, 1798, Humbert and 900 Frenchmen arrived in Killala Bay. ' ' The person ' is the name by which Downshire's friend, the betrayer, is usually styled in the letters from the Home OflBce to Dublin Castle. The words, ' while he was in this country,' show that he had left England, as Down- shire's friend admittedly did, in panic. * ' Le. in October 1797, when he called upon Downshire ; and again in March 1798, when Portland offered him large sums if he would openly prosecute. * 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. * See Castlereagh Papers, i. 231-6. C2 20 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT Another long letter of the same batch will be found the first placed in the second volume of Castlereagh, though an exami- nation 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 Mac- Mahon, 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,^ a la poste restante a Hamburg, whom he looks on as a good patriot.' ^ It will be remembered that a similar phrase occurs in the letter of Downshire's friend, printed by Froude, i.e. Eowan 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.^ 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 Button, described as ' of Newry,' was now subpoenaed 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 ' Of course one of Turner's many aliases. See p. 97, infra. * Castlereagh Correspondence, ii. 1-7. • Ibid. i. 178. rW^ FATHER O'COIGLY HANGED 21 belonged to a poor man under sentence of death.' Button had been a dismissed servant and had kept a public-house at Newry without a licence.' Turner — it seems absurd to doubt the identity — got back to London on Tuesday, May 1 5, 1798. What secret help he gave to the law officers can only be inferred, for they pledged them- selves that he should never be asked to come forward publicly. Though O'Connor, O'Coigly, and Binns'^ 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 Eussell, 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 3 gave me this information, and I went with it to Mr. Wickham, who assured me that the circumstance should be care- fully and anxiously investigated before the execution. But the ' Button, 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. Button admitted that he had previously sworn secrecy to the Society of United Irishmen, but the oath had been sworn only on a spelling-book. * Trial of Arthur O'Connor and James Quigley at Maidstone. Howell's State Trials, vols. xxvi. and xxvii. * 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. 22 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT order had gone down, and while we were conversing the sentence was probably executed.^ 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.' ^ 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 Presby- terian party from the ' Papists.' Binns was a staunch Pres- byterian 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 impli- cate him, ' offering Mr. Coigly his life if he would criminate me agreeable to the instructions of the Government, which pro- posal 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.' ' Memoirs of the WJiig Party. By Lord Holland, afterwards a Cabinet Minister. * Froade's English in Ireland, iii. 32L f A SECRET OUT 2S 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.^ 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 con- nected.* Cuxhaven, as gazetteers record, was from 1795 a place of the utmost importance for the maintenance of intercourse between England and the Continent. ' See p. 31, infra. ^ In the Pelham MSS. is a letter signed Frederick Dutton, regarding his Vice-Consulate, and dated Dec. 19, 1825. .Ts-^-r*'^ ' 24 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT 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 regard- less of chronological sequence, and are often, from dearth of explanation, wholly unintelligible. One of these secret reports follows a letter of Portland's ' — 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 suc- ceeded 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 Roche 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 reap- peared in London.^ He had interviews at the Home OflSce, where he received some instructions, which are not stated. • See Castlereagh Papers, i. 251. See also chapter vii. of the present volume. 2 Froude, iii. 301. INTERVIEW WITH TALLEYRAND 20 Camden urged Portland to beg of him to give evidence pub- licly, 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.^ 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 D^cadi, 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 Sept- ember last, I understand attempts have been made to injure my character here by some persons equally despicable as mahcious (I mean Lewines and his associates), from whom, though United Irishmen, I pride myself in differing, both in sentiment and con- duct ; nor should I condescend to answer their infamous charges.^ ' 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 ' See M. de Talleyrand, par M. de Villemarest, ch. viii. ; Hist, du Directoire, par M. de Sarante, liv. iv. ' Of infidelity to the rebel cause. •f^f^Jy ■ SJ»^n^WT'Tn'!anw«^'»''^T»7'!«P^"»lT'TT^T''"'W^»^T"r^~=^"T»^r-».»M- 26 SECRET SERVICE UNDER Pirr Militia,^ and to whom the safety of the interior will be entrusted, whilst the regular troops march against the enemy. These gentle- men 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 imion 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 associa- tion, 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.* ' I have the honour to remain,' &c. ' Mr. Froude, speaking of ' the second arrest of two of the leading com- mittees 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 r secret committee.' See also corre- spondence in re McNevin's Memorial, ch. vii. infra. * 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 Talley- rand 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 Crom* wellian adventurers, but of King James'^ Planters. A QUONDAM BISHOP 27 Thus far the letter of Turner to Talleyrand — for Turner it assuredly is. It does not follow that the Miuister 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,^ was not the man to be at once swayed by words. The despatch now before us had been addressed to the Home Ofl&ce, 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^ 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 satisfac- tory 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 satis- faction 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 httle 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 * 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. * 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. f^p*^'~JPli->2^'SfgWB^r7^Y-^:^~f^ :: •; r^*:''vr*f^5?'^<^'^^^5' 'T^^-v^cf*'*' 28 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT I fear shortly the rest of Ireland will be in the same predicament.^ 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 : — ^ 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 Eanken,^ 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 docu- ment, 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 Eanken, who comes over before him. I attest the business on oath, and he goes instantly for Ireland. Kanken,"* having been a banker at Belfast, a man of good property, ' 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 copduct 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.' * The Cabinet, Mr, Froude says, was kept in utter ignorance of his name, and in the moat 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. * 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 Eankin and others for high treason.' * Our spy often refers to Eankin 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. HENRI GRfiGOIRE 29 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 under- take 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.' 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 con- stitution for themselves as soon as English influence is destroyed ; guaranteeing to every individual their property, without respect to old Catholic claims and to their poHtical 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 sufliciently known to him. Between that and the 8th I spoke to Abbe Gregoire ^ to accompany me ; but he ' Whatever he knew of Lord Edward Fitzgerald is told in the first letter. See pp. 5, 6, ante. * This was Henri Gregoire, the celebrated Bishop of Blois — a most influ- ential 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. Gregoire was a cautious man, who voted against the divorce of ■7, Abbey Street.' Here again the handiwork of Downshire's ' friend ' is trace- able. 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. * The imprisonment of Hamilton, the nephew of Bussell, is noticed in the letter from Hamburg. Castlereagh Papers, ii. 5. 'COMPROMISING PAPERS' 37 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, intelli- gence 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 Eepubhcan 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.' ' 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 con- stantly 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.' ^ 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 Clon- curry states, was interpreted at Dublin Castle as referring to Henry Grattan, though the writer meant Mr. Henry of Straflfan, brother-in-law to Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and as • Wickham to Castlereagh, Whitehall, June 8, 1798. ^ 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 CathoUc Committee, and is repeatedly mentioned by Tone in his Journal. A fine portrait of BraughaU, in oils, may be seen in the board- room 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. o 8 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT 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 informa- tion derived from Cloneurry. Referring to the Hon. Mr. Lawless, when in London, he says : * Every Irishman who fre- quented his house was vigilantly watched by agents of a higher departmemt 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.' ^ This personage represented an old and illustrious French family. The Prince, finding his patrimony sequestered during the Eevolution^ looked out for a livelihood, and seems to have been not fastidious as to the sort. Cloneurry 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 prepara- tions made by the French at Brest.* ' Castlereagh, i. 250, 373, 382 ; ii. 104, 162, &c. * He obtained the rank of Post-Captain, E.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 ' Eear-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 iov him the small sovereignty of Bouillon. Vide also a piquant memoir of His Serene Highness Philip d'Auvergne, Prince de Bouillon, in Public Characters W^s-:';^f':.\' A DETECTIVE PRINCE 39 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 Eepublican 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.' ^ 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 pra-etised 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 EepubHcan party in London and Hamburgh, I now solemnly 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 heredi- tary with Captain d'Auvergne, Prince of Bouillon. History records that Cardinal d'Auvergne Bouillon, 'during the War of the Succession, held a Culpaljle correspondence with the enemy, i.e. Marlborough, Orrery, and Galloway. * Portland to Camden, June 8. — S. P. 0. 40 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT 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 know^ ledge, 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.^ 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.' ^ Lord Clon- curry 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.'^ This date furnished fresh proof of the promptitude and accuracy of Turner's information to Down- shire (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 Mar- gate, says : * Coigly was no stranger to Lawless ; he made him a United Irishman in his father's house, in Merrion Street, Dublin.' * 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 * Personal Recollections of Lord Cloncurry. ''■ Castlereagh Papers, ii. 361. * Personal Recollections of Lord Cloncurry, p. 38. * 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. ^(5S*«^KT' r^ , •■ ■■-■'•. - ' -; ■; ■ : ■' ■ ■■ \ ■ --^^ A BROKEN HEART 41 "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.' In collecting evidence to ^ang 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 Eyall, 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 65,000Z. 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 Eobert 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 Hst noted by Downshire from the dictation of his visitor, though complete as regards the Eebel 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 accom- ' Statement of Lord Cloncurry to Mr. O'Neill Daunt. »--'v^''yi»c5!3^f^aFv^«:^-^7 '^^ ' ■• ^-^ -^ - .^ ■^-"■^ ■ . - . ;■ y* • . ■ ' ■*-■-. ■■ _ . . -._ . ■ t • ; ^ r- ■ '/ „7'^v -vwy 42 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT plices. Lord Cloncurry's son was no sooner arrested, than Stewart of Acton, a young Agar, a young Tennent, young Curran, McGuckin, Powdall, and twenty others,^ whose names never came before the public, were found to be as deeply compromised as he.* 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.^ 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 under- stood now. In November, 1796, O'Connor took a house near Belfast, preparatory to offering himself for the re- presentation 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.'* 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,'^ 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.' ^ After an interval, however, and * Stewart of Acton, Tennent, McGuckin, Hamilton, and many of the twenty others, were all, like Turner, belonging to the Ulster branch of the organisation. * Froude, iii. 418 ; see also p- 20, ante. ' Castlereagh Papers, i. 163. * Lives and Times of the United Irishmen, ii. 13. * Birmingham Tower, Dublin Castle. « The English in Ireland, iii. 288. The above passage serves to show that the important arrests made by the Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland were largely due to ' the person ' who whispered in Downshire''s ear. ^■^^^■^'''?y^:^:i-~j*''<^'Yr^[;^Ty'^:.^^'-'' • ' ■ T^^", ■ ■-» ^™«-j^.-3R,fl ^S'rs LARGE OFFERS DECLINED 43 at a critical moment, O'Connor was apprehended anew, and he remained a State ptisoner 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.' In undertaking to give a complete list of the Executive Com- mittee, 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.' * * 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.' ' See this list, p. 7, ante. ^ Camden to Portland, December 2, 1797. 44 SECRET SER\^CE UNDER PITT CHAPTER VI THE MASK TORN OFF AT LAST Mb. Froude, quoting from the betrayer's letter to Down- shire, writes : — ' 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.' Lord Edward came to this . decision obviously on the representations made by his false friend regarding Lewins. The false friend will be found impugning Lewins on every opportunity. Turner and Lewins, it may be repeated, clashed as rival envoys ; Lewins, a Catholic, represented the Leinster Directory, while Turner claimed to represent the Northern. Turner worked his pen and tongue to such purpose that he at last succeeded in convincing Lord Edward of Lewins's treachery. Binns, in his narrative, states that * O'Coigly had been commissioned by the Executive to supersede Lewins in Paris, 7vhom some suspected of betraying the interests of Ireland.' ^ The letter from Hamburg (first revealed by Mr. Froude) continues ; — Mrs. Matthieson^ has just heard from Lady Lucy that O'Connor is come. I supped last night with Valence, who mentioned his ' Edward J. Lewins was an attorney, and with the astuteness of that craft he had early suspected Turner, as appears from the letter to ' Citizen Minister Talleyrand ' (p. 24, ante). •■« The ' some such ' proved to be Father O'Coigly, arrested en route, and hanged in 1798. * Lewins, Mr. Lecky shows, proved thoroughly faithful to his party. ■• Henriette de Sercy, the niece of Madame de Genlis, and the companion of Pamela in childhood, who married Mr. Matthiessen, the banker of Hamburg. THE INTERVIEW WITH HOCIIE 45 having introduced Lord Edward^ and O'Connor to the Minister here ' in the summer before the French attempted to invade Ire- land.' They both went to Switzerland, whence O'Connor passed into France, had an interview with Hoche, and everything was planned. I feared lest Government might not choose to ratify our con- tract, 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 will let me know if anything was wrong in my state- ments, or if I have given offence. . . . One of the many unexplained letters in the Castlereagh Correspondence finds its keynote here. In August, 1798, Wiekham, of the Home Office, writes as follows to Castlereagh, who then held O'Connor a prisoner in Dublin.'' Wickham's object, though shrouded in mystery, was no doubt to check the accuracy of ' Lord Downshire's friend,' and to weigh the market- able value of his services : — It would be a great satisfaction to me, personally, were O'Connor to be questioned on the object of his journey to Switzerland with Lord Edward Fitzgerald in 1796, and whether they, or either of them, were in France at that time, and what French agents they saw besides M. Barthelemy. I was absent with the Austrian army at the time of their arrival, so that I lost the opportunity of ob- serving their motions.^ If either of them went into France, which I am persuaded they did, I should be curious, for very particular reasons, to know whether they went in by way of Basle, and whether their passports were given in their own names. Should • Lord Edward Fitzgerald. * Eeinhard. ' At Bantry Bay in 1796. By many, Tone was regarded somewhat as a clever adventurer ; but when the French authorities saw a nobleman^brother of the Duke of Leinster— as well as O'Connor, nephew and heir of Viscount Longueville, acting in a way which meant business, their hesitancy ceased. ♦ After the arrest and death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and the collapse of the rebellion, the State prisoners consented to give some general information which would not compromise men by name. * Wickham's correspondence illustrative of his secret mission to Switzerland, when he debauched the French minister, Barthdlemy, with ' saint -seducing gold ' was published by Bentley in 1870. ^ 46 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT there be no impropriety in questioning O'Connor on these points, as I have said before, it would be a great satisfaction to me that it should be done.' Fifty pages may be turned ere the answer to this letter comes. It is headed * Secret^' and bears date * Dublin Castle, August 17, 1798.' All my circumstantial evidence, aiming to show that Turner is the man whom Mr. Froude could not identify, is crowned by this letter. Castlereagh thus replies to Wickham : — ♦ Secret. • Dublin Castle : August 17, 1798. * I have endeavoured to obey your commands in examining Mr. O'Connor as to the object of his journey to Switzerland with Lord Edward Fitzgerald. At first he decHned answering to this point, considering himself as only bound to state the facts which came to his knowledge after he became a United Irishman, of which body he was not then a member. Upon being pressed, without mention- ing names, he stated it thus : — In the summer of 1796, as set forth in the Memoir, an agent was sent to France to arrange with the Directory the plan of invasion. This person went to Hamburg ; from thence, accompanied by his friend, to Switzerland ; neither went to Paris, but the person employed had an interview near the French frontier with a person high in the confidence of the Direc- tory ; upon a communication with whom everything was settled.^ The reason neither proceeded to Paris was lest the English Govern- ment, in whose pay most of the oflBcers in Paris were supposed ^ to be, should suspect the design, and arrest the persons on their return. 'This perfectly agrees with Eichardson's information, which states that Lord Edward and O'Connor met Hoche, and arranged the invasion. ' B states that 0' Connor went into France ; if he did, it was only a short distance merely to meet Hoche, and, from what O'Connor said, Lord E. seemed to be the principal.' ' Castlereagh Papers, i. 259-60. ' « Everything was planned,' are the words in the betrayer's letter to Lord Downshire. * In this suspicion, Lord Edward and O'Connor were not far astray. The Confidential Letters of the Right Hon. William Wickham reveal that Pichegru and other French generals were paid by Pitt to allow themselves to be beaten in battle. CASTLEREAGH 'DRAWS 47 The above paragraph is one of much importance. Eichard- son I have discovered to be another alias of the hydra-headed Turner. Distinct proof of this will be found presently. Castle- reagh continues : — ' Should I succeed in drawing from him any further information on this point, I shall have great pleasure in transmitting it. He further stated that, when taken in Kent,^ although he had not authorised any person to hire a vessel direct for France, but rather looked to reach a Dutch port, yet his real object was to pass through Switzerland iato France, and fairly confessed that, had he reached Paris, he should not have been idle, as, though not charged with any special commission, he did believe the Directory would have- considered him as an accredited agent.' ' Ordinary students of history are not free to search the papers of the Home Office, London after the date 1760; and the present writer ventured to ask Mr. Lecky whether he had met the name of Turner in his inquiries. The object of Mr. Lecky' s history is distinct from mine,^ and his researches have taken a different direction ; but he could not fail to observe, he said, that the Government correspondence threw not much light on questions of espionage, * for names of informers,' he adds, * are nearly always concealed.' However, on referring to his notes, it appeared that * Richardson ' was the pseudonym of Samuel Turner. While thanking my correspondent, I thought it well to remind him that in the * Castlereagh Papers ' ^ ' Fumes ' is stated to be the alias for this man. And I added, in order to guard against mistake, that one Thomas Richard- son, a Liberal magistrate for Tyrone, was confined, in 1797, with Neilson and Teeling. The historian's reply is very satis- factory : ■* ' Samuel Turner wrote his letters to the British ' At Margate with Father O'Coigly. * Castlereagh Papers, i. 309-10. ' General index to the Correspondence of Lord Castlereagh. ' Furness ' is the name under which Eeinhard, the French minister, refers to him when writing to his Government. * Letter of W. E. H. Lecl^, Esq., to W. J. F., Athenaeum Club, London, July 5, 1888. Eichardson, the popular author of ' Pamela,' was then a specially familiar name, and one which would readily occur to a well-read man who divulged the secrets of a real Pamela. The plot in the stories of Samuel Eichardson is t. ft - •'*« ■ ^ffTMFTKm^ 48 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT Government under the name of Kichardson. This,' adds Mr. Lecky, *is not a matter of inference, but of distinct proof.' Once only * Richardson ' is mentioned in * Castlereagh.* It was the false name by which the Home Office, when obliged to communicate with Dublin Castle, masked Samuel Turner, LL.D., of the Irish Bar. Lord Castlereagh's letter to the Home Office confirms the intimate knowledge possessed by Turner of the doings of O'Connor and Lord Edward Fitz- gerald. O'Connor was now — August, 1798 — in an Irish dungeon ; and Lord Castlereagh having, as he says, pressed him to answer certain questions, adds : ' This perfectly agrees with Richardson's information, which states thai Lord Edward and O'Connor met Hoche and arranged the invasion.* Besides his horror of martyrdom by the knife. Turner had a lively dread of the martyrdom of exposure and social ostracism. Jackson's trial in 1794 had the effect of deterring approvers. Curran's skill in torturing such persons was marvellous ; and Mr. Froude declares that he stretched Cockayne as painfully as ever the rackmaster of the Tower stretched a Jesuit. ' He made him confess that he had been employed by Pitt, and showed that, if Jackson was a traitor to the State, Cockayne was a far blacker traitor to the friend who trusted him.' ^ * Richardson ' is now shown to be the same man as he who gave his information to Downshire ; and that * Richardson ' was an assumed name for Samuel Turner.'^ Thus the question developed by letters, a branch of composition in which Samuel Turner was au fait. There seems a strange irony in this spy describing, under the nom deplume of Richardson, a new ' History of Pamela ' and her struggles. Dr. Madden says that, after the death of her husband, Pamela returned in painfully straitened circumstances to Hamburg, the only place to which she could with prudence go. Madden little dreamt that the fugitive's retreat was the serpent's lair. > The Rev. William Jackson, an Anglican clergyman, came to Dublin on a treasonable mission, accompanied, as his friend and legal adviser, by Cockayne, a London attorney. The latter was deputed by Pitt to entrap the National leaders. Cockayne prosecuted Jackson to conviction. In Ireland, unlike England, one witness then suflSced to convict for high treason. * In a letter dated June 8, 1798, Wickham speaks of the source from which * R ' procured ' all the information that he has communicated to us ' — meaning m^f^^^^T^W"--'' LORD EDWARD AND HOCHE 49 of identity is established without appealing to further evidence. But inasmuch as my efforts to track Turner open up facts long forgotten, and others new to the historian, some readers may not object to follow. As regards Lord Edward's meeting with Hoche, more than once referred to in Turner's letter to Lord Downshire and in the correspondence of the Home Office, M. Guillon, a recent investigator,' could find no trace of it in the French official archives. Special efforts were made at the time to veil this historic interview. No wonder, therefore, that Mr. Froude, in introducing the information furnished by Down- shire's mysterious visitor, points specially to the secret meet- ing with Hoche, and how Hoche himself had not revealed it even to Tone.^ Wickham was but carrying out Portland's behest in signi- fying to Castlereagh that O'Connor, then a prisoner, should be questioned on points of which the Home Office had acquired private knowledge. On August 23, 1798, the same polite pumping of O'Connor is urged — a task fraught with no great labour to a man of Castlereagli's tact and powers of per- suasion. ' A ^n'raie communication,' Wickham writes, *of the names of the persons with whom Mr. O'Connor corresponded abroad, would answer the particular purpose required by the Duke of Portland.' The * particular ' object is not explained. It was probably that the spy might, as previously suggested, cultivate epistolary relations with the men whom O'Connor ' would admit to have been his correspondents.* what concerned Lady Edward Fitzgerald, Valence, Mrs. Matthiessen, Reinhard, and other ingenuous friends at Hamburg, who told Turner all they knew. Dr. Madden and others mistook this ' R ' for the incormptible Beinhard, as M. Mignet styles him. See folio 102, infra. ' France et Irlande (Paris, 1888). * See p. 1, ante. * Vide Appendix for some revelations of fratricidal betrayal by O'Connor's brother. * One letter only, from Eichardson (Turner) to Lord Downshire, I have found in the Pelham MSS. ; it bears date ' Hamburg, December 1, 1797 ' :— ' My Lord, — I cannot contrive any mode of seeing Mr. Fraser without running a very considerable risque of a discovery. For this reason I now intrude to E 50 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT Teeling, one of the Northern leaders, who had been closely associated with Turner, gives a curious glimpse of the easy intercourse which Castlereagh would maintain with his cap- tives. Sometimes he made the arrests himself in the first instance, and afterwards could charm his prisoners by drawing silken bonds around them. Teeling was accompanied by his father on horseback, when ' we met,' he writes, ' Lord Castlereagh, who accosted us with his usual courtesy. We had proceeded up the street of Lisburn together, when, having reached the house of his uncle, the Marquis of Hertford, we were about to take leave of his lordship. " I regret," said he, addressing my father, "that your son cannot accompany you," conducting me at the same moment through the outer gate, which, to my inexpressible astonishment, was instantly closed, and I found myself surrounded by a military guard.' Teeling, later on, describes a visit paid by Castlereagh to him when a prisoner : — Fatigued, and apparently much dispirited, Lord Castlereagh entered the room. He possessed the most fasciaating manner and engaging address, with a personal appearance peculiarly attractive, and certainly not in character with the office he had that day assumed. For though national pride was extinct in his soul, the graces of nature were not effaced from the form, nor the poHshed request you'll be so kind as to favour me with a few lines. I wrote to you on November 17, by post. Since that I have sent you two letters by Captain Gunter, of the Nautilus : the first contains seven and a half pages of letter paper; the second, a single letter with such information as I could collect, which I hope will be material. Gunter promised to put them in the Yarmouth office himself. ' It will be requisite for your lordship to lay aside every emblem of noblesse, and adopt the style of an Irish sans-culotte, for fear of accidents. If I appear worthy the further notice of your lordship, no pains on my part shall be spared to merit the honour of being ranked among your lordship's most sincere, ' J. KiCHAEDSON. ' December 1, 1797, Hamburg (under cover to the master of the post-office, Yarmouth).'— Pelham MSS. Placed far apart from Kichardson's letter is found the despatch of Cooke, wherein it had been enclosed. ' The letters by the " Nautilus " have not been received,' he writes, ' and we know not how to direct to him.' The Pelham MSS. are pyramids in bulk, but no other letter from Eichardson, alias Turner, is entombed within them. "^'^'— ' -'"faill'llTrttl^'*-'-''-'--^ -... ;. ... . . -. ARREST OF TEELIXG 51 manners of the gentleman forgotten in the uncourteous garb of the oflScer of police. He regretted that in his absence I had been subjected to the painful restraint of an additional guard. It was not his desire that they should have been placed within my room. A slight repast had been prepared for him, of which he pressed me to partake. The wine was generous, his lordship was polite, and the prisoner of State seemed for a moment forgotten in the kinder feelings of the earlier friend. [Lord Castlereagh then informed Teeling that they had that day arrested Neilson and KusselL] ' Russell ! ' ' said I. ' Then the soul of honour is captive ! Is Russell a prisoner ? ' Lord Castlereagh was silent. He filled his glass — he passed me the wine. Our conversation had become embarrass- ing. ... 2 ' Neilson, Eussell, Teeling, and Turner belonged to the Ulster branch of the organisation. Eussell, who had been a captain in the 64th Begiment, and a J. P. for CO. Tyrone, remained a prisoner untill 1802, and, on connecting himself with Emmet's scheme, was beheaded October 30, 1803. Samuel Neilson, son of a Presbyterian minister, died, after many exciting vicissitudes, on August 29 in the same year. * Personal Narrative, by Charles Hamilton Teeling. His daughter became the first wife of Lord O'Hagan. E 2 •r :^.-: •■.■>^", *" . ' .-•(:'ir^:-:v'-tY^x T ; ••: v.i»f"»»7-?i'-7r"-'» v-'j^^r ■s-'t ■.Tft'f^^r* -r---r^---^ ^N ■* I*^ ■• <^ : ■ -' "«; . 52 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT CHAPTER VII DR. MACNEVIN's memorial INTERCEPTED Although the spy did not confide to Lord Downshire until October 1797 his name and secrets, there is reason to believe that he had furnished information previously. To enhance his importance he probably said nothing of this. As Mr. Froude observes, he painted his own conduct in the colours he thought best. This man had long played fast and loose. So early as May 1797 Turner was viewed with suspicion. The Castlereagh Papers contain a bundle of intercepted letters addressed by Reinhard, the French Minister at Hamburg, to De la Croix, head of the Foreign Office, Paris, of whom Tone often speaks with affection.^ These letters, as already stated, mention Turner under the name of Furnes, which we learn from the Castlereagh Papers was an alias of Turner.'* He is praised for his zeal and patriotism ; but in one letter Reinhard is found struggling with a painful misgiving. The suspicion is so dark that he does not like to write even the name of Furnes, but makes dots to tally with the letters composing it, and no name was better known to De la Croix. At last Reinhard tries to banish the thought as an unworthy sus- picion ; and a subsequent letter of his reinstates Turner in full prestige. The letter which expresses suspicion bears date May 31, but is confusingly assigned, in the Castlereagh Papers, to the year 1798. Its reference to Hoche, however, shows that it was written during the previous year — his death having occurred on September 15, 1797. • Castlereagh, i. 282-292. * Ibid., General Index, iv, 504. REINHARD AND TURNER 53 You must have heard [writes Reinhard to De la Croix] of the apprehension of two committees of United Irishmen at Belfast, and the publication of the papers seized, made by the secret committee of the Parliament of Ireland.^ Among these papers is a letter from the provincial committee, informing those of Belfast that the executive committee having conducted itself in an improper manner, the provincial committee thought fit to dissolve it, retaining how- ever, two-thirds of the former members. This letter has been printed in London in the True Briton, a ministerial paper. It is very remarkable that should never have mentioned that circumstance to me. Supposing, which is very probable, that this reorganisation of the executive took place before the departure of [from Ireland], it is natural enough to suppose that should find himself among the excluded members. The opinion that I have formed of him [adds Eeinhard in words worthy of a true diplomat] is, that he is a man of haughty and violent character, without, on that account, stooping to dissimulation and deceit ; so, in order to revenge himself on his countrymen, he may have be- trayed his cause to Mr. Pitt. [Eeinhard goes on to say that] It was letters of Lord Edward Fitzgerald which certified that this man who called upon me was the person sent to me by Lady Fitzgerald on his arrival.^ It seems needless to point out that this must be the * person ' whom Mr. Froude describes as being introduced by Lady Edward Fitzgerald, and having the ear of Reinhard at Hamburg ; and there is hardly less doubt that the man thus noticed was the same who, having got into debt with his ' Further on will be seen Portland's caution to Castlereagh as to the means to be taken by the Secret Committee of the Irish Parliament in order to divert suspicion from their spy. * The letter, of which this is an extract, appears in the Castlereagh Papers (i. 275-6). It was the interest of the spy that this letter should not be seen at the Foreign Office, Paris. It could do him no harm in the eyes of Pitt. A second intercepted letter from Beinhard states that consistently with his duties he sent Samuel Turner [of Hamburg] to General Hoche (see Castlereagh, i. 285). Tone mentions in his diary that Hoche one day ' seemed struck when I mentioned Hamburg, and asked me again was I going hither. " Well then," said he, " perhaps we may find something for you to do there. There is a person there whom perhaps you may see." ' Tone muses, 'Who is my lover that I am to see at Hamburg, in God's name ? ' {Diary, ii. 341.) His diary is relinquished, however, just as he gets there, and his death in an Irish prison occurred soon after. 54 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT friends, addressed himself to Pelham as early as 1796. His secret letter to Pelham will be seen presently. Meanwhile the same sensitive pride and the same revengeful spirit when that pride was once wounded is also traceable in the details revealed to Lord Downshire next year. Judging from the slippery and impulsive character of the man, I cannot doubt that previous to his mission to London in October 1797, for the purpose of making a final bargain with Pitt, he had coquetted with Dublin Castle. Lewins and Turner were rival envoys — Lewins represented the Leinster Directory ; Turner claimed to speak for Ulster. Of Lewins, who stands above all suspicion, Eeinhard writes to De la Croix in 1797 : — ' I think L incapable of treachery, but capable of imprudence. I should not answer thus concerning tlie other. What seems further to concur in the support of my hypothesis is, that Mr. L. before his depar- ture made it a point of great importance to ascertain whether there was any other envoy from Ireland, who addressed him- self to me, and that he begged me not to give my confidence to any other than to him alone. I refrained from giving these tidings to General Hoche, not only because my means of corresponding with him are uncertain, but because all the letters from Frankfort announce his departure for Paris.' It may not have struck Mr. Froude, as it certainly strikes me, that the man he describes ^ as visiting Lord Downshire, and at the last moment offering to betray, was the same person whom the historian, one hundred pages previously, notices as an informer, * in the closest confidence of the Northern Leaders, but whose name is still a mystery.' It will be seen that Pelham's correspondent of 1796 had fallen into debt and difficulties. This at first seems not con- sistent with the statement of Mr. Froude that Downshire's visitor was the son of a gentleman of good fortune in the North. But it is easy to see that the son himself had got into pecuniary straits. He tells Downshire of the expenses he is under, and asks Pitt for a ' cool 500/.' ^ to begin with. ' English in Ireland, iiL 278. * Ibid. iii. 284. THE OATH ON CAVE HILL 55 In addition to a judgment debt of 1,500Z. which Jacob Turner in his will forgives his son Samuel,^ I find, on examining the records of the three Law Courts, that another judgment debt of 8001. was marked against Samuel Turner on January 26, 1793.2 Speaking of informers, Mr. Froude writes under date 1796 :— One of these especially, whose name is still a mystery, was in the closest confidence of the Belfast leaders. He had been among the most enthusiastic of the original members of Tone's society, but he had fallen into debt to others of the confederates and had been expelled. In revenge he sold himself to the Government, satisfied his creditors with money which he received from Pelham, and was at once taken back into confidence. Among others, be became an intimate associate of William Orr, a Belfast tradesman, after- wards executed for treason, who at this time was a member of the Head Northern Committee. Orr told him that everything was ready. Dublin, Cork, Limerick, were waiting only for orders to rise, and when the word was given the movement was to be universal and simultaneous. They had 200,000 men already officered in regiments ; they had pikes and muskets for 150,000, and more were on the way. The militia were almost to a man United Irishmen, and in fact, according to Orr, they would have risen in the autumn but for some differences among themselves. For himself, the informer thought that nothing would be attempted till the arrival of the French. The Belfast men, Neilson, Orr, the two Simms, the party who had taken the oath with Wolfe Tone on Cave Hill,^ he described ' as wealthy, wily, avaricious, tenacious of their property, distrustful of one another, and if afraid of nothing else, desperately afraid of the Orangemen, who were five times stronger than people in general beheved* They had authentic news that Hoche might be expected in the fall of the year, and then undoubtedly an effort would be made. If Hoche came, they were perfectly confident that Ireland ' Irish Record Office. " Judgment Registry, Four Courts, Dublin, No. 302. • Tone's Life (i. 128) describes how, before leaving for America in 1795, he Bwore to his friends who surrounded him on Cave Hill never to desist from his efforts until Ireland was free. * This is quite Turner's style. r^?^W?Tf •!*■*■ "^' V <> ▼^^ . V'^'T*' 9#»>^i7^?^Tfr>?v*v^ ^Tf a"*^'" vt^tv-t't^t'''^^^" *^TJP^^t7«. ■ -r^ ' . ^> v?*^ *""• .?v*- -i» i^ ■. »\ ■ "■ i.-^f i?^'v^T:*^V' 56 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT would be a republic before Christmas. The instant that the signal was given the whole Orange party were to be assassinated. . . . The Informer concludes with these words : — Be assured that what I have told you is true. The original agitators have been kept concealed even from the knowledge of the common people. The medium of dissemination has been the priests, and they have concealed from their congregations, on whom they have so effectively wrought, the names of those who have set them on, merely saying that there were men of influence, fortune, and power ready to come forward. The motive of the original agitators — and I mean by them the members of the Catholic Com- mittee that sat in Dublin, and many of the Convention that were not on the Committee — was to carry the Catholic Bill through Parlia- ment by the influence of terrorism.^ So much for the informer who sought the ear of the Irish Secretary in 1796. His close connection with the Northern leaders, his air of mystery, his hatred of the priests and the Catholic Committee, even his style and tone, the reference to Hoche, the prediction that the Protestants would suffer if the rebels won — all point to him as the same person who made overtures to Pitt, through Downshire, in October 1797. The alleged disaffection of the militia and the danger which menaced the estates of the aristocracy again crop up in Turner's letter to Talleyrand.'^ In both cases the same stipula- tion is made that he should not be called upon to give evidence publicly — the same nervous temperament is revealed. Down- shire's visitor expressed mortal terror lest his life should pay the forfeit of his startling whisper. The same fear — and I believe I may add, presentiment — pervades the letter to Pelham in 1796. * Don't name it,' he writes ; * if it get out they will know whence it came, and my life will be the certain forfeit.' ^ The * secret ' which the informer of '96 told Pelham ' Froude, iii. 176. The original objects of the Society of United Irishmen were parliamentary reform and Boman Catholic emancipation. * Ante, p. 25. » The Eev. Arthur McCartney, vicar of Belfast, stated that he had never heard of a Committee of Assassination existing in Belfast with the cognizance or sanction of the leaders of the United Irishmen. Bj- -■ ■ . ■'■ - ,.■ •.:- '■ '/" ". :■;_.-'" ■■■"'■-,_ . " ■ .■'-* '' " ■" ■■ r^V-- LORD DOWNSHIRE 57 was what Mr. Froude describes as *a curious story.' 'To show you that they tell me their secrets,' writes the informer to Pelham, ' here is the account told me of the death of Mr. McMurdoch of Lurgan.' ^ From searches made in the Registry of Deeds Office, Dublin, I find that Samuel Turner was closely connected with Lurgan, and in a way which gave double facilities for acquiring its secrets.'^ The reader might glance once more at Mr. Froude's account of the visit to Lord Downshire on that dark October night in 1797. The betrayer's disguise and stealthy nervous gait as though some avenging power were on his track, are things worth noting. Why was he in such dread of assassination before he unfolded his story to Downshire ? Surely he must have been conscious of having earned, for a long time before, the penalty of 'Ormond steel.'' This, according to Dr. Conlan's sworn testimony, weis a specially familiar dogma with Teeling and Turner when organising treason in Ulster. The visit to Downshire was clearly prompted by greed. This peer had got the name of having secret service money at his disposal. * Bank notes were offered to me,' observes James Hope, the working weaver of Belfast, * if I would implicate Will Tennant, Robert Simms and others, and it was admitted that the money came from Lord Downshire.' This was pro- bably among the efforts which were made to induce minor conspirators to give evidence publicly against their leaders, of whose treason the Crown had private knowledge through Turner.* McDougall's * Sketches of Irish Political Characters,' ' Froude's English in Ireland, iii. 175. ^ The following memorandum, though of no political import, is useful as an authentic record of facts : — ' 1791, February 13. Samuel Turner and Jacob Turner his father, both of Turner's Hill, co. Armagh, Esquires, to John McVeagh of Lurgan. Conveyance of premises in Lurgan. ' 1794, October 8. Samuel Turner of Newry, and Jane Turner, late of Lurgan, now of Newry, to Thompson and others. Premises in Lurgan. The Teelings, with whom Turner claims to be intimate, came from Lurgan See Webb's Irish Biography. * See Conlan's sworn information. Appendix. * James Hope to the late Mr. Hugh McCall, of Lisburn. See Webb's Irish Biography for an appreciative notice of Hope. 58 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT published in 1799, says of Lord Downshire (p. 20) : * His political conduct agrees very well with his motto, Ne tentes, aut perfice ; he supports administration with all his might.' Downshire's visitor knew, therefore, that this peer, if he liked, could make good terms with Pitt. Much of the melodramatic character of the scene appears to have been designed to move Downshire. * He saw Mr. Pitt,' says Froude, * who consented that " the person's " services should be accepted.' The Cabinet, we are told, was kept in ignorance of his name. But Pelham, the Irish Secretary previous to Castlereagh, seems to have known something of him already, for, as we learn, * Pelham, when in London, made large offers to Lord Downshire's friend.' ' That information had been given by Downshire's visitor prior to the interview of October 1797, I cannot doubt.'^ Mr. Froude, describing Lord Edward's visit to Hoche on the Swiss frontier,' writes : * Hoche himself had not revealed it even to Tone, but Lord Edward was known to be intimate with Macnevin. He had been watched in London, and traced to the lodgings of a suspected agent of the French Directory.' Down- shire's visitor, it will be remembered, had interviews with Lord Edward in London. When the betrayer threw back his disguise, Downshire, we are told, recognised him at once. This, I suspect, was not ' Froude's Enqlish in Ireland, iii. 290. * There were informers from the first, but not to the extent suggested ; nor can it be fairly said that they were men ' deepest in the secret.' ' This and similar information,' writes Mr. Froude, ' came in to them (the Government) from a hundred quarters ' (p. 177). ' They had an army of informers ' (p. 174). The historian here writes of the year '96, and rather overrates the extent of the treachery. Dr. Macnevin, writing in 1807, says that the secrets of the United Irishmen were kept with wonderful fidelity. Their society existed from 1791 ; it was not until 1798, when ropes were round their necks, that Reynolds and McGuckin proved false ; and the same remark applies to most of the others. * As regards Pelham's correspondent in 1796, and Downshire's in 1797, does Mr. Froude mistake, for two distinct betrayers, the one Informer ? His striking scenes, his dramatic situations, his fine painting and accessories, remind me of a stage where the movements of a few men convey the idea of an advancing • army.' That ' Downshire's friend ' had been previously known as an informer is proved by a letter from the Viceroy Camden to Portland, dated December 9, 1797. M. JAGERHORN 59 the first time that a communication reached Downshire from the same source. Dr. Madden quotes from the 'Northern Star ' of September 16, 1796, a sensational account of the arrest at Belfast of Eussell, Neilson, Sampson, and many others, and how the whole garrison, with its artillery, took part in the stirring scene, and it appears that Downshire helped to direct the proceedings. That day Neilson and Eussell surrendered to his lordship, and Tone in his * Diary ' deplores the arrest as the heaviest blow which could fall on their cause.^ The name of the French agent in London is not men- tioned by Mr. Froude. It is M. Jagerhorn, described by Eein- hard, the French Minister at Hamburg, as ' that estimable Swede ; ' and concerning whom there is a mass of matter, often purposely misleading, in the Castlereagh Correspond- ence. Macnevin's memorial to the French Directory was betrayed to England in the summer of 1797. M. Jager- horn was sent by France to treat with the Irish Directory. His mission, however, transpired, and means were taken to prevent him going farther than London, whereupon Lord Edward Fitzgerald was deputed to cross to England, and there confer with Jagerhorn. Turner's fracas with the terrorist commander-in-chief, Carhampton, was supposed to have caused his retirement to Hamburg. But that scene, with its dialogue, may have been purely theatrical.^ In June 1797 Turner attends several meetings of the Ulster delegates in Dublin.' There it was that the 'prudence or the cowardice ' of the Papist leaders in Dublin, as he says, dis- gusted him.* Why should the notorious Turner be allowed to go on to Dublin, and Jagerhorn be refused ? Samuel Turner saw a good deal of Lord Edward and Jagerhorn in London. We find traces of this knowledge in * Lives and Times of the United Irishmen, iv. 22. * Ante, p. 11. ' Appendix No. 1 to Eeport of the Secret Committee of the House of Commons, 1798. * See ante, p. 2 ; Froude, iii. 279. 60 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT Mr. Froude's notes of * the person's' interview with Downshire — how he called Lord Edward * Fitz ' and had confidential talk with him in Harley Street. The spy tells Downshire soon after that Eeinhard begged him to stay at Hamburg, * 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.' Turner played his cards so well, and personated an ardent patriot so completely, that the suspicions of his fidelity which Beinhard ' expressed on May 31 are found removed soon after. Dr. Macnevin, of Dublin, a chief in the Executive Directory, was now coming to Paris to ask French aid. Eeinhard reports progress to De la Croix : — Hamburg; 25 Messidor [July 12]. While Mr, Lewins has suffered metolose all traces of his journey, and Mr. Furnes ^ is gone to write to him, M. Jiigerhorn has returned from London, and a new Irish deputation has called upon me. All the efforts of M. Jiigerhorn having failed against the obstinacy with which the Duke of Portland refused him a passport for pro- ceeding to Dublin, he determined to call Lord Fitzgerald to London. The latter came upon pretext of accommodating his sister. The authenticity of the mission of Mr. Lewins was verified ; important details respecting the state of Ireland were given ; it was ascertained that there was no derangement in the plan, and in the resources of the united patriots. It is unnecessary for me to give you a circum- stantial account of the information brought by Mr. F., since he enters fully into that which Mr. Macnevin has just given. The latter came surrounded by all the motives for confidence, and he did not leave Dublin till the 27th of June : his intelligence is of the latest date, and from the very source. The reports of Mr. Macnevin, who goes here by the name of Williams, and who would wish to appear always under that name, as Mr. Lewins under that of Thompson, appear to me to throw great light upon all that the Government can have an interest to know. Mr. Macnevin has been secretary ' The French minister at Hamburg. * The noble editor of the CastUreagh Papers says that this name is an alias for Samuel Turner. AN 'EXPLOSION DESIRED 61 of the executive committee, and all that he says proves him to be a man thoroughly acquainted with the ensemble of facts and com- binations. In annexing to this despatch the Memorial ^ which he delivered to me, I shall add what I have reason to think of import- ance in his conference. My first care was to clear up what the papers seized at Belfast said concerning a change made by the provincial committee in the organisation of the executive committee. It results from the answers of Mr. Macnevin, conjointly with those of Mr. Furnas, that it was of dilatoriness and indecision that several members of the committee were accused ; that the northern province, feeling its oppression and its strength, was impatient to break forth,'^ while the committee strove to defer any explosion till the arrival of the French, and declined giving a full explanation of its relations with France ; that, nevertheless, after the change of the committee, meetings were held in Dublin and in the North, at which it was resolved to wait ; that the clandestine visitation of several depots of arms, where the powder was found damp and the muskets rusty, contributed a good deal to that resolution ; and that the desire for the assistance of the French had in consequence become more general than ever. It was, however, decided that a rising should take place when the prisoners were set at liberty. Macnevin and Lord Fitzgerald are of the moderate party. Fumes is for a speedy explosion ; and it is some imprudences into which his ardent cha- racter has hurried him, that have obliged him to leave the country ^ : whereas, the conduct of Mr. Macnevin has been so circumspect,* that there is nothing to oppose his return. Eeinhard's despatch is continued at very great length, and those who care to read it should consult the * Castlereagh Papers' (i. 282-6). He thus ends: 'I have just received a memorial in which M. Jagerhorn gives me an account of his journey. I will send it to you by the next courier. That ' Mr. Froude errs in stating (iii. 260) that Macnevin himself carried the Memorial to Paris. * All this is exactly what Downshire's visitor told him (see chap. i.). ' His challenge to the commander-in-chief, Lord Carhampton, was among the ' imprudences.' * Instead of the words ' circumspect ' and * moderate,' ' prudence ' and ' cowardice ' are apphed to Macnevin's party by Turner (vide chap. i.). -»fT«.*r*- 62 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT estimable Swede has again manifested great devotedness to the cause of Hberty.' By some marvellous sleight-of-hand Jagerhorn's secret report found its way to Whitehall, instead of to Paris, and may be read in the memoirs of Lord Castlereagh.^ Two years later, the Swede will again be found tracked from Hamburg to London, and arrested on Portland's warrant. Mr. Froude's allusion to the facilities of command exercised by ' the person ' over Lady Fitzgerald's letter-bag, the hints he gave Downshire how secret letters from Hamburg were sealed and addressed, and how they might be intercepted, read, and then passed on,^ are only those gleams of light that shine dimly in dark places, but enough, with present knowledge, to discern a good deal. It will be remembered that Downshire's visitor, in his list of men marked out for doom, gave prominence to Dr. Macnevin, ' a Physician who had great weight with the Papists.' • He (the betrayer) had discovered,' writes Froude, * 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.' The famous memorial of Dr. Macnevin, embracing a full report on the state of Ireland, and appealing to France for help, was written at this time.^ On arrival at Hamburg he entrusted it to Eeinhard, the French minister there, by whom — as we learn from the 'CornwaUis Papers' — it was translated and forwarded to Paris. Mr. Froude thinks its betrayal to the English Cabinet a very remarkable circum- stance, and the more strange because * no suspicion has been suggested of Macnevin's treachery.' A hidden hand • Castlereagh Papers, i. 286-8 ' Among the letters headed ' Secret Information from Hamburg,' in the Castlereagh Papers, is one making allusion to the writer's previous communi- cations with Downshire, whom he mentions by name, and stating that certain letters to Charles Rankin, of Belfast, were ' to be sealed with a particular seal I have for the purpose.' — Ibid. i. 234. * Mr. Lecky says, what previous writers do not, that Macnevin wrote the memorial at Hamburg. macnevin's memorial betrayed 63 contrived to pass on to Pitt this document destined to become historic.^ Wickham, writing to Castlereagh on August 15, 1798, states that the rebel executive committee directed Dr. Macnevin to proceed to Paris by the way of Hamburg ; that the principal objects of his journey were to give additional weight and credit to the mission of Lewins, and to confirm the information that had already been transmitted. ^ Again the reader may be re- minded that Lewins and Turner were rival envoys. Each is found constantly trying to circumvent the other. Turner, therefore, had a special object in foiling and intercepting Macnevin 's memorial. Pieinhard, in the betrayed despatch of July 12, 1797, tells De la Croix, at Paris, that every confidence might be reposed in Lewins. Lewins' usual post was at Paris, just as Turner's was at Hamburg, but both passed to and fro. Of Lewins, Eeinhard takes care to say that Macnevin not only attested that he possesses, and deserves, the utmost con- fidence, but that he is designated a minister at Paris in case of success. Mr. Macnevin wished much that his memorial should be communicated to him.^ If it was Turner's interest to intercept Eeinhard's letter establishing confidence in Lewins, it was still more his interest to keep back from Lewins a document which, while vindicating his name, would protect it from further attack ; and this the ' Memorial ' of Macnevin was designed to do. Camden had now ceased to be Viceroy and was succeeded by Cornwallis.* The latter co-operates with the Home Secre- tary in screening from publicity the name of their informer. The report of the Secret Committee was now in progress. Cornwallis, writing to Portland, says : — ' other intercepted letters addressed to the French Minister of War will appear later on. These unanswered appeals were well calculated to damp the ardour of the Irish refugees ; but they tried to keep the machine of conspiracy moving —despite the subtle insertion of so many hidden obstacles tending to clog and destroy it. ^ Castlereagh Papers, i. 271. » Ibid. i. 284. * How this appointment came about, see Appendix. ■'y'^'V-. ;•••' •??=!ff!'^^ "^'^f'^'^TrTTiTT^ S.VWSr^i ih^'>f:}ltff''^'^\l$'.>KX!m?f^'yF«^^J!!f^JPf^' •■ '^^TS^f*^-? 64 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT The same reason may not operate against the production of Dr. Macnevin's memoir, which might be supposed to have fallen into our hands by various other means, and which, from its being pro- duced, without connection with the other papers, might not create any alarm in the quarter where it is so necessary that the most implicit confidence in our prudence and secrecy should be preserved. Your Grace will of course be aware that no account will be given, even to the Secret Committee, of the means by which these papers came into the hands of Government.' Portland duly acknowledged Lord Cornwallis's despatch, in which you represent the advantages which might result from laying before the Committees of Secrecy of the two Houses of Parliament in Ireland the whole, or at least a part, of the very secret and authentic documents relating to the conspiracy in that kingdom, which I had the King's permission from time to time to transmit to the late Lord-Lieutenant [Lord Camden]. I lost no time in acquainting his Majesty's confidential servants with your Excellency's sentiments upon this very important and delicate question ; and I am now to inform you that, after its having re- peatedly undergone the most serious investigation and discussion, the result of our unanimous opinion is, that the communication of the whole of those papers cannot on any account, or in any situa- tion of the country, be suffered to be made to a parliamentary com- mittee, under whatever qualification or conditions it may be ap- pointed, consistently with that secrecy which in certain cases the honour and safety of the State require to be observed. We agree, however, for the reasons you have stated, that the same objection does not exist to the production of the greater part of Dr. Macnevin's memoir, and I have therefore had an extract made of such parts of it as it appears to us may be laid before the pubHc without inconvenience. . . . To prevent as much as possible any occasion being given which can tend to a discovery of the channels by which this intelligence has been obtained, I most earnestly recommend to your Excellency to do your utmost in procuring that the facts which are stated from it may not stand in the report of the committees in the exact order in which they are given here, but that they may be mixed with other information which has been derived from other sources.'* ' Castlereagh Correspondence, i. 228. » Ibid. i. 251, liB'^'HA'l'*™";-'^^'^'* '-'►•-'-■ s " -• ' ■ V .•.-T"^ '■'»--Tr»4;.K:' «,•;'•.- •.:■■ .. ..— -v • . ■ 'ST THE SECRET COMMITTEE 65 The precautions taken to screen the betrayer were cer- tainly very complete. Castlereagh tells Wickham (July 30, 1798) :— flis Excellency authorised me to read the correspondence and memorial once over to the committee of the Commons, with a strict injunction that no person should note a single fact ; and I can truly state that the individuals on that committee are altogether in the dark as to the manner in which that intelligence was ob- tained, and, from the mode in which it was gone through, can only have a very general impression of its contents. The same precau- tion was used in the Lords ; and, I trust, although the Duke of Portland's despatch to his Excellency does not altogether sanction what has been done, yet that his Grace and the Ministers, who have so wisely enjoined the greatest precaution to be observed in the use to be made of that most interesting and important corre- spondence, will be of opinion that the guarded manner in which the Lord-Lieutenant made the communication to the committees, not authorising the smallest extracts to be made, or any of the facts to be relied on in their report, without being fully authorised by his Excellency, will preclude any danger to the State from this valuable channel of intelhgence being in any degree brought into suspicion.* In June 1798 Lord Edward was dead. The Sheares's had been executed. Macnevin, O'Connor, T. Addis Emmet, and Sampson lay in prison in Dublin. Blood flowed on every side. The city was like a shambles. The State prisoners, on the understanding that executions should cease, and that they might be allowed to leave Ireland, consented to reveal, but without implicating individuals, the scheme of the United Irish- men. A prolonged secret inquisition by the Secret Committee took place. As soon as their evidence appeared, Macnevin and his fellow-prisoners complained, by a public advertisement, that the Crown officials who drew up the report of the Secret Committee had garbled the facts and distorted their evidence. Into all this it is not necessary now to go, but it may be observed that, whUe everything inconvenient was left out, an innuendo was made that the betrayal of Dr. Macnevin's memoir may have been due to Eeinhard, the French Minister. * Castlereagh Correspondence, i. 246-7. P 66 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT This — apart from M. Mignet's testimony to the incorrupti- bility of Eeinhard — serves to exculpate him, and narrows the spot on which suspicion now rests. Eeinhard, in his letter to De la Croix, thinks it strange that Turner had never spoken to him about certain revelations made by ' the Secret Committee of the Parliament of Ireland ; ' ^ but the reason now seems intelligible enough. Macnevin published his * Pieces of Irish History ' ^ at New York in 1807, and notices the betrayal of the memorial which he had addressed to the French Government. Up to that time, and until his death in 1840, he does not seem to suspect Turner. Had any such doubt occurred to him, he would have been the first to avow it. At p. 146 of his book Macnevin inveighs against a * profligate informer,' * a ruffian of the name of Eeynolds ; ' but Eeynolds' treachery was confined to the arrests at Bond's in Dublin, and did not take place until March 1798. Ten pages further on Macnevin speaks of the * un- paralleled fidelity of the United Irish Body,' Dr. Macnevin was struck by the knowledge the Government had acquired of the * negotiations of the United Irishmen with foreign States,' and, he adds, * at this time one of the deputies [i.e. himself] had personal evidence of its extent and accuracy. That know- ledge was obtained from some person in the pay of England and in the confidence of France.' And Dr. Macnevin then proceeds to point to Eeinhard by name ! This is just what the officials of the Home Office wished for all along. Wickham, referring to the publication of Macnevin's memorial by the Secret Committee of the House of Lords, writes : * It may fairly be presumed that the copy has been obtained at [the Foreign Office] Paris, or from E.'s [Eeinhard's] secretary at Hamburg. This conjecture will be at least as prohahle as the real one.' ^ One circumstance struck Macnevin as * confirmation * Castlereagh Con-espondence, i. 275-6. * AUibone erroneously assigns (p. 558) the authorship of this book to Thomas Addis Emmet. * Castlereagh Papers, i. 237. A WRONGED MAN C7 strong ' of his dark suspicion. Eeinhard, as he tells us, made difficulties about giving him a passport to Paris. A most important despatch from Eeinhard to De la Croix thus concludes : — What I must particularly urge, Citizen Minister, in regard to this business, is, at least, that you -will have the goodness to direct me as to Mr. Macnevin. I will not give another passport without your order. ^ This letter — possibly written at Lady Edward Fitzgerald's house at Hamburg, and put into her post-bag — was treacher- ously betrayed to Pitt. Wh^en De la Croix remained ominously silent in response to the above appeal, is it surprising that Reinhard should have made difficulties and delays in giving Macnevm a passport ? ^ Macnevin's groundless distrust of Eeinhard naturally in- fluenced the views of a most painstaking investigator. Dr. Madden, who, when he at last saw, in the * Castlereagh Papers,' Eeinhard's letters to De la Croix, regarded the cir- cumstance as damning proof of his treachery.^ Subsequently Mignet, the great French historian and keeper of the minis- terial archives at Paris, who had ample official means of knowing the character and acts of both Eeinhard and De la Croix, assured Madden in writing that both men were in- corruptible. This may be taken as conclusive, for, unlike Turner, there is not a line in any English State Paper tending to compromise Eeinhard or De la Croix.'* For the act of betrayal we must therefore look to Samuel Turner, agent at Hamburg of the United Irish Brotherhood ; * Castlereagh Papers, i. 281-6. * Reinhard seems to have complained to the French Directory that his letters to De la Croix were not answered. The last intercepted letters are dated July 1797 ; and on the 15th of the same month Talleyrand was appointed to succeed De la Croix, who had been unjustly suspected. De la Croix survived until 1805, when he died at Bordeaux, mortified by the desertion of some old friends. * Lives and Times of the United Irishmen, ii. 290. * Arthur O'Connor, at all times distrustful, seems to have suspected the upright Macnevin. They were never quite cordial afterwards, and it is certain that in 1804, when both served in the Irish Legion, a duel very nearly took place between them. F 2 68 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT the man who had access to the most secret papers in Lady Fitzgerald's house, and who, we learn, * was admitted to close and secret conversations upon the prospect of French inter- ference in Ireland with Eeinhard.' This, in fact, was the grand proof submitted by Downshire's visitor to show that he was in a position to spy to advantage — a fact sufficient in itself to demonstrate that Reinhard was himself no spy. Dr. Madden's suspicion of Eeinhard was doubtless strength- ened by a passage which for a long time puzzled myself, and occurs in Wickham's letter to Castlereagh of June 8, 1798. Wickham speaks of ' information confirmed by a person at Hamburg, who musf necessarily have derived his intelligence from a very different source, and who could not but be ignorant of that from which R. had procured all that he has communicated to us.' The name thus masked is not Rein- hard, but Richardson — ^^an alias for Turner, as proved at p. 48 ante. One thing greatly complicated this puzzle as regards * R.' Wickham, in a subsequent letter, dated July 25, 1798, speaks of ' R.' — meaning not Richardson, but Reinhard, as the con- text shows.' But these blanks are due to the noble editor of the ' Castlereagh Papers,' the late Lord Londonderry ; and in cloaking the name Richardson — though it inadvertently peeps out in one place, like * Capel ' instead of * Catesby ' in * Lothair ' — he doubtless thought that it was a real name. On February 18, 1798, Lord Moira addressed the House of Lords in favour of CathoUc Emancipation, which, he de- clared, must be granted, as well as Parliamentary Reform. * The greatest evil to be feared from it sinks to nothing com- pared to the mischief which is raging at present. The ex- pression of a conciliatory desire on your part would suspend immediately the agitation of the public mind.' Mr. Froude says that the members of Council knew more than Lord Moira — * if he really believed his words ; ' and he adds that they must have found it hard 'to sit patient under his flatulent declamation.' How much Turner's tattle ' See Castlereagh Fajycrs, i. 237. p^p.^- ^ ,. THE COST OF THE REBELLION C9 had excited the Cabinet, and aroused lasting prejudice against a statesman not less able than estimable, appears from the historian's words : * At that moment the Council were weigh- ing intelligence from the friend at Hamburg, so serious that they had all but resolved on an immediate arrest of the entire Eevolutionary Committee.' Eeinhard tells De la Croix, on July 12, 1797, that while * Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Macnevin ^ were of the moderate party, Tm^ner was for a speedy explosion.' ^ Turner was co-operating in a very base policy, one which unscrupulous statesmen are said to have planned. During the examination of Macnevin before the Secret Committee, Lord Castlereagh confessed that ' means were taken to make the United Irish system explode.' The policy of exciting a premature explosion before Ireland had been organised peeps forth in the Eeport of the Secret Committee of the Irish Parliament : * The rebellion [we are told] would not have broken out so soon as it did, had it not been for the well-timed measures adopted by Govern- ment.' Turner's policy changed according as the policy of his employers changed. In March 1798 the rebel Directory at Dublin were seized as they sat in council at Oliver Bond's. Soon after, three out of thirty-two counties rose ; and to crush that partial revolt cost England twenty-two millions of pounds and twenty thousand men. ' After 1798 Macnevin migrated to America, where he filled several impor- tant medical posts, and published numerous books. He survived until July 1841. * Castlereagh, i. 283. 70 SECRET SEKVICE UNDER PITT CHAPTER VIII GENERAL NAPPER TANDY An old and very influential French newspaper, *Le Journal des Debats,' published, on February 29, 1884, an article descriptive of the pleasure with which its writer had heard sung a touching but simple Irish lyric, * La Cocarde Verte,' commemorative of the career of General Napper Tandy. It had been sung, he said, at Paris, by an English girl, who threw into its simple lines a power most entrancing. The melody and the words continued to haunt him at all hours,^ and, some months later, we learn, found him in London, seeking information, but in vain, regarding Napper Tandy and the song. During a subsequent tour to the * Giant's Causeway,' his inquiries were not much more successful. ' J'avouai que nos histoires de France ne nous parlent pas de Napper Tandy, et je quittai Portrush sans etre absolument satisfait.' When French history is silent as regards Tandy, and remote inquirers appear so much interested about him, the present chapter may not have been written in vain. The arrest by.British agencies of Tandy and others within the neutral territory of Hamburg and contrary to the law of nations was baldly denied for some time.*^ A similar tone ' The words of the French writer will be found at p. 78, infra. ^ The London Courier of September 14, 1799, displays the following trans- lation of a letter addressed to a Paris journal : ' Citizens, — The Redacteur has said, and many other Journalists have repeated it, that Napper Tandy had been given up by the Senate of Hamburg. I declare to you, Citizens, that not a word is said of this in any letters received in any of the Banking houses in Paris, nor in those which I myself have received. I hasten to give you this information, because the Public ought never to be deceived. (Signed) ' Daniel C. Meter, ' Consul General from Hamburgh.' GENERAL NAPPER TANDY 71 ■was taken by official authority as regards the subsequent surrender of Tandy to England ; but how true was the story, and with what striking circumstances fraught, will presently appear. Soon after the departure of Humbert's expedition for Ireland, Tandy, now a general in the French service, accom- panied by a large staff, including Corbet and Blackwell, sailed from Dunkirk in the French ship * Anacreon,' having on board a store of ordnance, arms, ammunition, saddles, and accoutre- ments. He effected a landing on the coast of Donegal, but, learning that Humbert, after having beaten Lake at Castle- bar, had met with reverses and surrendered to Cornwallis, he abandoned the enterprise and re-embarked. It is told in the * Castlereagh Papers' that the 'Anacreon,' when attacked by an English cruiser, gave battle near the Orkneys, and that ' Tandy had put two twelve-pound shot in his pockets, previous to leaping overboard in the event of striking to the English ship.' ^ An interesting memoir of Colonel Blackwell, who died in 1809, appears in Walter Cox's 'Irish Magazine' for that year. William Murphy, an old '98 man, and afterwards the well- known millionaire, said that Cox played fast and loose, betraying his own party and the Government alternately. Cox begins by saying that * few occurrences excited a stronger or more universal sensation than the treacherous arrest at Hamburg, in 1798, of Blackwell, Morres, Tandy and Corbet.' Cox describes Blackwell's perilous descent with Tandy on the Irish coast, and states that, when passing through Hamburg going back to France, the secret of his arrival and that of his comrades * was betrayed to the British envoy, Crawford, by two pensioned spies of England, Turner and Duckett.' ^ Cox was a shrewd man ; but when suspicion is once raised ' Castlereagh Papers, i. 405. The letter, of which this is a bit, was written by a spy who contrived to accompany Tandy as a sort of aide-de-camp, and was on board the ' Anacreon ' during the voyage. Wickham divulges merely his initial, ' 0,' but the reader will find his name and career successfully traced in the Appendix. * Cox's Irish Magazine, January 1809, pp. 32-4. ?:"Ti - 72 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT it is apt to extend beyond due limits. He was right as regards Turner ; he wronged Duckett. His impression of at least the first was probably derived from Blackwell himself, for Cox acknowledges that some of the facts ' the writer of this sketch received from the mouth of Colonel Blackwell.' General Corbet privately printed at Paris, in 1807, strictures on the conduct of the Senate of Hamburg for having handed him over to the British minister. Appended to this brochure is a letter written by Tandy some days before his death, giving an account of his arrest. ' The original,' writes Corbet, ' is in my possession.' I arrived in Hamburg on the evening of the 22nd of November, 1798 [writes Tandy], and the next day I went with M. Corbet to visit the French minister and the Consul General Lagan to obtain pass- ports to Paris. I passed the day with the consul general and prepared for my departure, which was to have taken place the following day. I was invited to sup the same evening by Messrs. T and D , in a house where Blackwell, Corbet, and Morres supped also ; we remained there till midnight, and at four o'clock went to our hotel. Towards morning I was awakened by armed men rushing into my chamber. Cox jumped at the conclusion that the names thus cautiously initialled by Corbet, are Turner and Duckett.^ A coming chapter will vindicate Duckett ; and I am bound to conclude that this man, if he really joined the supper party, had been duped by the plausibility of Turner. Turner and Duckett have been previously shown as on friendly terms.'^ The accuracy of the information by which Crawford, the British minister at Hamburg, was able to effect his coup excited general surprise. According to the ' Castlereagh Papers ' tidings reached him that Tandy and others were lodged at an ' It will be shown, later on, that an Irish spy named ' Durnin ' resided at Hamburg. ■^ See letter to Talleyrand, ante, p. 27. Some persons supposed that because Duckett lived at Hamburg like Turner, he used that great gangway to France for espionage. In the Castlereagh Papers (ii. 6) Duckett is described as ' Secretary to Leonard Bourdon.' Bourdon is noticed in the Nouvelle Biag. G6nirale, was ' I'agent du Directoire k Hambourg, d'oii il fit partir lea 6migr6s.' THE ARREST AT HAMBURG 73 inn in Hamburg called the 'American Arms,' and on November 24, 1798, soon after five o'clock a.m., this minister, accom- panied by a guard, entered the house. Early as it was, Napper Tandy was found writing. The officer demanded his passport. Thereupon Tandy, with composure, said he would produce it, and going to his trunk he took out a pistol, which presenting, he said : ' This is my passport.' The officer grappled with him, and the guard rushing in secured Tandy. ' He and his associates were put in irons, and confined by order of Sir James Crawford.' ^ And now for a short digression ere finishing the story of Tandy's woes. People were puzzled to know how the complicated intrigue which achieved his capture — contrary to the law of nations — could have been completed in a few hours. There can be little doubt that Turner — whom Cox broadly charges with the betrayal, by furnishing information to Crawford had ample notice of their coming.^ Besides Turner's personal acquaintance with Tandy, official ties of brotherhood had arisen between them, and nothing was more natural than the invitation to sup. A letter headed * Secret Information from Hamburg,' and bearing date August 16, 1798, has found its way into Lord Castlereagh's correspondence.^ The writer, clearly Turner, is found back at Hamburg after one of his periodic visits to Paris, where, with his usual audace, he claimed to be an * Sir James Crawford, British minister at Hamburg from 1798 to 1803. Crawford afterwards filled a similar post at Copenhagen, where Eeynolds, the Kildare informer, is also found acting as British consul. Eeynolds's betrayals were long subsequent to those of Turner, and of a wholly different sort. His evidence was given in court publicly. The editor of the Comwallis Papers states that Crawford died on July 9, 1839 ; but Mr. Boss confounds him with an utterly different man. The Black Book, published in 1820, records (p. 31) a pension of lOOOZ. ' continued to the family of Sir James Crawford, late minister at Copenhagen, dead.' The ' most exhaustive ' works of biographical reference omit Sir James Crawford, a remarkable man, and one who played an important part in European history ; and a letter of mine in Notes and Queries, asking for facts about him, failed to elicit a reply. ■■* Infra, p. 79. * Castlereagh Papers, i. 306-9. 74 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT accredited envoy of the United Irishmen, and sought to dis- credit the mission of Lewins. Before Tandy had left Paris for Dunkirk, where the * Anacreon ' was being equipped for Ireland, he had some unpleasant differences with Lewins and Wolfe Tone.^ This afforded prospect of a golden harvest for our spy. Tone had long avoided Turner; Lewins repudiated his pretensions. Our spy now * sided ' with Tandy's party, and intrigued to such purpose that he seems to have got himself appointed locum tenens of the general. In this affair Muir and Madgett, with honest motives, bore a part. Muir, a distinguished Scotch advocate, had attached himself to the republican interest, and was tried for sedition.^ Madgett — an old Irish refugee — held a post in the Foreign Office in Paris, and will be remembered by readers of Tone's Diary as in constant communication with him. It is needless to quote in full the anonymous letter of our spy. It will be found in the * Castle- reagh Papers,' vol. i. pp. 306-9. The men noticed in it, McMahon and O'Coigly, McCann and Lowry, had been old allies of Turner's ; and ' Casey, brother to the priest,' Tone, Tandy, Lewins, Teeling, Orr of Derry, McCormack, all figure in the original information conveyed to Lord Down- shire. The letter begins by saying that ' Tandy, having quarrelled ' Why Tone's Diary, as published, does not once name Turner, may be due to the uncertainty as to whether Turner was alive in 1826, and perhaps Tone's son, from motives of prudence, cut out some allusions to him. Tone died in a Dublin prison on November 19, 1798, three days before the arrest of Tandy. Tone and Turner were closely associated in their studies, distinctions, and political pursuits. Turner entered Trinity College, Dublin, on July 2, 1780 ; Tone entered on February 19, 1780. Turner was called to the Bar in 1788 ; Tone in 1789. '^ Muir's trial took place on August 30, 1793. He was transported to New South Wales, from which he escaped by American agency. After a series of great sufiferings he arrived at Paris in February 1798, but died on September 27 that year from the effect of the hardships he had endured. The papers of the Home Office show that in 1793 Muir came to Dublin to confer with the United Irishmen, and on January 11 in that year was elected one of the brotherhood. Vide also Life of Thomas Muir, Advocate, by P. Mackenzie (Simpkin, 1831). PRIVATE INFORMATION 75 with Lewins and Tone, called a meeting of United Irishmen, at which a division took place ; the numbers pretty equal.' Tandy's rupture with Lewins was quite enough to make Turner take Tandy's side. Dating from Hamburg, and believing thai the real * minister of the interior ' was a good cook, he writes : — A General Creevy, who goes with the great expedition [to Ire- land], called on me one day at Paris and stayed dinner. Muir and Madgett were of the party. It was for the purpose of inquiring into Tone's character, which we gave him. Madgett and Muir swore me into the Secret Committee for managing the a£fairs of Ireland and Scotland in Tandy's place : there are only we three of the committee. He then proceeds to describe his visit to the Hague, and the information he acquired there. It may be asked if any evidence exists that Samuel Turner left his usual quarters at Hamburg and was in Paris at this time, and afterwards at the Hague. On p. 409 of the same volume of Castlereagh, Turner is described by name as in Paris on business connected with the United Irishmen, and that from thence he repaired to the Hague. Here he was consulted, as he stated, by General Joubert on various points, including the * safest places for debarkation.* The West coast, he tells Wickham, * seemed to be the most eligible, from Derry to Galway.' In the letter to Talleyrand' the West coast is also suggested as the best point to invade. * The spy, after alluding to the * contrivances of Lewins,' who * strives to prevent any person doing anything with the (French) Government but himself,' reports Duckett as a most active ' Ante, pp. 25-9. * A man whom he found in consultation with Joubert, planning the invasion of Ireland with a map of it before them, he describes in this and subsequent letters as O'Herne. Students of the Castlereagh Papers have been unable to identify this man ; but it is clear that the O'Herne who figures in them was no other than Ahearne, so often mentioned by Tone in his Diary. The letter to Wickham mentions General Daendels as a co-conspirator with O'Herne. In Tone's Diary we read (p. 460) : ' Eeceived a letter from General Daendels, desiring me to send on Aheme to him, without loss of time, to be employed on a secret mission.' 76 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT rebel. He makes this statement in a paper meant for the private perusal of Portland ^ and Wickham. Thus it would appear that Blackwell and Cox wronged Duckett in accusing him of informing against Tandy. To Duckett, a man hitherto maligned, it is necessary in justice to return. Lord Edward had died in Newgate June 4, 1798. The departure of his widow from Dublin and return to Hamburg are announced in the * Evening Post ' of August 16, ensuing. Our spy, as the ' friend ' of the dead Geraldine, welcoming Pamela back and tendering sympathy and consolation, would be a good subject for a picture. Mr. Froude tells us that the great power wielded by this seeming exile of Erin lay in his intimacy with Lady Edward Fitzgerald at Hamburg. Morres had been sojourning here previous to Tandy's arrival, and, like Turner, received hospitality at her hands. * LOrd Down- shire's friend,' who we are told had access to her house and post-bag, could not fail to know Morres well. It will be remembered that Dr. Madden blows hot and cold on Eein- hard, the French minister at Hamburg, and suggests that he may have betrayed to Pitt his correspondence with De la Croix ; but Eeinhard had now been succeeded by a new man ; and if further exculpation * of Eeinhard were needed after the testimony of Mignet, it is found in the fact that the corre- spondence of his successor was also tampered with. The letter of ' Lord Downshire's friend,' in which he proposes to be- come a spy, mentions, as a striking proof of his power, that he had full access to the bureau of the French resident at Hamburg : M. Maragan now filled this post. A letter addressed by him to Talleyrand may be found in the ' Castle- reagh Papers.' ' The writer mentions his election in Tandy's place as proof of his unsleep- ing vigilance and increased power to betray. Portland, instead of seeing that the man thus ready to take a false oath would not scruple to say anything, was 80 struck by the importance of the letter that he sent a copy of it to Dublin for the guidance of Lord Castlereagh. Here was a man, as Curran once said of an approver, ' willing to steep the Evangelists in blood.' Turner, in a previous letter (ante, p. 28), glibly writes : ' I attest the business on oath.' * Vide ante, p. 68 et seq. HARVEY MOREES 77 Most Secret. Hambourg, 29 Brumaire. M. Harvey Montmorency Morres/ of Kivesallen, in Ireland, has called upon me, on the part of the interesting Lady Edward Fitz gerald : he has heen outlawed, and fears that he is not safe at Hamburg. He was an intimate friend of the late Lord E. Fitz- gerald's ; he has, therefore, acquired a right to the kindness of the widow, and it is on this ground alone that she has allowed herself to express it. Mr. Morres was the leader of the numerous corps of United Irishmen : he is utterly ruined in consequence of his attach- ment to the cause of liberty. He wishes to go to France, where he has important matters to communicate. He is expecting from day to day an officer, who has commanded some expedition, and he hopes to make the journey with him.^ This was Tandy, as a succeeding letter explains. Tandy and Morres were seized at the same moment, and doubtless on the same whisper. Hamburg encouraged an impression that Kussia prompted this arrest ; but, unless on the hypothesis that Pitt had the Senate of Hamburg in his pay, it is hard to understand how orders were sent to effect arrests there, just as if it were on British territory. Mr. Secretary Elliot was a member of the family which some months previously received the peerage of Minto in acknowledgment of diplomatic service. This official, writing to Lord Castlereagh, says : ' I learn from Mr. Hammond, Canning's colleague [in the Foreign Office], that Napper Tandy is suspected to be at Hamburg, and instructions have been sent to our resident there to appre- hend him.' 3 Thus Crawford must have heard in advance of Tandy's coming, and taken his steps accordingly. Of course he at once acquainted the head of his department ; and hence the remark of Mr. Elliot.* Some historians convey that ' Harvey Morres, of the ennobled family of Frankfort (b. 1767), had been in the Austrian service previous to joining the Irish rebellion ; married, in 1802, the widow of Dr. Esmonde who was hanged in '98. He subsequently gained the rank of a French colonel, and died in 1839. * Castlereagh Papers, ii. 96. » Ibid. i. 405. ' * Tandy had borne a part in every Irish national movement from November 1783, when the Volunteer Convention met. He was a most determined man •\^-'F,.T^ ■ 78 SECRET SERVICE UXDER TITT Tandy, after his ill-fated expedition to Ireland, returned direct from Donegal to Hamburg, en route for France. The words of the editor of the ' Cornwallis Papers ' are that * he re- turned immediately to France.'' But these accounts are most misleading. Tandy did not get back to France. until after his liberation in 1802, and instead of the few days which might be supposed to intervene between the departure from Donegal and arrival at Hamburg, it was nearer to two months. Dread- ing renewed trouble with the English cruisers, Tandy gave orders to steer for Norway. All landed at Bergen, and after suffering many vicissitudes sought to reach France by land. The cold became so intense that, as Corbet notes, people were found frozen to death at the gate of Hamburg. Weary and footsore, Tandy arrived here at twilight on November 22, 1798. Hungry for Irish news, he readily embraced Turner's invitation to sup.^ This meeting between Tandy and the man whose * wearing of the Green ' ^ had forced to fly his native land may have been in the thoughts of the rebel bard when writing the rude ballad which, a century later, so excited the querist in the ' Journal des Debats : — ' ^ and a firm believer in artillery, a brigade of which he commanded in Dublin, with the words ' Free Trade or ' inscribed on the breeches of the guns. The procession of Volunteer delegates from the Eoyal Exchange to the Rotunda was announced by the discharge of twenty-one cannon. ' It is doubtful whether the supper formed part of the plan for the arrest. All arrangements with that design had been already organised. In vino Veritas ; and the effect of the supper was, of course, an increased knowledge and command of the conspiracy, with proportionate profit to the spy. For such suppers he had a special gusto. ' I supped last night with Valence, who mentioned having introduced Lord Edward, &c., Howell's State Trials, xxvii. 1194-1243. - John Wolcot is a rare name. All have heard of John Wolcot, well known as ' Peter Pindar,' the merciless assailant of George the Third. NAPOLEON'S HOSTAGE 85 feast, presiding at a bridal breakfast and wishing joy and long life to his friends. His trip to Ireland ' killed two birds with one stone,' for the Book of Secret Service Money expenditure reveals that on July 8, 1801, 111. 13s. del. is paid 'per Mr. Turner to Chapman in Cork for one year and eleven weeks, at one guinea.' Chapman I suspect to have been a minoi' agent employed by Turner to ferret out evidence against Morres and the Corbets (both Cork men), and in connection with the prosecution of Tandy.' The ' one year and eleven weeks * would cover the time that Tandy and his companions, after their removal from Hamburg, lay in an Irish gaol awaiting their trial. Tandy, finding the evidence against him overwhelming,. admitted the accuracy of the indictment, and was sentenced to die on the fourth of the ensuing May. In this course he was doubtless influenced by his son, with whom, as will be seen, McNally, the debauched legal adviser of the rebels, could do what he liked.'^ Meanwhile Napoleon, on his return from Egypt, claimed him as a French general, and held an English prisoner of equal rank a hostage for his safety. It was now not so clear that Pitt had a legal claim to the life of a man who wore the uniform of a French officer, and had come into his hands under circumstances the most peculiar. As regards Blackwell, the fellow-prisoner of Tandy, Portland, writing to Cornwallis, speaks of having been im- portuned by Mrs. Blackwell's family, whom he describes as * of considerable influence in Somersetshire,' and imagines that ' there is no intention of inflicting any punishment on Mr. Blackwell.' ^ Soon after we find Blackwell * discharged, but, unlike Morres, he proudly refused to give bail. Morres after ' The intercepted memorial from Morres to the French Government, pre- served in the Castlereagh Papers (ii. 96), urges : ' In case of future attempts on Ireland on the part of France, the province of Munster, which abounds in good havens, and whose men are the best republicans in Ireland, is the point to be looked to.' The capture of Cork is proposed, i. 295. * See Appendix, ' James Tandy.' ' Cornwallis Papers, iii. 284. * See memoir af Blackwell in Cox's Irish Magazine of Neglected Biography for 1811, p. 32. 86 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT an imprisonment of more than three years regained his liberty on December 10, 1801. Tandy, less fortunate, was removed to Wicldow gaol, and his son asserts that while there the French minister in London signified that Buonaparte had sent direc- tions to his brother Joseph not to sign the treaty of peace ' at Amiens ' till Tandy was restored. M. Otto had in fact, as Bourrienne states,^ previously negotiated with Lord Hawkes- bury for his release- Mr. Froude says that * Tandy was spared as too contemptible to be worth punishing.' ^ This hardly conveys a true idea of the facts. A pardon was at last made out for him on condition of banishment to Botany Bay. To this proviso his son demurred ; but, as Mr. Marsden, the Under Secretary at Dublin Castle, assured him, ' all that was required was merely the name of transportation, in order to strike terror into others ; and that he would pledge his honour, if he acquiesced, that his father should be landed wherever he pleased, that it might appear to the world as if he made his escape at sea.' ^ Tandy arrived at Bordeaux on March 14, 1802. Bona- parte's treaty with England was signed on the 27th of the same month. Military honours hailed Tandy. Bordeaux was illuminated, and he was promoted to the rank of a general of division. But in the midst of this jubilee the old rebel read with horror a speech of Pelham's in ParUament stating that ' Tandy owed his life to the useful information and discoveries he had given to the British Government.' He addressed a letter to Pelham, now a peer, branding the state- ment as mean, audacious, and false. * This may appear uncouth language to a courtly ear,' he added; 'but it is the voice of truth. I never had any connection or corre- spondence with your Government, and if I had, they knew my character too well to attempt to tamper with me. Had you contented yourself with saying, "there were particular cir- cumstances in my case," you would have adhered to the truth, ' Life of Napoleon. * English in Ireland, in. 488. =■ Appeal to the Public, by James Tandy (Dublin, 1807), p. 108, 2nd ed. Halliday Pamphlets, vol. 915, R.I.A. TANDY'S RETORT 87 for you know the whole, though you have let out only a part ! ' Tandy thus concluded : * I am, my Lord, with the same sentiments which I have uniformly cherished and supported, a friend to universal benevolence, and an enemy to those only who raise their fortunes on their country's ruin ! ' Pelham probably confounded Napper Tandy with James Tandy, from whom information had been given to his confi- dant, McNally, and by * Mac ' conveyed to Dublin Castle. Napper told his son all, not thinking it would transpire. His feelings had been roused by the imputation, and in a letter to the * Argus ' he gave them fuller vent. * Had discoveries been proposed to me, I should have rejected, with scorn and indignation, a baseness which my soul abhorred ... I had made up my mind for death in a cause which no mode of execution could stamp disgrace upon. It would have been death in the cause of freedom and of my country — a cause which would have converted the scaffold into an altar, the sufferer into a victim ! ' Mr. Elliot, who, I think, afterwards succeeded his brother as Lord St. Germans, echoed in Parliament the taunt cast by Pelham, and spoke of ' Tandy's ignorance and insignificant birth.' ^ Tandy, addressing Elliot, said : — The illiberal attack which you have made upon me in your speech of the 24th of November last, in the British House of Commons, is the cause of my troubling you with this. My ' ignorance and in- significance,' which you have painted in such glowing colours, ought, with a man of sense, to have been my protection ; but you have proved yourself as deficient in this, as in point of good manners, which is the true criterion of a gentleman. You cannot, sir, but know (for you pretend to be a man of in- ' This is probably the same Mr. Elliot (see ante, p. 77) who states that in- structions had been sent to have Tandy arrested on the neutral ground of Ham- burg, Elhot, who applied the term ' insignificant ' to Tandy, must have read the informer's letter (since published in the Castlereagh Papers, pp. 405-9), where Tandy is described, among other contemptuous epithets, as ' insignifi- cant ' I ElUot is styled in the Castlereagh Papers, ' MiUtary Secretary to Lord Cornwalhs, the Viceroy.' ' Cornwallis Elliot ' is a favourite name in the St. Germans family. Tandy addresses his assailant merely as ' Mr. Elliot.' The Elhots formed a powerful diplomatic coterie. * -i / 88 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT formation) that I hold a high rank in the army of this great and generous nation, which places me upon a footing with the proudest peer of your island. You know, also, that the honour of a soldier is dearer to him than life ; yet, with these facts before you, you have dared to traduce my character, and have attempted to affix a stigma to my name which nothing can now wipe out but the blood of one of us. A French officer must not be insulted with impunity, and you, as well as the country which gave me birth, and that which has adopted me, shall find that I will preserve the honour of my station. I, therefore, demand of you to name some town on the Continent where you will be found, accompanied by your friend and your pistols — giving me sufficient time to leave this, and arrive at the place appointed. Napper Tandy, General of Division. Bourdeaux, December 12, 1802. Eight weeks elapsed. Elliot failed to reply, and Tandy, in accordance with the fashion of the day, proclaimed him ' a calumniator, a liar, and a poltroon ! ' This fierce climax was preceded by a more temperate tone. The question in debate [he said, when Elliot asailed him] was for laying a tax on Great Britain, in which I, as a French citizen, could not possibly be implicated, and, therefore, it is evident that I was wantonly dragged in for the sole purpose of calumny and abuse. Such conduct was unmanly, as no brave man would attack a defenceless person, much less an absent one. Ignorant of the source to which his betrayal was due, it did not occur to Tandy that the speeches of EUiot and others may have aimed at diverting suspicion from their real informant. Tandy, in reply, advanced merely the suspicion that the charge of being an informer was fulminated to excite the jealousy and disgust of his adopted country France, which, unlike America, had opened her arms to afford him protection.' ' Elliot, writing to Lord Castlereagh, says : ' The Americans absolutely refuse to admit the Irish traitors into their territories ' (Castlereagh Papers, i. 405, 411, 413, 415, 421). This is the letter which refers to the contemplated arrest of Tandy at the Hague, and in it he further says : ' I have begged Felham to come to London immediately.' Succeeding letters describe Elliot and Pelham closeted together at various places. CORBErS ESCAPE FROM GAOL 89 The wearing worry of Tandy's later life had sapped his strength, and left him sensitively open to hostile shafts, which his conduct provoked. His vanity was commensurate with his patriotism, and in his stoutest day was easily wounded. He gradually sank, and died at Bordeaux in 1803. * His private character,' writes Barrington, * furnished no ground to doubt the integrity of his public one.' He died, as he had lived, a staunch Protestant. • Much has been written of the wonderful escape from Kilmainham Gaol of Corbet, afterwards a general in the French service, and one of the prisoners captured with Tandy at Hamburg, and thence removed to Dublin. Miss Edgeworth was so much struck by this romantic escape, that she made it the leading incident of her best novel. But, considering the subtle international difficulties that had arisen, and with the suggestion of Under-Secretary Marsden before us, it is a ques- tion how far Corbet's escape may not have been connived at by Castlereagh. The sermon which Napoleon preached to the Hamburg deputies on their infringement of the law of nations was in the mouths of his admirers for years after ; but it lost in impres- siveness by his own violation of the neutral territory of Baden, when, on the night of March 17, 1804, he sent a strong guard ' The Society of United Irishmen had no treasonable design when first formed, as the following letter admitting the O'Conor Don would almost in itself convey. Tandy writes to Charles O'Connor from Dublin, December 8, 1791 : — ' Sir, — I have to acknowledge the favour of your very polite letter, and to assure you that I had particular pleasure in seconding the motion for the ad- mission of Mr. O'Conor into the Society of United Irishmen — and that no exertion of mine shall be wanting to oompleat the emancipation of my country, give her a free and general representation, and render to every man what I conceive to be his just and undoubted rights, security for his liberty and property, and a participation in the blessings of that land where Nature has placed him. (O'Conor Don MSS.) Parliamentary Beform and Catholic Emancipation were the two objects sought ; and it was only when both demands had been spumed by the Irish Parliament that the organisation drifted into deeper plans. Some recollections of Tandy's expedition to Ireland will be found in the Appendix. 90 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT to seize and carry off to France the Due d'Enghien. After a hasty trial by court-martial, and on unproven charges of con- spiracy, he was cruelly put to death in the Castle of Vincennes. In the heated discussions to which this outrage gave rise, Buonaparte more than once quoted the case of Tandy, and feebly sought to find in the past conduct of Hamburg a pre- cedent and justification. Thomas Addis Emmet accused him of coldness and in- decision as regards the long threatened invasion of Ireland, because, instead of steering for Erin in 1798, he changed his plan and went to Egypt. The arrest of Tandy in Hamburg re- kindled Napoleon's hostile feeling, and shortly after the death of that general he resolved to carry out comprehensively his oft-mooted design. The * Correspondence of Napoleon ' ' contains a letter to Berthier, dated September 27, 1804. He says that an expedi- tion to Ireland had been decided upon ; that 18,000 men for that purpose were ready at Brest ; that a simultaneous landing was to be attempted in Kent ; while in Ireland the French army would march straight on Dublin. Meanwhile 200,000 men were encamped at Boulogne ; but hostile plans collapsed with the^mash of the French fleet at Trafalgar. A few weeks later the so-called * Army of England ' traversed the banks of the blue Danube instead of the Thames. General Mack capitu- lated at Ulm ; Francis of Austria fled, and Napoleon's legions entered Vienna. ' Bingham's Correspondence of Napoleon, ii. 96. (Chapman and Hall, 1884.) 91 CHAPTEE IX ARKEST OF JAGERHORN IN LONDON — THE PLOT THICKENS — TURNER SHOT THROUGH THE HEAD In 1799, Turner's stealthy steps can be traced once more in London. It will be remembered that Lord Edward Fitzgerald bad met, by appointment near Whitechapel, M. Jagerhorn, a secret envoy of France, and gave him, in full detail, informa- tion regarding every point on which that agent had been charged to inquire. Jagerhorn was ' the estimable Swede ' named by Eeinhard, the French minister at Hamburg, when writing the intercepted letter. This document, dated July 12, the editor of the * Castlereagh Papers ' assigns to the year 1798 ; ^ but as Lord Edward was dead at that time,^ it must belong to the previous year. Other secret missives were sent to Dublin at the same time by the Home Ofi&ce, in order to guide the course of the Irish Government. These papers, j&lling forty pages of the book,^ were the result of a successful stroke of espionage at Hamburg. M. Jagerhorn is of course the person alluded to by Mr. Froude when describing the nocturnal visit to Lord Downshire. * He [Lord Edward] 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 contain- ing an allusion to some female friend of Lady Edward, through whom a correspondence was maintained between Ireland and Paris.' ' Castlereagh Correspondence, i. 282. * Lord Edward Fitzgerald died on June 4, 1798. * Castlereagh Correspondence, i. 270-309. 92 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT Hamburg was Turner's usual residence, and Jagerhorn had an estate near that place.* Although the case of M. Jagerhorn is opened in the first volume of the * Castlereagh Papers,' and misplaced among the incidents of another year, we do not find until far in the second the letters addressed to him in 1797 by General Valence and Lord Edward. In 1799 Jagerhorn had sought to renew his perilous enterprise. The same keen scent which traced Lord Edward, in 1797, to the lodgings of the confidential envoy in London, was once more on his track. Wickham, writing from the Home Office on March 28, 1799, has news for Castle- reagh in Dublin : * I have the satisfaction to inform your lordship that we have secured M. Jagerhorn, who was coming over here on a mission similar to that which he undertook some two years since, when he met Lord Edward Fitzgerald in London.' A full report is given of Jagerhorn's examination, in which he is asked : * Were you not charged to deliver to Lord Edward Fitzgerald a letter from somebody ? ' and he replied, * Madame Matthiessen.' This was the lady, nearly connected with Lady Edward, and alluded to by Mr. Froude as a name found in secret papers. He is further questioned about Lord Edward, Lady Lucy, General Valence, and a number of other persons whose names had cropped up in the interview between Turner and Downshire ; but, though the queries were searching, and Jagerhorn now seemed completely in Pitt's power, nothing material was wrung from him. England and Eussia were at this time allied, and Jagerhorn, pretending that he had a pension of 2,000 roubles as a spy of Eussia, rather dumb- foundered his examiners, and he at last regained his liberty. All this is to be found, with full details, in the * Correspondence of Lord Castlereagh.' The paltry sum which Turner received for his services now comes to be considered. This man, who had every facility of access to Lady Edward's house at Hamburg and its rebel entourage, held the key of a position so incalculably im- ' Castlereagh Correspondence, ii. 265. P^ifSj^^ir^-™i?y^'^; '-y ■ ^.' - ■ .'^'-iir : A BIG BRIBE 93 portant that he never himself discerned its marketable value. Thousands would doubtless just as readily have been paid to him as * the cool 5001.' that he modestly asked. * To get the information had cost him,' he said, ' three times that sum, and to keep up the acquaintances and connections he had at Hamburg he could not live on less.' * Small profits and quick returns ' seems to have been his motto. * Fresh evidence of the person's power to be useful,' writes Froude, * made Pitt extremely anxious to secure his permanent help.' The Cornwallis papers record, but without any attempt to identify him, that the pension Samuel Turner received — dating from 1800 — was but 300^. a year. Wellington when Irish Secretary addressed to Portland a letter in which a present payment of 5,000Z., and * not more than 20,000Z. within the year,' appears guaranteed to one nameless informer.* Another case may be cited. A document placed in my hands by Sir W. Cope, Bart., records that his grandfather was told by Under-Secretary Cooke to stop at no sum, not even 100,000Z., in urging Keynolds to turn approver. Reynolds, not realising the importance of his evidence, consented to take 5,000Z. and 1,000Z. a year, with the post of British consul. The tergiversation of Eeynolds did not take place until 1798, long after Turner had sold the pass. The services of * Downshire's friend ' were more timely and, perhaps, more valuable. He told what he knew in 1797 : the names he gave of the Executive Committee (p. 7, ante) proved more important than might appear at first sight. Eeynolds, it is true, gave the hint that a Committee would be found sitting at Bond's on March 12, 1798, but he does not seem to have disclosed names ; his son says that the names were inserted in the warrant purely ' on speculation.' ^ As regards the more distinct whisper of Turner, the be- trayal of the Belfast Directory, at the very hour that Tone ' Letter of Sir A. Wellesley to the Duke of Portland : dated ' Holyhead, June 19, 1808.' Ciml Correspondence of the Duke of Wellington (Ireland), pp. 454-5. * Life of Reynolds, by his Son, ii. 153. / 94 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT was leaving Brest with a French fleet, proved in itself a paralysing blow, and one worth its weight in gold. But the arm that dealt it struck from behind unseen. However, as most of the information that Downshire's friend gave concerned the Northern organisation, he may, perhaps, be credited with this exploit. The loss of Ulster was the loss of the right arm of the rebellion. Turner made his disclosures on October 8, 1797. Besides the list of the Executive Direc- tory, there can be no doubt that in the information which followed he named, with others, John Hughes of Belfast, the date and place of whose arrest tally with the presumption that to Turner it was due. The * History of Belfast ' records : 'October 20, 1797 — John Hughes, bookseller, having been apprehended in Newry^ on a charge of high treason, was brought in here escorted by a party of light dragoons.' ^ Mr. Froude says that * Downshire's friend ' kept him informed of everything.^ How well Turner knew Hughes is proved by the sworn testimony of the latter,* in which he describes a breakfast in June 1797, with Samuel Turner, Teeling, Macnevin, etc., when the fitness of the country for an immediate rising was debated. Hughes had been a great patriot previously, but now to save himself became a mercenary informer, and even sought to criminate Grattan, who thereupon was dismissed from the Privy Council, though, as Stanhope ^ admits, without just cause. There had been no more zealous propagandist of the rebellion than Hughes, and he names a long list of men whom he himself had sworn ia on a prayer-book. In 1802 John Hughes retired to the United States and became a slave- owner. Wickham's letter of June 8, 1798, enumerated, for the > Newry had been Turner's home. * History of Belfast, p. 478, • Immediately after the rebellion Downshire received 52,500Z., nominally as compensation for borough seats. The magnitude of the sum has excited historic surprise ; but in making this payment other services were, no doubt, weighed including the timely information of which Turner made him the channel. • Before the Secret Committee of the House of Lords, 1798. • See Life of Pitt, ante, p. 36. m BATHURST'S DISAPPEAEANCE 95 information of Lord Castlereagh, a number of men whose arrests in England seem consequent on the information furnished by Downshire's visitor. These names include McGuckin, the attorney, who had been concerned for O'Coigly at Maidstone. The subsequent career of this once determined rebel, but who soon after his arrest in 1798 became a spy for the Crown, enhances the importance of Turner's information at a great crisis. The first recorded payment to McGuckin of secret service money is March 5, 1799.^ His son migrated to France, and was created a baron by Louis Philippe. The peril of assassination which shadowed every step made by Turner was not adequately weighed by Pitt when estimat- ing the value of his services. The risk he ran was not con- fined to Ireland. The Hfe of an English spy abroad was deemed equally unsafe, and there is much reason to fear that more than one met with short shrift. Even a successful diplomat, if his subtlety touched French interests, could not regard his life as safe. The disappearance of Benjamin Bathurst, a kinsman of Earl Bathurst, has never been ex- plained. Bathurst was sent on a secret mission to Vienna, at the time that England before opening the Peninsular campaign sought to persuade Austria to declare, by way of a distraction, war against France. Austria soon after crossed the French frontier, and Bathurst received hints of threatened personal doom. Hoping to avoid assassination, he took a northerly route in returning to England, and on reaching Perleberg in Brandenburg, he visited, in his agitation, the commandant of cuirassiers, requesting that sentries might mount guard at the inn where he stopped. These were supplied, and Bathurst spent the day in writing and destroy- ing letters. Shortly before his carriage came to the door in the dark of a November evening, he told some troopers who escorted him that they might withdraw. While all the house- hold was on the alert to see him off, he walked beyond the circle of the lantern glare, and was lost to sight at the heads ' Account of S.S. Money applied in detecting Treasonable Conspiracies per affidavit of Mr. Cooke. v-r'AiSY • -J.,!' ' ■ )■• -. ■ "^^l^SrfSr 96 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT of the horses. This occurred on November 25, 1809, and Bathurst was never seen or heard of more, notwithstanding that, as we are reminded by Baring Gould, England offered 2,000Z. reward, and Prussia 100 Friedrichs d'or, for the dis- covery even of his remains. To trace the spy with whom these chapters mainly deal seemed, at the outset, almost as hopeless as to find Bathurst's bones. Of all the Government informers not one has been more ingeniously guarded from discovery. Wellington, with all his astuteness, supposed that the fact of a man's name appearing in the Banishment Act was conclusive evidence against him of having been a rebel,* and therefore disqualified from claiming any favour from the Crown. But had he known the secret history of Turner's case, it would have opened his eyes. A Fugitive Bill was passed in July 1798, enumerating the rebel leaders who had fled from justice. In this bill we find Samuel Turner named. During the following year Parliament was asked to lend itself to the fraud of branding as a traitor the same Samuel Turner, by passing against him an Act of Attainder. From 1797 he lived abroad, posing as an * exile of Erin.' "^ The sealed chest in Dublin Castle which was opened a few years ago contained the only letter I ever saw signed with Turner's name. It related to his pension, and it was neces- ' Vide Irish Correspondence, p. 386. * The original of ' The Exile of Erin ' was said to be an obscure democrat named McCanb ; but it is just as likely to have been that finished actor, Turner himself. So prominent and conversable a man must have been well known to Thomas Campbell, then a strong Badical, and who, as he tells us, wrote the ' Exile,' at Altona, near Hamburg, in 1801 ; and it suggests conflicting emotions to speculate as to how far the figure of Turner, in his slouched hat, gazing wistfully from the beach, in search of prey, may have influenced the beautiful idea of the poet : — ' There came to the beach a poor exile of Erin, The dew on his raiment was heavy and chill ; For his country he sighed, when at twilight repairing To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill. But the day-star attracted his eye's sad devotion, For it rose o'er his own native isle of the ocean ; Where once, in the fire of his youthful devotion, He sang the bold anthem of Erin-go-Bragh.' pr- TURNER TRACKED 97 sary to lay the mask aside for once. We have already seen him styled Furnes, Eichardson, and especially * Lord Down- shire's friend.' ^ A new name is now adopted to 'puzzle posterity. He directs that 5001. be lodged to the account of • J. Destinger,* and this sum he was to draw through a third party. Turner's letter is addressed, not to Dublin Castle, but to Cooke in London, that gentleman having been succeeded, as Under-Secretary for Ireland, by Mr. Marsden. Bt. Hon^^ Mr. Secretary Cooke.'^ Hamburg : May 18, 1802. Sir, — In consequence of letters I've had the honour of receiving from Lord Castlereagh and Sir James Craufurd, I take the hberty of intruding relative to a pension of 300Z. per annum the Govern- ment has thought proper to bestow on me for information on Irish affairs. His lordship states that you have been so kind as to offer to pay the pension to any person I would name as agent — or in any way I w^as to propose. At present there is no person in Ireland I'd like to trust, and till some mode is adopted, I should be extremely obhged if you'd take the trouble of lodging in any bank in London the sum of 500Z. (British) on account of J. Destinger — the name I shall draw it under — through Sir Geo. Eumbold.^ Now that the war is over, and it is supposed all persons in my line are discharged, I make it a point to spend much more money than heretofore in order to do away any idea of my being employed and income diminished, and it is for that reason I request your attention, and beg the honour of a hne through Sir George to say where the draft is to be sent. Hoping one day or other to merit your good opinion, I remain, most respectfully, &c. &c. S. TUKNER. Turner spent money freely, and often when he could ill afford it. He had a social status to maintain : he was the son of a county magistrate ; had distinguished himself in college ; ' Also ' Jean Thomas,' ante, p. 20. Compare also Wellington's Irish Cor- respondence, p. 357, regarding a letter received in 1808 ' from alias .' ^ This letter was forwarded by Cooke to Marsden for his guidance. ' Sir George Eumbold was Consul-General at Hamburg. Died 1807. H •■*'---"^ ■■•" '^^- .-. 'rr 98 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT belonged to an honourable profession. He was the trustee of marriage settlements. He was * Lord Downshire's friend ! ' If he continued to wear his mask well, why might he not aspire to attain, in America at least, the high official rank of his late colleague and fellow-prisoner, Thomas Addis Emmet, whom she at last honoured by a public funeral and a monu- ment raised by national subscription ? The ' Dublin Directory ' for 1804 describes Samuel Turner's address as 58 St. Stephen's Green, in that city. The volume must have been compiled during the previous year, and it may be that the Irish Government, in 1803, removed him to Dublin, with the object of picking the brains of those who had been concerned in Emmet's rebellion of that year. Until the very night of its outburst, in July 1803, the existence of a slumbering volcano had not been suspected. After the vain attempts to convict and hang Tandy, Turner had returned to his old quarters.' The Irish Government were wholly unprepared for Emmet's revolt. No wonder that Wickham, with the experience he had acquired, confessed amazement that the secret should have been kept so well. The Secretary of State cried out with astonishment to think that such a preparation for revolution could be carried on in the very bosom of the seat of Government, without discovery, for so long a time, when any of the party could have made their fortunes by a disclosure of the plot ; and remarked, • at the same time, in presence of Mr. Stafford and the two Mr. Parrots, John and ' A small box of papers, labelled ' Curious and Selected, ' is preserved in the Record Tower, Dublin Castle. * Two unsigned letters supplying private in- formation in 1803 have puzzled their oiEcial custodians. St. John Mason — a cousin of the ill-fated Robert Emmet — is the man mainly sought to be incriminated. The letters are endorsed ' R.' and I observed, in holding up one against the light, that the capitals ' S. T. 1801,' appear as the watermark. ' R ' is the cypher by which Castlereagh points to ' Richardson,' alias Turner, in his letter to Wickham (p. 46, ante). The case of St. John Mason and his prolonged imprisonment without trial was brought before Parliament in 1812. The Duke of Richmond — then Viceroy — wrote a despatch and made allusion to the above letters. ' Who the writer may have been I know not,' observes his Grace, ' but he appears to have been some secret informer of the Government.' This despatch was ordered by the House of Commons to be printed June 2, 1812. ROBERT EMMET 99 William, that it was because they were mostly all mechanics, or working people, that the thing was kept so profound ; and said that if the higher orders of society had been connected, they would divulge the plot for the sake of gain.^ Turner was at once set in motion : but how ? We find him put into the same gaol with a swarm of State prisoners, many of whom had been active in 1798. All daily met for exercise in the yard of Kilmainham Gaol, and had every oppor- tunity for converse. Here Eobert Emmet himself had been confined until the very day of his execution. The execution was followed by that of several of his con- federates. Let us look back. Martial law is proclaimed ; a dead calm prevails. Turner is now traced stealthily making his way to the Secretary of State's Office, Dublin Castle. Anxious to avoid committing himself in writing, especially with a true signature, he seeks the safer medium of oral com- munication. Mr. Marsden cannot be seen ; he is engaged just then in conference with the chief law officer of the Crown. Turner scribbles the following and sends it in ; no signature is attached, but the paper and enclosure are endorsed, by Marsden, ' Mr, Samuel Turner ' : — Understanding the Attorney- General is just with you, I take the liberty of sending in a letter of Mr. Ball, but wish to speak on other matters. Sergeant Ball's letter is dated Temple St., October 3, 1803. I have looked into the Act of Parliament and considered in what ^manner you should proceed in order to do away the effect of the attainder thereby passed against you. Nothing short of an Act of Parliament, reversing the former as far as it affects you, will be sufficient to enable you to sue for your property in our courts of justice. I think you mentioned that some other plan had been sug- gested as sufficient. If you will let me know what it is, I will give it the most attentive consideration. ' MS. recollections, communicated by one of Emmet's officers, Bernard Duggan. H 2 100 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT How Marsden and the Attorney- General settled the diflficulty, no correspondence exists to show ; but the London ' Courier ' of December 5, 1803, most lucidly reveals the facts : — On Friday last, Samuel Turner, Esq., barrister- at-law, was brought to the bar of the Court of King's Bench, in custody of the keeper of Kilmainham Prison, under a charge of attainder, passed in the Irish Parliament, as one concerned in the Eebellion of the year 1798 ; but having shown that he was no way concerned therein, that he had not been in the country for a year and seven months prior to passing that Act — i.e. for thirteen months prior to the rebellion — and therefore could not be the person alluded to, his Majesty's Attorney-General confessed the same, and Mr. Turner was discliarged accordingly.^ The ' Dublin Evening Post ' of the day states that Turner's arrest was due simply to his indiscretion in visiting Ireland on business arising from the death of his father. ^ But as the * Post ' in 1803 had been subsidised by the Crown, this account was probably meant to mislead. The Castle archives bulge with the brimful letters of its editor, H. B. Code. Turner's committal to Kilmainham was only another act in the great drama, one scene of which Mr. Froude has so powerfully put before us. * Samuel Turner, Esquire,' of imposing presence and indomitable mien, a veteran in * the cause,' the man who had challenged the Commander-in-Chief, the envoy to France, the exile of Erin, the friend of Lord Edward and Pamela, the disinherited by his father, the victim of State persecution, now stood before his fellow-prisoners the * Ecce Homo ' of martyrdom, commanding irresistibly their confidence. Of his detention in Kilmainham Dr. Madden knows no- ' This Attorney-General was Standish 'Grady, afterwards Lord Guillamore. The author of Ireland and its Rulers states of him (i. 126) : ' He was a quaint joker ; a shrewd and old-fashioned wit, with a vein of dry humour. As a judge he enjoyed a plebeian popularity, for he took great sport in bafHing the Crown lawyers.' ^ ' Mr. Turner only returned to this country within the last few weeks on account of the death of his father, who left his property to younger children thinking the elder could not return, or that, if left to him, it would be laid hold of by Government by virtue of the Act of Attainder.' — Dublin Evening Post, November 29, 1803. IN FOET GEORGE PRISON lOl thing ; but he mentions that Turner accompanied the State prisoners — nineteen in number — to Fort George in Scotland, the final scene of their captivity. Here Turner's work was so adroitly performed that we find a man x)f incorruptible integrity suspected instead. Arthur O'Connor told John Patten that Thomas Addis Emmet * gave information of a letter which O'Connor was writing, through which means Government became acquainted with the circumstance.' A long corre- spondence on the subject has been published by Madden. Emmet at last challenged O'Connor. Patten,^ the brother-in- law of Emmet, was told to bring a certain pair of duelling pistols to Fort George ; but, thanks to the efforts of Eobert Emmet to allay the dispute, the weapons were not used. It was Patten's impression that Turner's machinations had set the two friends by the ears. Although O'Connor apologised, and both parties shook hands, it is painful to add that half a century after, when the upright Emmet had been more than twenty years dead, O'Connor, in his book ' Monopoly,' stigmatised him as a man of bad faith. A suspicion more baseless was never uttered. In this book the name of his fellow-prisoner. Turner, is not once mentioned. Indeed, the inference is that he thought well of Turner ; for O'Connor, after criticising the Catholic members of the Directory, declares that he had much greater reliance on the Northern chiefs. O'Connor, Emmet, Neilson and others were detained at Fort George until the Peace of Amiens, and then enlarged on condition that they should expatriate themselves for ever.^ In 1807 Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Well- ington, entered on his duties as Irish Secretary. A letter, dated Dublin Castle, December 5, 1807, and addressed to the Ad- miralty, recommends a midshipman in the navy, Francis Turner, for promotion. ' He is the son of a Mr. Turner in this country, who has strong claims to the favour of the Govern- ' John Patten, librarian to the Eoyal DubUn Society, survived until the year 1864. He furnished me with many facts, duly noted at the time. Some appear in the Sham Squire. * For a.curious poem which O'Connor distributed en route to Fort George, see Appendix. 102 • SECRET SERVICE UNUER PITT ment for the loyalty and zeal with which he conducted himself during the rebellion in Ireland.' • Doubtless the new hand merely wrote in this letter what the permanent officials prompted.^ Downshire, although a staunch Tory of the old school, uniformly supported the Catholic claims. This example pro- bably influenced his protege. O'Connell, while inculcating moral force in his struggle for civil and religious liberty, was fond of enlisting in his bodyguard men who in more troubled times had staked their lives and fortunes for Ireland, He had himself been a ' United Irishman,' as will be shown. The rebel General Clony presided as chairman at the Catholic Association. Eowan, Teeling and ' Con ' MacLoughlin sat at the Council board, or stood on the National platform. What confidence must not O'Connell have reposed in the man who, as will ap- pear, avowed himself ready to die for his chief ! An aged gentleman, Patrick O'Byrne, who was born at Newry, almost under the shadow of Turner's patrimonial gable, but who never once doubted his fidelity to the cause in which O'Byrne himself has been no silent ally, supplies a fact of sufficiently curious import : — When the Orange ascendancy faction resolved to put O'Connell out of the way [be writes], and their champion, the unfortunate D'Esterre, horsewhip in hand, was ostentatiously parading the streets of Dublin, accompanied by leering friends, to compel O'Connell to fight him, Mr. Samuel Turner took up his position in a hotel where it was known D'Esterre would go to seek O'Connell. He had not been there long before D'Esterre and his staff entered and inquired for O'Connell. Immediately Mr. Turner advanced and stated that his friend Mr. O'Connell was not there, but he — Mr. Turner — was there to represent him. No : they did not want • Civil Correspondence of the Duke of Wellington [Ireland). ■ The promotion urged by Wellington would seem to have been made, and merited. The Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1813, under the head of ' Ad- miralty, May 30,' records the capture by some boats, under the command of Lieutenant Turner, of a French privateer, after a severe conflict and loss of life. I am bound to say, however, that the Turner mentioned by Wellington as having strong claims on the Government since 1798, is not satisfactorily shown to be Turner who gave important information during the Eebellion. O'CONNELL FIGHTS D'ESTERRE 103 Mr. O'Connell's friend ; the Liberator himself was the object of their search. Mr. Turner, with the same spirit that he had chal- lenged Lord Carhampton, now declared that he adopted Mr. O'Connell's words, publicly uttered, and made himself responsible for his actions. Li vain ; none but O'Connell himself would serve their purpose, and Mr. Turner was denied the opportunity of doing battle for his friend.^ All this time it cannot be said that, although undiscovered, Turner was still a happy man. The dread spectre of assassi- nation ceased not to haunt him. 'After long experience of the world,' says Junius, ' I affirm before God I never knew a rogue who was not unhappy.' Nor was Turner's presenti- ment surprising. MacSkimmin, in his * History of Carrick- fergus,' states that the pistol and the dagger were no un- common means of dealing with informers ; and he supplies a list of men who thus suffered. Books which treat of * Ninety-eight ' often mention Byrne of Dundalk. In 1869 the late Mr. John Mathews of that town gathered from Byrne's representative, Mr. P. J. Byrne, Clerk of the Crown, several facts, and, in enclosing them to me, styled his informant * the highest authority on the unpublished history of the County.' Two days later Mr. Byrne was no more. The inquiries I then made had no reference to Samuel Turner, but some passing notices of this man which occur in the manuscript are useful in now supplying missing links. Mr. Mathews was an ardent patriot, and he described, not without emotion, how Turner died. Kegarding him as a rebel true to the end, he writes : — ' Letter of Mr. Patrick O'Byrne to W. J. F., Dublin, September 6, 1880. D'Esterre was a practised duellist. He and O'Connell at last met in a field near Naas, and D'Esterre fell January 31, 1815. Lord Whitworth, the famous diplomat, was then Lord Lieutenant. The Sentinel, an independent newspaper, declared that the most memorable event which occurred in his Vice- royalty was this duel. It had engrossed the attention of all Ireland, and ought to engross that of Parliamfent also. Everyone asked why the outrage which led to the catastrophe, being so public and protracted, had not been restrained by some one of the many members of his Government who had observed it. But vainly the friends of peace inquired why D'Esterre had not been placed under arrest. 104 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT Turner went to the Isle of Man, and having quarrelled there with a Mr. Boyce, agreed that the dispute should be settled by an appeal to arms. Both, with their friends, repaired to the field of honour, and as Turner was preparing for the struggle his adversary shot him through the head ; and [adds Matthews] thus terminated the career of a man whose only regret was that his life was not lost in the service of his country.^ Was the vengeance wreaked by Boyce meant as a tardy re- tribution ? Was the John Boyce, who with five other prisoners was consigned in 1797 to Carrickfergus Gaol, connected with the Boyce who shot Turner ? What Boyce had against Turner was a secret which died with both. No proceedings Beem to have been taken against the man by whose hand he fell. And possibly this forbearance was not uninfluenced by the fact that the Crown had need no longer for their informer's services, but, on the contrary, gained by his death. Turner was a clever man, troublesome to deal with, haughty, touchy, and resentful ; and, like Maguan,* Bird and Newell, he might at any moment publicly turn upon his employers and betray them with as little compunction as he had already sold his comrades. A word as regards Lord Downshire, through whom Turner's disclosures were at first conveyed. This peer, who at one time had wielded potential influence at Whitehall, and had the ear of Pitt, lived to fall into deep disfavour with Government. He steadily opposed the Legislative Union, and helped to form a joint-stock purse with the object of outbribing Dublin Castle. In chastisement he was dismissed from the Lord Lieutenancy of Down, deprived of his rank as colonel, expelled from the Privy Council, and threatened with a parliamentary inquiry into his conduct. These blows told, and on September 7, 1801, he breathed his last. • Turner was very treacherously served by his impulsive foe. Perhaps Boyce thought that had O'Connell accepted Turner's services in that lonely field in Kildare, he might have been tempted, like lago, to deal a stealthy stab. * Maguan of Saintfield is not to be confounded with Magan. 105 CHAPTER X EFFORTS TO EXCITE MUTINY IN THE ENGLISH FLEET Of Duckett, an amateur rebel envoy, mentioned in connec- tion with the arrest of Napper Tandy/ something remains to be said. He was a man of very active habits, and if less im- pulsive would have had more friends. Tone, already the victim of misplaced confidence, viewed many men with sus- picion, and let them see it. In 1796 he was passing as a French officer, and mentions in his diary that, when waiting to see De la Croix, the minister of war at Paris, Duckett, who chanced to be also in the ante-room, sought to enter into conversation with Tone by handing him an English newspaper. Advances of this sort, though natural in an exiled Irishman meeting another, were not without effect in making Tone distrust and avoid him.^ Duckett no doubt had projects con- nected with the enterprise in hand to which the chivalrous Tone would not stoop ; but of these Tone knew little, and his prejudice was formed on quite different grounds. These suspicions were shared by Madgett, an official in the French War Office. Duckett, it appears, told Madgett that two expeditions were to proceed to Ireland. ' Madgett said that he had endeavoured to put Duckett off the scent by saying he did not believe one word of the story, but that Duckett continued positive.' Tone adds that the information was probably true ; but that it was terribly provoking it should be known to ' Ante, p. 72. ^ Many men recoil from affable persons who seem over-anxious to know them. Sir Gavan Duffy in Young Ireland states that Davis had been prejudiced against the subsequently most distinguished Darcy Magee, because he had ' obviously determined to transact an acquaintance with him.' 106 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT Duckett, * to whom, by the by, De la Croix revealed in confidence all that he knew, for which he ought to be damned.' Tone later on admits that he knows nothing against Duckett unless by report. • Tone's unhealthy impression Dr. Madden caught con- tagiously. In the first edition of his book, published forty years ago, he conveys that Duckett was a spy subsidised by England.^ Innuendo grew at last into accusation, and a more recent edition records that Duckett, * there is good reason to believe, was not employed by the Irish Directory, but by the British Minister, Mr. Pitt.' ^ Again, we are told that Duckett was * assuming the character of an agent of the United Irish- men at Paris, and continually dodged Tone in all his move- ments.' "* I cannot endorse this imputation. In no pension list, or account of secret service money, is the name of Duckett to be traced; nor is there one line to criminate him in the archives of the Home Office. Nay more. Open the * Castlereagh Papers,' and there Duckett is found denounced as a sworn enemy to England. These valuable State papers were pub- lished ten years previous to the issue of Dr. Madden's revised edition ; but, uninfluenced by their revelations, he renews the charges against Duckett. Guillon, who has had access to the Government archives in France, says that Truguet, Minister of Marine, had thrown himself heart and soul into the projected invasion, and proposed to land 30,000 men in Ireland, under Hoche ; and 60,000 later on in England ; but the Directory deemed the plan too daring, and threw it aside ; until Tone's memorials made their thoughts recur to invasion, and they then adopted a portion of the rejected scheme of Truguet.^ An interesting letter from Duckett to Truguet, Minister of Marine, turns up among the intercepted despatches. This functionary had just been suc- ceeded by a new hand. ' Tone's Journals, ii. 141. (Washington, 1847.) * United Irishmen, their Lives and Times, 1st ed. i. 40-75. » Ibid. 2ndL ed. ii. 37. * Ibid. iv. 603. * La France et VIrlande. (Paris, 1888.) duckett's dark despatch 107 Is the Government still resolwd to prosecute the same plans and the same projects [Duckett asks]. Can my country rely on its promises ? Let me know, I beseech you in the name of Liberty, what is to be done ? Shall I go home to accelerate the period for the arrival of which we are all solicitous ? Consider that it is only patriots and enemies of England who risk anything — it is their blood that will flow. The fears I had lest I should not be able to convert your bill into money are imfortunately realised. I have presented it to Citizen Reinhard, explained to him who I was, and what I was going to do. I showed him how necessary it was that I should leave Hamburg. He replied that his personal means did not permit him to comply with my application, adding that he could not act, because I had not a particular letter for him. A mysterious task and goal are glanced at. I am grievously mortified that I am not at this moment at the place of my destination. You know how deeply I interest myself in this cause ; my presence will be conducive to the success of our friends. I wait for nothing but your answer to set out. I would merely request you to speak about me to your successor, to explain to him my situation and my necessities, in order that he may take into consideration the expenses which I shall be absolutely obliged to incur ; for, when once arrived at my post, it will perhaps be im- possible for me to receive assistance from him. I therefore beg of you to make him put me beyond the reach of accidents, by causing a sum that will afford me the means of subsisting and acting to be remitted to Hamburg. It does not belong to me to fix it. It is for him in his wisdom to see what sum will be necessary and indispen- sable for the expenses of six months. It would be superfluous to assure you of my attachment to the cause, and of the high con- sideration which I have for you personally. P.S. — Address your answer to Citizen Reinhard : it is he who undertakes to forward this letter to you.^ It will be remembered that the betrayer whom Mr. Froude dramatically pictures as unbosoming himself to Downshire was the confidant of Reinhard at Hamburg, had access to his house, and used that fact to prove that his services, as an informer, ' Castlereagh Papers, i. 294-5. 108 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT were worth purchase by Pitt. I have elsewhere shown that the letters headed ' Secret Information from Hamburg,' which have crept into the * Castlereagh Papers ' to puzzle the world,' can only have been written by * Lord Downshire's friend ' — i.e. Turner. One appears at page 306 of the first volume of that work. There the objects vaguely broached by Duckett are revealed as plainly as though Eeinhard himself had whispered the word. The spy, having furnished other items of news, writes : — Duckett is at Hamburg ; he has denounced Stone at Paris as a traitor,^ I hear he [Duckett] has got money from the [French] Government for the purpose of renewing the mutiny in the English Fleet.' 3 Obstinately hostile winds, as in 1796, once more saved England. Tone, whose untiring energy had accomplished the organisation of the invading forces, sohloquises in his diary of 1 August, 1797 : — I am, to-day, twenty-five days aboard, and at a time when twenty-five hours are of importance. There seems to be a fate in this business. Five weeks — I believe six weeks — the English Fleet was paralysed by the mutinies at Portsmouth,'' Plymouth, and the Nore. The sea was open, and nothing to prevent both tbe Dutch ' The puzzle is increased by the noble editor's arrangement of the letters- made without regard to chronological order. ^ Stone is the man who had been tried in 1795 for high treason, and found guilty. But Duckett, though a staunch rebel, may have had good reason for denouncing Stone three years later. Madame de Genlis, in her Mimoires, up- braids Stone with having treacherously retained some money which had been entrusted to him for Pamela. See tome iv. 130-1. » Clarke, when giving Tone his commission in the French army, asks him {Journals, i. 151) if he knew one Duckett : ' I answered I did not, nor did I desire to know him.' Clarke replied that Duckett was ' clever.' Clarke, after- wards Duke de Feltre, stooped to ignoble tactics from which Tone recoiled. Clarke was a strong advocate for chouannerie (see Tone, ii. 96-9), and probably encouraged Duckett in his scheme for destroying the English dockyards and exciting mutiny in the fleet. * At Portsmouth, when Lord Bridport gave orders to put to sea, every ship at St. Helens refused to obey. The marines fired and five seamen were killed. The crew of the ' London ' turned the guns, and threatened to blow all aft into the sea. The officers surrendered ; the marines laid down their arms, and Admiral Colpoys and Captain Griffiths were put in confinement. DUCKETT NO SPY 109 and French fleets to put to sea. Well, nothing was ready ; that precious opportunity, which we can never expect to return, was lost ; and now that at last we are ready here the wind is against us, the mutiny is quelled, and we are sure to be attacked by a superior force. At Brest it is, I fancy, stiU worse. Had we been in Ireland at the moment of the insurrection at the Nore, we should beyond a doubt have had at least that fleet, and God only knows the influ- ence which such an event might have had on the whole British Navy. Much that Tone privately penned is found confirmed by a secret committee which sat while Parker's ' corpse hung in chains at Sheppey. It appeared that the crews were largely sworn to espouse the Irish cause ; ' to be faithful to their brethren who were fighting against tyranny ; ' to carry a portion of the fleet into Irish ports, hoisting, instead of the Union Jack, a green flag emblazoned with Erin-go-bragh.^ Dr. Madden's suggestion that Duckett was a spy of Pitt's is reiterated with cruel consistency. Part of the grounds of his suspicion was Duckett's intimate relations with Eeinhard, also suspected by Madden, but who is now shown conclusively to have been true. Madden frequently quotes from the • Castlereagh Papers,' but overlooks the following letter from Sir J. Crawford to Lord Grenville, one wholly inconsistent with his hypothesis that Duckett, like Turner, was a spy for Pitt- Crawford was, of course, the British representative at Hamburg. October 23, 1798. I shall abstain from any measures against Duckett, contiauing, at the same time, to have him narrowly watched, which I hitherto have so completely, that there is scarcely a single step which he has taken since he has been at Hamburg with which I am un- acquainted. His views for the present seem to be turned principally towards his Majesty's dockyards, and not choosing to venture in England himself, he is very desirous of getting over hither some one of those evil-disposed persons whom he knows to be employed in the dockyards, for the purpose of concerting with him the means of setting them on fire. . . . He is in very Httle esteem in France, ' Leader of the mutiny. * Report of the Secret Committee of Commons, England, 1799. 110 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT and is particularly ill with Talleyrand.^ His principal supporter is Bruyes (sic), '^ brother to the deceased admiral, and who was Minister of the Marine. He pretends that, in case of a successful attempt on the part of the French to land in Ireland, his object would be to get over to that country ; but I have not hitherto been able to learn any particulars respecting his commission. He affects much secrecy, even with those with whom he lives in the greatest inti- macy.' He has of late been in correspondence with Holt,* the rebel chief, who, through him, has been pressing the French for assist- ance. He says that there are 3,500 land troops on board the squadron which lately sailed from Brest, but that they have French uniforms for 7,000 men, with the view, as he pretends, of clothing the first bodies of Irish that might join them in the same way as their own troops, and thus, a numerous body appearing in French uniforms, of impressing the Irish nation at large with an idea that they had landed a considerable force. "^ This letter explains the more ambiguous despatch written two months before. Wickham transmits, by direction of Portland, for the information of the Irish Viceroy, a copy of a secret note, which had been confirmed by the arrivi*! of Mr. D [i.e. Duckett] under a feigned name in Hanover, on his road to Hamburg, and I have little doubt of the truth of the rest from my intimate knowledge of the writer. D., by the extreme vigil- ance and activity of Sir James Crawfurd, has been discovered and arrested on his road ; but, as he has been acknowledged as a person attached to the French Mission at Hamburg, and claimed as such, I fear there are no hopes whatever of his being delivered up, or even of having his papers examined.^ ' As Tone suspected Duckett to be a spy, he doubtless cautioned Talleyrand against him. These misgivings spread from bureau to bureau. ^ Tone's Diary of June 16, 1798, praises the talents and activity of Bruix ; • but what could he do ? In the first place, he had no money,' &c. — ii. 501. * Turner's instructions from the Home Ofifice were, if he would not prosecute, to open a correspondence, at least, with leading rebels. * Joseph Holt, a Wicklow Protestant, published his memoirs in two volumes, but does not mention Duckett. * Castlereagh Papers, i. 268-4. * Duckett was secretary to Leonard Bourdon, who voted for the death of Louis XVI., and by his energy overthrew Robespierre, July 27, 1794. He headed the Conspiracy of the Faubourgs in 1795, and doubtless applauded Duckett in his scheme. ^ppn^j((pipp»:»BIP»i!HSr«:?!»^*?w''?»'^^ •■■'»»!»r"^ <"',■«« -"-i^s^ww^lBipr TONE'S IMPULSIVENESS 111 Your lordship, who will be aware of the extreme delicacy of this business, will no doubt feel the necessity of keeping the whole of it as secret as possible. In the mean time it is a point of no slight importance that this man should have been discovered on his road, and his journey so much delayed as that the object of it will be, in all probability, defeated.' Tone's prejudice against Duckett influenced Macnevin. * Mr. Duckett is still here,' writes Eeinhard to De la Croix in another intercepted letter. ' I proposed to Mr. Macnevin to reconcile himself with Mr. Duckett. He has refused to do so.' It is remarkable that while the usually clear-sighted physician suspects Duckett of being an English spy, he praises * the zeal and talents of Turner."* Nor is there one line in Tone's Diary to indicate distrust of Turner ; but the wrong man, in true dramatic style, incurs suspicion and blows. On September 21, 1797, Tone called on General Hoche at Eennes. Hoche spoke of Duckett, and Tone destroyed him with an expressive shrug, adding that he had boasted at Paris of his acquaintance and influence with General Clarke, and even with Hoche himself. Two days later Colonel Shee, the uncle of Clarke, and who accompanied the expedition to Bantry Bay, also inquires if Tone knew Duckett. ' I answered that Duckett was a scoundrel. I besought him to put Hoche on his guard.' It appeared that Duckett had made two or three advances to Shee, who, however, had consistently avoided him. Tone's gorge is raised, and he ends some remarks of asperity with * I'll Duckett him, the scoundrel, if I can catch him fairly in my grip.' ^ Duckett, according to the Hamburg spy, now shown to be Turner, was employed by the French Government to excite mutiny in the British fleet. Its first outburst was at Portsmouth ; it was renewed at the Nore. As historians, who might be expected to treat largely of such incidents, barely • Castlereagh Papers, i. 263. * Vide Dr. Macnevin's memorial relative to a landing in Ireland. — Ibid. i. 305. » Tone's Journals, i. 208. (Washington, 1827.) 112 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT notice that mutiny, a few remarks here are perhaps admis- sible ; the more so as it will be necessary to recur again to Parker, who led the revolt. It assumed so formidable a front that Truguet thought it might prove the death-blow to England's greatness. Parker, who possessed wonderful powers of persuasion, was soon joined by a large portion of Lord Duncan's squadron, and became the soi-disant admiral of the fleet. He blockaded the Thames, and threatened to starve London. His mutinous force now consisted of twenty- four sail of the line. Each ship was governed by a com- mittee of twelve, together with two delegates and a secretary, and all assembled by beat of drum. The pulse of public feeling was shown in three per cent. Consols falling to forty- five. The Board of Admiralty visited the scene of the mutiny, but failed to effect an arrangement. Lord Northesk, E.N., waited on Parker to hear his terms. These were so exacting that Northesk hesitated. The following is culled from the (London) * Courier ' of June 8, 1797, and it will be seen how much Parker's letter differs from the mild version of it given in Campbell's * Lives of the Admirals ' : — They persisted that the whole must be complied with. . . . Lord Northesk was now rowed on board the 'Duke of York' Margate packet, under a flag of truce, with three cheers from the * Sandwich,' and with the following paper to ratify his cre- dentials. ' To Captain Lobd Northesk. You are hereby authorized and ordered to wait upon the King, wherever he may be, with the Eesolutions of the Committee of Delegates, and are directed to return back with an Answer to the same within 54 hours from the date hereof. E> Parkeb, President. Northesk, furnished with a passport from Parker, returned to town, while Pitt and Dundas were hanged in effigy at the yard-arm. It was even debated to surrender the fleet to the French. Thereupon Sheridan suggested that all the buoys and beacons should be removed. A paper of the day states MUTINY AT THE NORE 113 that the troops, ordered to fire on the fleet from the batteries at Gravesend, broke out into mutiny themselves, declaring that fratricide formed no part of their duty. The biographi- cal dictionaries say that the popularity of Northesk and the firmness of Lord Howe caused the utter collapse of this great mutiny ; but such history is misleading. The ' Kepulse ' was the first ship to abandon the cause, and becoming stranded was mercilessly cannonaded by the fleet. Its foremast and rigging were shot away ; its decks were red with blood. Two more deserters, the * Agamemnon ' and 'Vestal,' escaped better. In slipping their cables and entering the Thames it was supposed that they were carrying into effect an already debated plan of bombarding Gravesend. The rest of the fleet followed and found themselves snared into the hands of the Government. When this fact became apparent, the mutineers were filled with fury. The ships separated, turned the great guns on each other, and fought furiously for hours, until at last Parker succumbed. In reading the trials of the delegates one is struck by such Celtic names as Sullivan, Donovan, Walsh, Hughes, Brady, MacCarthy, Maginnis, Coffey, and Branon. Strange reports were current.^ The * Courier ' of June 6, 1797, records that when he [Parker] was carried before the magistrates, he took two • The Courier, describing the execution of the delegates, states that the inextinguishable vitality of one man named Lee presented a striking spectacle, and that extra balls had to be poured into his head before he was despatched I 1% letter from the Irish Under-Secretary of the day, now preserved in the State /^aper Office, reveals that Lee was discovered to have been a most determined United Irishman, and had joined the fleet for the sole object of helping the cause he had at heart. Lee and Duckett seem to have acted in concert. How largely the British navy was composed of Irish sailors, and under what circum- stances their discontent originated, appear from an amusing anecdote. Shortly before Trafalgar, the first lieutenant of a man-of-war, when making his rounds to see that all hands were at their guns, observed an Irish sailor kneeling in prayer : ' What 1 are you afraid ? ' exclaimed the officer. * Afeard, indeed ! ' replied the tar, contemptuously. ' I was only praying that the shots of the French might be distributed like the prize money— the lion's share among the officers.' Tone assured Carnot that England had recently raised 80,000 Irish- men for her navy and marines. Carnot did not tell him in reply to reserve that statement for the marines themselves, but took it as strict truth. The compu- I Li.>i.-..'^J.Jtc.'^. 114 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT letters out of his pocket, saying, ' These are my authorities ; it was on these I acted.' From this it has been inferred [adds the ' Courier '] that he was set on by ' higher powers,' as the lower class call them : they say that Parker has declared he will not die till he has garnished Temple Bar with heads. However, he made no distinct revelation. He was subjected to a number of interrogatories, * dans lesquels,' observes a French authority, ' on chercha vainement a decouvrir les secrets moteurs de I'insurrection.' Duckett's letter to Truguet, minister of marine, and the information of the Hamburg spy, help to throw light on this stirring episode. The mutiny is commonly ascribed to the harsh regulations of the Admiralty. A deeper design underlay it. Parker was at first committed to stand his trial before a civil court ; but a court-martial was suddenly substituted. This deprived him of the forensic services of Erskine, whose powerful eloquence had successfully defended Home Tooke agairist the Cabinet of Pitt. It was desirable that so dan- gerous a man should be got rid of without delay. His appli- cation for an adjournment was refused ; and on June 30, 1797, he suffered death. These mutinies were largely the work of Duckett, acting under the instructions of La Croix, the French minister of war. Tone, as we have seen, hated Duckett, whom he constantly snubs and denounces. Had there been a co- operation, the event would doubtless have been different. However all moderate men rejoiced at the issue. The mutiny formed part of a scheme to sever England's right arm ; but the chivalry of Tone recoiled from a manceuvre of which he finally saw the importance while hesitating to approve of it. Dutch and French fleets for the invasion of Great Britain and Ireland had been nearly ready to start at the time of the mutinies. Pitt used a powerful engine in subduing the mutiny. He tation, however, will not stand historic scrutiny. According to an official return, it appears that Ireland had furnished 11,457 men for the navy, and 4,058 for the marines. BISHOP DOUGLAS 1]5 despatched to the Nore a Koman Catholic priest, who im- pressively preached the doctrine of submission.^ This was pro- babl}' the same priest of whom Father O'Coigly complains as worrying him in the condemned cell in the hope of persuading him to inform. ' Of course with the sanction of Bishop Douglas, whose name is often men- tioned in the Castlereagh Correspondence. 12 -^^.■;--T,l^fv 116 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT CHAPTER XI "THE BETRAYER OF LORD fiDWARD FITZGERALD ' Another man there was of the same type as Turner, who posed in impenetrable disguise, but unlike Reynolds and Arm- strong, spied in secrecy and on the express condition that he should not be asked io give public evidence and thus damage his social status. An historian often qfuoted in these pages is not safe in suggesting that we may find heliind the mask of Lord Down- shire's visitor the betrayer of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. The utterly distinct quarter to which the Geraldine's arrest is due will presently appear. Lord Edward had the command of Leinster. Turner had mainly to do with Ulster. Guiltless he was of Lord Edward's beftrayal in Dublin, for the simple reason, no doubt, that living abroad himself he knew nothing of his hiding-places. All other sensational incidents of that stirring time paled before the sorrow by which Lord Edward's arrest and death oppressed ihe people. A Dublin ballad ex- pressed the fierce ansiiety felt to discover and destroy the veiled betrayer — May Heaven scorch and parch the tongue by which his life was sold, And shrivel up the hand that clutched the proffered meed of gold. Whilst, on the other hand, ballads inspired by loyal ardour did not hesitate to regard as a holy work the annihilation of Lord Edward Fitzgerald.^ • I leave unchanged some of the circumstantial evidence which had con- vinced me of Magan's guilt, adding in brackets the criminatory letters subse- quently found (January 1891). * Thus, in ' Croppies lie down,' to the tune of which, as Moore says, ' more blood had been shed than often falls to the lot of lyrical ballads ' — ' The ruthless Fitzgerald stept forward to rule, His principles formed in the Orleans school.' '. ^V^ .-'^Jf*-^^- RANDOM SHOTS 117 In 1830, when continental thrones trembled" and others fell, Moore published his interesting * Life of Lord Edward ' — a work which, however popular and opportune, will not bear a critical scrutiny as regards historic exactness. *'Prom my mention of these particulars respecting Neilson,' writes Moore, * it cannot fail to have struck the reader that some share of the suspicion of having betrayed Lord Edward attaches to this man.' Moore's book attained a wide circulation, and the descendants of Neilson naturally felt the wounding words. A letter of his daughter strongly protests against them, and expresses a hope that allowance will be made * for the indig- nant feelings of a child who has always been proud of her father's character.' Colonel Miles Byrne, a shrewd head which narrowly escaped the axe in '98, failed to endorse the imputation on Neilson, but hesitated not to declare that Lord Edward had been 'betrayed, and discovered by Eeynolds, a United Irishman, to the agents of Govern- ment.' ' In this random shot the Colonel missed his mark. The flaming patriot, Walter Cox, often states in his magazine that Laurence Tighe had shadowed to death the Geraldine chief. Thereupon Dr. Brennan, in the ' Milesian Magazine,' broadly charged Cox with the perfidy. Murphy, an honest, simple man, in whose house Lord Edward was taken, has nc;t been exempted from suspicion. * Lord Edward's concealment,' observes Patrick Brophy, 'became known through a soldier who was courting Murphy's servant girl ; ' forgetting that Thomas Moore, in his account of the arrest, incidentally remarks : * an old maid- servant was the only person in Murphy's house besides themselves.' Maxwell, in his * History of the Eebellion,' said of Neilson, * Thou art the man.' Mark O'Callaghan, in his ' Life of O'Connell,' brands John Hughes as having received 1,000L for Lord Edward's blood, thus endorsing the indictment pre- viously framed by Dr. Madden.^ The son and biographer of ' Memoirs of Miles Byrne, in. 247. (Paris : Bossange, 1863.) * ' Dr. Madden,' writes the Bev. James Wills, ' mentions a train of circum- stances which seems to fasten the imputation on Hughes.' — Lives of Illustrious lis SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT Eeynolds flings suspicion on Murphy ; while Murphy, in his own account, says : * I heard in prison that one of Lord Edward's bodyguard had given some information.' Again, Felix Eourke was suspected, and narrowly escaped death at the hands of his comrades. Suspicion also attached to Mr. Ogilvie, who, as a near connection, visited Lord Edward in Thomas Street a few days before the arrest, and transacted business with him. Interesting as it is, after near a century's speculation, to know the name of the real informer, it is still more satisfactory that those unjustly suspected should now be finally acquitted. * On the 18th of May ' [1798], writes Mr. Froude, ' Major Sirr received communications from a quarter unhinted at in the most secret letters of the Viceroy, telling him where Lord Ed- ward could be found.' ' I proceed to point out * the quarter.' In 1841 Dr. Madden obtained access to a book in which Mr. Cooke, formerly Under-Secretary at Dublin Castle, had made secret entries of various payments to informers. Amongst these items is : * June 20, 1798, F. H. discovery of L. E. F. l.OOOZ.' Although Cooke disclosed merely the initials * F. H.,' he gave the name in full when recommending the informer for a pension. Writing to Lord Castlereagh in 1799, Mr. Cooke says : * Francis Higgins,^ proprietor of the '* Freeman's Journal," was the person who procured for me all the intelligence respecting Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and got to set him, and has given me much information, 3001.' This 300Z. was an annual stipend. Irishmen, vi. 51. Years after, in his new edition, Madden suggests suspicion against one Joel Hulbert (L 85 ; ii. 443). Eventually, however, Dr. Madden wrote : ' And now, at the conclusion of my researches on this subject of the betrayal of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, I have to confess they have not been suc- cessful. The betrayer still preserves his incognito ; his treachery, up to the present time (January 1858), remains to be connected with his name, and once discovered, to make it odious for evermore. . . . Nine-and-fifty years the secret of the sly, skulking villain has been kept by his employers, with no com- mon care for his character or his memory.'- See Lives of the United Irishmen, by K. R. Madden, ii. 446, 2nd ed, ' Froude, iii. 342. * Comwallis Correspondence, iii. 320. 'WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?' 119 The * Freeman's Journal ' at this time "was the organ of Dublin Castle, and it is stated in a memoir of Secretary Cooke that he had written for that paper. Hence a frequent inter- course subsisted between Cooke and Higgins ; and the evi- dence is conclusive as to Higgins having received the Govern- ment reward. But the person of whose good name Cooke is so careful that in writing to Castlereagh he considerately puts a blank for it, w^as not so easily traced when first I took up this inquiry. Mr. Eoss, editor of the ' Cornwallis Papers,' who was allowed to ransack the archives at Dublin Castle, writes : ' The man who gave the information which led to his [Lord Edward's] arrest, received 1,000Z., hut his name has never tran- spired.* The point is now to prove that Francis Magan, M.A., barrister-at-law, a man traditionally described as one of the most unsociable of men, was the private friend and political ally of Higgins. Thomas Magan, of High Street, Dublin, was the father of Francis. The leading journal of that city, in its issue of June 30, 1787, records how, on the previous evening, * Mr. Magan, of High Street, entertained Mr. Francis Higgins ' and others. * The glass circulated freely, and the evening was spent with the utmost festivity and sociality.' The editor concludes by styling him * Honest Tom Magan.' On November 5, 1789, he returns to the charge : — Mr. Magan, the woollen-draper in High Street, in conjunction with his friend Mr. Higgins, are preparing ropes and human brutes to drag the new Viceroy to the palace. It was Mr. Magan and the Sham Squire who provided the materials for the triumphal entry of Lord Buckingham into the capital.' . . . Mr. Magan is really clever, and never has flinched in his partiahty and attention to the ' The Viceroy, whose carriage Magan and Higgins hired a mob to draw triumphantly through the streets, was Lord Temple, afterwards Marquis of Buckingham, twice Chief Governor of Ireland, and of whom Mr. Grattan writes : ' He opposed many good measures, promoted many bad men, increased the expenses of Ireland in a manner wanton and profligate, and vented his wrath upon the country.' 120 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT cause of Mr. Francis Higgins — Mr. Magan has the honour, and that frequently, to dine Higgins.^ From an old Directory it appears that Tom Magan's loyal zeal was acknowledged about this time by his appointment as ' Woollen Draper and Mercer to His Majesty ' ^ — one of the few paltry boons to which, in penal days, a slavish Catholic trader dare aspire. In 1793 a Catholic Eelief Bill passed, and the bar was opened to Papists — a concession due to the menacing attitude of the United Irishmen and the boom of the French Eevolution. Tom Magan's son, Francis, entered Trinity College, Dublin ; graduated in 1794 ; and became a member of the bar — probably on the suggestion of Higgins, who was an attorney. In 1795 Francis Magan left the parental roof-tree in High Street and took house for himself at 20 Usher's Island, where he continued to live until his death in 1843. This house having been the residence of the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Carpenter, who died there a few years previously, was regarded reverentially by the survivors of his flock. * Will no one urge Lord Edward to fly — I pledge myself that every port in the kingdom shall be left open to him ' — said Lord Chancellor Clare. But money was to be made of his blood ; and vampire instincts must needs be sated. The arrest was not effected until Saturday, May 19, although a proclamation promising 1,000Z. as its price had been out since March. ' Dublin Evening Post, No. 1767. The same journal adds : — ' It was in Mr. Magan's house in High Street that the creditable certificate of the clergy of Bosemary Lane Chapel was written and obtained.' It may be explained that when the moralist, Magee, denounced Higgins as one who had defied the laws of God and man, an advertisement, purporting to come from the priests of Bosemary Lane Chapel, said that they had no official or other knowledge of an imposture alleged to have been committed twenty-three years previously by Mr. Francis Higgins, and adding that, during his residence in Smock Alley, hia conduct had been marked by benevolence. ' This sprig of Bosemary,' com- mented the Post, ' may serve to revive the fainting innocence of the immaculate convert of Saint Francis ! ' Magan, as a leading Catholic parishioner, had mucli weight with the clergy. » Dublin Directory 1 1790. 7;v -VTf \S-?» -|*'.p: LORD EDWARD HIDES 121 Higgins, who constantly transmitted the result of his espionage to Dublin Castle, was now more than ordinarily on the qui vive. At Moira House, Usher's Island, Pamela, wife of Lord Edward, sometimes stayed. In March, Leinster House, Kildare Street, was searched by soldiers— on which occasion Major Swan said to Lady Edward : * This is an unpleasant duty for any gentleman to perform.' — * It is a task which no gentleman would perform,' was the reply. ^ She little dreamed that men whose friendship she valued were playing a part still more ungentlemanly. On this occasion Lord Edward narrowly escaped ; thenceforth he avoided both Leinster House and Moira House, unless for stealthy visits, and for weeks he remained hidden at Portobello near Dublin. Thomas Moore, when engaged on the 'Life of Lord Edward,' had an interview with Major Sirr, and learned from him that on May 17,^ 1798, * he received information that a party of persons, supposed to be Lord Edward Fitzgerald's bodyguard, would be on their way from Thomas Street to Usher's Island that night. Their destination, Moore adds, he had failed to discover. I am in a position to show, how- ever, that the party were on their way to the house of Francis Magan and his sister, in Usher's Island. Mr. James Moore, of 119 Thomas Street, had given Lord Edward shelter when 1,000L lay on his head ; but a carpenter named Tuite — who worked in Dublin Castle, and knew Moore — having overheard Cooke say that Moore's house should be searched, gave a timely hint to Moore, who therefore fled to Meath, previously telling his daughter to provide for Lord Edward's safety. Francis Magan and his sister were well known and respected by Miss Moore. She conferred with Magan on the subject, and an arrangement was made that Lord Edward should move that night from Moore's in Thomas Street to Usher's ' It was during this anxious period that Lord Edward, venturing out at night, had an interview with Pamela in Denzille Street, when their little child was taken from its cot to see its father, and a servant suddenly entering the room found the parents in tears. * It should be Friday, May 18, as appears from Sirr's original memorandum. 122 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT Island and occupy a bedroom in Magan's house.' But it was suggested that, as two or three people knocking at his hall door on Usher's Island might attract attention, it would be safer to admit them by his stable in Island Street, which lay immediately at the rear. The biographer of Lord Edward knew nothing of Miss Moore's arrangement with Magan ; but he casually mentions that the Government received informa- tion of his lordship's intended visit to Usher's Island. Major Sirr, attended by a guard, proceeded to the quarter pointed out ; a conflict between the parties took place ; * and,' adds the biographer, * Sirr in defending himself lost his footing and fell ; and had not those with whom he was engaged been much more occupied with their noble charge than with him, he could hardly have escaped. But their chief object being Lord Edward's safety, after snapping a pistol or two at Sirr they hurried away.' * Several volumes containing the original correspondence of Major Sirr are now preserved in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. Amongst them is the following letter : — Lord Edward will be this evening ^ in Watling Street. Place a watch in Watling Street, two houses up from Usher's Island,* another towards Queen's Bridge ; ^ a third in Island Street, at the rear of the stables near Watling Street, and which leads up to Thomas Street and Dirty Lane. At one of these places Lord Edward will be found, and will have one or two with him. They may be armed. Send to Swan and Atkinson as soon as you can.^ Edward Cooke. ' statement of Mr. William Macready, the grandson of Moore, furnished ex- clusively to the present writer, * Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, by Thomas Moore. Paris ed. p. 160. » May 18, 1798. * Lest he should arrive at the hall door. * Dirty Lane, now Bridgefoot Street, was another route by which Lord Edward could come from Moore's. The Queen's Bridge is at the foot of Dirty Lane. Island Street runs parallel with Usher's Island, a suburban quay ; and Magan's is the second stable from Watling Street. " Major Swan was the assistant town major. Atkinson will be remembered as the chief constable of Belfast. See ante, p. 8. £1,000 FOR BETRAYAL 123 Cooke, with due consideration for the feelings of Magan and Higgins, does not tell Sirr from whom the information came ; but the plot now thickens, and will be scon made clear. Miss Moore — afterwards Mrs. Macready — died in 1844. To her son, she said : — * The Government got timely informa- tion that we were going to Usher's Island. Now this intention was known only to Magan and me ; even Lord Edward did not know our destination until just before starting. If Magan is innocent, then I am the informer.' On the day after Magan's apparently humane arrange- ment with IVIiss Moore he called at her house, anxiously inquiring if aught had happened, as he had waited up until the small hours, and yet Lord Edward did not come ! Miss Moore, not suspecting Magan, replied : * We were stopped in Watling Street ; we hurried back to Thomas Street, where we providentially succeeded iu getting Lord Edward a room at Murphy's.' Mr. Magan, satisfied by the explanation, leisurely withdrew, but, no doubt, quickened his gait on reaching the street. That evening, at four o'clock, Murphy's house was surrounded by soldiers, and Lord Edward, after a desperate resistance, was secured, and conveyed in a sedan-chair to the Castle. Higgins claimed, and received, 1,000^ as the price. How much was given by him to the * setter,' or what precise agree- ment subsisted between them, I have no document to show. A pension was bestowed upon Magan, and I find in the Secret Service account the following entry : * September 11, 1800 — Magan, per Mr. Higgins, 300Z.' The name of Thomas Magan, the father of the betrayer, dis- appears from the Directory in 1797 — from which I, at first, inferred that his death occurred about that time. But it now appears that he subsided into bankruptcy. On May 2, 1798, the assignees of Thomas Magan, woollen-draper, a bankrupt, grant to John CorbalHs, for the consideration of 690/., some house property belonging to Magan.* This date is worthy of ' The premises were on Wood Quay (then known as ' Pudding Bow '), Wine Tavern Street, and Fisher's Alley ; they also included the * Dog and Duck ' inn, 124 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT attention ; it is one fortnight before the arrest of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. The difficulties of the Magan family had been gathering for some years. They commenced in 1793, when Higgins lent Thomas Magan 1,000Z. ; and three years later, as will be seen, another thousand. * The borrower is servant to the lender,' saith the proverb. Further search in the Kegistry of Deeds Office, Dublin, discloses two additional mortgages from Thomas Magan, senior, to Francis Higgins — one for 2,341^., another for l,000i. The * witness is Francis Magan.' ' Their date is July 7, 1796, when very serious embarrassments threatened the family. How closely Shamado's toils ^ grasped father and son is now clear ; and let us hope that when Francis Magan was persuaded by his tempter to sell Lord Edward's blood, he muttered, not without emotion, ' My poverty, and not my will, consents.'^ The name * James Dixon ' appears in the private list, sup- plied by Mr. Froude, of those who constituted the executive Committee of the United Irishmen in 1795, and * by whom the whole organisation was managed.' Dr. Madden does not seem to know this, and says merely^ that 'James Dickson hospit- ably treated and succoured on all occasions the families of the State prisoners.' The late Mathias O'Kelly told me that one of the few persons with whom Magan lived, in early life, on north side of Thomas Street, with a rear extending to Marshalsea Lane. — Begistry of Deeds Office, Traces of other property held by Thomas Magan crop up in unlooked-for places. By the settlement of Philip Whitfield Harvey with Miss Frances Tracy, dated September 16, 1802, it is recited that Thomas Magan, having become a bankrupt, his properties at Blackstaheny and in Britain Street were sold by auction to Samuel Dick and a Mr. Halpin for the sum of 4,830Z. Higgins had property of his own at Blackstaheny, for I find a con- veyance of lands there in 1806 from the Harveys and Tracys to Andrew Korke of Clonsilla ; consideration, 1,084Z. 12s. 6d. ' Magan's seal displays a boar's head, with the motto ' Virtute et probitate ' ! * A nickname by which the popular journalist, John Magee, satirised Higgins. * It was whispered that Francis Magan may have been the godson of Francis Higgins, and baptised Francis in compliment to him. The Catholic baptismal registries of the parish do not go back suflSciently far to throw light ; but, inasmuch as Thomas Magan married, in October 1770, the daughter of Francis Kiernan, merchant, their son would be very naturally called after the grandfather. * United Irishmen, iv. 25. "r^mmsT' LORD NORBUEY CHALLENGED 125 terms of intimacy was ' James Dickson, of Kilmainham,' and that he had repeatedly met Magan at Dixon's house. * Dixon was deeper in the confidence of the rebel party than many more prominent leaders,' adds O'Kelly. * He took the chair at the meeting of United Irishmen which had been convened to thank Napper Tandy for challenging Attorney-General Toler, after- words Lord Norbury ; and he was twice imprisoned for alleged complicity in the rebellion.' But the Government treated him with a consideration extended to few others ; and, on the grounds of ill-health, he was permitted to leave Kilmainham Gaol daily on short riding excursions.' Undemonstrative in his habits, it is not easy to trace him in the scanty reports of contemporary newspapers. On May 17, 1797, a meeting of barristers was held urging the Government to 'yield to the moderate wishes of the people, and thereby defeat the designs of any party dangerous to the country ; ' and amongst the seventy-three signatories, with Francis Magan, were T. A. Emmet, H. Sheares (afterwards hanged), Robert Orr, B. B. Harvey (commander at Vinegar Hill in '98, and also hanged), W. Sampson, Eobert Holmes, J. Philpot Curran, L. McNally, and many other popular men, some recognised as members of the United Irish Society, such as Joseph Huband, and W. Newton Bennett, afterwards a chief justice. 2 The subsequent Baron, Smith, is there too with Eobert Johnson, dismissed from the bench in 1806, and George Ponsonby, afterwards Lord Chancellor. In 1797 they stood upon a pitfall, but by a miracle escaped. Francis Magan posed through life as the pink of propriety. Before the last century closed he had strong claims for secret service ; but I cannot doubt, knowing his quiet and somewhat nervous nature, that whatever information he gave must have been communicated through Higgins. The latter owned a newspaper, which was the openly subsidised organ of the Government. He constantly assailed the popular party with ' This would give Magan an opportunity of meeting and discoursing with his old friend. * Dublin Evening Post, Tuesday, May 23, 1797. ,-- I _ ■ .fr^7iy^3f^;r:-;,VT.!?r55^ LETTER FROM MAGAN 129 Stimulated by reward, he now addressed Cooke direct, but anonymously. Cooke, however, has endorsed the letter ' Mag.* It is dated not from Usher's Island, where he lived, but from Higgins' house in Stephen's Green, and the handwriting is the same as that in a later document with an acknowledged signature. I did not receive your promised favour till Easter Monday last, and on reading your letter requested Mr. H. to know your leisure for an interview. ... He wrote me a most pressing letter not to leave town. ... At the risk of my personal safety I accompanied him in a carriage to your door. ... I have all along had in con- templation to put you in possession of some act that would essen- tially serve the Government as well as the country, and it may not be very long till such is effected. At present perhaps you may not know that Lord Edward lurks about town and its vicinity ; he with Nelson was a few days ago in the custody of a patrol in the neigh- bourhood of Lucan, but not being known and assuming other names, they were not detained for any length of time.^ Nelson is now the most active man, and affects, if he really does not hold, the first situation. For my part I sometimes imagine he is the person that communicated with Government ; however, suspicion has not pointed at him.^ His absence, I know, at the present moment would be considered as very fatal to the cause in DubUn. I have just this moment heard Lord Edward has been mostly in Thomas Street.3 On May Day 1798, when boys and girls were rejoicing, and the May-pole at Finglas was the scene of a festivity in glad welcome of the coming flowers, Higgins writes in great fuss to Cooke that a more formidable rising was at hand, adding : * If you can see M. this night, you can bring out where Lord Edward is concealed.' * What hour shall I bring M. this night, if your leisure will permit ? Eemember to bring him to a point — I mean about Lord Edward.' But his lordship's ' Moore mentions that Lord Edivard and Neilson were stopped, at midnight, by the patrol at Palmerstown ; but the former having personated a doctor hurrying to the relief of a patient, both were suffered to resume their journey. ^ The accurate information on other points which daily reached Cooke con- vinced not a few United Irishmen that treachery was at work. ' Magan to Cooke, April 22, 1798. K 130 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT frequent change of abode baulked the projected capture. Mr. Lecky considers that the search must have been made with singular languor to produce such little fruit. It should be remembered, however, that no police force deserving the name existed in Dublin ; and that arrests were usually made, as eventually in Lord Edward's case, by detachments of military. On May 15 Higgins wrote to Cooke : — M. seems mortified that when he placed matters within the reach of Government the opportunity was neglected. . . . Lord Edward skulks from house to house — has watches and spies around who give an account of any danger being near. It is intended he shall go into the country (it is thought Kildare) and make a rising. Give me leave to remind you of sending to M. Magan is shown to have met Lord Edward at council at this time, but it was not easy to seize the chief on such occasions. Higgins was the Castle journalist, and could throw off letters with ease. Mr. Lecky says that his missives to Cooke would be found most useful material in illustrating the history of his time ; and, no doubt, they are destined some day to see the light. Higgins uniformly writes of Lord Edward as a monster of evil, but it is due to the ill-fated Geraldine to say that men whose testimony ranks far higher record a different estimate.^ Lord Holland, a Cabinet minister, thus writes of him : — More than twenty years have now passed away. Many of my political opinions are softened — my predilections for some men weakened, my prejudices against others removed ; but my approba- tion of Lord Edward Fitzgerald's actions remains unaltered and unshaken. His country was bleeding under one of the hardest tyrannies that our times have witnessed.^ ' It is also due to Lord Edward's memory to remind the reader that Higgins was a man of leprosied reputation. Nearly thirty years ago, I gave some account of him in Ireland before the Union. Meanwhile, the reader might see what an English historian, Mr. Plowden, says of him, vide chap. xiv. ' Father Arthur O'Leary,' et seq. p. 213. I printed in the Sham Squire the original informations against Higgins for the basest fraud, the true bills found against him by the Grand Jury in 1766, and the records of his committals to Newgate. * Memoirs of the Whig Party. LORD EDWARD DISGUISED 131 If he had personal ambition to gratify, the powerful influence of his family could easily have fed it to repletion. His life was one of sacrifice and attests the sincerity of his soul. Higgins thought that Cooke was not sufficiently alive to the importance of Magan's hints. He now tells Cooke that an attack on Dublin Castle had been proposed and adopted, but this information may have been embellished to rouse the Irish Government. ' M. thinks it is on the ensuing Tuesday or Wednesday, but will be certain for your information,' he writes. ' He says the 300Z. promised should have been given at once. . . . However, I have given him leave to draw upon me, and fully satisfied him of the honourable intentions of Govern- ment where service was actually performed, and of your kind attention if he would go forward among the meetings, com- municate what is transacting, and, if found necessary, point out the spot where they may be seized, etc. This he has at length agreed to do.'^ The reader will remember Magan's arrangement with Miss Moore that, for Lord Edward's greater safety, the noble fugi- tive was to shift his quarters from James Moore'"s house to Magan's. The latter, to screen himself from suspicion, felt anxious that Lord Edward's capture should be made in the street. ... I also mentioned your kind promise of obtaining 1000'. for him (without the mention of his name or enrolment of it in any book) on having the business done, which he pointed out before the issuing of the proclamation. He, therefore, puts himself on your honour not to admit of any person to come and search his house (which I ventured to promise you would have observed), but to place watches after dusk, this night near the end of Watling Street or two houses up in that street from Usher's Island . . . [here the pith of Mr. Cooke's letter, see p. 122 ante, is given], and at one of these places they will find Lord Edward disguised. He wears a wig and may have been otherwise metamorphosed, attended by one or two, but followed by several armed banditti with new daggers. He intends to give battle if not suddenly seized.^ ' Higgins to Under-Secretary Cooke, May 18, 1798. * Idem. K 2 r'.-.r^'^v^,]^ 132 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT The * armed banditti ' consisted merely of Mrs. and Miss Moore, Gallagher, a clerk in Moore's employ, and a man named Palmer.^ This is the account furnished to me in a most circumstantial statement by the late Mr. Macready, the son of Miss Moore. She had been educated in Tours ; Lord Edward always conversed with her in French, and he usually passed as her French tutor. The hour was 8.30 in a lovely May evening. Palmer and Gallagher walked some yards in advance, and were the first to come in contact with Sirr's party at the corner of Island Street. Sirr gave Gallagher an ugly wound which afterwards favoured identification. The latter, a powerful man, made two or three stabs at Sirr, who fell in the struggle, but, as he wore a coat of mail, he was able, after a few moments, to regain his feet. Lord Edward was also in handigrips with one of Sirr's guard ; both came to the ground, but with no more ill result to his lordship than some unsightly daubs of mud on his coat. In the confusion the ladies hurried back with their noble charge to Thomas Street, leaving Palmer and Gallagher to hold Sirr at bay. The party abandoned their design of going to Magan's, though not from any distrust of his fidelity, and obtained shelter for Lord Edward in the house of a faithful adherent named Murphy with whom he had previously stayed. Miss Moore told Magan next day the whole adventure, and how the retreat had been safely effected. Lord Edward was lying on his bed in Murphy's attic, after having drunk some whey to relieve a bad cold, when Major Swan and Captain Ryan peeped in at the door, exclaiming that resistance would be vain. At once Fitzgerald started up like a lion from his lair and rushed at Swan. Eevolvers were as yet unknown and his pistol missed fire ; he then drew a dagger. The account furnished by Swan to a Government print states : — His lordship then closed upon Mr. Swan, shortened the dagger, and gave him a stab in the side, under the left arm and breast, having first changed it from one hand to the other over his shoulder (as Mr. Swan thinks). Finding the blood running from him, and * Afterwards known to Turner at Hamburg, p. 14 ante. A DEAIH STRUGGLE 133 the impossibility to restrain him, he was compelled, in defence of his life, to discharge a double-barrelled pistol at his lordship, which wounded him in the shoulder : he fell on the bed, but, recovering himself, ran at him with the dagger, which Mr. Swan caught by the blade with one hand, and endeavoured to trip him up.^ Captain Eyan then came upon the scene, but his flint lock missed fire ; and thereupon he lurched at Lord Edward with 8. sword-cane, which bent on his ribs. Sirr had been engaged in placing pickets round the house, when the report of Swan's pistol brought him upstairs. On my arrival in view of Lord Edward, Ryan, and Swan [writes Major Sirr, in a letter addressed to Eyan's son], I beheld his lordship standing with a dagger in his hand as if ready to plunge it into my friends, while dear Ryan, seated on the bottom step of the flight of the upper stairs, had Lord Edward grasped with both his arms by the legs or thighs, and Swan in a somewhat similar situation, both labouring under the torment of their wounds, when, without hesita- tion, I fired at Lord Edward's dagger arm, and the instrument of death fell to the ground. Having secured the titled prisoner, my first concern was for your dear father's safety. I viewed his intes- tines with grief and sorrow. Lord Edward, in fact, had completely ripped him open. Although Sirr had lodged several slugs in his lordship's right shoulder, he continued to fight furiously until the soldiers, of whom more than 200 were present, overwhelmed him by pressing their heavy firelocks across his person. They had brought him as far as the hall, when he made another desperate effort to escape, and a drummer from behind stabbed him in the neck.^ Previous to this scene Higgins plied Cooke with gossip from Magan, as the case about to be cited will show. The nickname applied to Pamela in the following extract was due to a popular rumour that her parents were Madame de Genlis and Philippe Egalite, Duke of Orleans : ' Lady Egality complains dreadfully about Lord Castlereagh ordering ' The Express, May 26, 1798. * Mr. Froude says that ' Lord Edward was naturally a powerful man ' (iii. 343). This impression is not accurate. Jasper Joly, LL.D., son of Lord Edward's godson, tells me that ' he was a small, wiry man.' 134 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT a short passport. She will have letters sewed or quilted in her clothes, and goes to Hamburg. I shall send you par- ticulars.' * Lady Fitzgerald was at this time at Moira House, within a few doors of Magan ; and the concluding words go to show that he had access to the house, and was entirely con- versant with its domestic doings ; the status, politics and attainments of so near a neighbour would facilitate access to its gilded salons.^ Lord Edward probably sent, through Magan, messages to Pamela. Magan acted his part so plausibly that on the very night Lord Edward lay a bleeding captive in Newgate, he was raised by the votes of United Irishmen to a still higher post in the organisation. Lord Edward had been arrested in Murphy's house ; and Mr. Lecky remarks' that there is no mention of the place in the letters of Higgins. The latter, to save time, may have given the hint orally. Higgins resided within twelve minutes' walk of Cooke's office. Mr. Lecky states : * 'He [Higgins] was accustomed to go openly and frequently to the Castle.' Cooke told Sirr that if he would go on the following day, between five and six p.m., to the house of Murphy in Thomas Street, he would find Lord Edward there.'^ On May 20, when Lord Edward was dying of his wounds in Newgate, Magan furnishes through Higgins fresh hints, and promises further information * to-morrow.' ' He was elected last night of the committee,' adds Higgins. * I had a great deal of exertion to go through to keep him steady, and was obliged last week to advance him money.' On June 8 Higgins writes : ' I cannot get from M. a single sentence of who assumes a Directory. I have so frequently put him off about ' Francis Higgins to Under Secretary Cooke, May 18, 1798. * John Wesley visited Moira House in 1775, and has described the splendour of its rooms, one of which was inlaid throughout with ' mother-of-pearl.' The spiritualised philosopher adds, ' and must this pass away like a dream? ' But he did not live to see, as Magan did, Moira House the refugium of hunger, rags, and dirt — a ' Mendicity Institution.' ' Lecky, viii. 44. * Ibid. vii. 211. * Life of Reynolds, by his Son. GREED FOR GOLD 135 the payment of the 1,000Z. that he thinks I am humbugging him.' ' It will be remembered that, according to a secret entry of Cooke's, IjOOOL was paid on June 20 to ' F. H.' for the dis- covery of ' L. E. F.,' and he observed the compact that Magan's name should not appear. Magan thought that there was an effort to * humbug ' him as regards the blood-money which he earned, but he knew how to * humbug ' a little himself. Higgins, setting forth his own claims, tells Cooke, later on : * By your interference Mr. M. obtained 300L for expenses ; give me leave solemnly to assure you that I paid every possible expense he was at, and more than I can mention.' ^ Magan was one of the first Catholic barristers called after the Eelief Bill of 1793, and wore an aspect highly demure and proper. He was a trump card in the hands of Higgins, which, if adroitly played, could not fail to clear the board. But with what a small share of the winnings Magan was content is consistent with all we know of his crawling career.^ Arthur O'Connor, writing to Dr. Madden in 1842, says : * So far as I could learn, no one betrayed Lord Edward ' — a striking testimony to the secrecy with which the thing was done.* Magan, the better to cloak his treachery, and to command that confidence the fruit of which was distilled into dainty drops for Cooke's ear, continued to manifest popular eym- ' Francis Higgins to Cooke, Stephen's Green, June 8, 1798. Quoted by Lecky. For curious facts about Higgins, see chapter xiv. : ' Father O'Leary.' ' Higgins to Cooke, June 13, 1801. * The writer will be excused if he seems to linger on this theme ; but from childhood ' Magan ' has been to him a familiar household word. His grand- father, John Brett, lived next door to Magan's house at Usher's Island. Voices, long since hushed, often described their strange, silent neighbour, of whom it might be said, ' still waters run deep.' Brett, though not a rebel, had popular sympathies, and several patriots, including James Tandy, visited at his house. One day Major Sirr created a great scare at Brett's by instituting a search for pikes and papers. The hysterics of the young ladies and the protests of their brothers served only to stimulate his ardour. No nook was left unex- plored, no stone unturned. The intruders even uprooted the flower-beds in the garden, hoping to make a discovery, but all in vain ; and Sirr, with drooping plumage, at last withdrew. — See James Tandy's arrest, Appendix, i7ifra. * United Irishmen, ii. 234. 136 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT pathies. He went further, and on December 9, 1798, is found taking part against the Government in a debate and division, where his feeble voice could carry no influence, unless to deceive democratic friends. It was on the occasion of the bar meeting, in Dublin, convened to discuss and oppose the Legislative Union. Francis Magan's name may be found on the patriotic side, in company with Bushe, Burton, Barrington, Burrowes, Curran, Fletcher, Plunket, Ponsonby, and Leonard McNally. Passing on to 1802, we find a round sum of 500Z. shpped into the hands of Francis Magan on December 15 in that year, as appears by * an account of Secret Service money applied in the detection of treasonable conspiracies.' This is the same amount which was given in 1848 for the discovery of Smith O'Brien, and again in September 1865 for Stephens, the Fenian head centre ; while in 1798 only QOOl. was offered for Neilson and General Lawless. The discovery which earned the reward of 5001. in December 1803 must have been esteemed of importance. What that discovery was has been hitherto involved in mystery ; but the succeeding chapter, devoted to William Todd Jones, may help to make it clear. The 5001. is given to Magan direct, nearly eleven months after the deaih of Higgins, through whom Magan's information had been previously conveyed to Dublin Castle. He was now thrown on his own resources, and seems to have been less squeamish than of yore. Were Higgins then living the refresher might have been less, for ' Shamado ' had no objection to a lion's share. And one is not surprised to read in Plowden that Higgins, originally a pauper, died worth 40,000Z.i Magan continued successfully to preserve his mask. A great aggregate meeting was held on December 18, 1812, to protest against acts of the Irish Government, and among the signatures convening it are those of Daniel O'Connell and Francis Magan. This fact is brought out in a memoir of the Liberator by his son, who, however, does not suspect Magan. ' Historical Review, ii. 256. ■ -r-T MOIKA HOUSE 137 It was a national crisis. Meetings in aid of Catholic Emancipation had just been forcibly dispersed. Lords Fingall, Netterville, and Ffrench were dragged from the seats in which, as chairmen, they presided. Other signatories who, with Magan, convened this meeting, were the three Catholic peers just mentioned, Dr. T. Dromgoole, Bernard Coyle, Sylvester Costigan, Con McLoughlin, and Fitzgerald of Geraldine — the latter five having been, as well as O'Connell, United Irishmen. I was not surprised to hear from Mathias O'Kelly,^ an old member of the Catholic Board and at one time secretary to the Catholic Association, that Magan possessed the respect and confidence of those bodies. He seemed to prove the sin- cerity of his sympathy in the most practical way, and rarely gave less than ten pounds as a subscription to their funds. It is, no doubt, to Magan that Wellington refers in his letter to Dublin Castle, dated London, November 17, 1808 : ' I think that, as there are some interesting Catholic questions afloat now, you might feed with another lOOL' ^ Dr. Dirham, who from his boyhood had resided on Usher's Island, heard it rumoured, he told me, that Magan during the troubled times kept frequently open the door of his stable in Island Street to facilitate espionage.^ Moira House, now the * Mendicity Institution,' is situated within a few doors of No. 20, Usher's Island, the residence for half a century of Francis Magan. As already mentioned, Pamela, the beautiful wife of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, received in the stormy period of '98 hospitable shelter from Lady Moira. To my surprise I find, in a manuscript life of Dwyer the outlaw, by the late Luke Cullen, a Carmelite friar, that two of Emmet's most active emissaries, Wylde and Mahon, lay concealed in Moira House * O'Kelly held, from a close personal knowledge of the man, that he would be incapable of treachery. * Correspondence of the Duke of Wellington (Ireland), pp. 485-6. ' Two gardens belonged to Moira House : one in front of Island Street, the other at its opposite side. These gardens ar6 separated by Island Street, which runs parallel with Usher's Island. A subterranean passage under the street communicates with both pleasure grounds. Usher's Island was formerly called Usher's Garden. 138 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT while a proclamation offering 500Z.^ for their capture was being widely circulated. Before this curious fact came to my know- ledge, it will be seen, from a former work of mine dealing with informers, that on utterly distinct circumstantial evidence I sought to trace Magan as on the track of Wylde and Mahon at Philipstown during the same eventful year. Major Sirr made a private note, which remains duly on record ^ that the retreat of Wylde and Mahon * is sometimes at the gaoler's in Philipstown, who is married to Wylde's sister.' The following entry appears in the * account of secret service money employed in detecting treasonable conspiracies per affidavit of Mr. Cooke ' : ' April 2, 1803. Francis Magan, by post to Philipstown— 100^.' ^ In the State Papers of the time I can find no letters bearing on this transaction, and therefore I must seek to trace it on circumstantial evidence. Who can doubt that Magan, when a refresher reached him at Philipstown, was in hot scent after Wylde and Mahon ? Later on, during the same year, we find Captain Caulfield and a party of military laying siege to the house at Philipstown in which Wylde and Mahon were suspected to be concealed. An account of a skirmish is supplied by Captain Caulfield in a letter, dated December 17, 1803, also preserved in the Sirr papers : * Captain Dodgson was killed, and,' adds Caulfield, * we were obliged to retire, while the villains made their escape.' ■* Luke Cullen, the Carmelite already referred to, spent his later life gathering from the peasantry their recollections of the ' The monk names this figure, but I think overstates it. « The Sirr MSS., Trin. Coll. Dublin. * In library of the Eoyal Irish Academy, Dublin. * The Sirr MSS. This letter is quoted by Dr. Madden, who thinks that the information on which Dodgson and Caulfield acted came from Kildare ; but it appears by the letter he himself prints (i. 522) that it came from Dublin. Caulfield's letter, addressed to Major Sirr, says, ' In consequence of your inform- ation, I reached Philipstown.' On the two previous occasions when Major Sirr had laid hands on Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the information as we see came from Magan. Dr. Madden, in printing the letter referred to above, erroneously assigns to it the date 1798 ; but the original MS. displays ' December 17, 1803.' LORD MOIRA 139 troubled times. His manuscript life of Dwyer has been placed in my hands by the superior of Clondalkin monastery. Folios 695 to 597 describe Wylde and Mahon's refuge at Philips- town, the abortive efforts to catch them there, and afterwards their concealment at Moira House, Dublin. The governor of Philipstown Gaol, we learn, was a near connection of both. They are stated by CuUen to have at last effected their escape from Moira House, Usher's Island, in a boat which rapidly passed out of the bay. Having reached the United States, Wylde and Mahon joined the army, and found speedy pro- motion. The statement that two proscribed men, most active propagandists of Emmet's plans, lay under Lord Moira's aegis seems startling ; but this statesman and his countess had very popular sympathies, and liked to succour rebels. The late Mr. Thomas Geoghegan, solicitor, informed me that two uncles of his named Clements, who were United Irishmen, obtained refuge at Moira House while warrants were out for their arrest, and finally succeeded in escaping all pains and penalties owing to the precautions taken by Lady Moira. It is not a little singular that General Lord Moira, who, later on, was offered the Viceroyalties of Ireland and of India, and who in 1812, on the death of Percival, sought to form an' administration, should have performed the perilous task of harbouring men who loved Ireland *not wisely, but too well.' Portland, in a letter to Camden, dated 11 March, 1798, classes with ' the disaffected,' * Lord Moira and his adherents.' This impression was partly due to his indignant protest in Parlia- ment against that poUcy of torture by which the people had been daily goaded to rebel. Magan's life involved some strange contradictions. Proud, and even haughty, he yet hesitated not to commit base acts ; with the wages of dishonour he paid his just debts. An inter- esting letter, in reply to a query, was addressed to the present writer by the late John Fetherstonhaugh, of Griffinstown, Kinnegad. His grandfather, Thomas Fetherston, of Bracket Castle, was, he states, in the habit for years of lodging in High Street, Dublin, at the house of Thomas Magan, a draper » it 140 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT ' and departed this life in his house.' ^ Fetherston's son, on inspecting his papers, found a joint bond from the draper and his son, Francis Magan, for 1,000Z., and on speaking to the former respecting its payment, he declared that he was insolvent. So my father [adds Mr. Fetherston] put it into his desk, counting it waste paper. Some years elapsed and the son came to Bracket Castle, my father's residence, and asked for the bond. ' For what ? ' said my father. To his astonishment, he said it was to pay it. I was then but a boy, but I can now almost see the strange scene — it made so great an impression on me. Often my father told me Magan paid the 1,000Z., and he could not conceive where he got it, as he never held a brief in court ; and he was always puzzled why the Crown gave him place and pension.'^ James Dickson of Kilmainham has been more than once mentioned in these pages. As soon as he had been discharged from gaol, in the absence of evidence to convict him in a court of law, he opened his house for the entertainment and solace of the families of the State prisoners. But his guests were not confined wholly to the United Brotherhood. My inform- ant, the late Mathias O'Kelly, often met there William Todd Jones, of whose arrest in 1803, on suspicion of complicity in Emmet's treason, volumes were published ; Lord Kingsland, famous for a career of marvellous vicissitude ; Mrs. Neilson, ' How Mr. Fetherston came to patronise Thomas Magan's lodgings, and otherwise to befriend him, was partly due to the fact that Magan had descended from a once opulent race in West Meath. Vide wills, in Irish Kecord Office, of Thomas Magan, Togherstown, co. W. Meath, dated 1710; and another, probably of his son, dated 1750. By a deed, dated May 2, 1798, it appears that James and John Fetherston had been trustees of the will of Mary Magan, the grandmother of Francis. The property of Papists in penal times was liable to discovery and forfeiture, and the help of friendly Protestants as trustees some- times became a necessity. The first mention of the Magans, and of the Fetherstons as their trustees, is in 17G3. =' Mr. Lecky has been kind enough to say (History of England, viii. 45) that I have ' thrown more light than any other writer on the career of Magan ; ' and he quotes the above as ' a very curious fact,' adding that it would be interesting to know if ' the transaction took place shortly after the death of Lord Edward,' As satisfaction of the bond might possibly have been ' entered,' I searched the records of the Four Law Courts, term after term, from 1798 to 1808, but no trace can be found. A PART WELL PLAYED 141 ■wife of the rebel leader, then imprisoned at Fort George ; and Plowden, the popular historian, who gathered at Dickson's table much valuable information. The house was quite a centre of liberal opinion in Dublin, and no man shared Dickson's confidence more fully than Magan. Mathias O'Kelly greatly respected Magan, and thirty years ago, when I first started my suspicion, he laboured hard to convince me that I was entirely wrong. Magan told O'Kelly that he had been a member of the Society of United Irishmen, but withdrew from it when he saw it drifting into dangerous courses. The reverse is the fact. He played his part so well that at the time of his betrayals he was promoted to a high post in the rebel executive.^ In 1832 a brochure was ' printed for the author by William Shaw, Dublin,' which must have quickened the sluggish pulse of Mr. and Miss Magan. It was ' An Impartial Enquiry respecting the Betrayal of Lord Edward Fitzgerald,' by Joseph Hamilton. No charge was preferred against the Magans in this pamphlet. But conscience makes cowards ; the probing given to a sore spot, and Hamilton's mention of 'Mr. Magan and his sister,' with others who knew of Lord Edward's movements previous to the arrest, proved distasteful at 20 Usher's Island. Hamilton's labour was undertaken with the avowed object of clearing Neilson from a suspicion which Moore, in his Memoir ' The deliberate and mercenary way in which the respected ' counsellor ' set himself to spy could be shown by fifty letters. Father Quigley, or O'Coigly, who, it will be remembered, was arrested at Margate in February on Turner's information (see chap. iii. ante), and suffered death soon after, escaped by a hair's breadth the net which Magan had been weaving for his capture in Dublin. A letter from Higgins to Under-Secretary Cooke, dated ' Stephen's Green, 12th January, 1798,' goes on to say : ' When I saw M this day and just mentioned Quigly's name, he gave me instantly a description of him. Met him before he went abroad often, and was sheltered in Dixon^s house. Will, he is convinced, find him out. But I beg to recommend a strict watch on Dixon's and you will instantly discover him.' Four days later, i.e. January 16, 1798, Higgins tells Cooke, ' M went several times to Dixon's, but found no trace of Quigly at his former residence. Neither has he been at Dr. McNevin's. The only place that he can be sheltered among the party is at Bond's, and which will be known by Thursday.' Two previous letters, dated October 17, and October 30, 1797, report very fully Dickson's conversations with Magan. -•■ j^e 142 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT of Lord Edward, ventured to start. Whether Moore, in gather- ing facts for his book, had been referred to the Magans, I know not, but he certainly returned to England strongly prejudiced against the incorruptible Neilson, and straightway framed an indictment bristling with innuendos.^ Hamilton prints, with other vindicatory papers, letters from Hamilton Kowan and Dr. McNevin, also a touching protest from the daughter of Neilson. Hamilton knew Lord Edward well. Dearer to me was Edward's life than Neilson's memory [he writes]. Dearer to me is Ireland than are Neilson's children and his friends. If I thought he was the man who could betray his generous friend and noble chieftain, I would leave his memory and his bones to rot together. I took up his vindication, not as a partial advocate ; and in thus conducting his defence I will not endeavour to suppress a single fact which might go to justify the accusing passage in Lord Edward's ' Life.' Mr. Hamilton proved Neilson guiltless, but he fell into the error, which a man blindfolded at play commits, in very often making a grasp in the wrong quarter. He suspects Eeynolds ; Captain Armstrong, who betrayed Sheares ; * a Mr. Hatton, one of the rebel Executive, who unaccountably escaped.' ^ Even Sir Jonah Barrington; nay, the estimable philanthropist, Mathias 0' Kelly, who lived with his father at Galway's Walk, near the scene of Lord Edward's tussle with Sirr, was also mentioned in a suggestive way. ' On the 17th May,' writes Hamilton, • Armstrong met both the Sheares, and on that evening Major Sirr was seen looking towards the rear of Miss • Magan, to divert suspicion from himself, may have been the first to set the story going that Neilson was a base informer. Thomas Moore, after making inquiries in Dublin, returned home strong in suspicion that Neilson had betrayed Lord Edward. Magan, in his secret letters of 1798, sometimes seeks to convey that Neilson was giving information at Dublin Castle. One letter, dated April 22, 1798, says : ' I sometimes imagine he (Neilson) is the person who communicated with Government ; however, suspicion has not pointed at him.' Higgins writes (May 15) : ' M. says Neilson is playing a double game." So faithful did Neilson prove, that Major Sirr discovered him organising a plot to rescue Lord Edward. « P, 19. The italics are Hamilton's. Hatton was one of the rebel executive at Wexford. W^^s^^WWBSfJPWii^W^iPlfWWIWWiiiW^^ liy^^i.iuiupy- 'THE veto' 143 Magan's house from Mr. O'Kelly's stable door in Galway's Walk. I know five different places where Lord Edward was concealed,' he adds. The secret which, like the sword of Damocles, had long hung over the heads of Francis Magan and his sister, now seemed on the point of falhng ; but their names were not used in this pamphlet more freely than those of Miss Moore, Murphy, and a few other persons amongst whose haunts the Geraldine flitted during his last days in this world. Hamilton thus closes the first stage of his inquiry : — My documents and anecdotes are every hour increasing. I have received communications from the wife and son of him with whom the Major had the struggle near the house of Miss Magan. I call on Mrs. Moore, Mrs. Dixon,* Mrs. Eowe, and Miss Magan ; I call on Mr. Magan, Mr. Murphy, their families, and all those individuals who either visited or served them or their noble guest, to tell all Ireland all they are acquainted with respecting the last week Lord Edward had his freedom. I know what some of them can say ; I know what more of them might say ; and I pause for their full and faithful declarations. A promised second part never appeared ; but it were almost betttr for the feelings of Magan and his sister had the dreaded charge been boldly fulminated, than the agony of suspense to which they were doomed. I had not seen this scarce pamphlet when I first expressed my suspicions of Magan. When the present century was in its teens, the aristocratic section of Irish Catholics sought to give the Crown a ' veto ' in the appointment of their bishops, and started in opposition to O'Connell, who had been demanding unfettered emanci- pation. In the ranks of this troublesome schism, the records of which would fill a library, I find Francis Magan, Lords Fingall,'^ Trimleston, Kenmare, Gormanstown, and Southwell, ' James Dickson, at whose house Magan had been a constant guest, died a few years previously, and was buried beside the Kound Tower at Lusk. * Fingall before his death expressed deep regret for this policy. See Fagan's Life of O'Connell. 144 SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT "Wolfe,* Shiel,2 Bellew, Lynch, Donellan,^ Wyse,^ BalP and others anxious to reach by a short cut the good things of the State. The gentleman into whose hands Magan's papers passed tells me that he found a letter addressed to him in 1834 by Sir W. Gossett, Assistant Secretary of State at Dubhn Castle, asking under what circumstances he claimed a pension from the Crown, and requesting information as to a small office he held. A copy of Magan's reply was appended, saying that the Viceroy of the day had promised him a county chairmanship — or, as it would now be called, a county court judgeship ; but, owing to the disabilities then affecting Catholics, he was found to be not eligible for appointment, and the emoluments in question were given as compensation,^ Gossett had succeeded Gregory in 1831, and having come in with the Whigs sought to administer a more liberal form of government. Cornwallis, Castlereagh, Cooke and Marsden had been long gone to their account, and dead men tell no tales. Whether Gossett viewed Magan's reply as quite satisfactory does not appear. In 1835 Earl Mulgrave deprived Watty Cox of his pension, but I cannot say whether the same high-handed course was extended to Magan. ' Afterwards Chief Baron. * Afterwards Master of the Mint and British minister at Florence. ' Bellew, Lynch, and Donnellan had pensions ; not for secret service, but to restrain them from clanking their chains. * Afterwards a Privy Councillor, and British minister at Athens. * Afterwards Mr. Justice Ball. * The papers which set forth Magan's real claims to his pension were not then accessible, even to the Irish Government. One of the many letters addressed by Higgins to Cooke, dated June 30, 1798, refers to the original intent of the United leaders to rise on May 14. ' Lord Edward was then with Magan, who found means to prevail on him to postpone his purpose.' The postponement would give time for the capture of Lord Edward Fitzgerald and others. This letter was written after the death of the chief, and informs Cooke that ' the plan was to rise Garretstown, Naul, Ac, and circuitously round the metropolis to Dun- leary, &c. Lord Edward insisted on his Kildare men and those of Carlow being brought in, and he would take the field at Finglas, and march into the city, which was his great object to carry.' The above is curious as showing how much Lord Edward's views had changed since Reinhard described him as one ' of the moderate party.' l|f^l>JI|{niU