Secret Service Under Pitt. Fitzpatrick William John

177

Ibid. i. 251.

178

Castlereagh Correspondence, i. 246-7.

179

Castlereagh Correspondence, i. 275-6.

180

Allibone erroneously assigns (p. 558) the authorship of this book to Thomas Addis Emmet.

181

Castlereagh Papers, i. 237.

182

Castlereagh Papers, i. 281-6.

183

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.

184

Lives and Times of the United Irishmen, ii. 290.

185

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.

186

See Castlereagh Papers, i. 237.

187

After 1798 Macnevin migrated to America, where he filled several important medical posts, and published numerous books. He survived until July 1841.

188

Castlereagh, i. 283.

189

The words of the French writer will be found at p. 78, infra.

190

The London Courier of September 14, 1799, displays the following translation 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. Meyer,'Consul General from Hamburgh.'

191

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, 'O,' but the reader will find his name and career successfully traced in the Appendix.

192

Cox's Irish Magazine, January 1809, pp. 32-4.

193

It will be shown, later on, that an Irish spy named 'Durnin' resided at Hamburg.

194

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 Léonard Bourdon.' Bourdon is noticed in the Nouvelle Biog. Génèrale, was 'l'agent du Directoire à Hambourg, d'où il fit partir les émigrés.'

195

Sir James Crawford, British minister at Hamburg from 1798 to 1803. Crawford afterwards filled a similar post at Copenhagen, where Reynolds, the Kildare informer, is also found acting as British consul. Reynolds'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 Cornwallis Papers states that Crawford died on July 9, 1839; but Mr. Ross confounds him with an utterly different man. The Black Book, published in 1820, records (p. 31) a pension of 1000l. '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.

196

Infra, p. 79.

197

Castlereagh Papers, i. 306-9.

198

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.

199

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 sufferings 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).

200

Ante, pp. 25-9.

201

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): 'Received a letter from General Daendels, desiring me to send on Aherne to him, without loss of time, to be employed on a secret mission.'

202

The writer mentions his election in Tandy's place as proof of his unsleeping 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 so 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.'

203

Vide ante, p. 68 et seq.

204

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.

205

Castlereagh Papers, ii. 96.

206

Ibid. i. 405.

207

Tandy had borne a part in every Irish national movement from November 1783, when the Volunteer Convention met. He was a most determined man 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 Royal Exchange to the Rotunda was announced by the discharge of twenty-one cannon.

208

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