ARRESTS MULTIPLY
It was not easy to separate the threads of the tangled skein which Mr.
Froude found hidden away in the dust of the past. But, lest the process
of unravelling should tax the reader's patience, I have transferred to
an Appendix some points of circumstantial evidence which led me, at
first, to suspect, and finally to feel convinced, that 'the person' was
no other than Samuel Turner, Esq., LL.D., barrister-at-law, of Turner's
Glen, Newry--one of the shrewdest heads of the Northern executive
of United Irishmen.[27] Pitt made a good stroke by encouraging his
overtures, but, like an expert angler, ample line was given ere
securing fast the precious prey.
One can trace, through the public journals of the time, that the
betrayer's disclosures to Downshire were followed by a decided activity
on the part of the Irish Government. The more important of the marked
men were suffered to continue at large, but the names having been noted
Lord Camden was able, at the threatened outburst of the rebellion,
to seize them at once. Meanwhile an influential London paper, the
'Courier' of November 24, 1797, gave a glimpse of the system that then
prevailed by announcing the departure from Dublin for England of Dr.
Atkinson, High Constable of Belfast, charged, it is said, with full
powers from Government to arrest such persons as have left Ireland, and
against whom there are charges of a treasonable or seditious nature.
The former gentleman is well known, and will be long remembered
by the inhabitants of Belfast, for the active part he took in
assisting _a Northern Marquis_,[28] and the young apostate of the
County Down, to arrest seven of their fellow-citizens on September
16, 1796; since which period these unfortunate men have been
closely confined without being allowed to see their friends, and
now remain without hope of trial or liberation.
'The young apostate of Down'--thus indicated for English readers ninety
years ago--was Lord Castlereagh, afterwards Minister for Foreign
Affairs, and well twitted by Byron for his Toryism; but who, in 1790,
had been elected, after a struggle of two months' duration and an
outlay of 60,000_l._, Whig Member for Down. Like Pitt, he began as a
reformer; like Disraeli, he avowed himself a Radical; and presided
at a banquet where toasts were drunk such as 'Our Sovereign Lord the
People.' Ere long his policy changed, and his memory is described as
having the faint sickening smell of hot blood about it.
Mr. Froude's work has been several years before the world; it has
passed through various editions. Thousands of readers have been
interested by his picture of the muffled figure gliding at dark to
breathe in Downshire's ear most startling disclosures, but no attempt
to solve the mystery enshrouding it has until now been made.[29]
The name of Samuel Turner obtains no place on the list of Secret
Service moneys[30] expended by the Irish Government in 1798--thus
bearing out the statement of Mr. Froude that the name of the mysterious
'person' was not revealed in the most secret correspondence between
the Home Office and Dublin Castle. At the termination of the troubles,
however, when the need of secrecy became less urgent, and it was
desirable to bestow pensions on 'persons who had rendered important
service during the rebellion,' the name of Samuel Turner is found in
the Cornwallis Papers as entitled to 300_l._ a year. But a foot-note
from the indefatigable editor--Mr. Ross--who spared no labour to
acquire minute information, confesses that it has been found impossible
to procure any particulars of Turner.
For years I have investigated the relations of the informers with
the Government, and Samuel Turner is the only large recipient of
'blood-money' whose services remain to be accounted for. Turner's name
never appeared in any printed pension list. Mr. Ross found the name
at Dublin Castle, with some others, in a 'confidential memorandum,'
written for the perusal of the Lord Lieutenant, whose fiat became
necessary. The money was 'given by a warrant dated December 20, 1800,'
but the names were kept secret--the payments being confidentially made
by the Under-Secretary.
At this distance of time it is not easy to trace a life of which Mr.
Ross, thirty years earlier, failed to catch the haziest glimpse; but I
hope to make the case clear, and Turner's history readable.
Previous to 1798 he is found posing in the double _rôle_ of martyr and
hero--winning alternately the sympathy and admiration of the people.
Mr. Patrick O'Byrne, an aged native of Newry, long connected with an
eminent publishing firm in Dublin, has replied to a letter of inquiry
by supplying some anecdotes in Turner's life. It is a remarkable proof
of the completeness with which Turner's perfidy was cloaked that Mr.
O'Byrne never heard his honesty questioned.[31]
In 1836 there was a tradition current in Newry of a gentleman
named Turner, who in the previous generation had resided in a
large red brick house situated in the centre of a fine walled-in
park called Turner's Glen, on the western side of Newry, in the
County Armagh. Mr. Turner had been in 1796 a member of the great
confederacy of United Irishmen, one of the leaders who, for self
and fellows, 'pledged his life, his fortune, and his honour' to put
an end to British supremacy in Ireland. About the date mentioned
the notorious Luttrell, Lord Carhampton, who was commander of
the forces in Ireland at the time, and was then making a tour
of inspection of the army, had to pass through Newry. The chief
hotel in Newry at that time adjoined the post-office. The gentry
and merchants of Newry generally went to the post-office shortly
after the arrival of the mails to get their letters, and while
waiting for the mail to be assorted promenaded in front of the
hotel, or rested in the coffee-room. Mr. Turner wore the colours he
affected--a large green necktie. Lord Carhampton, while his horses
were being changed, was looking out of the coffee-room windows
of the hotel, and his eye lighted on the rebel 'stock:' here was
a fine opportunity to cow a rebel and assert his own courage--a
quality for which he was not noted. Accordingly he swaggered up
to Mr. Turner and, confronting him, asked 'Whose man are you,
who dares to wear that rebellious emblem?' Mr. Turner sternly
replied, 'I am my own man. Whose man are you, who dares to speak
so insolently to an Irish gentleman?' 'I am one who will make you
wear a hempen necktie, instead of your flaunting French silk, if
you do not instantly remove it!' retorted Lord Carhampton. 'I wear
this colour,' replied Mr. Turner courageously, 'because I like
it. As it is obnoxious to you, come and take it off.' Carhampton,
finding that his bluster did not frighten the North Erin rebel,
turned to leave; but Turner, by a rapid movement, got between him
and the door, and, presenting his card to the general, demanded
his address. Carhampton told him he would learn it sooner than he
should like. Turner thereupon said, 'I _must_ know your name; until
now I have never had the misfortune to be engaged in a quarrel with
aught but gentlemen, who knew how to make themselves responsible
for their acts. You cannot insult me with impunity, whatever your
name may be. I will yet find it out, and post you in every court as
a coward.' The Commander of the Forces withdrew from Newry, having
come off second best in the quarrel he had provoked. Mr. Turner,
for reasons connected with the cause in which he had embarked, was
obliged to lie _perdu_ soon after, and so Carhampton escaped the
'posting' he would, under other circumstances, have got from the
Northern fire-eater.
The general accuracy of Mr. O'Byrne's impressions is shown by the 'Life
and Confessions of Newell the Informer,' printed for the author at
London in 1798.[32] Newell travelled with the staff of Lord Carhampton,
and in April, 1797, witnessed the scene between Turner and him.
Newell's pamphlet, which created much noise at the time and had a large
circulation, did not tend to weaken popular confidence in Turner. It
appeared soon after the time that he had begun to play false; but
Newell, with all his cunning, had no suspicion of Turner.
The late Mr. J. Mathews, of Dundalk, collected curious details
regarding the rebel organisation of Ulster in 1797. With these details
the name of Samuel Turner is interwoven, but, although the object of
Mathews was to expose the treachery of some false brothers, he assigns
to Turner the rank of a patriot and a hero. How the authorities, by a
_coup_, made a number of arrests, is described; and how Turner, after
some exciting adventures, got safely to France.[33]
The spy on this occasion was Mr. Conlan, a medical practitioner in
Dundalk. A sworn information, signed by Conlan, is preserved among
the Sirr MSS. in Trinity College, Dublin. It is dated 1798, when
Turner himself was betraying his own colleagues to Pitt! Conlan states
that one evening, after Turner had left his house at Newry to attend
a meeting of United Irishmen at Dundalk, the officer in command at
the barracks of Newry got orders to march on Dundalk and arrest the
leaders. An officer's servant apprised Corcoran, who was an adherent of
Turner's. Corcoran mounted a horse and galloped to Dundalk, where he
arrived in time to warn Turner. Conlan recollected Turner and Teeling
travelling through Ulster and holding meetings for organisation at
Dundalk, Newry, Ballinahinch (the site of the subsequent battle),
Ronaldstown, Glanary, and in Dublin at Kearn's, Kildare Street,[34]
where the principal meetings were held.[35]
I find in the Pelham MSS. the examination of Dr. John Macara, one
of the Northern State prisoners of 1797. It supplies details of the
plan of attack which had been foiled by the arrests. 'Newry was to be
attacked by Samuel Turner, of Newry aforesaid, with the men from Newry
and Mourn.'[36]
It was not Conlan alone who reported Turner's movements to the Crown.
Francis Higgins, the ablest secret agent of Under-Secretary Cooke,
announces that Turner had sent 'letters from Portsmouth for the
purpose of upholding and misleading the mutinous seamen into avowed
rebellion;'[37] and some weeks later he states that 'Turner had
returned from Hamburg with an answer to the Secret Committee of United
Irishmen.'[38]
We know on the authority of James Hope, who wrote down his
'Recollections' of this time at the request of a friend, that Turner,
having fled from Ireland, filled the office of resident agent at
Hamburg of the United Irishmen. The Irish envoys and refugees, finding
themselves in a place hardly less strange than Tierra del Fuego,
ignorant of its language, its rules and its ways, sought on arrival
the accredited agent of their brotherhood, hailed him with joy, and
regarded the spot on which he dwelt as a bit of Irish soil sacred to
the Shamrock. The hardship which some of the refugees went through was
trying enough. James Hope, writing in 1846, says that Palmer, one of
Lord Edward's bodyguard in Dublin, travelled, 'mostly barefooted, from
Paris to Hamburg, where he put himself into communication with Samuel
Turner.' The object of Palmer's mission was to expose one Bureaud, then
employed as a spy by Holland. 'Palmer,' writes Hope, 'gave Turner a
gold watch to keep for him.' He enlisted in a Dutch regiment, and was
found drowned in the Scheldt. 'When Turner,' adds Hope, 'was applied to
for the watch by Palmer's sister, he replied that he forgot what became
of it.'
Hamburg in troubled times was a place of great importance for the
maintenance of intercourse between England and France. Here, as Mr.
Froude states, 'Lord Downshire's friend' had vast facilities for
getting at the inmost secrets of the United Irishmen. Hope's casual
statement serves to show how it was that this 'person' could have
had access to Lady Edward Fitzgerald's confidence, and that of her
political friends at Hamburg.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] In chapter vii. my contention will be found established on
conclusive testimony, which had failed to present itself until years
had been given to a slow process of logical deduction. _Vide_ also
Appendix to this volume.
[28] 'The Northern Marquis' was, of course, Lord Downshire.
[29] 'A Lanthorn through some Dark Passages, with a Key to Secret
Chambers,' was the title originally chosen for the present book, but
I finally laid it aside as being too much in the style of old Parson
Fry's 'Pair of Bellows to Blow away the Dust.'
[30] How this book got out of the Castle and was sold for waste paper
by a man named Fagan is a curious story in itself. The volume is now
preserved in the Royal Irish Academy.
[31] A prisoner named Turner, Christian name not given, indicted for
high treason, is announced as discharged in December 1795, owing to the
flight of a Crown witness.--Vide _Irish State Trials_ (Dublin: Exshaw,
1796); Lib. R. I. Academy.
[32] _Vide_ pp. 21-2. Newell's pamphlet will be found in the Halliday
Collection, vol. 743, Royal Irish Academy.
[33] _Vide_ Mr. Matthew's narrative in _The Sham Squire_, sixth
edition, pp. 355-363.
[34] This place of rendezvous was, doubtless, chosen because of its
proximity to Leinster House, where Lord Edward mainly lived.
[35] Major Sirr's Papers (MS.), Trinity College, Dublin. Conlan's
information makes no mention of a remarkable man, the Rev. William
Steel Dickson, D.D., a Presbyterian pastor of Down, and described by
the historians of his Church as ready to take the field. Dr. Dickson,
in his _Narrative_, admits (p. 193) that he had been 'frequently in the
company of Lowry, Turner, and Teeling.' Turner was a Presbyterian and
possibly wished to spare a pastor of his Church.
[36] The Pelham MSS. Examination dated September 6, 1797. Pelham,
afterwards Lord Chichester, was Chief Secretary for Ireland at that
time, and his papers are a useful help in throwing light upon it. A
large portion of them are occupied by a correspondence with Generals
Lake and Nugent regarding Dr. Macara; he offered to inform if let out
on bail. Lake hoped that he would prove a valuable informer; and, as he
was far from rich, could not afford to reject pecuniary reward; but,
although Macara at first seemed to consent, his replies were finally
found to be evasive.
[37] Higgins to Cooke, MS. letter, Dublin Castle, June 7, 1797.
[38] _Ibid._, August 29, 1797. Five weeks later Turner makes his
disclosure to Downshire.