LORD CLONCURRY SHADOWED
Discoveries and arrests now multiplied, despite the care with which
Reinhard and Lady Edward persuaded themselves that all negotiations had
been fenced.
Lord Cloncurry in his Memoirs writes of his 'dear friend Lord Edward
Fitzgerald,' and readers of that book will remember the touching
narrative given of the writer's arrest and long confinement in the
Tower. This peer seeks to show that he himself was innocent of treason,
but Mr. Froude states, after studying the letters of Lord Downshire's
friend, that 'Lord Cloncurry was a sworn member of the Revolutionary
Committee.'[91] The betrayer's first interview with Downshire took
place on October 8, 1797. In that interview he ranked among the marked
men, Lawless, afterwards Lord Cloncurry. During the next month we
find his movements narrowly watched. One of Mr. Froude's sensational
surprises is a statement in reference to this subsequent British Peer
and Privy Councillor. Pelham, Chief Secretary for Ireland, writing to
the Home Office on November 7, 1797, refers to the fact--if fact it
is--that
'Mr. Lawless, Lord Cloncurry's eldest son, is going to England
this night, charged with an answer to a message lately received
from France. I have sent Captain D'Auvergne in the packet with Mr.
Lawless, with directions to find where he means to go in London,
and to give you immediate information.'[92]
A story never loses in its carriage; and Portland was perturbed by the
news. The Hamburg spy, who was the first to mention Lawless's name, was
now consulted.
Two secret letters from the Home Office, dated June 8, 1798,
and printed in Lord Castlereagh's 'Correspondence,' speak of a
communication received from '_a person_ in Hamburg,' and how
'His Majesty's confidential servants have found it necessary to
take into custody and detain several natives of Ireland, now
resident here, of whose intimate connection and correspondence with
the leaders and inciters of the present rebellion in Ireland there
was no room whatever to doubt.... Communicate this information to
the Lord Lieutenant, that the Honourable Mr. L----, Mr. S., of
Acton,[93] and Messrs. T., A., and C.,[94] of the Temple, have been
apprehended here, and Messrs. McG---- and D---- at Liverpool;[95]
and that warrants for apprehending the following have been granted:
Dr. O'K----, C----[96] of Abbey Street, Dublin, and Mr. H----.[97]
Lord Cloncurry states that the Duke of Leinster, Curran, and Grattan,
who happened to be visiting him, were also taken into custody; but
this statement is not wholly borne out by contemporary accounts.
Wickham's second letter of June 8, 1798, recurs to the arrests and
speaks of 'most secret, though accurate, intelligence received from
Hamburg,' adding:--
There are some papers found in Mr. Lawless's possession that tend
directly to show his connection with some of the most desperate
of the Republican party here, as well as with those who are in
habitual communication with the French agents at _Hamburgh_, and
his Grace is in daily expectation of some material evidence _from
that place_, tending more directly to implicate that gentleman in a
treasonable correspondence with the enemy.[98]
'Braughall' was another name which will be found in the list written
out by Downshire from his visitor's dictation. Lord Cloncurry, in his
Memoirs, describes Braughall as 'his business agent and confidential
friend;' while Tone constantly refers to him in cordial terms. The
newspapers of the day record his arrest and how 'papers of a very
seditious nature were found in his house.'[99] Among them was a letter
from Lawless urging him to contribute to the defence of unfortunate
O'Coigly, and mentioning that 'Little Henry' had munificently
subscribed. This passage, Lord Cloncurry states, was interpreted at
Dublin Castle as referring to Henry Grattan, though the writer meant
Mr. Henry of Straffan, brother-in-law to Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and
as the result of this mistake Grattan was placed under arrest, but
speedily liberated.
A memoir of O'Coigly is furnished by Dr. Madden in the first edition of
his 'United Irishmen,' and embodies information derived from Cloncurry.
Deferring to the Hon. Mr. Lawless, when in London, he says: 'Every
Irishman who frequented his house was vigilantly watched by _agents of
a higher department than the police_.' Pelham says that he sent Captain
D'Auvergne on board the packet with Lawless, charged to find out where
he went to in London; and it would seem that during the tedious journey
of those days, Lawless suspected D'Auvergne's mission. 'The agent of a
higher department than the police' would also apply to Turner, who was
in London at this time. Who was the detective who had his berth next to
young Lawless on board the boat, sat and chatted with him in the coach
to London, and afterwards dogged his steps? Letters furnishing secret
information, and signed 'Captain D'Auvergne, Prince of Bouillon,' may
be found in the 'Castlereagh Papers.'[100] This personage represented
an old and illustrious French family. The Prince, finding his patrimony
sequestered during the Revolution, looked out for a livelihood, and
seems to have been not fastidious as to the sort. Cloncurry states
that when bidding good night at the house of a friend, he would say,
'I haven't the conscience to keep my poor spy shivering longer in the
cold.' After 1798, D'Auvergne's usual post was Jersey, whence his
letters in the 'Castlereagh Papers' are dated, and furnish the fruit
of espionage, including all warlike preparations made by the French at
Brest.[101]
Mr. Froude quotes a letter from Portland, part of which is to the
same effect as that already given, and announcing the discovery of
important papers 'in Mr. Lawless's [Cloncurry's] possession that tend
directly to show his connection with some of the most desperate of
the Republican party in England, as well as with those who are in
habitual communication with the French agents at Hamburg; and yet,'
he continued, 'under present circumstances, and with evidence of the
nature of that of which the Government here is in possession, strong
and decisive as it is, none of those persons can be brought to trial
without exposing secrets of the last importance to the State, the
revealing of which may implicate the safety of the two kingdoms.'[102]
But although the leading men could not be brought to trial, it was
fit to hold them fast, that thus the teeth of the conspiracy might be
drawn. One important man--Stewart of Acton--was certainly let out on
bail; but he was a cousin of Lord Castlereagh's.
These rough notes ought not to close without some notice of a reply
to Portland's criminatory remarks, which the late Lord Cloncurry has
placed on record. When the 'Castlereagh Papers' appeared he was an
octogenarian and enjoying, it is to be hoped, an unimpaired memory; but
it is an open secret that the book known as 'Lord Cloncurry's Personal
Memoirs' was fully prepared for publication, and its style strengthened
throughout, by a practised writer connected with the Tory press of
Dublin, and who believed that Cloncurry had been wrongly judged in 1798.
As to the papers alleged by Mr. Wickham to have been found in my
possession, [Lord Cloncurry is supposed to write] and tending
directly to show my connection with some of the most desperate
of the Republican party in London and Hamburgh, I now solemnly
declare that I believe the statement to be _a pure fiction_,
and that no papers were found, as I am most certain that, with
my knowledge, no papers existed which could have had any such
tendency, more directly or indirectly than, perhaps, a visiting
ticket of Arthur O'Connor's, or a note from O'Coigly in acceptance
of my invitation to dinner.[103]
On the other hand, it is stated in a letter to the Home Office, dated
July 24, 1799, that rebel despatches had been regularly addressed to
Mr. Lawless in the Temple, 'whose fate,' it is added, 'is much lamented
at Paris.'[104] Lord Cloncurry himself admits that in the autumn of
1797 he was elected--but without his desire or knowledge--a member
of the Executive Directory of the United Irishmen, 'when, for the
first and only time, I attended a meeting held at Jackson's in Church
Street.'[105] This date furnished fresh proof of the promptitude and
accuracy of Turner's information to Downshire (supplied also in the
autumn of 1797)--information which revealed the adhesion of Lawless,
afterwards Lord Cloncurry, to the Executive Directory. Jackson's name
is also to be found in the list as dictated by Turner. Of course
Lawless must have been already a United Irishman, or he could not
be eligible for election to a seat in the Directory. Binns, who was
arrested with O'Connor and O'Coigly at Margate, says: 'Coigly was no
stranger to Lawless; he made him a United Irishman in his father's
house, in Merrion Street, Dublin.'[106] Cloncurry's Memoirs state
merely that O'Coigly, who was the finest-looking man he had ever seen,
presented to him a letter of introduction, descriptive of Orange
persecution, which it was alleged he had suffered.
Lawless and O'Coigly had opinions in common; and both were much
together in London. The former never forgave O'Connor for having--as he
said--unfairly sacrificed O'Coigly during the trials at Maidstone.[107]
In collecting evidence to hang the priest, renewed attention fell upon
Lawless. His first imprisonment lasted for six weeks. On April 14,
1799, on the eve of his marriage with Miss Ryall, who at last died
of a 'broken heart,' he was again arrested on Portland's warrant and
committed to the Tower, where he remained two years. Lord Cloncurry
states that his father, in dread of confiscation following his son,
left away from him 65,000_l._ However, the Irish rebel lived to become
a British peer, a Privy Councillor, and the adviser of successive
Viceroys. Dr. Madden, who received much help from Cloncurry when
compiling his 'Lives of the United Irishmen,' states that Robert Emmet
dined with this peer in Paris, previous to leaving France on his
ill-fated enterprise; and Madden, in his second edition (ii. 137), says
he knows not how to reconcile the account of the interview, as supplied
in 'Cloncurry's Personal Memoirs,' with a verbal account of the same
given by his lordship to himself.
The list noted by Downshire from the dictation of his visitor, though
complete as regards the Rebel Executive of 1797, far from embraced
all the names which more careful thought must have brought to the
recollection of the informer. It had now become second nature to him
to discharge, almost daily, letters of fatal aim, jeopardising the
lives and reputations of men who implicitly trusted him. He also, as it
appears, 'opened a correspondence' with leading United Irishmen. It is
not sought to be conveyed that all the information came from Turner;
but the following remarks of Mr. Froude, although they repeat a few
names already mentioned, are important, as connecting 'Lord Downshire's
friend' with the harvest of captures in midsummer 1798:--
Every day was bringing to the private knowledge of the Cabinet
how widely the mischief had spread, _as the correspondence which
continued with Lord Downshire's friend added to the list of
accomplices_. Lord Cloncurry's son was no sooner arrested, than
Stewart of Acton, a young Agar, a young Tennent, young Curran,
McGuckin, Dowdall, and twenty others,[108] whose names never came
before the public, were found to be as deeply compromised as
he.[109]
The question was even mooted as to whether he and others should not
be excepted by name from the Bill of Indemnity, or even specially
attainted by a Bill of Pains and Penalties, in consideration of the
impossibility of convicting them by the ordinary course of the law.[110]
Turner's knowledge and duties as a United Irishman having been mainly
confined to Ulster, it seemed strange that one of the Northern
Committee could be so intimate with O'Connor and Lord Edward. Even in
the betrayer's first interview with Downshire he reveals much intimate
acquaintance with both. All this can be readily understood now. In
November, 1796, O'Connor took a house near Belfast, preparatory to
offering himself for the representation of Antrim. Dr. Madden states
that Lord Edward and O'Connor lived together for some months, and
during their stay maintained friendly intercourse with the Northern
leaders.[111] Soon after we find the command in Ulster assigned to
O'Connor. 'Arthur O'Connor,' resumes Mr. Froude, describing the events
of December, 1797, 'after spending a few months in the Castle,'[112]
had been released on bail, Thomas Addis Emmet and Lord Edward
Fitzgerald being his securities. _"The person" who had come to Lord
Downshire_ had revealed the secret of the visit to Switzerland; but
without betraying his authority Camden could not again order O'Connor's
arrest.'[113] After an interval, however, and at a critical moment,
O'Connor was apprehended anew, and he remained a State prisoner until
1802.
At an early stage of this chase I met with the seeming difficulty that
the name of Samuel Turner appears in the list of leading rebels which
'_the person_' gave to Lord Downshire.[114] In undertaking to give a
complete list of the Executive Committee, he could not well omit his
own name. No doubt to invest it with increased importance, he puts it
next after those of Lord Edward and Arthur O'Connor (the nephew of
Lord Longueville), and before Stewart of Acton and the future Lord
Cloncurry. The act is consistent with the usual swagger of the man, and
shows the ingenuity by which he hoped to baffle all subsequent evidence
of his treachery.
Lord Camden writes: 'The intelligence with which we are furnished
would, if certain persons could be brought forward, be sufficient to
bring the conspiracy to light, defeat its ill consequences, and make a
salutary impression on the minds of the people.'[115] 'Unfortunately,'
comments Mr. Froude, '"certain persons" declined to be brought forward.
Pelham, when in London, made _large offers to Lord Downshire's friend_,
but without effect.'
FOOTNOTES:
[91] Froude, iii. 287.
[92] This announcement had its origin in one of the secret letters
of McNally (MSS. Dublin Castle). Lawless was to sail for London
'to-morrow night,' he wrote, 'and ought to be watched every hour'; but
nothing is said of the answer to France, of which Pelham declares he
was the bearer. McNally lived in Dublin, was a United Irishman, and
confidential lawyer of the body, but had been bought over. The strange
story of his life is told in a succeeding chapter. This man was now
asked to find out all he could about Lawless.
[93] Lord Castlereagh, in a letter addressed to Colonel Lord William
Bentinck, dated, Dublin Castle, June 24, 1798, and given to me by Mr.
Huband Smith, states that, according to the information received, 'Mr.
Stewart had accepted the post of Adjutant-General for Armagh in the
rebel army. Bentinck, writing to General Nugent three days later, says
that Stewart, when his prisoner, 'confessed to me privately that he was
a United Irishman.' This tends to show how generally accurate was the
information communicated through Downshire.
[94] Trenor, Agar, and Curran. Trenor was the secretary of Lawless.
Cloncurry's Memoirs state (p. 68) that the hardships to which Trenor
was exposed brought on illness and caused his death.
[95] It appears from a letter of Wickham's (_Castlereagh_, i. 313) that
the two men arrested at Liverpool were McGuckin and Dowdall.
[96] The _Dublin Directory_ for 1798 records the name of 'John
Chambers, 5, Abbey Street.' Here again the handiwork of Downshire's
'friend' is traceable. The private list of the executive, which he
gave him, includes Chambers's name. Mr. Chambers, grandson of the
above, tells me that when the warrant was issued, a judge of unpopular
antecedents hid the rebel in his house.
[97] The imprisonment of Hamilton, the nephew of Russell, is noticed in
the letter from Hamburg. _Castlereagh Papers_, ii. 5.
[98] Wickham to Castlereagh, Whitehall, June 8, 1798.
[99] McNally's secret letters, scores of which I have read in MS.,
make frequent mention of Braughall as a man with whom he was intimate;
and it is likely that the news of Lawless's intended journey to
England came from Braughall innocently. McNally, while incriminating
others, uniformly seeks to exculpate Braughall, whose counsel he was
(MS. letter of May 25, 1798). On June 13, 1798, he expresses his
opinion that 'Braughall is an enemy to force'; and a characteristic
hint drops: 'If Braughall could be made a friend--and I do believe
he is not disinclined to be one, for I know he always reprobates
tumult--his influence is great, and his exertions would go far to
restore peace.' Braughall had been secretary to the Catholic Committee,
and is repeatedly mentioned by Tone in his Journal. A fine portrait of
Braughall, in oils, may be seen in the boardroom of the Royal Dublin
Society, of which he was secretary. After his arrest, this picture
was relegated to a cellar of the institution; but, thanks to Lord J.
Butler, it has been recently unearthed and restored. He died in 1803.
[100] _Castlereagh_, i. 250, 373, 382; ii. 104, 162, &c.
[101] He obtained the rank of Post-Captain, R.N., in 1784; and at the
time that he was with Lord Camden at Dublin Castle he commanded the
'Bravo' gunboat. In 1805 he was gazetted 'Rear-Admiral of the Blue.'
His name crops up now and then in the Wellington Correspondence.
Thus, on November 15, 1814, when the Bourbons had been restored,
this gentleman, now signing himself 'D'Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon,
&c.' writes from 'Bagatelle, Jersey,' thanking his Grace for the
condescending interest he had shown in recovering for him the small
sovereignty of Bouillon. _Vide_ also a piquant memoir of His Serene
Highness Philip d'Auvergne, Prince de Bouillon, in _Public Characters_
for 1800-1, pp. 545, 561. His father, though of ancient lineage,
embarked in commercial pursuits; and it is added that at Jersey 'a
multitude of spies were kept in constant pay.' A love of epistolary
intrigue seems to have been hereditary with Captain d'Auvergne, Prince
of Bouillon. History records that Cardinal d'Auvergne Bouillon, 'during
the War of the Succession, held a culpable correspondence with the
enemy, _i.e._ Marlborough, Orrery, and Galloway.
[102] Portland to Camden, June 8.--S. P. O.
[103] _Personal Recollections of Lord Cloncurry._
[104] _Castlereagh Papers_, ii. 361.
[105] _Personal Recollections of Lord Cloncurry_, p. 38.
[106] Purchased by the father of Lord Cloncurry from Lord Mornington
(Cloncurry's _Recollections_, p. 8). In this house the Duke of
Wellington was most certainly born in 1769, though his Grace was
himself ignorant of the fact, as his Census return, in 1850, shows. It
is now the headquarters of the Land Commission.
[107] Statement of Lord Cloncurry to Mr. O'Neill Daunt.
[108] Stewart of Acton, Tennent, McGuckin, Hamilton, and many of the
twenty others, were all, like Turner, belonging to the Ulster branch of
the organisation.
[109] Froude, iii. 418; see also p. 20, _ante_.
[110] _Castlereagh Papers_, i. 163.
[111] _Lives and Times of the United Irishmen_, ii. 13.
[112] Birmingham Tower, Dublin Castle.
[113] _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.
[114] See this list, p. 7, _ante_.
[115] Camden to Portland, December 2, 1797.