WILLIAM TODD JONES. EMMET'S REBELLION
Todd Jones, Wolfe Tone, and Hon. Simon Butler were three Protestants
to whom, Mr. Froude says, the Catholic Committee voted 1,500_l._ each,
as a reward for their cordially rendered aid. This was in 1793, and we
hear no more of Todd Jones from Froude. His subsequent history is not
without interest, and seems interwoven with that of Francis Magan.
John Philpot Curran's writing-desk remains exactly as he left it
when quitting Ireland in 1817 to die. A long and cautiously written
letter,[373] without signature, dated August 13, 1803, but known to
be from Lady Moira, reposes in this desk. It was written three weeks
after Emmet's rebellion, and a month prior to his execution. The
letter begins mysteriously, 'Read, reflect, but do not answer. Time
will unfold the intentions.' She complains of information which had
been sent to the Government, regarding a trunk, assumed to be full of
papers, reaching Moira House, Usher's Island, and presumably from Todd
Jones. She declares that her rooms were ransacked, under a warrant from
the Secretary of State, and how letters addressed to Todd Jones at
Moira House had been carried to Dublin Castle. In writing to Curran,
whom she wishes to be her counsel if the matter should come to trial,
she makes light of these letters, and prudentially describes her
correspondence with Jones as mainly of an antiquarian and picturesque
interest.
Magan, who resided within a few doors of Moira House, possessed
peculiar facilities for 'setting'[374] the movements of its
_habitués_.[375] It must have been in 1802 when he was found by
Mathias O'Kelly[376] associating with Todd Jones, and that date merits
attention. 'I had been absent from Ireland for _ten_ years, from the
year 1792,' writes Jones in his petition to the king, 'during the whole
of which period I was uninterruptedly a resident in England, and in May
1802 I was indispensably compelled to return to Dublin, by an affair of
honour.'[377] Soon after he proceeded to Munster, 'which I had never
beheld, and had long entertained an inclination to see.'[378]
At what date can we trace the first arrival of Jones on his mysterious
mission to Clonakilty, where with several of his friends he was
arrested on a charge of high treason in July 1803? To that question
the answer is, December 1802. The 'Account of Secret Service Money,
applied in detecting Treasonable Conspiracies,' contains the following
entry:--'1802, December 15th, Francis Magan, by direction of Mr. Orpen,
500_l._'
There is but one family named 'Orpen' in Ireland; and the only Orpen
who could possibly be authorised to direct the payment of 500_l._ to
Magan at this time was the High Sheriff of Cork, in whose bailiwick
Jones was tracked and caught.[379]
Emmet, in his speech from the dock, denied that he was the life and
soul of the conspiracy, as alleged by Mr. Solicitor-General Plunket;
declared that men of greater mark than he were deep in it; that on his
return to Ireland he found the organisation formed; he was asked to
join it; he requested time to consider; they invited him again, and he
embarked in the enterprise. And yet, so carefully was the secret kept,
that nothing transpired to show that he had any colleagues of good
position. Lord Norbury, who tried the case, and the Attorney-General
stigmatised the plan as contemptible from the fact that Emmet's allies
were of no higher rank than 'ostlers, bakers, carpenters, and old
clothes men,' and, notwithstanding the solemnity of Emmet's dying
words, history has since given him the exclusive credit, or discredit,
of the rising of 1803.
Among others to whom suspicion attaches, although there is no absolute
evidence to show his guilt, may be mentioned William Todd Jones, a
Protestant of good family and some means, a barrister and writer, and a
member of the late Irish Parliament. The Viceregal organ, the 'Dublin
Journal,' in its issue of August 6, 1803, after noticing the arrest of
Jones, adds: 'This gentleman has been many months on a tour through the
provinces of Leinster and Munster, making speculations on the state of
the country through which he passed.' He remained eight months in Cork,
and it is a question whether, during that prolonged stay, he may not
have sought to foment revolution. All memoirs of Emmet have hitherto
been silent as regards the complicity of Cork in his designs. Kildare
is the county of which mention is chiefly made. The following from the
'Courier' (London) of August 5, 1803, furnishes a glimpse into the then
state of Cork:--
A Dublin mail arrived this evening, and brought us letters and
papers of Monday last.... Though there has been no rising in Cork,
yet very unfavourable symptoms of disaffection have appeared
there, and to the south of that city we are sorry to hear that the
malignancy of the former rebellion is by no means extinguished.
The same journal, of August 16, 1803, contains a letter 'written by a
gentleman of distinction in the county of Cork,' possibly Mr. Orpen
himself, who commanded a corps of Yeomanry. The writer, after stating
that he had spread yeomen in all directions to prevent the embarkation
of persons charged with treason, goes on to say:--
Todd Jones has been at Dr. Callanan's, Clonakilty, the last eight
months: H.,[380] by order of Government, arrested him for high
treason, as also the Doctor and his son.... These measures have
been attended with alarm; but I think we are at present quite safe;
and a strong fleet at Beerhaven relieves me from all apprehension
of an enemy.
The entire of the Yeomanry of this kingdom is now on the permanent
establishment. Our corps is strong, and without vanity a good one.
I have applied for an addition of infantry: with this augmentation,
I shall feel very little apprehension for any attack made upon us
without the aid of foreign force.
It appears from this letter, dated August, 1803, that Jones had been
then eight months at Clonakilty in the county Cork: therefore his
arrival would have been in December 1802--the very date of the payment
of 500_l._ to Magan by direction of Mr. Orpen, high sheriff for the
county. Meanwhile the locality in which Jones pitched his camp became,
from some cause, decidedly heated. A letter in the London 'Courier,'
dated 'Cork, August 21,' after recording the arrest of Todd Jones,
Donovan, and Dr. Callanan, states, 'The peasantry in the neighbourhood
of Ross, near Clonakilty, go armed to their chapels, and mount a
regular guard over their arms while they perform their devotions.'
We have seen that Magan--traditionally described as an unsociable
person, possessing few friends--maintained most intimate relations
with James Dickson of Kilmainham, in whose house Jones was also a
constant guest. About the same time as the arrest of Jones in Cork,
the 'Courier' of August 30, 1803, announces in its Dublin news:
'Yesterday Mr. James Dickson, of Kilmainham, was arrested at his house
by Messrs. Atkinson[381] and Carleton, chief peace-officers, and his
papers searched. The superintendent magistrate had him conveyed to the
Castle, where he underwent examination, and was afterwards committed to
Kilmainham Gaol.'[382]
Todd Jones, writing at the time, warmly details the circumstances of
his arrest (the italics are his own):--
My person has been assaulted in my bed at daybreak, in the
respectable mansion of a venerable friend, Doctor Callanan, near
Clonakilty, and I have been conveyed, very strongly guarded by
Troops, to an ignominious common Gaol: in reaching which, at
the moderate distance of twenty-two miles, I have been wantonly
exhibited, _like an already convicted Felon_, for two long summer
days, the first and second of August, in _Orange Triumph_, to the
gaze of a very crowded Bandon rabble; and thence paraded, with like
ostentation, _through all the streets of Cork_, as if _in progress
to Execution_.--My venerable friend and hospitable entertainer,
Doctor Calanan, a Physician of the age of seventy, with his only
son, _on my account_, have been dragged from the same mansion to
Prison, after a similar triumphant exposure of two days, to gazing
multitudes, in the short distance of twenty-two miles: a Man
eminent for a long professional life, dedicated to the Poor, and to
the Peasants, whose tears kept pace with his progress.
He then goes on to request that all concerned in his detainer,
including the Sheriff of Cork, may be summoned to the Bar of
Parliament. An account of his shattered health is sent to the Secretary
of State--'It is my liberty which I pray for--a trial--liberation--or
death! I have been a close prisoner for eleven weeks, without even
having been shown my indictment, or been told the names of my
accusers.'[383]
These complaints were made in October, 1803, but entirely failed
to obtain redress. His petition to the king, dated 1808, resumes
the story: 'Within this prison I continued confined from 23rd
July, 1803, until the latter end of October 1805, when I was
unconditionally discharged by the High Sheriff of the County of
Cork--untried--unbailed--unexamined and unredressed.'[384]
When the High Sheriff of Cork liberated Jones it may be assumed that
the same authority was instrumental in his committal. Formerly, high
sheriffs took much more active part in such proceedings than now. No
organised system of police then existed, and the high sheriffs seem to
have been duly impressed with the responsibility of their position.
On March 18, 1800, we find in the Secret Service Money Book, 100_l._
handed to Mr. Archer, High Sheriff of Wicklow, for the detection of
treason, and on April 27, 1801, a further sum. But these exertions were
dignified in comparison with the acts of Sir Judkin Fitzgerald, High
Sheriff of Tipperary, who, with his own hands, flogged the peasantry to
extort confession.
Emmet's insurrection burst forth in Dublin on the night of July 23,
1803; that same morning, and at a distance of 150 miles, Jones is
arrested.
The connection of Todd Jones with Irish politics was apparently of a
graver and more subtle sort than might be inferred from Lady Moira's
letter to Curran, or even Plowden's account of him in his History.
Plowden, a Catholic--the guest, with Jones and Magan, of James
Dickson--says that the persecution which Jones underwent at the hands
of the Government was due solely to his powerful advocacy of Catholic
Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform. He defends Jones with all the
warmth of friendship; his 'History of Ireland' enters most largely
into the case, and quotes various orators who sought to vindicate
Jones in Parliament.[385] But the reply of the ex-Secretary of State,
Mr. Wickham, finds no place, contrary to Plowden's usual honesty and
fulness in that work. Wickham, as appears from Hansard, rose from the
bed of sickness to reply to Fox, who had taken up the case of Jones,
and addressed the House sitting. He said:--
For some time after the arrest of Mr. Todd Jones, which the Irish
Government was induced to order upon information--the particulars
of which he could not with any propriety describe, but which were
satisfactory to their minds as to the measure. Mr. Jones remained
in prison without any particular inquiry having been instituted
in his case. As soon, however, as the trials which followed the
insurrection of 1803, and which so much occupied the attention of
the Irish Government, had terminated, an inquiry into the case of
Mr. Jones took place.... He had already stated the impossibility
of giving a full explanation to the House without acting unfairly
towards the character of the Petitioner. After the trial of the
rebels, and the fullest investigation of the charge against Mr.
Jones, his case became much more serious than it appeared at the
outset. Willing, however, to act with every possible mildness,
his case was submitted to the Crown lawyers accompanied by this
question, 'whether it would be proper to liberate Mr. Jones,' and
their unanimous opinion was decidedly in the negative. The Irish
Government transmitted the case of Mr. Jones to his Majesty's
Ministers in this country, requiring their advice; and their answer
was, that it would be extremely unadvisable to allow such a person
to be at large in Ireland![386]
Of how Jones's alleged guilt was hushed up, and why the vengeance of
the Attorney-General preferred to fall on 'ostlers, bakers, carpenters,
and old clothes men,' as he said, an idea may be perhaps formed from a
letter addressed by the Right Hon. William Saurin to Jones, proposing
that he should secretly, and as if of his own accord, exile himself
from Ireland. This letter was enclosed by Wickham to Jones on October
11, 1803. Saurin, Jones states, had been his schoolfellow.[387]
Dr. Madden professes to supply a list of all persons of substance
connected with Emmet in his attempt; also of persons who were cognisant
of his plans, and were supposed to be favourably disposed towards them;
but Todd Jones obtains no place,[388] and therefore the less excuse is
needed for this effort to embrace a long neglected figure, and one not
uninteresting for 'Auld lang syne.'[389]
FOOTNOTES:
[373] The full text of this long letter will be found in the Appendix.
[374] 'Setting' is the phrase used by Mr. Secretary Cooke (see _ante_,
p. 118).
[375] _Ibid._ p. 134.
[376] See previous chap. p. 140.
[377] Mr. Jones's 'Petition to the King,' dated 'Cork, March 9, 1808';
printed in Plowden's _History of Ireland_, iii. 624.
[378] _Ibid._
[379] The records of the Chief Secretary's Office show that in 1802
Richard Thomas Orpen, of Frankford, was High Sheriff of Cork. During
the present year (1891), I found in the Irish State Papers a letter
dated 'Cork, March 24, 1802,' from the above Mr. Orpen, in his capacity
of high sheriff, regarding a correspondence he had with General Myers
as to a small assistance of cavalry.
[380] Probably Dr. Hardinge of Cork, an active agent in those troubled
times.
[381] Atkinson was desired to be on the alert in Cooke's letter to
Sirr, written on the day of Lord Edward's intended move, of which Magan
gave notice.
[382] Mr. Justice Day, writing to the Irish Government on September 27,
1803 (eight days after Emmet's execution), suggests that Lord Bantry,
who got his peerage for reporting the arrival of the French in '96,
would be a good man to make inquiries regarding Jones.
[383] _Curious Correspondence of William Todd Jones with the Secretary
of State._ Dedicated to Lord Moira and Mr. Fox. (Cork: Odell, 1804.)
[384] Plowden's _History of Ireland since the Union to 1810_, iii. 626
_et seq._
[385] Plowden's _History of Ireland since the Union to 1810_, ii. 36,
216-220, 623-632.
[386] _Hansard's Parliamentary Debates_, v. 793-5.
[387] _Curious Correspondence._ (Cork: Odell, 1804.)
[388] _United Irishmen_, iii. 329.
[389] The _Annual Register_ and other usually well-informed sources
fail to record the death of Jones. A full obituary of him appears in
the _Ulster Register_ for March 1818, iv. 186-8; and a fine monody on
'Immortal Jones,' probably by Drennan, in the same serial, pp. 224-5.