FATHER ARTHUR O'LEARY
Dr. Madden, in a well-known work of considerable authority, singles out
three divines as examples of noble qualities: _i.e._ 'the Right Rev.
Dr. Doyle, the Rev. Arthur O'Leary, and Archbishop Murray.'[522]
Several years ago an influential journalist posted at Melbourne the
following letter. He was the mouthpiece of many. It is rather late
to answer his question publicly; but, in truth, the subject was not
an inviting one to touch, especially as, not having studied it, I
felt unable to reply in a way which would be deemed satisfactory by
the querist. On the other hand, the application having come from the
antipodes, I am encouraged to think that the subject possesses an
interest not confined to a hemisphere. 'No one was more generally loved
and revered than Father O'Leary,' writes Charles Butler. Yelverton,
speaking in the Irish Parliament, said: 'Unattached to this world's
affairs, Father O'Leary can have none but the purest motives of
rendering service to the cause of morality and his country.' He was the
subject of a grand panegyric from the pulpit. Two biographies of him
have been written by anointed hands. Idolised while living, his memory
was cherished by thousands. His name wore a halo! Now, according to
recent commentators, it seems not free from that light which floats
over unhealthy places. Let it not be denied that at different times
O'Leary did good work for his creed and country. As a religionist he
continued true to the end; but if we accept the high testimony of
Froude and Lecky, the same cannot be said of him as a patriot and a
gentleman.
38, William Street, Melbourne, December 1, 1875.
Sir,--Knowing you from your published writings to be intimately
acquainted with the secret political history of Ireland at the
close of the last century, I venture to trespass on your courtesy,
with a query relative to a celebrated character of those times,
whose name, long gratefully and affectionately remembered by his
countrymen, must in future, if the statements of a recent historian
are deserving of any credit, be associated only with the names of
the wretches whom, in the pages of 'The Sham Squire' and 'Ireland
before the Union,' you have held up to the scorn of posterity!
I allude to the famous 'Father O'Leary,' who, according to Mr.
Froude, was a spy of Pitt's, systematically employed in betraying
the secrets which his sacred calling and influence as a trusted
patriot enabled him to become possessed of; and, with unparalleled
audacity and baseness, publicly receiving the encomiums of his most
distinguished contemporaries, such men as Grattan and Curran, for
virtues which he only assumed, and for talents which he so basely
prostituted! Is it possible that this man could have played such an
odious part? Do you consider, sir, that the evidence produced by
Mr. Froude in support of so terrible an accusation is sufficiently
conclusive; or, has that sensational writer in this, as perhaps in
other instances, accommodated his facts to his theories?[523] With
tantalising reticence Mr. Froude gives only a few meagre lines from
the correspondence in which he claims to have found the proofs of
O'Leary's guilt. The subject has been much discussed in Australia,
as no doubt it has in every country in which Irishmen are to be
found. You have yourself, in one of your ...[524] volumes, referred
to a mysterious connection between O'Leary and William Pitt. Was it
an honourable, or an infamous one?
May I ask you to favour me with your opinion upon it, judged by the
light of Mr. Froude's revelations? By kindly complying with my
request, you will oblige many anxious inquirers at the 'Antipodes.'
I am, Sir, etc.,
MORGAN MCMAHON.
W. J. Fitzpatrick, Esq.
I may at once say that, although evidence exists of O'Leary's frailty,
it is not sufficient to warrant, in all details, the very sensational
picture drawn by Mr. McMahon.
People always knew that O'Leary became entitled to a pension, though
how he acquired it was not so clear. Perhaps it is only fair to give
him the benefit of the version which his intimate friend, Francis
Plowden, placed on record eighty years ago.[525] His information was,
doubtless, derived from O'Leary himself; but O'Leary seems to have told
him no more than it was convenient to reveal:--
O'Leary's writings on toleration had removed from the minds of many
Catholics the difficulties which up to that time prevented them
from swearing allegiance to the House of Hanover, and abjuring
the House of Stuart. That Rev. Divine so happily blended a vein
of liberality and original humour with orthodox instruction, that
his writings became popular even with Protestants, and induced so
much toleration and cordiality between them and the Catholics, that
created a serious alarm in those who studied to perpetuate their
division and consequent weakness. With much art they endeavoured
to stop the progress of this terrifying liberality and harmony
among Irishmen of different religious professions. The Rev. Arthur
O'Leary was thanked by the British minister for the services he
had rendered to the State, by frightening away the bugbear of
Jacobitism, and securing the allegiance of the whole Catholic
body to the House of Hanover. A pension of 200_l._ was granted to
him for his life in the name of a trustee, but upon the secret
condition that he should for the future withhold his pen, and
reside no more in Ireland,--in such dread was holden an evangeliser
of tolerance and brotherhood in that country. Two or three payments
of this hush-money were made. Afterwards an arbitrary refusal for
many years threw the Rev. Pensioner upon the voluntary support
of his friends for subsistence. After a lapse of many years, by
importunity and solicitation, and repeated proofs of his having
complied with the secret conditions, he received a large arrear;
and, in order to make himself independent for the rest of his days,
he purchased with it an annuity for his life from a public office,
and died before the first quarter became due.
It was, in fact, entirely by Plowden's intervention that the arrear
was paid. So we learn on the authority of the Rev. Thomas England,
who in 1822 brought out a life of O'Leary. Plowden was a friend of
Pitt's, and undertook to write a History of Ireland under the auspices
of that statesman. He had previously published in defence of the
British Constitution, and received in acknowledgment the D.C.L. of
Oxford. When writing eighty years ago of so popular and respected a
priest as O'Leary, Plowden--himself a Catholic--made his revelation
cautiously. It would now seem that some greater service was rendered
than the public service to which Plowden refers. It will be shown on
high contemporary authority that the object of the Castle in 1784 was
to divide the two great parties. This policy later on was boldly avowed
as _Divide et impera_.[526] The service, therefore, for which O'Leary
accepted secret pay cannot have been for promoting cordial co-operation
between Catholics and Protestants.
Mr. Lecky, in the sixth volume of his 'History of England,' has brought
to light a letter, going far to establish the fact that in 1784 O'Leary
'consented, for money, to discharge an ignominious office for a
Government which despised and distrusted him.'[527]
On studying O'Leary's public life there seems no doubt that the secret
pension of 100_l._ a year, which in 1784 he agreed to accept, was
merely supplemental to a larger subsidy previously enjoyed. How he
earned the first pension is now to be shown.
A volume, 'Sketches of Irish Political Characters,' was published in
1799. The writer, Henry McDougall, commanded sources of information
which gave his book value. Speaking of O'Leary, he says (p. 264):--
During the most awful period of the American War, he addressed his
Catholic countrymen, upon the subject of what ought to be their
political conduct, in a manner that merited the thanks of every
good citizen, and for which, it has been said, Government rewarded
him with a pension; if so, never was a pension more deservedly
applied.
McDougall doubtless refers to a publication of O'Leary's, largely
circulated and often reprinted, _i.e._ 'An Address to the Common People
of Ireland on occasion of an apprehended Invasion by the French and
Spaniards in July 1779,[528] when the united Fleets of Bourbon appeared
in the Channel.' On April 12, 1779, Spain had concluded an alliance
with France and America, whereupon Vergennes, the French Premier,
divulged to the Spanish minister, Blanca, that an invasion of Ireland
was meditated. To promote this design, an American agent was instructed
to foster the interests of the allies amongst the Presbyterians of
Ulster; while the task of winning over the Irish Catholics was to be
entrusted to Spanish agents.
America was all but lost at this time, and England found herself in a
position of great difficulty. Ireland was drained of its garrison; the
people much discontented; the Catholic middle classes, grown rich by
commercial success, had established branches of their houses in France
and Spain. A letter of warning, which alarmed the Cabinet, and probably
led them to ask O'Leary's help, still exists. At the same time,
hurriedly and with a bad grace, they conceded a measure of Catholic
Relief. Lord Amherst, writing to Lord North from Geneva on June 19,
1778, says:--
I have acquired a piece of information here, concerning a plot
for a revolt in the West of Ireland among the Roman Catholics,
with a view to overturn the present Government, by the aid of the
French and Spaniards, and to establish such an one as prevails in
this country, I mean the Cantons, by granting toleration to the
Protestants.[529] You may depend on its authenticity.
And again:--
My intelligence comes from Rome, and I am pretty certain these
Acts have been brought in from the ministry receiving the same
intelligence, which I know they have been in possession of for some
time; as the measures for preventing the mischief proposed by the
person who gives the information are exactly those that have been
adopted.
O'Leary by his address aroused not only Catholic loyalty, but awakened
the apathy of many Protestants on whom the report of invasion had
previously made no impression. The Volunteers sprang into vitality, and
though they at first numbered merely 8,000, the force swelled ere the
year was out to 42,000 armed men, and without the cost of one shilling
to the Crown. Years after, the Government dreading, like Frankenstein,
the heaving mass it had helped to create, sought to suppress the
Irish Volunteers; but in 1778 their feeling was very different, when
O'Leary's inspiring address fanned the spirit of volunteering, and
conduced to preserve the country. It was then that Lord Buckinghamshire
officially declared that Ireland was prepared to offer a determined
resistance to invasion.
A link or two of the heavy penal chain had now been struck from
Papist limbs. The relaxation, however, was hampered with a new test
oath, drawn up in terms even more subtle than that which, when handed
to O'Connell fifty years later in Parliament, he withdrew rather
than take. Dr. Carpenter[530] ruled the R. C. see of Dublin at this
time. His flock embraced a considerable number who, from timidity
of conscience, expressed doubts as to the propriety of taking the
oath. Dr. Carpenter, though himself no great friend to the temporal
power of the Pope, felt that to deny on oath a power already claimed
by some famous theologians would seem rash and arrogant. Bishop de
Burgo, author of the 'Hibernia Dominicana,' opposed the oath in terms
still stronger; lay orators described as a poisoned cup the proffered
measure of Catholic relief. Again O'Leary came to the front. A pamphlet
of eighty-six pages was thrown on the country, entitled, 'Loyalty
asserted, or a Vindication of the new Test Oath of Allegiance, with
an impartial inquiry into the Pope's Temporal Power [a strong attack
upon it] and the claims of the Stewarts to the English Throne: proving
that both are equally groundless.' O'Leary examined the oath sentence
by sentence, and with logical precision showed its conformity to
Catholic teaching. 'The work was widely circulated,' writes Father
England, the first biographer of O'Leary, and called forth as well the
acknowledgments of the friends of the Government as the warm gratitude
of his Catholic fellow-countrymen. In November 1778 we read that the
Catholic Archbishop Carpenter, at the head of seventy of his clergy,
and several hundred Catholic laymen, attended at the Court of King's
Bench in Dublin and took the oath prescribed.[531]
The dreaded invasion never took place; but O'Leary's address was
scattered broadcast, and during subsequent years it reappeared again
and again. It reads more like the argument of a paid advocate than the
disinterested appeal of a poor Franciscan.
All this--not to speak of O'Leary's tracts on Toleration, and his
exertions, written and oral, to deter the Whiteboys from their
conspiracies--furnishes sufficient claim to a pension, without assuming
that it must have been earned in the dark field of espionage. However,
we now approach the time when overtures to discharge an ignominious
task were undoubtedly made to him.
On August 26, 1784, the Viceroy, Rutland, addressed a '_most secret_'
letter to Pitt's brother-in-law, Lord Sydney:--
I have discovered a channel by which I hope to get to the bottom
of all the plots and machinations which are contriving in this
metropolis. As I always expected, the disturbances which have been
agitated have all derived their source from French influence. There
is a meeting in which two men named Napper Tandy and John Binney,
together with others who style themselves free citizens, assemble.
They drink the French King on their knees, and their declared
purpose is a separation from England and the establishment of the
Roman Catholic religion. At their meetings an avowed French agent
constantly attends, who is no other than the person in whose favour
the French ambassador desired Lord Caermarthen to write to me a
formal introduction....[532] One of this meeting, alarmed at the
dangerous extent of their schemes, has confessed, and has engaged
to discover to me the whole intentions of this profligate and
unprincipled combination.[533]
This is a glowing picture, one more than realising the beautiful vision
of Davis:--
The mess tent is full, and the glasses are set,
And the gallant Count Thomond is president yet.
The vet'ran arose, like an uplifted lance,
Crying: 'Comrades a health to the monarch of France!'
With bumpers and cheers they have done as he bade,
For King Louis is loved by the Irish Brigade.
The first mention of O'Leary's name in the State Papers is under date
September 4, 1784, when Sydney writes to the Lord-Lieutenant:--'O'Leary
has been talked to by Mr. Nepean, and he is willing to undertake what
is wished for 100_l._ a year, which has been granted him.'
On Sept. 8th [writes Mr. Lecky] Orde thanks Nepean for sending over
a spy, or detective, named Parker, and adds: I am very glad also
that you have settled matters with O'Leary, who can get at the
bottom of all secrets in which the Catholics are concerned, and
they are certainly the chief promoters of our present disquietude.
He must, however, be cautiously trusted, _for he is a Priest_, and
if not too much addicted to the general vice of his brethren here,
he is at least well acquainted with the art of raising alarms for
the purpose of claiming a merit in doing them away.[534]
Thus, as it would seem, O'Leary had already not been slow in claiming
from the Government the merit, if not the wages, of allaying the causes
of public alarm. Plowden and England admit that O'Leary had a pension
of 200_l._ a year. He must have been in receipt of at least 100_l._ for
his writings at the time that, for an extra hundred, it was proposed
to him to undertake a base task. The promptitude and facility with
which Sydney, in September 1784, made the proposition shows the close
relations that had previously subsisted.
A curious letter from Weymouth, a previous Home Secretary, addressed
to Dublin Castle, is printed in Grattan's 'Life' (vol. i. p. 369). In
great panic he expresses fear that the Catholic colleges of France and
Flanders would despatch their _alumni_ as secret agents to Ireland.
These were among the reasons that made the Government anxious to secure
O'Leary's aid.
Dr. England--his earliest biographer--lived comparatively near the
time, and heard from O'Leary's publisher, Keating, a few interesting
incidents which, to some extent, tally with the revelations of the
State Papers. The biographer knows of an interview between O'Leary and
Nepean on behalf of Sydney and Pitt, but England and his informant are
deceived as to the conditions which accompanied the pension. Their
memory is also at fault as regards the year. Instead of 1784, they set
it down as 'soon after O'Leary had fixed his residence permanently in
London,' which, of course, was in 1789. O'Leary had been a good deal
in London previously, for, as Froude states, Orde in 1784 asked Sydney
to send him over confidential agents, and in September 1784 he writes,
'your experts have arrived safe.'[535]
Soon after he [O'Leary] had fixed his residence permanently in
London [writes Dr. England], one day whilst dining with his
attached and valued friend, Mr. Keating, the bookseller, he
was informed that Lord Sydney's secretary was in the adjoining
parlour, and had a communication to make to him. He immediately
left the table; and when, in a short time, he returned, he related
the substance of the interview. The secretary stated to him that
Government had observed with much satisfaction the good effects
which Mr. O'Leary's writings had produced in Ireland--peace, good
order, and unanimity, amongst all classes of his countrymen,
had been promoted and advanced by his exertions; and that, in
consideration of the services thus rendered to the Empire, it was
determined to manifest the approbation of such conduct by offering
him a pension suitable to his circumstances, and worthy of his
acceptance; that, with a delicacy arising from the ignorance of
his means of subsistence, they had as yet hesitated fixing on
any specific sum, choosing rather to learn from himself what
would answer his expectations, than to determine on what might be
insufficient for his claims. The secretary took the liberty of
asking a question to which, at the same time, he did not insist
on receiving an answer: whether, in the event of any popular
commotion in Ireland, as it was dreaded would be the case from the
diffusion of American republican notions, O'Leary would advocate,
as formerly, principles of loyalty and allegiance? To this latter
question an unhesitating reply was given, confirmatory of the
known inflexibility of O'Leary's political conduct; with regard
to the pension, he never had sought for one, though, at a former
period of his life, something of the kind had been hinted to him;
in the present instance he was grateful to the Government for the
recollection of him, and suggested that the utmost of his claims
would be answered by 100_l._ a year. He was afterwards informed
officially that his presence in Ireland was necessary for the
purpose of having the pension placed on the list of that country.
He repaired thither, and, after the necessary formalities were gone
through, he became entitled to 200_l._ per annum; but England adds
that, 'for some unexplained cause, his pension, after one or two
years, was arbitrarily withheld.'[536]
It will be seen that the point here made is not consistent with
Plowden's account (_ante_, p. 213). According to him, the pension was
'hush-money:' he was to write no more, and, above all, he was not to
write in promotion of good feeling and toleration. England upholds
that it was given in the hope that O'Leary would continue to write in
the same tone that had already earned Governmental gratitude. Sydney
settled terms with O'Leary in London, and, through his secretary, told
him what to do.
'Cedars have yielded,' says St. Peter. It was a clever thought to plan
the corruption of O'Leary for the performance of a part which his
employers describe with gusto. Two years previously, on February 27,
1782, popular confidence in him had reached its height when Yelverton,
Grattan, and Sir Lucius O'Brien praised him with enthusiasm.
A man of learning, a philosopher, a Franciscan [said Grattan] did
the most eminent service to his country in the hour of its greatest
danger. He brought out a publication that would do honour to the
most celebrated name. The whole kingdom must bear witness to its
effect by the reception they gave it. Poor in everything but genius
and philosophy, he had no property at stake, no family to fear for;
but descending from the contemplation of wisdom, and abandoning the
ornaments of fancy, he humanely undertook the task of conveying
duty and instruction to the lowest class of the people.[537]
How he qualified for these praises Mr. Froude may now be allowed to
show. After O'Leary arrived in Dublin he saw Orde, and was told what
the Government expected him to do. The following letter is dated
September 23, 1784:--
Your experts have arrived safe [wrote the Secretary, reporting
their appearance]. At this moment we are about to make trial of
O'Leary's sermons,[538] and Parker's rhapsodies. They may be both
in their different callings of very great use. The former, if we
can depend on him, has it in his power to discover to us the real
designs of the Catholics, from which quarter, after all, the real
mischief is to spring. The other can scrape an acquaintance with
the great leaders of sedition, particularly Napper Tandy, and
perhaps by that means dive to the bottom of his secrets.[539]
Sir Richard Musgrave was one of the alarmists who loved to purvey
sensational news for Dublin Castle. His 'History of the Rebellion,'
published in 1801, embodies his impressions of events for twenty years
before. No wonder that Dublin Castle was fluttered by his reports.
Here is clearly one of them, and it serves to show why it was that the
Government were so anxious in 1784 to secure O'Leary by a subsidy:--
A corps called the Irish Brigade was raised in Dublin, of which
nineteen out of twenty were Roman Catholics, and they appointed
Father O'Leary, an itinerant friar, their chaplain. I have been
assured that they exceeded in number all the other Volunteer corps
in the city.
And again:--
In the summer of the year 1783, the Irish Brigade, with the Dublin
Independent Volunteers, commanded by James Napper Tandy and Matthew
Dowling, formed an encampment between Roebuck and Dublin, under
the pretext of studying tactics and learning camp duty, though it
was well known that they were hatching revolutionary projects. It
is to be observed that the war, the only pretext for their arming,
was now at an end; yet many corps in different parts of the kingdom
resolved not to lay down their arms but with their lives.[540]
Musgrave's construction of the above, as in many other incidents, is
not wholly correct; though in his estimate of Tandy and Dowling, both
Protestants, he was accurate enough.
If O'Leary played the part assigned and attributed to him, never did
face more belie internal baseness, or was more exquisitely fashioned
to command the confidence of its dupes. The 'Gentleman's Magazine' for
February 1802 contains a study of 'Father Arthur' from the pen of Mr.
Pratt.
His manners [he says] were the most winning and artless,
anticipating his goodwill and urbanity before he opened his lips;
and when they were opened, his expressions did but ratify what
those manners had before ensured. And you had a further earnest of
this in the benign and ineffable smile of a countenance so little
practised in guile that it at the same time invited to confidence,
and denoted an impossibility of your being betrayed.
Curran, addressing the Irish House of Commons in 1787, revealed a trait
highly honourable to the friar: 'Mr. O'Leary was, to his knowledge, a
man of the most innocent and amiable simplicity of manners in private
life. The reflection of twenty years in a cloister had severely
regulated his passions and deeply informed his understanding.'[541]
Curran's knowledge was partly derived from the fact that O'Leary
belonged to 'The Monks of the Screw,' often regarded as a convivial
club; but 'whose more important object,' writes Hardy, the biographer
of Charlemont, 'was a co-operation of men holding a general similarity
of political principles resolved to maintain the rights and
constitution of their country.' Previously, O'Leary had dedicated his
Miscellaneous Tracts 'to the Dignitaries and Brethren of the Monks of
St. Patrick,' addressing them, with his wonted humour, as 'Reverend
Fathers and illustrious Brethren.'
He had already written in denunciation of French designs on Ireland;
and what more natural than that he should now be asked to track the
movements of certain French emissaries which the Government heard
had arrived in Dublin, and were conspiring with the Catholic leaders
to throw off the British yoke.[542] This task O'Leary, as a staunch
loyalist, may have satisfied his conscience in attempting, especially
as he must have known that in 1784 the Catholics, as a body, had no
treasonable designs, though, doubtless, some few exceptions might be
found. In fact, his friend Edmund Burke, a member of the Ministry in
1783, declared, but later on, that 'the Irish Roman Catholics were
everywhere loyal, save at certain points where their loyalty had been
impaired by contact with Protestants.' Orde,[543] while using O'Leary,
thought him a knave; yet feigned a readiness to believe his reports.
The exhaustive correspondence of Count d'Adhémar, the French ambassador
in London, with his Government, is now open to inquirers at the French
Foreign Office; but, as it makes no allusion to any French agent in
Ireland at this period, the story may be little better than one of the
sensational myths so often found in the letters of informers to the
Irish executive.[544] But, although no documental evidence exists of a
French agent having been in Dublin in 1784, it is certain that five
years later, _i.e._ in 1789, one Bancroft, an American by birth, was
sent on a secret mission from France to Ireland.[545]
We hear of no important arrests during the troubled period that O'Leary
is said to have been set in motion; but the Habeas Corpus Act had not
been suspended since 1779, and was not until 1794 that Pitt renewed the
suspension.
In analysing O'Leary's life and judging his conduct, it is not fair
to ignore any remark of his tending to exculpate; but, if panegyrics
are desired, the reader should consult the memoirs by England, Buckley
and some others. Almost O'Leary's last public performance appeared in
1800: 'An Address to the Lords of Parliament, with an account of Sir H.
Mildmay's Bill relative to Nuns.'
His loyalty was not [he said] the effect of necessity or
timeserving policy, for in France, where the Penal Laws of England
drove him for education, and where the Catholics of Ireland had
Seminaries and Convents with full admission to all the degrees
of her universities, I _resisted every solicitation to enlist
any of the subjects of these kingdoms in the French King's
service_, though I had then every opportunity of being appointed
to superintend prisons and hospitals during the wars. It was my
interest to recommend myself to the favour of people in power, and
consequently more my interest to become more a courtier than a
moralist. St. Paul calls God to witness when he asserts the truth:
I can do the same when I assert that conscience was the rule of my
conduct.[546]
This is further useful in showing that O'Leary was no admirer of the
French king, and now that he was a pensioner of England would hardly
object to discover the reported French agents in Dublin, who, with
Napper Tandy, are said to have 'drank on their knees' the toast of
'Louis of France.'
The latter story--told by the Viceroy, Rutland, in his letter to
Sydney--bears improbability on its face. It seems strange that Tandy
and his party, who not long after were Red Republicans and the allies
of Carnot and Hoche, would drink the health of Louis XVI. on their
knees.[547] They were principally Protestants; and John O'Connell, in
the Life of his father, says that Sheares shocked the future Liberator
by exultantly displaying a handkerchief soaked in the French king's
blood.
I suspect that when O'Leary returned from making, in September 1784,
the inquiries which he is assumed to have done, his report was
something in the spirit of Canning's knife-grinder: 'Story! God bless
you, I have none to tell, sir;' and that Orde concluded O'Leary himself
was in the plot. On October 17, Orde writes to Nepean, alluding to some
rumour about our friar which is not stated. 'Del Campo's connection
with O'Leary--or rather O'Leary's with him--may have given rise to all
the report; but, after all, I think it right to be very watchful over
the priest, and wish _you_ to be so over the Minister. They are all of
them designing knaves.'
Thus it appears that in little more than a fortnight after O'Leary is
supposed to have begun to spy, Orde was far from satisfied with him.
FOOTNOTES:
[522] _United Irishmen_, iii. p. vi.
[523] Mr. Froude, with the letter before him which he found, could
adopt hardly any other impression. Mr. Macdonough, in _Irish Graves in
England_, follows Froude, and speaks of O'Leary's 'traitorous conduct.'
He, however, errs in assigning 1811, instead of 1802, as the date of
his death. See _Evening Telegraph_, February 6, 1888.
[524] The omitted matter is merely a compliment.
[525] Plowden's _Ireland since the Union_, i. 6. (Dublin, 1811.)
[526] Mr. Lecky, who examined the State Papers, tells us that seven
years later, _i.e._ 1791, 'The chief members of the Irish Government
made it their deliberate object to revive the religious animosities
which had so greatly subsided, to raise the standard of Protestant
ascendancy, and to organise through the country an opposition to
concession.'
[527] Vol. vi. 369.
[528] _Vide_ Lecky, iv. 491.
[529] 'If 30,000 men under the denomination of French troops landed in
Ireland,' writes O'Leary, '15,000 Protestants from France, Germany,
Switzerland, &c., would make up half the number. Neither are you to
confide in their promises of protection.'--O'Leary's _Tract_, p. 104.
[530] Dean Lee, the grandnephew of Dr. Carpenter, tells me that a smart
apostate priest had been deputed to frame the new oath.
[531] _Annual Register_, xxi. 208. See also a fine panegyric on
O'Leary, published in the _Irish Quarterly Review_, vii. 686.
[532] This is, no doubt, M. Perrin, of whom some particulars will be
found, _infra_, p. 246.
[533] Rutland to Sydney, most secret, Aug. 26, 1784.
[534] Rutland's letter, to which this is an answer, seems to have been
destroyed.
[535] My first idea was that, unless it were possible to trace some
of the written reports in which Froude insinuates that O'Leary kept a
daily record of espionage, his guilt as a spy must be doubted; but,
judging by Sydney's testimony, the guilt seems _primâ facie_ proven,
the absence of such letters notwithstanding. O'Leary was not much of a
letter-writer: few of any sort appear in his memoirs. The biographers
tell us that when producing the great essays by which he acquired fame,
his practice was to dictate them while he paced his study.--W. J. F.
[536] _Life of Rev. A. O'Leary_, by Rev. T. R. England, 1822, pp. 234
_et seq._ In 1788, Orde himself received a pension of 1,700_l._ a year,
charged on the Irish Establishment.
[537] _Irish Parl. Debates_, i. 293.
[538] From the word 'sermons' I thought, at one time, that O'Leary was
summoned--on the re-appearance of the 'Whiteboys'--to administer the
dissuasives which, some years previously, had produced good effect. I
have diligently searched newspaper files and contemporary pamphlets,
and I can find no letter, or reported sermon, addressed by O'Leary
to the Whiteboys in 1784. Two years later, he certainly tried to
reason with them. The words 'if we can depend on him,' lead to the
inference that O'Leary gave Orde some personal assurance as regards his
willingness to make the inquiries desired.
[539] Froude's _English in Ireland_, ii. 413.
[540] Musgrave's _Memoirs of the Rebellion_, pp. 50-1. (Dublin, 1801.)
[541] In 1784, the very year that O'Leary consented, as we are told,
'to dive to the bottom of secrets,' a gold medal was presented to him
by the Cork Amicable Society. 'Father O'Leary is represented in the
habit of his order,' writes England, 'crushing with his right foot
the Hydra of religious persecution; with his right hand he opens the
gates of the Temple of Concord; whilst with his left he beckons his
countrymen (emblematically represented by the harp) to enter the sacred
edifice, forgetful of their prejudices against each other. The genius
of his country is represented with extended arms over his head, each
bearing a crown--the one of Science, the other of Victory.'
[542] See Attorney-General Fitzgibbon's account of this scare, _infra_,
p. 245.
[543] The Chief Secretary for Ireland.
[544] State papers of the present century are a sealed book; but
special leave was given to search for such papers as threw light
on Shelley's visit to Dublin in 1812. During this inquiry a sight
was obtained of a correspondence between Dublin Castle and the Home
Office, numbering many hundred sheets, and dealing entirely with the
information furnished by a tipsy clerk of Mary's Lane Chapel to the
effect that a general massacre of all the Protestants in Ireland
had been projected! Myths of this sort have periodically scared
the executive. Passing on to 1830, we find, in the Sirr Papers,
informations dated December 24 and 27, and disclosing another Popish
plot. Among the men alleged to be deep in the conspiracy were the
late saintly Bishop Blake, Brother Syrenus, a monk, Thomas Reynolds,
afterwards city marshal, W. J. Battersby, and a number of other
Catholic laymen. Twenty-three officers--_i.e._ young priests from
Carlow and Maynooth--are alleged to be sent by different coaches to
various parts of Ireland, and all charged with secret missions of a
most formidable character!
[545] Lecky, _Hist. of England_, vi. 537.
[546] London, printed; Dublin, reprinted by H. Fitzpatrick, 1800.
O'Leary seems to have had a pension when in France. 'I resisted the
solicitations,' he adds, 'and ran the risk of incurring the displeasure
of a Minister of State, and losing my pension.' 'A small pension from
the French Government he retained until the French Revolution,' as we
learn from a sketch of O'Leary, probably written by Plowden, in the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ for January 1802.
[547] The obsolete custom of drinking healths on the knees is noticed
in Brand's _Popular Antiquities_, ii. 329; and Dekker's _Honest Whore_,
A.D. 1630.